5 ms·

What's so impossible about nuclear power? Red tape is purely social, not technological issue.

dredmorbius 4y ago
This section of Smil's book deals specifically with material resources and use. Nuclear power does not directly contribute to the manufacture of steel, plastics, concrete, or ammonia. There are conceivalble processes by which at least some of these might be addressed, and in the case of steel, electric arc furnaces for recycling existing steel are widely used. But direct application is limited. Smil is otherwise generally favourable toward nuclear, though he notes the political obstacles, based on risk perceptions (or miscperceptions) are quite high.
- imtringued 4y ago
  That's strange. Nuclear is purely an engineering challenge. The political obstacles are a result of poor engineering. For example, radioactive waste was improperly deposited in Germany (Asse) and now nobody wants to be responsible for disposal anymore. Fukushima was also an engineering problem. The backup generators were placed in such a way that they failed during the tsunami. Chernobyl is another example of shoddy engineering. They used a terrible design that was particularly prone to meltdowns and then intentionally ran it in a configuration that caused a meltdown. If the engineers actually did their job correctly there wouldn't be any problems. After all, every new generation of nuclear power plant got safer than the previous ones. If gen 1 and 2 reactors were as safe as gen 3 reactors there wouldn't be any safety problems to necessitate "political obstacles".
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    How do you plan on engineering around poor management, or military bombardment and occupation?
    - emteycz 4y ago
      The same way coal and gas radioactivity is managed It's not as safe as people think. It's spewing much more radioactivity around than actual nuclear power plants.
      - dredmorbius 4y ago
        I detect a few non sequitors and failures of scale here.
        emteycz 4y ago
        Better use your Geiger ;-) it's really significant, it should be one of the main reasons we should phase out coal totally and ASAP.
        dredmorbius 4y ago
        1. The amounts of radiation emitted by even the dirtiest of coal plants, whilst higher than a well-functioning nuclear power plant, is less than of living in a brick or stone structure, and is orders of magnitude below the lowest levels impacting health. See Randall Munroe's Radiation chart for a graphical view: https://xkcd.com/radiation/ https://xkcd.com/radiation/ 2. There are far more concerning threats from coal. Which is to say, the radiation concern is an absolute red herring. 3. A nuclear plant behaving badly is at the absolute high end of Munroe's chart. Ten minutes next to the Chernobyl core is over five times the lethal does even with treatment. Not only has every nuclear accident I'm aware of come about principally through management failures, personnel misconduct, or both, but the consequences of those events persist for centuries to millennia. Well beyond the lifetimes of any institutions we have to address them. Russia added direct military attack and occupation to that list earlier this year, and there's little reason to expect that this will go away. There's often some confusion that the argument is about nuclear vs. some other terrible energy choice, or that to be anti-nuclear is to be pro-some other specific option, or that those who raise these points are unaware of disasters with much larger immediate impacts. Say, Banqiao Dam, also a combination of errors: design, engineering, operation, weather, disaster preparedness, disaster response. The Banqiao region is now home once again to millions of Chinese, the event is entirely closed, and there is no lingering centuries- or millennia-long threat to deal with. The accident itself is an extreme outlier even amongst dam failures. The book has not yet been closed on Sellafield, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima, and numerous other smaller mishaps. That said, I'm not dead set against nuclear. But I'm also going to flatly reject that the problems it faces are strictly of engineering, and that they can be papered over with promises and misrepresentations. That is simply not true.
SemanticStrengh 4y ago
many industries needs explosions, that can't be easily electrified. Mines being the best example. More generally there are thousands different types of machines that currently consume fuel and needs to be reinvented to be electrified, and the governments are not funding said transition because politicians are not more informed than the average joe.
- emteycz 4y ago
  How about sonic mining?
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    What are you proposing? What does it solve? How does it source or separate minerals at fractions of a percent concentration in overburden or ore?

This section of Smil's book deals specifically with material resources and use. Nuclear power does not directly contribute to the manufacture of steel, plastics, concrete, or ammonia. There are conceivalble processes by which at least some of these might be addressed, and in the case of steel, electric arc furnaces for recycling existing steel are widely used. But direct application is limited. Smil is otherwise generally favourable toward nuclear, though he notes the political obstacles, based on risk perceptions (or miscperceptions) are quite high.

imtringued 4y ago
That's strange. Nuclear is purely an engineering challenge. The political obstacles are a result of poor engineering. For example, radioactive waste was improperly deposited in Germany (Asse) and now nobody wants to be responsible for disposal anymore. Fukushima was also an engineering problem. The backup generators were placed in such a way that they failed during the tsunami. Chernobyl is another example of shoddy engineering. They used a terrible design that was particularly prone to meltdowns and then intentionally ran it in a configuration that caused a meltdown. If the engineers actually did their job correctly there wouldn't be any problems. After all, every new generation of nuclear power plant got safer than the previous ones. If gen 1 and 2 reactors were as safe as gen 3 reactors there wouldn't be any safety problems to necessitate "political obstacles".
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  How do you plan on engineering around poor management, or military bombardment and occupation?
  - emteycz 4y ago
    The same way coal and gas radioactivity is managed It's not as safe as people think. It's spewing much more radioactivity around than actual nuclear power plants.
    - dredmorbius 4y ago
      I detect a few non sequitors and failures of scale here.
      - emteycz 4y ago
        Better use your Geiger ;-) it's really significant, it should be one of the main reasons we should phase out coal totally and ASAP.
        dredmorbius 4y ago
        1. The amounts of radiation emitted by even the dirtiest of coal plants, whilst higher than a well-functioning nuclear power plant, is less than of living in a brick or stone structure, and is orders of magnitude below the lowest levels impacting health. See Randall Munroe's Radiation chart for a graphical view: https://xkcd.com/radiation/ https://xkcd.com/radiation/ 2. There are far more concerning threats from coal. Which is to say, the radiation concern is an absolute red herring. 3. A nuclear plant behaving badly is at the absolute high end of Munroe's chart. Ten minutes next to the Chernobyl core is over five times the lethal does even with treatment. Not only has every nuclear accident I'm aware of come about principally through management failures, personnel misconduct, or both, but the consequences of those events persist for centuries to millennia. Well beyond the lifetimes of any institutions we have to address them. Russia added direct military attack and occupation to that list earlier this year, and there's little reason to expect that this will go away. There's often some confusion that the argument is about nuclear vs. some other terrible energy choice, or that to be anti-nuclear is to be pro-some other specific option, or that those who raise these points are unaware of disasters with much larger immediate impacts. Say, Banqiao Dam, also a combination of errors: design, engineering, operation, weather, disaster preparedness, disaster response. The Banqiao region is now home once again to millions of Chinese, the event is entirely closed, and there is no lingering centuries- or millennia-long threat to deal with. The accident itself is an extreme outlier even amongst dam failures. The book has not yet been closed on Sellafield, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima, and numerous other smaller mishaps. That said, I'm not dead set against nuclear. But I'm also going to flatly reject that the problems it faces are strictly of engineering, and that they can be papered over with promises and misrepresentations. That is simply not true.

SemanticStrengh 4y ago

many industries needs explosions, that can't be easily electrified. Mines being the best example. More generally there are thousands different types of machines that currently consume fuel and needs to be reinvented to be electrified, and the governments are not funding said transition because politicians are not more informed than the average joe.

emteycz 4y ago
How about sonic mining?
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  What are you proposing? What does it solve? How does it source or separate minerals at fractions of a percent concentration in overburden or ore?