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The reasons are political… just like in the United States. HBO with their Chernobyl miniseries single-handedly undid years of progress in the perception of nuc

The reasons are political… just like in the United States. HBO with their Chernobyl miniseries single-handedly undid years of progress in the perception of nuclear energy.

jlkuester7 4y ago
> HBO with their Chernobyl miniseries single-handedly undid years of progress Wait, seriously? That miniseries was not perfect, but I thought it did a pretty good job of pointing out the issues with Chernobyl were largely political and not technical. (Sure the RBMK reactors were flawed, that is a technical issue. But the only reason that escalated into a disaster was due to gross mismanagement and flagrant disregard of safety systems...)
- rectang 4y ago
  > gross mismanagement and flagrant disregard of safety systems... Gross mismanagement and flagrant disregard of safety systems are inevitable, inherent features of power utilities. If your technology is disastrous without perfect handling, your technology is disastrous.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > your technology is disastrous without perfect handling, your technology is disastrous Did we watch the same miniseries? Chernobyl went beyond gross negligence. To say nothing of perfection. In the reactor design, in its operation and in post-crisis management.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      No, it was absolutely typical gross negligence, with unfortunately outsized consequences. Fukushima was exactly equal negligence, with absolutely expected consequences.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    They didn't need perfect handling, just halfway competent. But since the rest of the world doesn't build reactors of that type, and never built any without even a containment building AFAIK, it's not really applicable to modern nuclear power plant designs.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- goodpoint 4y ago
  Nuclear in inherently vulnerable to politics, mismanagement and attempts at cover-up. As it happened in Fukushima as well as Chernobyl. Because it's centralized, quite isolated from the public eye and with the potential to cause invisible environmental impact.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  The Chernobyl miniseries greatly distorted the impact of the meltdown. They cited the "bridge of death" where everyone supposedly died. In reality there are zero known deaths among people who watched the meltdown from that overpass, and there's even interviews with people who were there. They cited a death estimate of 60,000 when reputable sources estimate 200-1,700 deaths.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    False. Cancer rates downwind are sharply elevated.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      Credible estimates do include increases in cancer, especially thyroid cancer. That is captured in the estimates of ~1,700. The 60,000 estimates shared by Netflix are not regarded as credible.
pydry 4y ago
If something cant operate without lavish subsidies it automatically becomes political. E.g. Bill Gates' nuclear startup would be dead in the water without its subsidies. That makes it political.
Retric 4y ago
The reasons are economic. France has been heavily subsidizing nuclear for years and can swap to cheaper alternatives for less money. It’s not that nuclear is any worse, it’s just that the alternatives got better.
- anonporridge 4y ago
  Wind and solar got better, but it seems fundamentally problematic to me to suggest that those are the alternatives to nuclear. They're not. Fossil fuel is the alternative to nuclear (and possibly battery supported wind/solar) as the base load. Fossil fuels are fundamentally cheaper because they can more easily avoid paying the cost of their negative externalities than nuclear can. If we could actually internalize the negatives of fossil fuel burning (i.e. by carbon tax) then nuclear might actually be the most economical option for the base load with solar and wind picking up the slack.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Renewables + storage is the alternative to nukes. And, there is simply no contest. Nukes have been left far behind.
  - Retric 4y ago
    Even with that line of thinking, France was well past the point of using Nukes for base load power. France had nuclear capacity factors around 70% when America and much of the worlds nuclear power plants where closer to 90%. It physically worked, but dramatically increased production cost per KWH. Assuming they cut back to 30% or even 40% of all electricity being supplied by nuclear that’s still a significantly reduction.
adrianN 4y ago
Or perhaps the reasons are economical. Recently nuclear construction projects became a lot more expensive and took a lot longer than initially planned.
- anonporridge 4y ago
  Some of those economical problems are burdened on the nuclear industry because of political problems. For example, because everyone is terrified of nuclear, regulations may require an absurd level of safety expenses that no other energy producer is burdened with. If the political climate lead to burdening fossil fuel burners with costs to reduce their pollution and GHG emissions that directly and indirectly lead to orders of magnitude more deaths than nuclear ever has, then nuclear might actually be price competitive. As another example, since the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the US started in 1975, they have never, not once, approved the construction of a new nuclear site in the US. They've approved expansion of existing sites, but never a new one. In fact, it was a huge deal when the NRC approved the expansion of a site several years ago, for the first time in 30 years, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclear-license/nrc-approves-first-new-nuclear-plant-in-a-generation-idUSTRE8181T420120209 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclear-license/nrc-a... How much pain and death is the NRC ultimately responsible for for holding nuclear energy to such a high safety standard that it's been literally impossible to build a new site for almost 50 years? Because all that means, is that we've burned drastically more fossil fuel than necessary over the past 50 years. Shame on the NRC and the US government for using irrational fear to protect the fossil fuel industry at the expense of nuclear energy. And shame on environmentalists for falling for the same trap and failing to think holistically and systemically.
  - logifail 4y ago
    > because everyone is terrified of nuclear, regulations may require an absurd level of safety expenses that no other energy producer is burdened with "The researchers start out with a historic analysis of plant construction in the US. The basic numbers are grim. The typical plant built after 1970 had a cost overrun of 241 percent—and that's not considering the financing costs of the construction delays [..] while safety regulations added to the costs, they were far from the primary factor [...] In the end, the conclusion is that there are no easy answers to how to make nuclear plant construction more efficient. And, until there are, it will continue to be badly undercut by both renewables and fossil fuel."[0] [0] https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/why-are-nuclear-plants-so-expensive-safetys-only-part-of-the-story/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/why-are-nuclear-plan...
heretogetout 4y ago
The ascendancy of wind and cheap natural gas probably had a greater effect, considering the miniseries is only a couple years old.
- trashtester 4y ago
  I suppose now that some of the sources of such gas is being cut, those French nuclear plants will be extremely profitable for a while.
cycomanic 4y ago
According to perceptions and advertising about nuclear we should have unlimited power and everything from our cars to our stoves would be running of nuclear. All this should have been possible with just a containers worth of nuclear waste (experts in the 50s,60s seriously said operating a whole country of nuclear would result in maybe a ton of nuclear waste). Nuclear completely undelivered on this promise. Tschernobyl was just the nail in the coffin. On top of that has the nuclear industry been one of the strongest lobbying groups against wind and solar, mainly to protect their investments. I would argue on the whole we would have been much further in terms of renewable energy if it wasn't for the nuclear industry.

The reasons are political… just like in the United States. HBO with their Chernobyl miniseries single-handedly undid years of progress in the perception of nuclear energy.

jlkuester7 4y ago

> HBO with their Chernobyl miniseries single-handedly undid years of progress Wait, seriously? That miniseries was not perfect, but I thought it did a pretty good job of pointing out the issues with Chernobyl were largely political and not technical. (Sure the RBMK reactors were flawed, that is a technical issue. But the only reason that escalated into a disaster was due to gross mismanagement and flagrant disregard of safety systems...)

rectang 4y ago
> gross mismanagement and flagrant disregard of safety systems... Gross mismanagement and flagrant disregard of safety systems are inevitable, inherent features of power utilities. If your technology is disastrous without perfect handling, your technology is disastrous.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > your technology is disastrous without perfect handling, your technology is disastrous Did we watch the same miniseries? Chernobyl went beyond gross negligence. To say nothing of perfection. In the reactor design, in its operation and in post-crisis management.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    No, it was absolutely typical gross negligence, with unfortunately outsized consequences. Fukushima was exactly equal negligence, with absolutely expected consequences.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  They didn't need perfect handling, just halfway competent. But since the rest of the world doesn't build reactors of that type, and never built any without even a containment building AFAIK, it's not really applicable to modern nuclear power plant designs.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
goodpoint 4y ago
Nuclear in inherently vulnerable to politics, mismanagement and attempts at cover-up. As it happened in Fukushima as well as Chernobyl. Because it's centralized, quite isolated from the public eye and with the potential to cause invisible environmental impact.
Manuel_D 4y ago
The Chernobyl miniseries greatly distorted the impact of the meltdown. They cited the "bridge of death" where everyone supposedly died. In reality there are zero known deaths among people who watched the meltdown from that overpass, and there's even interviews with people who were there. They cited a death estimate of 60,000 when reputable sources estimate 200-1,700 deaths.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  False. Cancer rates downwind are sharply elevated.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    Credible estimates do include increases in cancer, especially thyroid cancer. That is captured in the estimates of ~1,700. The 60,000 estimates shared by Netflix are not regarded as credible.

pydry 4y ago

If something cant operate without lavish subsidies it automatically becomes political. E.g. Bill Gates' nuclear startup would be dead in the water without its subsidies. That makes it political.

Retric 4y ago

The reasons are economic. France has been heavily subsidizing nuclear for years and can swap to cheaper alternatives for less money. It’s not that nuclear is any worse, it’s just that the alternatives got better.

anonporridge 4y ago
Wind and solar got better, but it seems fundamentally problematic to me to suggest that those are the alternatives to nuclear. They're not. Fossil fuel is the alternative to nuclear (and possibly battery supported wind/solar) as the base load. Fossil fuels are fundamentally cheaper because they can more easily avoid paying the cost of their negative externalities than nuclear can. If we could actually internalize the negatives of fossil fuel burning (i.e. by carbon tax) then nuclear might actually be the most economical option for the base load with solar and wind picking up the slack.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Renewables + storage is the alternative to nukes. And, there is simply no contest. Nukes have been left far behind.
- Retric 4y ago
  Even with that line of thinking, France was well past the point of using Nukes for base load power. France had nuclear capacity factors around 70% when America and much of the worlds nuclear power plants where closer to 90%. It physically worked, but dramatically increased production cost per KWH. Assuming they cut back to 30% or even 40% of all electricity being supplied by nuclear that’s still a significantly reduction.

adrianN 4y ago

Or perhaps the reasons are economical. Recently nuclear construction projects became a lot more expensive and took a lot longer than initially planned.

anonporridge 4y ago
Some of those economical problems are burdened on the nuclear industry because of political problems. For example, because everyone is terrified of nuclear, regulations may require an absurd level of safety expenses that no other energy producer is burdened with. If the political climate lead to burdening fossil fuel burners with costs to reduce their pollution and GHG emissions that directly and indirectly lead to orders of magnitude more deaths than nuclear ever has, then nuclear might actually be price competitive. As another example, since the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the US started in 1975, they have never, not once, approved the construction of a new nuclear site in the US. They've approved expansion of existing sites, but never a new one. In fact, it was a huge deal when the NRC approved the expansion of a site several years ago, for the first time in 30 years, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclear-license/nrc-approves-first-new-nuclear-plant-in-a-generation-idUSTRE8181T420120209 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclear-license/nrc-a... How much pain and death is the NRC ultimately responsible for for holding nuclear energy to such a high safety standard that it's been literally impossible to build a new site for almost 50 years? Because all that means, is that we've burned drastically more fossil fuel than necessary over the past 50 years. Shame on the NRC and the US government for using irrational fear to protect the fossil fuel industry at the expense of nuclear energy. And shame on environmentalists for falling for the same trap and failing to think holistically and systemically.
- logifail 4y ago
  > because everyone is terrified of nuclear, regulations may require an absurd level of safety expenses that no other energy producer is burdened with "The researchers start out with a historic analysis of plant construction in the US. The basic numbers are grim. The typical plant built after 1970 had a cost overrun of 241 percent—and that's not considering the financing costs of the construction delays [..] while safety regulations added to the costs, they were far from the primary factor [...] In the end, the conclusion is that there are no easy answers to how to make nuclear plant construction more efficient. And, until there are, it will continue to be badly undercut by both renewables and fossil fuel."[0] [0] https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/why-are-nuclear-plants-so-expensive-safetys-only-part-of-the-story/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/11/why-are-nuclear-plan...

heretogetout 4y ago

The ascendancy of wind and cheap natural gas probably had a greater effect, considering the miniseries is only a couple years old.

trashtester 4y ago
I suppose now that some of the sources of such gas is being cut, those French nuclear plants will be extremely profitable for a while.

cycomanic 4y ago

According to perceptions and advertising about nuclear we should have unlimited power and everything from our cars to our stoves would be running of nuclear. All this should have been possible with just a containers worth of nuclear waste (experts in the 50s,60s seriously said operating a whole country of nuclear would result in maybe a ton of nuclear waste). Nuclear completely undelivered on this promise. Tschernobyl was just the nail in the coffin. On top of that has the nuclear industry been one of the strongest lobbying groups against wind and solar, mainly to protect their investments. I would argue on the whole we would have been much further in terms of renewable energy if it wasn't for the nuclear industry.