4 ms·

What would it have meant to go all in? The reasons for not going all in, were certainly not because of the environmental movements. Also if we extrapolate from

What would it have meant to go all in? The reasons for not going all in, were certainly not because of the environmental movements. Also if we extrapolate from the nuclear accidents that we had, with the current number of power plants we had a major incident every 20-30 years or so. If we would have wanted to supply all our power from nuclear it would have meant at least a tripling of reactors (more like 5 times or so, given the developing world), so given the rate of incidents we would have a major incident every 10 years at least. Considering that they tend to render large areas completely uninhabitable in 50 years significant areas on all continents would be uninhabitable. The shame is that we haven't gone all in on renewables and storage much earlier.

DennisP 5y ago
We've had three major incidents that come to everyone's mind: - Chernobyl, involving a reactor that didn't even have a containment dome, and in which the reaction rate sped up as the fuel got hotter. (The opposite is true of all modern reactors.) - Fukushima, which failed due to a major earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands of people, while the radiation release didn't kill anyone. The exclusion zone there is only 20 square kilometers. And this was with a reactor design from the 1970s; a nearby plant ten years newer faced the same challenges and did fine. - Three Mile Island, in which containment worked very well and radiation never went above background levels. Aside from Chernobyl that seems like a pretty decent safety record to me. By comparison, nobody worries about hydropower, despite hydro having the worst accident of any power plant ever: Banqaio Dam, which killed 26,000 people immediately and another 150,000 or so in the aftermath. The reason we didn't go all in on renewables earlier was that they were too expensive in the 20th century. Nuclear was not, as proven by France, which converted to 80% nuclear over the course of a couple decades.
- ncmncm 5y ago
  3MI vented a huge amount of radioactive krypton gas, which is never, ever counted. That stuff runs downhill like fluffy water, and hugged the shores of the river all the way to the ocean.
  - DennisP 5y ago
    From a quick google, the krypton was vented on purpose over the course of weeks, to keep radiation at safe levels. Government regulators were involved. All of us are immersed in background radiation all the time. Raising the level slightly, but still within normal background levels, is not a significant safety concern. It's certainly far less concerning than climate change, or even the direct pollution from fossil plants.
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      The krypton gas release was treated as if it dissolved in the atmosphere, not (as happened) ran downhill and gassed neighborhoods along the river.
- cycomanic 5y ago
  So yes three accidents in the last 60 years (I counted nuclear power to really start in the 1960s) that's an accident every 20 years like I wrote. Considering that chernobyl and fukushima rendered large areas of land uninhabitable I don't consider that a good track record. The lucky thing so far was that none of the incidents happened to a plant close to a large city. If a fukushima would have happened at Krümmel for example, Hamburg a city of 2M would have had to be evacuated.
  - DennisP 5y ago
    Taking a simple average like that implicitly assumes that nuclear technology has not improved in sixty years, and that we've refused even to learn simple lessons like "put a containment dome around your reactor." This is manifestly not the case.

DennisP 5y ago

We've had three major incidents that come to everyone's mind: - Chernobyl, involving a reactor that didn't even have a containment dome, and in which the reaction rate sped up as the fuel got hotter. (The opposite is true of all modern reactors.) - Fukushima, which failed due to a major earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands of people, while the radiation release didn't kill anyone. The exclusion zone there is only 20 square kilometers. And this was with a reactor design from the 1970s; a nearby plant ten years newer faced the same challenges and did fine. - Three Mile Island, in which containment worked very well and radiation never went above background levels. Aside from Chernobyl that seems like a pretty decent safety record to me. By comparison, nobody worries about hydropower, despite hydro having the worst accident of any power plant ever: Banqaio Dam, which killed 26,000 people immediately and another 150,000 or so in the aftermath. The reason we didn't go all in on renewables earlier was that they were too expensive in the 20th century. Nuclear was not, as proven by France, which converted to 80% nuclear over the course of a couple decades.

ncmncm 5y ago
3MI vented a huge amount of radioactive krypton gas, which is never, ever counted. That stuff runs downhill like fluffy water, and hugged the shores of the river all the way to the ocean.
- DennisP 5y ago
  From a quick google, the krypton was vented on purpose over the course of weeks, to keep radiation at safe levels. Government regulators were involved. All of us are immersed in background radiation all the time. Raising the level slightly, but still within normal background levels, is not a significant safety concern. It's certainly far less concerning than climate change, or even the direct pollution from fossil plants.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    The krypton gas release was treated as if it dissolved in the atmosphere, not (as happened) ran downhill and gassed neighborhoods along the river.
cycomanic 5y ago
So yes three accidents in the last 60 years (I counted nuclear power to really start in the 1960s) that's an accident every 20 years like I wrote. Considering that chernobyl and fukushima rendered large areas of land uninhabitable I don't consider that a good track record. The lucky thing so far was that none of the incidents happened to a plant close to a large city. If a fukushima would have happened at Krümmel for example, Hamburg a city of 2M would have had to be evacuated.
- DennisP 5y ago
  Taking a simple average like that implicitly assumes that nuclear technology has not improved in sixty years, and that we've refused even to learn simple lessons like "put a containment dome around your reactor." This is manifestly not the case.