5 ms·
Does anyone have any real numbers for nuclear power station risk? It's all very well and good saying how great it is, but what do the numbers say? Let's assume
by noja 5y ago
Does anyone have any real numbers for nuclear power station risk? It's all very well and good saying how great it is, but what do the numbers say?
Let's assume the newest technology. Chance of a meltdown per year per power station, multiplied by number of stations, multiplied by years of service. Then factors in the cost of the meltdown (health, unusable land, lost infrastructure) versus the benefits somehow.
- korantu 5y agoThis is indeed very important question. Nevermind newest technology, if we take existing and dated nuclear technology, and calculate safety in deaths per TWH generated, nuclear is in the same ballpark as Solar and considerably better than Wind [1] ... Gas/Oil and others are disasterous in comparison, let alone Coal. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...
- throwaway894345 5y agoTo put a fine point on your comment, your figure also includes deaths from Fukushima and Chernobyl. Also, the newer reactor designs are really impressive with respect to safety and economics.
- korantu 5y agoExactly, thank you for bringing this up; Comparison stays true even if we include quite outlandish estimates for Chernobyl.
- cycomanic 5y agoWell insurance companies are typically quite good with numbers and do not want to insure against a nuclear disaster
- olivermarks 5y agoIMO Small Nuclear Reactors (local units to serve communities) are increasingly viable if we are to continue on the path of an all electric society. Last century big reactors are v old tech and a risk at failure. Small is much better and doesn't require transporting electricity long distances.
- michaelt 5y agoWell, that's partly a matter of scale. The largest insurer in the world has assets of $1,190 billion [1] and the cost of Fukushima cleanup could be as high as $660 billion [2] or even $1 trillion [3] (estimates of this vary wildly). Insuring such a large risk would be like playing russian roulette with the company. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_insurance_companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_insurance_comp... [2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/clearing-the-radioactive-rubble-heap-that-was-fukushima-daiichi-7-years-on/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/clearing-the-radi... [3] https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/16/fukushimas-final-costs-will-approach-one-trillion-dollars-just-for-nuclear-disaster/ https://cleantechnica.com/2019/04/16/fukushimas-final-costs-...
- cycomanic 5y agoSo is it not playing russian roulette when we do it as a society?
- fsflover 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nuclear_power#Safety https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nuclear_power#Saf...
- Koshkin 5y agoThe biggest problem with nuclear power plants seems to me the apparent need for them to be located near natural water sources. If they could build one in the middle of a desert, wouldn't that be the answer to most environmental concerns?
- duped 5y agoIt would be safer and more efficient to have a higher number of smaller nuclear plants closer to populations than a small number of large plants further away.
- Koshkin 5y ago> a higher number of smaller nuclear plants closer to populations Efficient - maybe, but safer??
- korantu 5y ago'Safer' comes from 'Smaller' here; It is possible to have smaller reactor which is completely underground and user passive cooling, so won't meltdown. TBH, modern big nuclear power stations are already very safe.
- topkai22 5y agoShort answer is no- see Yucca mountain. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste...
- monjohn 5y agoOne key fact is number of people killed by US commercial power plants: 0 If you want a take very different than the anti-nuclear one, I would recommend this interview of Mark Nelson: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2vlG1Ouf001owUMwOBCfVG?si=NwDahDDsTcGHSWdcbNKhmg&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A2VJXcgRBLEkXuJmWBFyn6p&dl_branch=1&nd=1 https://open.spotify.com/episode/2vlG1Ouf001owUMwOBCfVG?si=N...
- throwaway894345 5y ago> US commercial nuclear plants To be clear, US coal and natural gas plants kill a lot of people regularly.
- monjohn 5y agoThanks for the correction!
- pvaldes 5y ago> One key fact is number of people killed by US commercial power plants: 0 One key fact about nuclear is that everything that we see from here to the horizon is a layer of lies. All nuclear plants have commercial uses, some also make bombs in the weekends and holidays that never, ever killed anybody. Very nice bombs. But I imagine that we talk about nuclear plants for civil uses. I guess that the Radium Girls don't qualify as people in that list of "zero" people killed by radioactivity in US. If we talk about people killed "by" the building, yes we have five workers killed, but we could forget all about those also. Last was from 2013 so is a really old history. Nothing to see here, lets move on. In fact if we forget all about Slotin and Daghlian and about the other 56 nuclear accidents in US we could have a list of zero accidents!. A very desirable goal!. All that we need is to discard the bad parts of the history. All depends on how you circumnavigate and define accident in a nuclear plant.
- enaaem 5y agoIf we compare nuclear risk with global warming, then nuclear is local and anti-fragile, i.e. more nuclear disasters increases the safety of all other plants. Global warming is global, non-linear and has lots of unknown effects. The characteristic of risk is far more important than exact numbers. I’m not necessarily pro-nuclear and I wish renewables will be a sufficient solution. But due to the risk characteristics of global warming mentioned earlier, I think nuclear energy should always be an option. I am anti-anti-nuclear.