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Nuclear power is far too risky and even if all goes well, the waste problem is mostly unsolved (some solutions exists but who knows how many years they are stab

Nuclear power is far too risky and even if all goes well, the waste problem is mostly unsolved (some solutions exists but who knows how many years they are stable), and the sourcing of uranium is a environmental and health problem, too (cf. the situation in Niger). Anyway, I don't know why I even write on HN about this topic since most of the crowd is pro-nuclear anyway and will either ignore this article or play it down and praise the technology…

jaggirs 5y ago
Nuclear is one of the least deadly energy sources (taking all deaths, including by nuclear disaster, into account). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM
- e0a74c 5y ago
  Does that take into account the millions of people who'll suffer from birth defects, low fertility, physical deformities and cancers for millennia to come?
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    From the nuclear and chemical pollution from burning coal and other fossil fuels? Probably not. Nor the impacts of climate change for millennia to come.
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  It is also not a widely used energy source. Nor is direct fatality, especially just looking into the past, the only issue. Proponents of nuclear power often don't want you to think about what happens when nuclear power has to be doubled, quadrupled, and so on. Nor are the risks really computable at all, with really small chances of extremely bad things happening. And the potential for bad actors at any time.
  - Tade0 5y ago
    Personally I'm not really worried about the technical side - just the way it's handled. Here's a lesser known minor incident: https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journalists/all-press-releases/edf-s-communication-regarding-the-taishan-nuclear-power-plant-s-no-1-reactor https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journ... Which wouldn't be newsworthy if it wasn't for how it was handled - the local authorities outright refused to even entertain the idea of even temporarily shutting the plant down to check if everything is okay. This incident isn't serious, but I'm afraid that should a serious incident happen, we won't know until it gets out of control.
bongoman37 5y ago
How do you deal with all the radiation and strip mining and accidents from coal and oil?
tiborsaas 5y ago
So how does that risk compare to the risks of burning fossil fuels?
- shadowfaxRodeo 5y ago
  This is a false choice. As the world gets more unstable due to climate change — an increased risk on pandemics, civil unrest, extreme weather events — do we really want abandoned nuclear power stations added to the mix? So, don’t do either. use way less energy, rely on renewables and batteries for the rest.
  - bayesian_horse 5y ago
    Also a nice perspective: We'd have to allow developing countries and those with terribly corrupt/inefficient governments and regulatory regimes to use nuclear power. I don't even like China engaging in large scale nuclear engineering, particularly because of how they screw up other sectors of industry.
    - squiggleblaz 5y ago
      I don't understand this "we'd have to allow developing countries" argument. How do people in developed countries allow or stop developing countries with corrupt/inefficient governments from doing whatever they want? If they can afford it, accept the risks and have the knowledge and physical requirements, how does anyone stop them?
      - bayesian_horse 5y ago
        By diplomatic pressure for example, or by withholding the development aid and technology necessary. Or by assassinating the nuclear scientists and later bombing the shit out of the facilities. All of which has happened. In my opinion, the risk of nuclear power in its current form can't be computed, even within a robust regulatory environment. Without a robust regulatory environment, or even instable regimes and regions, I don't think there is even a question to the answer of: No, please don't.
mattowen_uk 5y ago
It's fair to have this opinion, but what would your alternative large-scale energy creation suggestions be?
- jhasse 5y ago
  Reduce energy consumption so we can get by using renewables only.
  - rnhmjoj 5y ago
    It's simply not possible to do so now or in the near future because we don't have nearly enough storage capacity.
    - jhasse 5y ago
      What do you mean by "it's not possible" exactly? It's not possible without ...? Regarding the storage capacity: Yes, it's not possible without drastically reducing energy consumption.
      - rnhmjoj 5y ago
        I mean that we don't have enough storage capacity to cover the current loads with renewables only, the situation is the same in most countries. For example, in Italy we have ~7.4GW of stored installed power: 97% alone is from a few very large pumped hydroelectric plants, 3% from chemical batteries (more than 45000 distributed systems). The base electric load is 38GW and peaks between ~56GW and ~60GW, these are between 5 and 10 times what the storage systems can now supply. I don't see the numbers changing significantly in the near future, unless there will be major technological breakthroughs and massive investements into these solutions. Realistically, greatly reducing energy consumption is not possible without drastic changes to our lifestyle, which many will surely oppose. This is also in contrast to the current trend of electrifying everything as much as possible: from transport to heating and manufacture. We can try to improve the energy efficiency of buildings and engines, wasting less, but it's not going to reverse the trend of growing energy demand.
geomark 5y ago
If I was going to college I would get a degree in nuclear engineering. It has to be the future.
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  Not the immediate future though... the current technology is unsustainable because of the waste, and everything that could solve it is too unproven to be rolled out big scale any time soon.
  - whiddershins 5y ago
    The waste just isn’t that much.
    - bayesian_horse 5y ago
      Enough so that most countries don't know where to store it and nobody wants it in their backyard. Unfortunately, many democractically run countries don't have much area that is "nobobody's backyard" and at the same time geologically stable enough so no radioactive material will ever leak. Even "very little waste" is quite a big problem if you don't know where to put it. And proponents of nuclear power want to scale it up by a few times, then run the scheme for a couple hundred years.
PaywallBuster 5y ago
The newer generation is able to process nuclear waste and reduce it significantly (albeit it will prolong its radioactive window)
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  This technology isn't proven enough yet to be available in the near future. It may arrive to late to do anything about climate change.
roenxi 5y ago
I dunno, we're looking at the worst case scenario in the history of nuclear power here, from a Gen 2 plant in the days when safety didn't matter. It is still doing better than a big dam failure. The risk looks pretty bearable. The fact that it is still leaking power is a testament to how much energy there is in this tech. The upsides are unfathomable. EDIT And my advice is abandon the waste argument. We've got 40 years of experience with it. It just hasn't turned out to be a problem. It isn't important enough to solve, the problem is tiny.
- vindarel 5y ago
  Not a problem? Ah. From 1946 to 1982, 14 countries buried nuclear waste in 80 places in the ocean, without any more surveillance since 1995 (the detected radioactivity was low). Some liquid waste was just released there, some barrels are not protected, some are. In total, they are as radioactive as 3 Fukushima. No operation is planned to pick the old barrels up, because "most of them would not support a manipulation". We bury them under forests, so they become a lost territory, the forest is filled with cameras and drones. Not a problem for the inhabitants? Their life is also changed by the invasion of militaries and cops in the closest village (Bure). When we bury them underground, then the drinking water is at risk, some territory is closed… this impacts people. Then we are thinking in sending the waste to space? Wow O_o And what do I not know?
  - roenxi 5y ago
    80 locations! Dear me. And do you feel that this more-than-single-digit list is sufficient to abandon the entire discipline of nuclear physics, or just the part that generates energy? That is comparable to the number of Biosecurity level 4 labs in the world. The ones that research biological weapons. That is the sort of activity that can be threatening when there are 80 of them globally. Not 80 small piles of toxic garbage. How many unspeakable waste dumps are there in the world? More than 80. More than anyone can count.
    - vindarel 5y ago
      Not what I said, and narrow focus. Still, not a problem as of today?
mam3 5y ago
LOL
mytailorisrich 5y ago
Using Chernobyl as argument that nuclear power is "far too risky" is akin to using a car accident caused by an unsafe car as argument that cars are "far too risky". Yes, it can be very dangerous. But so can many industrial and technological processes. The questions are rather can we make it safe? and, if so, can we reliably do it? The answers are 'yes' to both.
vegai_ 5y ago
The risk that comes from not using nuclear power is far greater and more likely. Fission is a temporary solution, but it has to be used to get to the next level -- just like we had to use every previous power source to get the next level.
throwawaylinux 5y ago
Fossil fuel for electricity is far too risky and the waste problem is entirely unsolved (no solutions exist), and the mining and sourcing of them is an environment and health problem, too (cf. the Middle East). Nuclear power by comparison is much less dangerous, much better for the environment, has a solved waste problem (modulo protests from "environmentalists" / fossil fuel boosters), and much more stable and reliable sources (Canada and Australia alone have 1/3 of known uranium).
- shadowfaxRodeo 5y ago
  I don’t think you’ll find many anti-nuclear people on HN that are also pro-fossil-fuel. It’s a false choice, we can choose to not use fossil fuels, and decrease the risk of nuclear meltdowns and dirty bombs at the same time.
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    It's not a false choice. Anti nuclear is pro-fossil-fuel. I've been hearing the pro-fossil-fuel misinformation that nuclear is 10 years too late for the past 20 years at least. Many of the same people saying this were also the ones 5 years ago insisting that coal was dead and renewables killed it. Take a look at thermal coal prices, https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/coal https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/coal and look up global coal consumption and realize we may not even have hit peak coal yet, let alone any real prospect of a massive short term reduction rather than a very long slow decline. They were wrong about that too.
    - shadowfaxRodeo 5y ago
      If you think there's no prospect of coal consumption going down, then we're headed for global calamity. Knowing that it's a likely scenario that the world becomes wildly unpredictable, it's not responsible to also build nuclear reactors that require stability and maintenance to be safe.
      - throwawaylinux 5y ago
sdgdfgsfdfgsdfg 5y ago
The waste problem is solved from a technological perspective, its unsolved in practice due to NIMBY-ism. In contrast to your claim, the stability of nuclear waste containers and deep geological repositories is predictable and based on well-understood physics.
sdgdfgsfdfgsdfg 5y ago
Would you judge the safety of today's passenger jets based on the safety record of the first ever airplanes? Modern nuclear reactors cannot have a Chernobyl-type malfunction. Building them in an earthquake zone, however, is not a great idea.
Koiwai 5y ago
"the waste problem is mostly unsolved", the same goes with fossil fuel, per unit energy produced it's way worse.
vindarel 5y ago
I feel you… yet it's good and necessary someone gives a divergent opinion.

jaggirs 5y ago

Nuclear is one of the least deadly energy sources (taking all deaths, including by nuclear disaster, into account). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM

e0a74c 5y ago
Does that take into account the millions of people who'll suffer from birth defects, low fertility, physical deformities and cancers for millennia to come?
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  From the nuclear and chemical pollution from burning coal and other fossil fuels? Probably not. Nor the impacts of climate change for millennia to come.
bayesian_horse 5y ago
It is also not a widely used energy source. Nor is direct fatality, especially just looking into the past, the only issue. Proponents of nuclear power often don't want you to think about what happens when nuclear power has to be doubled, quadrupled, and so on. Nor are the risks really computable at all, with really small chances of extremely bad things happening. And the potential for bad actors at any time.
- Tade0 5y ago
  Personally I'm not really worried about the technical side - just the way it's handled. Here's a lesser known minor incident: https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journalists/all-press-releases/edf-s-communication-regarding-the-taishan-nuclear-power-plant-s-no-1-reactor https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journ... Which wouldn't be newsworthy if it wasn't for how it was handled - the local authorities outright refused to even entertain the idea of even temporarily shutting the plant down to check if everything is okay. This incident isn't serious, but I'm afraid that should a serious incident happen, we won't know until it gets out of control.

bongoman37 5y ago

How do you deal with all the radiation and strip mining and accidents from coal and oil?

tiborsaas 5y ago

So how does that risk compare to the risks of burning fossil fuels?

shadowfaxRodeo 5y ago
This is a false choice. As the world gets more unstable due to climate change — an increased risk on pandemics, civil unrest, extreme weather events — do we really want abandoned nuclear power stations added to the mix? So, don’t do either. use way less energy, rely on renewables and batteries for the rest.
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  Also a nice perspective: We'd have to allow developing countries and those with terribly corrupt/inefficient governments and regulatory regimes to use nuclear power. I don't even like China engaging in large scale nuclear engineering, particularly because of how they screw up other sectors of industry.
  - squiggleblaz 5y ago
    I don't understand this "we'd have to allow developing countries" argument. How do people in developed countries allow or stop developing countries with corrupt/inefficient governments from doing whatever they want? If they can afford it, accept the risks and have the knowledge and physical requirements, how does anyone stop them?
    - bayesian_horse 5y ago
      By diplomatic pressure for example, or by withholding the development aid and technology necessary. Or by assassinating the nuclear scientists and later bombing the shit out of the facilities. All of which has happened. In my opinion, the risk of nuclear power in its current form can't be computed, even within a robust regulatory environment. Without a robust regulatory environment, or even instable regimes and regions, I don't think there is even a question to the answer of: No, please don't.

mattowen_uk 5y ago

It's fair to have this opinion, but what would your alternative large-scale energy creation suggestions be?

jhasse 5y ago
Reduce energy consumption so we can get by using renewables only.
- rnhmjoj 5y ago
  It's simply not possible to do so now or in the near future because we don't have nearly enough storage capacity.
  - jhasse 5y ago
    What do you mean by "it's not possible" exactly? It's not possible without ...? Regarding the storage capacity: Yes, it's not possible without drastically reducing energy consumption.
    - rnhmjoj 5y ago
      I mean that we don't have enough storage capacity to cover the current loads with renewables only, the situation is the same in most countries. For example, in Italy we have ~7.4GW of stored installed power: 97% alone is from a few very large pumped hydroelectric plants, 3% from chemical batteries (more than 45000 distributed systems). The base electric load is 38GW and peaks between ~56GW and ~60GW, these are between 5 and 10 times what the storage systems can now supply. I don't see the numbers changing significantly in the near future, unless there will be major technological breakthroughs and massive investements into these solutions. Realistically, greatly reducing energy consumption is not possible without drastic changes to our lifestyle, which many will surely oppose. This is also in contrast to the current trend of electrifying everything as much as possible: from transport to heating and manufacture. We can try to improve the energy efficiency of buildings and engines, wasting less, but it's not going to reverse the trend of growing energy demand.

geomark 5y ago

If I was going to college I would get a degree in nuclear engineering. It has to be the future.

bayesian_horse 5y ago
Not the immediate future though... the current technology is unsustainable because of the waste, and everything that could solve it is too unproven to be rolled out big scale any time soon.
- whiddershins 5y ago
  The waste just isn’t that much.
  - bayesian_horse 5y ago
    Enough so that most countries don't know where to store it and nobody wants it in their backyard. Unfortunately, many democractically run countries don't have much area that is "nobobody's backyard" and at the same time geologically stable enough so no radioactive material will ever leak. Even "very little waste" is quite a big problem if you don't know where to put it. And proponents of nuclear power want to scale it up by a few times, then run the scheme for a couple hundred years.

PaywallBuster 5y ago

The newer generation is able to process nuclear waste and reduce it significantly (albeit it will prolong its radioactive window)

bayesian_horse 5y ago
This technology isn't proven enough yet to be available in the near future. It may arrive to late to do anything about climate change.

roenxi 5y ago

I dunno, we're looking at the worst case scenario in the history of nuclear power here, from a Gen 2 plant in the days when safety didn't matter. It is still doing better than a big dam failure. The risk looks pretty bearable. The fact that it is still leaking power is a testament to how much energy there is in this tech. The upsides are unfathomable. EDIT And my advice is abandon the waste argument. We've got 40 years of experience with it. It just hasn't turned out to be a problem. It isn't important enough to solve, the problem is tiny.

vindarel 5y ago
Not a problem? Ah. From 1946 to 1982, 14 countries buried nuclear waste in 80 places in the ocean, without any more surveillance since 1995 (the detected radioactivity was low). Some liquid waste was just released there, some barrels are not protected, some are. In total, they are as radioactive as 3 Fukushima. No operation is planned to pick the old barrels up, because "most of them would not support a manipulation". We bury them under forests, so they become a lost territory, the forest is filled with cameras and drones. Not a problem for the inhabitants? Their life is also changed by the invasion of militaries and cops in the closest village (Bure). When we bury them underground, then the drinking water is at risk, some territory is closed… this impacts people. Then we are thinking in sending the waste to space? Wow O_o And what do I not know?
- roenxi 5y ago
  80 locations! Dear me. And do you feel that this more-than-single-digit list is sufficient to abandon the entire discipline of nuclear physics, or just the part that generates energy? That is comparable to the number of Biosecurity level 4 labs in the world. The ones that research biological weapons. That is the sort of activity that can be threatening when there are 80 of them globally. Not 80 small piles of toxic garbage. How many unspeakable waste dumps are there in the world? More than 80. More than anyone can count.
  - vindarel 5y ago
    Not what I said, and narrow focus. Still, not a problem as of today?

mam3 5y ago

LOL

mytailorisrich 5y ago

Using Chernobyl as argument that nuclear power is "far too risky" is akin to using a car accident caused by an unsafe car as argument that cars are "far too risky". Yes, it can be very dangerous. But so can many industrial and technological processes. The questions are rather can we make it safe? and, if so, can we reliably do it? The answers are 'yes' to both.

vegai_ 5y ago

The risk that comes from not using nuclear power is far greater and more likely. Fission is a temporary solution, but it has to be used to get to the next level -- just like we had to use every previous power source to get the next level.

throwawaylinux 5y ago

Fossil fuel for electricity is far too risky and the waste problem is entirely unsolved (no solutions exist), and the mining and sourcing of them is an environment and health problem, too (cf. the Middle East). Nuclear power by comparison is much less dangerous, much better for the environment, has a solved waste problem (modulo protests from "environmentalists" / fossil fuel boosters), and much more stable and reliable sources (Canada and Australia alone have 1/3 of known uranium).

shadowfaxRodeo 5y ago
I don’t think you’ll find many anti-nuclear people on HN that are also pro-fossil-fuel. It’s a false choice, we can choose to not use fossil fuels, and decrease the risk of nuclear meltdowns and dirty bombs at the same time.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  It's not a false choice. Anti nuclear is pro-fossil-fuel. I've been hearing the pro-fossil-fuel misinformation that nuclear is 10 years too late for the past 20 years at least. Many of the same people saying this were also the ones 5 years ago insisting that coal was dead and renewables killed it. Take a look at thermal coal prices, https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/coal https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/coal and look up global coal consumption and realize we may not even have hit peak coal yet, let alone any real prospect of a massive short term reduction rather than a very long slow decline. They were wrong about that too.
  - shadowfaxRodeo 5y ago
    If you think there's no prospect of coal consumption going down, then we're headed for global calamity. Knowing that it's a likely scenario that the world becomes wildly unpredictable, it's not responsible to also build nuclear reactors that require stability and maintenance to be safe.
    - throwawaylinux 5y ago

sdgdfgsfdfgsdfg 5y ago

The waste problem is solved from a technological perspective, its unsolved in practice due to NIMBY-ism. In contrast to your claim, the stability of nuclear waste containers and deep geological repositories is predictable and based on well-understood physics.

sdgdfgsfdfgsdfg 5y ago

Would you judge the safety of today's passenger jets based on the safety record of the first ever airplanes? Modern nuclear reactors cannot have a Chernobyl-type malfunction. Building them in an earthquake zone, however, is not a great idea.

Koiwai 5y ago

"the waste problem is mostly unsolved", the same goes with fossil fuel, per unit energy produced it's way worse.

vindarel 5y ago

I feel you… yet it's good and necessary someone gives a divergent opinion.