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> The reality is nuclear is neither clean, safe or smart; but a very complex technology with the potential to cause significant harm. It's unbelievably safe, i

> The reality is nuclear is neither clean, safe or smart; but a very complex technology with the potential to cause significant harm. It's unbelievably safe, it has the among the lowest death toll per TWh of generated electricity. Depending on who you ask, it's lower than or in the same order of magnitude as solar and wind. [1] It's definitely clean, they're ultra-low-carbon - and especially breeder or fast neutron reactors, generate tiny quantities of waste relative to the amount of power that comes out. And these spicy rocks can just be placed back down into the earth from whence they came. Is it cheap? No. And that's ok, because that's not always the most important thing. However it's important to remember that nuclear prices in all externalities due to the public's fear and distrust. However, coal does not. The NRC uses a price of about $9M per additional death, and coal kills 9 million people per year. [2] If you price them at the same $9M per life, and divide by coal power generated - nuclear is cheaper than coal. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/09/fossil-fuels-pollution-deaths-research https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/09/fossil-f...

Gwypaas 5y ago
Irrelevant comparing to coal. It is a dead industry sharing the same issue nuclear has, steam cycles are too costly to build and operate[1]. A dollar spent on nuclear power plants is a dollar not doing more work with renewables, that is the issue. Keep some R&D for the future magical break through, but current designs are dead in the water. You are also not taking into account that it is impossible to insure nuclear power plants, the public does that. I.e. they do not bear their full costs, not even close. Look no further than at Fukushima's $500B - $1000B clean up cost. [1]: Table ES3 https://esmap.org/sites/default/files/esmap-files/TR122-09_GBL_Study_of_Equipment_Prices_in_the_Power_Sector.pdf https://esmap.org/sites/default/files/esmap-files/TR122-09_G...
- arcticbull 5y ago
  > You are also not taking into account that it is impossible to insure nuclear power plants, the public does that. I.e. they do not bear their full costs, not even close. Look no further than at Fukushima's $500B - $1000B clean up cost. Coal is unfortunately not a dying industry. [1] My point isn't that it should be compared to coal but rather that it is actually not far and away the most expensive once you price in externalities. If we're talking subsidies, coal, oil, and natural gas received $5.9 trillion in subsidies in 2020. [2] Makes the once-in-a-generation Fukushima cleanup look cheap no? I strongly suspect that renewables received huge subsidies too, the US alone threw a hundred billion or so their way in 2020. Nuclear gets almost nothing. To be clear I don't mind that renewables get subsidies - they should, and we should build them even if they're more expensive. Ditto for nuclear. > A dollar spent on nuclear energy is a dollar not doing more work with renewables, that is the issue. Por que no los dos? Solar requires a ton of footprint and wind requires mining rare earth metals in hellscapes in Mongolia. [3] There's no free lunch. More good lunches are good. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/far-from-dying-the-coal-industry-is-actually-booming/2022/01/28/7fb02ff0-8019-11ec-8cc8-b696564ba796_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/far-from-dyin... [2] https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuels-received-5-9-trillion-in-subsidies-in-2020-report-finds https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuels-received-5-9-trill... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-village-pollution https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-ra...
  - Gwypaas 5y ago
    Then, lets agree then on that it is a dead industry where options exist. Gas plants require more infrastructure investment up front, therefore coal exists in lower development countries. Completely agree that subsidies for fossil fuels should be gone. The issue is that Fukushima is not once in a generation. Seems to be about once every 10-20 years given TMI, Chernobyl, Fukushima and the near misses or other costly mistakes like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accidents in Japan or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant#July_2006_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant#J... in Sweden where pure luck avoided a meltdown. Other nice ones include Monju in Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monju_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monju_Nuclear_Power_Plant. Nuclear got the R&D subsidies for half a century without much to show for it. Nowadays renewables rightly has taken over that lead due to actual results. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Too_much_money_for_dirty_energy.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Too_much...
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      > Nuclear got the R&D subsidies for half a century without much to show for it. Nowadays renewables rightly has taken over that lead due to actual results. Nuclear hasn't received meaningful funding in like 30-ish years. That's the period of time where the largest leaps would have been made.
      - Gwypaas 5y ago
        Because they simply could not be economically built, it's not all fun and games to light the ratepayers money on fire. That lead to the first SMR craze from a reeling industry, with nothing to show for it. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_St... By the mid-1970s it became clear that nuclear power would not grow nearly as quickly as once believed. Cost overruns were sometimes a factor of ten above original industry estimates, and became a major problem. For the 75 nuclear power reactors built from 1966 to 1977, cost overruns averaged 207 percent. Opposition and problems were galvanized by the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.[48] Over-commitment to nuclear power brought about the financial collapse of the Washington Public Power Supply System, a public agency which undertook to build five large nuclear power plants in the 1970s. By 1983, cost overruns and delays, along with a slowing of electricity demand growth, led to cancellation of two WPPSS plants and a construction halt on two others. Moreover, WPPSS defaulted on $2.25 billion of municipal bonds, which is one of the largest municipal bond defaults in U.S. history. The court case that followed took nearly a decade to resolve.[49][50][51] Eventually, more than 120 reactor orders were cancelled,[52] and the construction of new reactors ground to a halt. Al Gore has commented on the historical record and reliability of nuclear power in the United States: "Of the 253 nuclear power reactors originally ordered in the United States from 1953 to 2008, 48 percent were canceled, 11 percent were prematurely shut down, 14 percent experienced at least a one-year-or-more outage, and 27 percent are operating without having a year-plus outage. Thus, only about one fourth of those ordered, or about half of those completed, are still operating and have proved relatively reliable."[53] [...] A cover story in the February 11, 1985, issue of Forbes magazine commented on the overall management of the nuclear power program in the United States: "The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale … only the blind, or the biased, can now think that the money has been well spent. It is a defeat for the U.S. consumer and for the competitiveness of U.S. industry, for the utilities that undertook the program and for the private enterprise system that made it possible."[55]
xg15 5y ago
> It's unbelievably safe, it has the among the lowest death toll per TWh of generated electricity. I have never understood the rationale behind that measure. First of all, radiation only directly causes death in most extreme circumstances - but even before it will increase the likelihood of severe diseases like cancer or will cause birth defects in the next generation. Deaths/TWh captures none of that stuff. Second, why is the energy output even in there? We know nuclear is a high-yield energy source. That doesn't tell me anything about the likelihood of accidents over time or my personal risk while living next to a power station (or next to a disposal site). By the same logic, you could conclude that binge-drinking alcohol is safer than drinking water as it's deaths/hours of fun measure is lower. Or that chucking Earth into the sun would actually be an even safer method of producing energy than nuclear: Sure that would cause some 8 billion deaths, but look at that energy output!
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  Published death rates include models of excess mortality. Those models include accidents. Output is relevant because demand is constrained by price and applications. Not deaths from available technologies.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    Further the nuclear excess mortality is in my opinion likely to be overstated, as - correct me if I'm wrong - they are primarily computed using the LNT (linear, no-threshold) dose-response model. This model is quite controversial and at best represents a worst-case. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model

Gwypaas 5y ago

Irrelevant comparing to coal. It is a dead industry sharing the same issue nuclear has, steam cycles are too costly to build and operate[1]. A dollar spent on nuclear power plants is a dollar not doing more work with renewables, that is the issue. Keep some R&D for the future magical break through, but current designs are dead in the water. You are also not taking into account that it is impossible to insure nuclear power plants, the public does that. I.e. they do not bear their full costs, not even close. Look no further than at Fukushima's $500B - $1000B clean up cost. [1]: Table ES3 https://esmap.org/sites/default/files/esmap-files/TR122-09_GBL_Study_of_Equipment_Prices_in_the_Power_Sector.pdf https://esmap.org/sites/default/files/esmap-files/TR122-09_G...

arcticbull 5y ago
> You are also not taking into account that it is impossible to insure nuclear power plants, the public does that. I.e. they do not bear their full costs, not even close. Look no further than at Fukushima's $500B - $1000B clean up cost. Coal is unfortunately not a dying industry. [1] My point isn't that it should be compared to coal but rather that it is actually not far and away the most expensive once you price in externalities. If we're talking subsidies, coal, oil, and natural gas received $5.9 trillion in subsidies in 2020. [2] Makes the once-in-a-generation Fukushima cleanup look cheap no? I strongly suspect that renewables received huge subsidies too, the US alone threw a hundred billion or so their way in 2020. Nuclear gets almost nothing. To be clear I don't mind that renewables get subsidies - they should, and we should build them even if they're more expensive. Ditto for nuclear. > A dollar spent on nuclear energy is a dollar not doing more work with renewables, that is the issue. Por que no los dos? Solar requires a ton of footprint and wind requires mining rare earth metals in hellscapes in Mongolia. [3] There's no free lunch. More good lunches are good. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/far-from-dying-the-coal-industry-is-actually-booming/2022/01/28/7fb02ff0-8019-11ec-8cc8-b696564ba796_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/energy/far-from-dyin... [2] https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuels-received-5-9-trillion-in-subsidies-in-2020-report-finds https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuels-received-5-9-trill... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-village-pollution https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-ra...
- Gwypaas 5y ago
  Then, lets agree then on that it is a dead industry where options exist. Gas plants require more infrastructure investment up front, therefore coal exists in lower development countries. Completely agree that subsidies for fossil fuels should be gone. The issue is that Fukushima is not once in a generation. Seems to be about once every 10-20 years given TMI, Chernobyl, Fukushima and the near misses or other costly mistakes like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accidents in Japan or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant#July_2006_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant#J... in Sweden where pure luck avoided a meltdown. Other nice ones include Monju in Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monju_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monju_Nuclear_Power_Plant. Nuclear got the R&D subsidies for half a century without much to show for it. Nowadays renewables rightly has taken over that lead due to actual results. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Too_much_money_for_dirty_energy.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Too_much...
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    > Nuclear got the R&D subsidies for half a century without much to show for it. Nowadays renewables rightly has taken over that lead due to actual results. Nuclear hasn't received meaningful funding in like 30-ish years. That's the period of time where the largest leaps would have been made.
    - Gwypaas 5y ago
      Because they simply could not be economically built, it's not all fun and games to light the ratepayers money on fire. That lead to the first SMR craze from a reeling industry, with nothing to show for it. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_St... By the mid-1970s it became clear that nuclear power would not grow nearly as quickly as once believed. Cost overruns were sometimes a factor of ten above original industry estimates, and became a major problem. For the 75 nuclear power reactors built from 1966 to 1977, cost overruns averaged 207 percent. Opposition and problems were galvanized by the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.[48] Over-commitment to nuclear power brought about the financial collapse of the Washington Public Power Supply System, a public agency which undertook to build five large nuclear power plants in the 1970s. By 1983, cost overruns and delays, along with a slowing of electricity demand growth, led to cancellation of two WPPSS plants and a construction halt on two others. Moreover, WPPSS defaulted on $2.25 billion of municipal bonds, which is one of the largest municipal bond defaults in U.S. history. The court case that followed took nearly a decade to resolve.[49][50][51] Eventually, more than 120 reactor orders were cancelled,[52] and the construction of new reactors ground to a halt. Al Gore has commented on the historical record and reliability of nuclear power in the United States: "Of the 253 nuclear power reactors originally ordered in the United States from 1953 to 2008, 48 percent were canceled, 11 percent were prematurely shut down, 14 percent experienced at least a one-year-or-more outage, and 27 percent are operating without having a year-plus outage. Thus, only about one fourth of those ordered, or about half of those completed, are still operating and have proved relatively reliable."[53] [...] A cover story in the February 11, 1985, issue of Forbes magazine commented on the overall management of the nuclear power program in the United States: "The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale … only the blind, or the biased, can now think that the money has been well spent. It is a defeat for the U.S. consumer and for the competitiveness of U.S. industry, for the utilities that undertook the program and for the private enterprise system that made it possible."[55]

xg15 5y ago

> It's unbelievably safe, it has the among the lowest death toll per TWh of generated electricity. I have never understood the rationale behind that measure. First of all, radiation only directly causes death in most extreme circumstances - but even before it will increase the likelihood of severe diseases like cancer or will cause birth defects in the next generation. Deaths/TWh captures none of that stuff. Second, why is the energy output even in there? We know nuclear is a high-yield energy source. That doesn't tell me anything about the likelihood of accidents over time or my personal risk while living next to a power station (or next to a disposal site). By the same logic, you could conclude that binge-drinking alcohol is safer than drinking water as it's deaths/hours of fun measure is lower. Or that chucking Earth into the sun would actually be an even safer method of producing energy than nuclear: Sure that would cause some 8 billion deaths, but look at that energy output!

pseudalopex 5y ago
Published death rates include models of excess mortality. Those models include accidents. Output is relevant because demand is constrained by price and applications. Not deaths from available technologies.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  Further the nuclear excess mortality is in my opinion likely to be overstated, as - correct me if I'm wrong - they are primarily computed using the LNT (linear, no-threshold) dose-response model. This model is quite controversial and at best represents a worst-case. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model