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I find nuclear to be extremely cool but I'm unsure of it's long term viability due to the human factor. We already have a few major nuclear incidents that could

by mrtksn 5y ago

I find nuclear to be extremely cool but I'm unsure of it's long term viability due to the human factor. We already have a few major nuclear incidents that could have gone way worse which suggest that our designs are not as resilient as claimed, be it due to poor design or poor maintenance and human interaction. When things go bad, we need heroism to fix it, it's not simply like losing electricity or money but people are required to do extraordinary things to save the rest and I don't believe we can keep doing it successfully each time. Also, the responsibility it creates stretches for far beyond human life and even generations. I will call it a solved problem if we can get rid of the waste somehow in less than a human life. I don't trust our species to do the reasonable thing every time and even if we want to do it right, we tend to forget or downplay the consequences of a failure. It's not just that we keep doing the same shockingly stupid or brutal things but at the same time we can have very dark side of self harm and delusions. For example, there are groups of people who believe that after a cataclysmic event, we all will go to heaven where everything is perfect, therefore the logical action to do is to force god for the rapture day by starting one. These days that kind of groups are managed but I don't think that it's impossible of them gaining power to do horrible things like nuclear annihilation. Just look at the Middle East, the place used to be technological and cultural powerhouse not that long ago in nuclear waste time scale. Places that are complete shitholes today used to be nice places just two cesium-137 half life cycles ago.

lrem 5y ago
Chernobyl's plant was built in 1972. Fukushima's in 1971. One would hope the technology improved a bit in 40 years...
- mrtksn 5y ago
  Of course it did but do you think that people in the 70's were promised anything less than perfect safety? Was the deal something like “now you get electricity and a salary but there’s a chance that you will die or lose everything you worked for your entire life overnight if an experiment goes wrong or earthquake hits”.
  - pas 5y ago
    This is a silly argument. The passive safety of recent designs is demonstrated. And even if there was a promise of perfect safety, it doesn't mean anything, because just as we know now people knew back then, that there are risks. That's why there were and there are safety systems. And we can reason about them, we have a lot more data, we have better models, hence better predictions. There are many big dangerous engineering installations and systems around the world. Dams, bridges, high rises, tunnels, mines, cable cars, high speed rail, airplanes, chemical plants, furnaces. Nuclear's risk profile seems scary because of the long tail (high level waste for thousands of years). Which is not something we have expertise with, but again, not something that we can't make at least reasonable predictions about.
    - mrtksn 5y ago
      There are always passive safety systems, Chernobyl and Fukushima had too. The problem with these safety systems is that they are assumed to be built flawlessly, which is not always the case. And "There are other dangerous machinery in the world" is just whatabaoutism. People smoke tobacco, should we bring back asbestos too because of that? The world lost such a great insulator. If you are looking for a silly argument, I suggest enjoy some whataboutism. Anyway, the rectors do have a similar problem with the planes: To make it safe after each incident we are making it more expensive or inconvenient too because we cannot afford having fast developing catastrophic incidents of those. A nutjob crashes a plane into a building and now the boarding takes 2 hours extra and involves a cavity search. IMHO, we should definitely use fusion nuclear energy but it better be a temporary fix until we deploy the renewables. Oh BTW, the prediction about the nuclear waste so far is that it's going to stay with us for the foreseeable future and we don't know what to do with it. The best we can do is to put it in caves together with scary looking signs and drawings and hope for the best for the next thousands of years. That's not even implemented yet as most of the waste sits next to the reactors because when these were built they also had no idea what to do with the waste. Kicking the can down is not a sustainable solution. Just take a look at this: https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1435949837158060033 https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1435949837158060033 This is a photo of the new head of Afghanistan Central Bank. If Afghanistan had a nuclear plant, we could have s similar photo from the reactor control room.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by mrtksn 5y ago

lrem 5y ago

Chernobyl's plant was built in 1972. Fukushima's in 1971. One would hope the technology improved a bit in 40 years...

mrtksn 5y ago
Of course it did but do you think that people in the 70's were promised anything less than perfect safety? Was the deal something like “now you get electricity and a salary but there’s a chance that you will die or lose everything you worked for your entire life overnight if an experiment goes wrong or earthquake hits”.
- pas 5y ago
  This is a silly argument. The passive safety of recent designs is demonstrated. And even if there was a promise of perfect safety, it doesn't mean anything, because just as we know now people knew back then, that there are risks. That's why there were and there are safety systems. And we can reason about them, we have a lot more data, we have better models, hence better predictions. There are many big dangerous engineering installations and systems around the world. Dams, bridges, high rises, tunnels, mines, cable cars, high speed rail, airplanes, chemical plants, furnaces. Nuclear's risk profile seems scary because of the long tail (high level waste for thousands of years). Which is not something we have expertise with, but again, not something that we can't make at least reasonable predictions about.
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    There are always passive safety systems, Chernobyl and Fukushima had too. The problem with these safety systems is that they are assumed to be built flawlessly, which is not always the case. And "There are other dangerous machinery in the world" is just whatabaoutism. People smoke tobacco, should we bring back asbestos too because of that? The world lost such a great insulator. If you are looking for a silly argument, I suggest enjoy some whataboutism. Anyway, the rectors do have a similar problem with the planes: To make it safe after each incident we are making it more expensive or inconvenient too because we cannot afford having fast developing catastrophic incidents of those. A nutjob crashes a plane into a building and now the boarding takes 2 hours extra and involves a cavity search. IMHO, we should definitely use fusion nuclear energy but it better be a temporary fix until we deploy the renewables. Oh BTW, the prediction about the nuclear waste so far is that it's going to stay with us for the foreseeable future and we don't know what to do with it. The best we can do is to put it in caves together with scary looking signs and drawings and hope for the best for the next thousands of years. That's not even implemented yet as most of the waste sits next to the reactors because when these were built they also had no idea what to do with the waste. Kicking the can down is not a sustainable solution. Just take a look at this: https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1435949837158060033 https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1435949837158060033 This is a photo of the new head of Afghanistan Central Bank. If Afghanistan had a nuclear plant, we could have s similar photo from the reactor control room.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]