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Nuclear power has plenty of problems even without the association with bombs. How about the very real association with accidents with civilian nuclear reactors.

Nuclear power has plenty of problems even without the association with bombs. How about the very real association with accidents with civilian nuclear reactors. And how about the fact that after each one of them the industry always said that this would never happen again and then it happened again. I am not sure what you mean "if we kept going with nuclear". We are keeping going with it. It is a continued disaster. The last plant being built, two reactors at Vogtle are now estimated to cost over 25 billion, a massive overrun over an original estimate of 14 billion. That construction already caused the bankruptcy of one of the builders (Westinghouse), massive losses at another (Chicago Bridge and Iron). Eventually Chicago Bridge and Iron was acquired at depressed valuation by McDermott, but the valuation was not depressed enough because McDermott itself declared bankruptcy last year. Just last month there was another 3 month delay announced at Vogtle. This will certainly increase costs even more. There is also the VC Summer plant that was recently cancelled after massive delays and cost overruns. That plant was also partially to blame for Westinghouse's bankruptcy.

horns4lyfe 5y ago
Why are these cost overruns an issue? The solutions our politicians are putting forward now are going to cost taxpayers trillions and just go to some vague idea of green energy. I’d much rather throw that at nuclear research and building nuclear plants, as opposed to some slush fund that will only line insiders pockets.
lordnacho 5y ago
What makes these examples nuclear power problems, rather than bad organization problems? Large projects are known to have issues like cost overruns. Airports, carriers, etc are all things that tend to cost more than the sticker price. Look at cars. People used to get run over all the time, they'd hurt themselves in crashes, etc. But so much effort has been spent investing in them that things like seat belts became a thing, we made laws about driving, and so on. You also have to look at the tradeoffs. Putting carbon in the air is basically a bad idea, and we need to reduce it. Here's a replacement for doing that, we should put some of our chips on that. Perfectly fine to have windmills as well, not saying there aren't other bets.
MadeThisToReply 5y ago
> and then it happened again. Did it happen again? We haven't had anything close to another Chernobyl, and that was 35 years ago (more than 50% of the entire history of the nuclear power industry.)

horns4lyfe 5y ago

Why are these cost overruns an issue? The solutions our politicians are putting forward now are going to cost taxpayers trillions and just go to some vague idea of green energy. I’d much rather throw that at nuclear research and building nuclear plants, as opposed to some slush fund that will only line insiders pockets.

lordnacho 5y ago

What makes these examples nuclear power problems, rather than bad organization problems? Large projects are known to have issues like cost overruns. Airports, carriers, etc are all things that tend to cost more than the sticker price. Look at cars. People used to get run over all the time, they'd hurt themselves in crashes, etc. But so much effort has been spent investing in them that things like seat belts became a thing, we made laws about driving, and so on. You also have to look at the tradeoffs. Putting carbon in the air is basically a bad idea, and we need to reduce it. Here's a replacement for doing that, we should put some of our chips on that. Perfectly fine to have windmills as well, not saying there aren't other bets.

MadeThisToReply 5y ago

> and then it happened again. Did it happen again? We haven't had anything close to another Chernobyl, and that was 35 years ago (more than 50% of the entire history of the nuclear power industry.)