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Europe is small and densely populated. They can't afford to take the risk of having large swaths of land rendered un-inhabitable due to nuclear accidents. If th

by sfifs 5y ago

Europe is small and densely populated. They can't afford to take the risk of having large swaths of land rendered un-inhabitable due to nuclear accidents. If there's one thing the last 60 odd years of nuclear experience has taught us, it is that Human organizations and societies cannot be trusted with maintaining high standards of safety in the long term that is required for fission power plants - even the Japanese who have developed a post-world war reputation for careful engineering and management couldn't manage it. Therefore, fission is simply not suitable for such densely populated countries. Japan and US learned this from failures. Germany smartly learned this from others failings. France will soon change their tune after their turn having a major accident (I sincerely hope they don't, but human fallibility is inevitable). Now if you have millions of square kilometres of desert or uninhabited wasteland you are willing to sacrifice, sure you can plonk fission reactors there and take risks with the inevitable nuclear accident. US and Canada do have but are unwilling to sacrifice (aka NIMBYism). Russia does have but doesn't really need more nuclear power than it already has for it's fairly small population. China and to a smaller extant India do have such wastelands and the population to need nuclear power. If instead they plonk the new reactors in fertile populated areas, they in their turn will learn the hard way from their own accidents. Now you can and modern reactors do design for "safe" failure. But frankly why bother when Solar and Wind have become so cheap that virtually no new coal plants are being planned in major economies in the last two years.

iso1210 5y ago
How many millions of square kilometres of Japan are uninhabitable due to nuclear energy?
- sfifs 5y ago
  Japan's habitable area according to [1] is about 125k sq Km. Fukushima official Exclusion Zone is about 370 sq km [2] - so that's 0.3% which is quite a significant loss in itself. However given the events, there's a lot of migration out of the surrounding towns and villages outside the exclusion zone due to fear of radiation amd a very marked population decline in the region. Young families don't want to risk raising children in such an area - so the population effects are significantly amplified and towns will go desolate as the older folks who stay pass away. [1] https://www.gdrc.org/uem/footprints/tokyo-fprint.html https://www.gdrc.org/uem/footprints/tokyo-fprint.html [2] https://blog.japanwondertravel.com/report-of-fukushima-exclusion-zone-tour-from-tokyo-10784 https://blog.japanwondertravel.com/report-of-fukushima-exclu... [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4199020/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4199020/
  - iso1210 5y ago
    It's planned to reopen in 2030, although parts are open now I believe. Personally I think a better solution would be a nature reserve. If I were choosing somewhere to live, I'd be more worried about the risk of another tsunami which killed 20,000 people than low level background radiation, same with Earthquakes in California, or Tornados in the middle of the US, or Hurricaines in the South East of the US. Many places in the exclusion zone are about as radioactive as Cornwall, and people pay a premium to live there. There are far more radioactive cities in the world.
jeroenhd 5y ago
The fact remains that the coal plants that replace the German nuclear plants emit more radiation than the nuclear plants ever did. Nuclear isn't being abandoned because of economics, it's because of fear. Irrational fear at that, for many European countries. There have been two serious nuclear incidents that have rendered land uninhabitable. One was a Soviet reactor that was already outdated at the time it was put to use, the other was the result of a tsunami. The entire field of research has been put on hold since Chernobyl, but the problems that caused the disaster have long since been solved. Nuclear reactors have several advantages over solar and wind. Not taking up as much space, for one. There's also the ability to work during windless nights without having to install massive battery arrays. The existing energy grid also isn't prepared for every house generating their own electricity. I know of several cities that simply refuse to connect more solar panels to the grid because the load cannot be distributed. The necessary expansion and reconstruction of the grid is planned to take about thirty years if work starts today. Solar is great if solar panels are in constant use for over ten years, but advances in technology and deterioration of the panels themselves make many money wise consumers switch out their panels much earlier, sometimes even before they've earned back their production and transportation costs. We're just offsetting the environmental damage, moving it to mining and production facilities in China where we don't have to care. Wind is the only green technology that I think is actually green enough not to be ruined by private economic incentives, but the NIMBY factor is huge. You're right that Europe is densely populated in comparison, and you need quite a lot of distance from the giant blades to not be affected by the many stressor such plants create, like the constant whooshing, the moving shadows and the constant low hums that come with most of them. Placing them at sea is a great solution for all of those problems, though. There is no holy grail in energy. We'll go solar if price is more important than the environment, wind if availability is more important than the surrounding inhabitants, or coal and gas when we just need power without all the complaining. Meanwhile, we'll always be planning some nuclear plants in Europe, because hospitals need radioactive compounds. The current ones are deteriorating but they have to keep operating because nobody wants to build new plants, but at some point we'll either have to build some at some point or not offer certain kinds of care in certain areas anymore.

by sfifs 5y ago

iso1210 5y ago

How many millions of square kilometres of Japan are uninhabitable due to nuclear energy?

sfifs 5y ago
Japan's habitable area according to [1] is about 125k sq Km. Fukushima official Exclusion Zone is about 370 sq km [2] - so that's 0.3% which is quite a significant loss in itself. However given the events, there's a lot of migration out of the surrounding towns and villages outside the exclusion zone due to fear of radiation amd a very marked population decline in the region. Young families don't want to risk raising children in such an area - so the population effects are significantly amplified and towns will go desolate as the older folks who stay pass away. [1] https://www.gdrc.org/uem/footprints/tokyo-fprint.html https://www.gdrc.org/uem/footprints/tokyo-fprint.html [2] https://blog.japanwondertravel.com/report-of-fukushima-exclusion-zone-tour-from-tokyo-10784 https://blog.japanwondertravel.com/report-of-fukushima-exclu... [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4199020/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4199020/
- iso1210 5y ago
  It's planned to reopen in 2030, although parts are open now I believe. Personally I think a better solution would be a nature reserve. If I were choosing somewhere to live, I'd be more worried about the risk of another tsunami which killed 20,000 people than low level background radiation, same with Earthquakes in California, or Tornados in the middle of the US, or Hurricaines in the South East of the US. Many places in the exclusion zone are about as radioactive as Cornwall, and people pay a premium to live there. There are far more radioactive cities in the world.

jeroenhd 5y ago

The fact remains that the coal plants that replace the German nuclear plants emit more radiation than the nuclear plants ever did. Nuclear isn't being abandoned because of economics, it's because of fear. Irrational fear at that, for many European countries. There have been two serious nuclear incidents that have rendered land uninhabitable. One was a Soviet reactor that was already outdated at the time it was put to use, the other was the result of a tsunami. The entire field of research has been put on hold since Chernobyl, but the problems that caused the disaster have long since been solved. Nuclear reactors have several advantages over solar and wind. Not taking up as much space, for one. There's also the ability to work during windless nights without having to install massive battery arrays. The existing energy grid also isn't prepared for every house generating their own electricity. I know of several cities that simply refuse to connect more solar panels to the grid because the load cannot be distributed. The necessary expansion and reconstruction of the grid is planned to take about thirty years if work starts today. Solar is great if solar panels are in constant use for over ten years, but advances in technology and deterioration of the panels themselves make many money wise consumers switch out their panels much earlier, sometimes even before they've earned back their production and transportation costs. We're just offsetting the environmental damage, moving it to mining and production facilities in China where we don't have to care. Wind is the only green technology that I think is actually green enough not to be ruined by private economic incentives, but the NIMBY factor is huge. You're right that Europe is densely populated in comparison, and you need quite a lot of distance from the giant blades to not be affected by the many stressor such plants create, like the constant whooshing, the moving shadows and the constant low hums that come with most of them. Placing them at sea is a great solution for all of those problems, though. There is no holy grail in energy. We'll go solar if price is more important than the environment, wind if availability is more important than the surrounding inhabitants, or coal and gas when we just need power without all the complaining. Meanwhile, we'll always be planning some nuclear plants in Europe, because hospitals need radioactive compounds. The current ones are deteriorating but they have to keep operating because nobody wants to build new plants, but at some point we'll either have to build some at some point or not offer certain kinds of care in certain areas anymore.