4 ms·

It'd be nice, but the weak link will always be humans. In an idea world there's no issues, but when you start extending beyond engineered lifespan, changing reg

It'd be nice, but the weak link will always be humans. In an idea world there's no issues, but when you start extending beyond engineered lifespan, changing regulation to allow looser safety tolerances, changing regulation on how tests are performed so that you can still pass them, etc then it becomes an accident waiting to happen. I'd like to have them just as much as everyone else, but history has shown that we can't be trusted to act responsibly. > When valves leaked, more leakage was allowed — up to 20 times the original limit. When rampant cracking caused radioactive leaks from steam generator tubing, an easier test of the tubes was devised, so plants could meet standards. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna43455859 https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna43455859 > The proposal comes as most of the nation’s nuclear power plants, which were designed and built in the 1960s or 1970s, are reaching the end of their original 40- to 50-year operating licenses. Many plant operators have sought licenses to extend the operating life of their plants past the original deadlines, even as experts have warned that aging plants come with heightened concerns about safety. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/climate/nrc-nuclear-inspe https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/climate/nrc-nuclear-inspe... > The nuclear industry is also pushing the NRC to cut down on safety inspections and rely instead on plants to police themselves. The NRC “is listening” to this advice, the Associated Press reported last month. “Annie Caputo, a former nuclear-energy lobbyist now serving as one of four board members appointed or reappointed by President Donald Trump, told an industry meeting this week that she was ‘open to self-assessments’ by nuclear plant operators, who are proposing that self-reporting by operators take the place of some NRC inspections.” https://newrepublic.com/article/153465/its-not-just-pork-tru https://newrepublic.com/article/153465/its-not-just-pork-tru...

zdragnar 5y ago
Word on the street is, bananas leak more radiation than functioning nuclear power plants. I dont think I would trust one in my home, given flood risks and all, but a megawatt power plant for the neighborhood wouldn't be amiss.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  >bananas leak more radiation than functioning nuclear power plants. Keyword there is "functioning". I believe GP's point is that the public can't be trusted to maintain household-scale nuclear reactors to the same level of safety that large-scale operators with competent staff and chains of responsibility can.
  - zdragnar 5y ago
    Yes, the processes would be different. A misfunctioning gas furnace will kill everyone from CO poisoning, and wood fireplaces are even more dangerous. Surely an in-home reactor would require safeties of an appropriate degree. Perhaps those would make in-home nuclear infeasible, I wouldn't know. With a bit of careful planning, any given house could easily take out half a city block or more given someone with intent to cause harm, though, and without knowing the actual amount of radioactive material in any given in-hime reactor, I couldn't begin to compare. Edit: this is why I am a whimsical commenter on the internet and not the person in charge of whether or not we give redneck engineers nuclear reactors.
    - 542354234235 5y ago
      I think household reactors are beyond the cutoff point for diminishing returns and/or risk vs reward. I feel like neighborhood level reactors disguised as small houses, like some electrical sub stations [1] would be the sweet spot. You could cut down a lot on all the infrastructure needed to push all that power from centrally located power plants out to neighborhoods, while still maintaining a separate, inspectable, controlled station. [1] https://99percentinvisible.org/article/neighborhood-transformers-inside-torontos-stealthy-house-shaped-substations/ https://99percentinvisible.org/article/neighborhood-transfor...
- legulere 5y ago
  Talking about how harmless radioactivity is with the radioactivity of bananas is as unscientific as talking about growing a third arm because of radioactivity. No matter how many bananas you eat, your radiation exposure will stay the same as your body keeps the amount of potassium constant. Grave nuclear accidents probably happen every few decades and more smaller reactors will make that just more likely.
ElFitz 5y ago
> The nuclear industry is also pushing the NRC to cut down on safety inspections and rely instead on plants to police themselves. The same way the FAA allowed airplane manufacturers to decide wether their planes needed re-certifying when they changed them, and allowed them to certify themselves? Because that's also how we got the Boeing 737 Max.
- roenxi 5y ago
  And if we held cars to the same safety standard as the 737 Max actually achieved, I suspect nobody would be allowed to drive. The odds of something going wrong were only just on the wrong side of 1 in a million. You're talking about a lapse in safety relative to an industry that is 2nd only to Nuclear power in doing no harm. In absolute terms they were still reasonably safe.
  - ElFitz 5y ago
    Where did I say, or even hint, that the entire aerospace industry is unsafe? What I did say, is that this approach seems remarkably similar to the process that is both partially credited with the 737 Max issues, and one of the reasons some other countries' regulators refused to trust the FAA's later decisions regarding that plane. > You're talking about a lapse in safety relative to an industry that is 2nd only to Nuclear power in doing no harm. Yes, and that’s why when evaluating the use of a safety process in one, it is both relevant and interesting to look at the impact some conceptually similar process had on the other's safety record. Regarding the cars analogy… really?
- 542354234235 5y ago
  >Because that's also how we got the Boeing 737 Max. You mean the plane that was grounded for having 4 accidents per 1 million flights? Do you mean the industry with 1 fatal accident for every two million flights? An industry so safe that most people have a higher likelihood of dying on the drive to and from the airport than on their flight? If that is your nightmare scenario of safety failure, I’ll happily take the FAA model of safety. Speaking of comparisons, how many people do coal plants kill every year with fly ash, just as a matter of course and not even as a safety failure? We aren’t comparing nuclear power risks to nothing.

zdragnar 5y ago

Word on the street is, bananas leak more radiation than functioning nuclear power plants. I dont think I would trust one in my home, given flood risks and all, but a megawatt power plant for the neighborhood wouldn't be amiss.

AussieWog93 5y ago
>bananas leak more radiation than functioning nuclear power plants. Keyword there is "functioning". I believe GP's point is that the public can't be trusted to maintain household-scale nuclear reactors to the same level of safety that large-scale operators with competent staff and chains of responsibility can.
- zdragnar 5y ago
  Yes, the processes would be different. A misfunctioning gas furnace will kill everyone from CO poisoning, and wood fireplaces are even more dangerous. Surely an in-home reactor would require safeties of an appropriate degree. Perhaps those would make in-home nuclear infeasible, I wouldn't know. With a bit of careful planning, any given house could easily take out half a city block or more given someone with intent to cause harm, though, and without knowing the actual amount of radioactive material in any given in-hime reactor, I couldn't begin to compare. Edit: this is why I am a whimsical commenter on the internet and not the person in charge of whether or not we give redneck engineers nuclear reactors.
  - 542354234235 5y ago
    I think household reactors are beyond the cutoff point for diminishing returns and/or risk vs reward. I feel like neighborhood level reactors disguised as small houses, like some electrical sub stations [1] would be the sweet spot. You could cut down a lot on all the infrastructure needed to push all that power from centrally located power plants out to neighborhoods, while still maintaining a separate, inspectable, controlled station. [1] https://99percentinvisible.org/article/neighborhood-transformers-inside-torontos-stealthy-house-shaped-substations/ https://99percentinvisible.org/article/neighborhood-transfor...
legulere 5y ago
Talking about how harmless radioactivity is with the radioactivity of bananas is as unscientific as talking about growing a third arm because of radioactivity. No matter how many bananas you eat, your radiation exposure will stay the same as your body keeps the amount of potassium constant. Grave nuclear accidents probably happen every few decades and more smaller reactors will make that just more likely.

ElFitz 5y ago

> The nuclear industry is also pushing the NRC to cut down on safety inspections and rely instead on plants to police themselves. The same way the FAA allowed airplane manufacturers to decide wether their planes needed re-certifying when they changed them, and allowed them to certify themselves? Because that's also how we got the Boeing 737 Max.

roenxi 5y ago
And if we held cars to the same safety standard as the 737 Max actually achieved, I suspect nobody would be allowed to drive. The odds of something going wrong were only just on the wrong side of 1 in a million. You're talking about a lapse in safety relative to an industry that is 2nd only to Nuclear power in doing no harm. In absolute terms they were still reasonably safe.
- ElFitz 5y ago
  Where did I say, or even hint, that the entire aerospace industry is unsafe? What I did say, is that this approach seems remarkably similar to the process that is both partially credited with the 737 Max issues, and one of the reasons some other countries' regulators refused to trust the FAA's later decisions regarding that plane. > You're talking about a lapse in safety relative to an industry that is 2nd only to Nuclear power in doing no harm. Yes, and that’s why when evaluating the use of a safety process in one, it is both relevant and interesting to look at the impact some conceptually similar process had on the other's safety record. Regarding the cars analogy… really?
542354234235 5y ago
>Because that's also how we got the Boeing 737 Max. You mean the plane that was grounded for having 4 accidents per 1 million flights? Do you mean the industry with 1 fatal accident for every two million flights? An industry so safe that most people have a higher likelihood of dying on the drive to and from the airport than on their flight? If that is your nightmare scenario of safety failure, I’ll happily take the FAA model of safety. Speaking of comparisons, how many people do coal plants kill every year with fly ash, just as a matter of course and not even as a safety failure? We aren’t comparing nuclear power risks to nothing.