4 ms·

I'm so torn on this. In a perfect world, where human greed doesn't allow corner cutting, upscaling nuclear would be a potentially great choice. However, in the

I'm so torn on this. In a perfect world, where human greed doesn't allow corner cutting, upscaling nuclear would be a potentially great choice. However, in the world we actually live in, even so-called "efficient" and "group focused" societies like Japan build nuclear reactors in a tsunami flood zone to save money. I feel like in order to make nuclear viable for future plants, we'd have to create and implement some sort of one-of-a-kind anti-greed, anti-corruption, anti-corner-cutting culture that would run smack against the usual government lobbying culture we have in the US at least. And we'd have to get buy-in from ALL parties. AND we'd have to build based on the probability of extreme weather events becoming a common reality. It's not impossible, but it would require a major societal change.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
08-15 5y ago
And all that greed, corruption, corner-cutting resulted in two major accidents, which killed fewer than 60 people in total. What a condemning track record! One of these accidents happened in the Soviet Union, in a reactor type that could never be licensed in the US. The principal cause was operators ignoring safety regulations under political pressure. Do you really think, whether the US builds or doesn't build PWRs and BWRs would have impressed the SU one way or another? The other accident happened in Japan. The principal cause was a rather extreme tsunami. What turned it from a minor mishap into a major accident was that modern politics invalidated the original safety concept. (The BWR's containment has to be vented before core damage occurs, but that was no longer politically acceptable in 2011.) The lesson to learn from both accidents is that politicians have too much power and engineers have too little.

4 ms·

I'm so torn on this. In a perfect world, where human greed doesn't allow corner cutting, upscaling nuclear would be a potentially great choice. However, in the

by Arete314159 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
08-15 5y ago
And all that greed, corruption, corner-cutting resulted in two major accidents, which killed fewer than 60 people in total. What a condemning track record! One of these accidents happened in the Soviet Union, in a reactor type that could never be licensed in the US. The principal cause was operators ignoring safety regulations under political pressure. Do you really think, whether the US builds or doesn't build PWRs and BWRs would have impressed the SU one way or another? The other accident happened in Japan. The principal cause was a rather extreme tsunami. What turned it from a minor mishap into a major accident was that modern politics invalidated the original safety concept. (The BWR's containment has to be vented before core damage occurs, but that was no longer politically acceptable in 2011.) The lesson to learn from both accidents is that politicians have too much power and engineers have too little.