8 ms·

Not an expert here, but from a commentary piece from 2021: https://www.wsj.com/articles/nuclear-regulatory-council-nrc-energy-regulator-radiation-climate-chang

by kyrra 4y ago

Not an expert here, but from a commentary piece from 2021: https://www.wsj.com/articles/nuclear-regulatory-council-nrc-energy-regulator-radiation-climate-change-11632257020 https://www.wsj.com/articles/nuclear-regulatory-council-nrc-... > In 1957 the internationally recommended limit for radiation exposure was about 15 times the natural background radiation that people absorb from rocks and cosmic rays. Without evidence of harm from exposures within the 1957 limits, the U.S. had by 1991 ratcheted its public limits down to less than a third of natural background radiation. This is a common theme that the WSJ opinion pages push. Much of the regulation put out by Washington isn't about safety, but more about bureaucrats protecting themselves from every being too loose with regulation. It's rare, if ever, that a federal agency gets in trouble for having rules that are too strict. They do get blamed if something happens in an industry they regulate, and people scream that more regulation is needed.

maccam94 4y ago
I think the root cause here is that people are afraid to live near nuclear plants, and would get mad at their political representatives if they got built in their area. Making these limits more stringent makes it look like the politicians are forcing the plants to be safer, when really they are just blocking the plants from being built in their districts at all.
- bamboozled 4y ago
  Would you like to live near one ?
  - emteycz 4y ago
    I live near one, it's the best environment I've ever lived within, especially compared to the coal thermal plant that was near where I used to live.
  - RealityVoid 4y ago
    Yes. It would just be hard to persuade my girlfriend.
  - DigitallyFidget 4y ago
    I've lived near one, and I'd rather live near one again instead of near a coal plant.
  - mdp2021 4y ago
    Sorry - why not? I can think of definitely devastating infrastructure - I have experienced wind turbines, for example -, and I am not aware of issues related to living near a nuclear power plant (apart from the very rare critical accidents). Do nuclear power plants cause pollution in the surrounding territory?
  - jhgb 4y ago
    I'd like to live near any power plant other than a coal-burning or biomass-burning one.
    - trashtester 4y ago
      Some hydro plants are actually really dangerous....
      - jhgb 4y ago
        Well, my country sadly has virtually no suitable geography for "traditional" hydro. We have dams worth several hundred MW of generation (out of ~9 GW of average generation). So a dam suddenly getting built in your backyard is a non-issue here.
  - Robin_Message 4y ago
    I live in Europe. Currently, instead of the small risk of a nuclear plant going near me going bad (which even in the worst case scenarios has led to very limited loss of life), we're instead funding a country that is actively threatening nuclear retaliation for some of our policies. So personally, I'd be happy to trade the small risk of a nearby industrial accident for the small risk of a massive fucking bomb exploding in my general vicinity.
  - icelancer 4y ago
    I grew up near one. Played baseball on the fields near the plant all the time, actually. It's fine.
  - int0x2e 4y ago
    Yes! Yes I would! I currently live about 4 miles away from a coal plant. I know it's giving us various health issues the slow way. I'd much rather live next door to a nuclear plant. Even if you falsely assume we'd have a Chernobyl-style disaster every 10 years once we switched most of our coal plants to nuclear power (which would be extremely unlikely with competent system planning and operation, things we have learned well by now) - it would still be much safer with nuclear once you realize the health costs of coal plants - nuclear simply is the way to go.
  - bsagdiyev 4y ago
    I do live near one, near Shearon Harris actually. I'm not bothered by it in the least.
  - trashtester 4y ago
    Yes.
- runarberg 4y ago
  I’m not an expert but I feel like there is an actual merit behind these regulations. I mean I just did a quick google for "Hanford Cancer Rate" and immediately see stuff like: > study shows that Hanford workers were 11 times more likely to develop mesothelioma, a cancer of the lungs strongly tied to asbestos exposure, than in the general population. I know that Hanford was an exceptionally bad Nuclear Plant, but it is also a plant which was build in the laxer regulatory environment of the military with an excuse that appeals to "national security". But that is kind of the point though, without the regulations I would expect these plants to be at least as bad as Hanford. This rhetoric about nuclear power plants being to heavily regulated is starting to feel a bit conspiratorial.
  - dan-robertson 4y ago
    I don’t know any of the details and it is plausible to me that there might be a higher cancer rate. But maybe the mesothelioma was due to actual asbestos? That also seems plausible to me.
  - icelancer 4y ago
    > mesothelioma What does this have to do with nuclear energy? This was almost certainly due to asbestos, which affected tons of other industries equally.
    - runarberg 4y ago
      I literally just took the first search result. If you go down the list there is no shortage of studies linking cancer to nearby residents and workers. E.g. the same study which found the mesothelioma at 11× also found multiple myeloma at 3× the risk along the same workers. My second search result shows a study linking thyroid cancer to downwind residence. Cancer risk is not the only thing that made Hanford a terrible site. They also systematically leaked radioactive water into the Columbia river for over 25 years. The cleanup effort is now one the the biggest employer in the region and the cost is estimated at $113.6 billion I would expect that if the nuclear industry wasn’t as regulated that we would see numbers like these (including the deaths by asbestos) throughout the country.
  - 4y ago
_djo_ 4y ago
Those regulations are designed with the knowledge that 100% compliance is impossible, so a safety buffer is designed in that ensures people are kept as safe as possible even within an imperfect regulatory compliance regime. Those limits are a target, and plants will likely exceed them slightly from time to time. That might not be caught for months, and keeping them at such low levels means the plants can have reasonable time to return to compliance without shutting everything down. That's over and above the possibility of catastrophic disasters, which are covered through other regulations. Some regulations are bad, sure, but there's generally a ton of thinking and precedence behind those related to safety.
- trashtester 4y ago
  When it comes to regulations, there are cultural differences in compliance. In places like Germany and Scandinavia, I'm pretty sure that such over-provisioning through regulation is overkill. Anyway, a lot of old nuclear plants are still in use, and the total number of deaths is extremely low. We would have to lower safety standards quite a lot for the average safety of the new plants to be lower than the average of the pre-existing ones.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Maybe low carbon power sources like nuclear would have done better if the WSJ hadn't been telling people that Climate Change didn't exist/wasn't a problem/wasn't caused by humans/was being pushed by communist beaurocrats for their own devilish purposes.
- kyrra 4y ago
  That's not their opinion as far as I can tell. They have published Lomborg a lot that mainly says that it is changing, but the impact won't be that bad and can be mitigated. Holman Jenkins also has a similar stance. https://www.google.com/search?q=Bj%C3%B8rn+Lomborg+site%3Awsj.com https://www.google.com/search?q=Bj%C3%B8rn+Lomborg+site%3Aws... https://www.google.com/search?q=jenkins+climate+site%3Awsj.com https://www.google.com/search?q=jenkins+climate+site%3Awsj.c...
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    They are famous climate denialists, and have been for decades: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fiddling-while-the-planet/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fiddling-while-th...
Trombone12 4y ago
> This is a common theme that the WSJ opinion pages push. Am I reading this correctly when I take it to mean that you think something being on the WSJ opinion pages gives it credibility?
- kyrra 4y ago
  I said that phrase so that people that care know this article was pushed in their opinion section. Opinion pages don't mean they lie, it means they will use facts to back up an opinion the writer is expressing. Their opinion pages have a slant for sure, but tend to be much on the rails that some other papers. You are welcome to argue against the point WSJ editorial board (or guest writers, such as the piece I linked) is making on their pages, but outright discounting an argument because of a source is intellectually lazy. Yes, we need to discriminate by source at least some, but that should make us skeptical, not out right reject a point being made.
  - Trombone12 4y ago
    > Opinion pages don't mean they lie, it means they will use facts to back up an opinion the writer is expressing This is simply untrue of the WSJ opinion pages, they've been publishing climate change denials for the last 30 years, so "factual" is absolutely not something you can just take for granted if you find it there. This is why I found it incredible that you implied it would be a mark of quality.

by kyrra 4y ago

maccam94 4y ago

I think the root cause here is that people are afraid to live near nuclear plants, and would get mad at their political representatives if they got built in their area. Making these limits more stringent makes it look like the politicians are forcing the plants to be safer, when really they are just blocking the plants from being built in their districts at all.

bamboozled 4y ago
Would you like to live near one ?
- emteycz 4y ago
  I live near one, it's the best environment I've ever lived within, especially compared to the coal thermal plant that was near where I used to live.
- RealityVoid 4y ago
  Yes. It would just be hard to persuade my girlfriend.
- DigitallyFidget 4y ago
  I've lived near one, and I'd rather live near one again instead of near a coal plant.
- mdp2021 4y ago
  Sorry - why not? I can think of definitely devastating infrastructure - I have experienced wind turbines, for example -, and I am not aware of issues related to living near a nuclear power plant (apart from the very rare critical accidents). Do nuclear power plants cause pollution in the surrounding territory?
- jhgb 4y ago
  I'd like to live near any power plant other than a coal-burning or biomass-burning one.
  - trashtester 4y ago
    Some hydro plants are actually really dangerous....
    - jhgb 4y ago
      Well, my country sadly has virtually no suitable geography for "traditional" hydro. We have dams worth several hundred MW of generation (out of ~9 GW of average generation). So a dam suddenly getting built in your backyard is a non-issue here.
- Robin_Message 4y ago
  I live in Europe. Currently, instead of the small risk of a nuclear plant going near me going bad (which even in the worst case scenarios has led to very limited loss of life), we're instead funding a country that is actively threatening nuclear retaliation for some of our policies. So personally, I'd be happy to trade the small risk of a nearby industrial accident for the small risk of a massive fucking bomb exploding in my general vicinity.
- icelancer 4y ago
  I grew up near one. Played baseball on the fields near the plant all the time, actually. It's fine.
- int0x2e 4y ago
  Yes! Yes I would! I currently live about 4 miles away from a coal plant. I know it's giving us various health issues the slow way. I'd much rather live next door to a nuclear plant. Even if you falsely assume we'd have a Chernobyl-style disaster every 10 years once we switched most of our coal plants to nuclear power (which would be extremely unlikely with competent system planning and operation, things we have learned well by now) - it would still be much safer with nuclear once you realize the health costs of coal plants - nuclear simply is the way to go.
- bsagdiyev 4y ago
  I do live near one, near Shearon Harris actually. I'm not bothered by it in the least.
- trashtester 4y ago
  Yes.
runarberg 4y ago
I’m not an expert but I feel like there is an actual merit behind these regulations. I mean I just did a quick google for "Hanford Cancer Rate" and immediately see stuff like: > study shows that Hanford workers were 11 times more likely to develop mesothelioma, a cancer of the lungs strongly tied to asbestos exposure, than in the general population. I know that Hanford was an exceptionally bad Nuclear Plant, but it is also a plant which was build in the laxer regulatory environment of the military with an excuse that appeals to "national security". But that is kind of the point though, without the regulations I would expect these plants to be at least as bad as Hanford. This rhetoric about nuclear power plants being to heavily regulated is starting to feel a bit conspiratorial.
- dan-robertson 4y ago
  I don’t know any of the details and it is plausible to me that there might be a higher cancer rate. But maybe the mesothelioma was due to actual asbestos? That also seems plausible to me.
- icelancer 4y ago
  > mesothelioma What does this have to do with nuclear energy? This was almost certainly due to asbestos, which affected tons of other industries equally.
  - runarberg 4y ago
    I literally just took the first search result. If you go down the list there is no shortage of studies linking cancer to nearby residents and workers. E.g. the same study which found the mesothelioma at 11× also found multiple myeloma at 3× the risk along the same workers. My second search result shows a study linking thyroid cancer to downwind residence. Cancer risk is not the only thing that made Hanford a terrible site. They also systematically leaked radioactive water into the Columbia river for over 25 years. The cleanup effort is now one the the biggest employer in the region and the cost is estimated at $113.6 billion I would expect that if the nuclear industry wasn’t as regulated that we would see numbers like these (including the deaths by asbestos) throughout the country.
- 4y ago

_djo_ 4y ago

Those regulations are designed with the knowledge that 100% compliance is impossible, so a safety buffer is designed in that ensures people are kept as safe as possible even within an imperfect regulatory compliance regime. Those limits are a target, and plants will likely exceed them slightly from time to time. That might not be caught for months, and keeping them at such low levels means the plants can have reasonable time to return to compliance without shutting everything down. That's over and above the possibility of catastrophic disasters, which are covered through other regulations. Some regulations are bad, sure, but there's generally a ton of thinking and precedence behind those related to safety.

trashtester 4y ago
When it comes to regulations, there are cultural differences in compliance. In places like Germany and Scandinavia, I'm pretty sure that such over-provisioning through regulation is overkill. Anyway, a lot of old nuclear plants are still in use, and the total number of deaths is extremely low. We would have to lower safety standards quite a lot for the average safety of the new plants to be lower than the average of the pre-existing ones.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

Maybe low carbon power sources like nuclear would have done better if the WSJ hadn't been telling people that Climate Change didn't exist/wasn't a problem/wasn't caused by humans/was being pushed by communist beaurocrats for their own devilish purposes.

kyrra 4y ago
That's not their opinion as far as I can tell. They have published Lomborg a lot that mainly says that it is changing, but the impact won't be that bad and can be mitigated. Holman Jenkins also has a similar stance. https://www.google.com/search?q=Bj%C3%B8rn+Lomborg+site%3Awsj.com https://www.google.com/search?q=Bj%C3%B8rn+Lomborg+site%3Aws... https://www.google.com/search?q=jenkins+climate+site%3Awsj.com https://www.google.com/search?q=jenkins+climate+site%3Awsj.c...
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  They are famous climate denialists, and have been for decades: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fiddling-while-the-planet/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fiddling-while-th...

Trombone12 4y ago

> This is a common theme that the WSJ opinion pages push. Am I reading this correctly when I take it to mean that you think something being on the WSJ opinion pages gives it credibility?

kyrra 4y ago
I said that phrase so that people that care know this article was pushed in their opinion section. Opinion pages don't mean they lie, it means they will use facts to back up an opinion the writer is expressing. Their opinion pages have a slant for sure, but tend to be much on the rails that some other papers. You are welcome to argue against the point WSJ editorial board (or guest writers, such as the piece I linked) is making on their pages, but outright discounting an argument because of a source is intellectually lazy. Yes, we need to discriminate by source at least some, but that should make us skeptical, not out right reject a point being made.
- Trombone12 4y ago
  > Opinion pages don't mean they lie, it means they will use facts to back up an opinion the writer is expressing This is simply untrue of the WSJ opinion pages, they've been publishing climate change denials for the last 30 years, so "factual" is absolutely not something you can just take for granted if you find it there. This is why I found it incredible that you implied it would be a mark of quality.