4 ms·

They were bad, but just bad enough to roll over and give up on fission. While Chernobyl killed people from radiation (around 50, with a hotly debated number be

They were bad, but just bad enough to roll over and give up on fission. While Chernobyl killed people from radiation (around 50, with a hotly debated number between 0 and 4000 from long term effects), TMI and Fukushima did not. We have only directly amd definitively linked about 50 deaths to radiation released in commercial fission accidents. It's like a really bad bus crash. And that doesnt even count the social and emotional costs of fear and evacuation, which are large. But context matters. Particlates from fossil and biofuel cause more death every 7 hours than the high estimate of deaths from nuclears entire history (using 4000 in chernobyl). So nuclear fission is very safe. It's not perfectly safe, but it is orders of magnitude safer than the average energy source. Oh and it is carbon free so it prevents future deaths from climate change. So yeah.

sweezyjeezy 4y ago
You keep bringing up climate change, like the only alternative is coal. Do you really think that nuclear fission can be a key player in reducing emissions to net zero? It seems far too expensive and slow to set up for something this urgent.
- acidburnNSA 4y ago
  Fossil + biofuel makes 80% of our energy today. Getting rid of that will require vast amounts of zero-carbon energy. Wind and solar need to be built out at breakneck speed if we want to be serious. Much faster than what we're doing now. So does nuclear fission. I assume you're only looking at the slow and expensive nuclear builds? China is looking to build 150 new reactors to meet its goals. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2021-11-03/china-is-planning-at-least-150-new-nuclear-reactors-video https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2021-11-03/china-is-pl... We also have ways of making nuclear reactors extremely quickly if we want to get really serious. In the 1970s we started building a facility in Jacksonville Fl capable of delivering 4 large LWRs per year in a shipyard-like factory. The reactors were to be floated off to their sites (the first of which were offshore). They installed the world's largest gantry crane at the facility. Sadly the oil shocks reduced the energy demand where their first customers were (New Jersey refineries) and the effort failed after they received a construction license from the nuclear regulatory commission. Building zero carbon power plant gigafactories like this can solve climate change, you betcha. https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-01-26-offshore-power-systems.html https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-01-26-offshore-power-sys...
  - sweezyjeezy 4y ago
    By expensive, I mean in $/kWh - yes we could build enough nuclear power plants to stop carbon emissions, but if the cost of energy is multiple times greater than that of renewables, why not invest in those instead? I've heard this idea that we should "do everything", but I don't get that, why don't we do the best thing as well and as fast as we can?
    - acidburnNSA 4y ago
      > but if the cost of energy is multiple times greater than that of renewables, why not invest in those instead? First of all, we are investing more in renewables right now than nuclear. Much much more. Second of all, your statement is true for LCOE, but LCOE is an inappropriate metric for systems costs. It does not include the cost of storage, additional transmission lines to reach thousands of distributed wind/solar sites, extra capacity to fill up the storage, the required smart grid tech, etc. Quoting just LCOE is becoming extremely problematic. Everyone does it, and it's very misleading. Details of why it's best to also invest in nuclear from a full systems perspective are published and peer reviewed here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006
      - joak 4y ago
        Exactly, if you build a coal power plant today, the LCOE is calculated assuming the facility will run, let's say, for 30 years at 80% capacity. But what happens if you have to stop your power plant in ten years because its (LCOE-estimated) cost is not competitive anymore? So based on an biased LCOE computation, you sold your coal-based kWh at a third of it's real cost. Bad for the investor, bad for the climate.
        sweezyjeezy 4y ago
        Yeah but we shouldn't be comparing to coal - I already said this.
  - 7952 4y ago
miles 4y ago
> While Chernobyl killed people from radiation (around 50, with a hotly debated number between 0 and 4000 from long term effects), TMI and Fukushima did not. Japan confirms first Fukushima worker death from radiation https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45423575 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45423575
- acidburnNSA 4y ago
  That's basically a judge saying it. The scientific basis is very unclear.
  - miles 4y ago
    > That's basically a judge saying it. The scientific basis is very unclear. "In January 2015, the MHLW [Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare] compiled medical knowledge on lung cancer and radiation exposure in a report resulting from a review meeting of medical experts, and published the immediate view similar to that for thyroid cancer. The first claim for case of lung cancer was approved by MHLW in August 2018, and this was also the first case involving death." --From "Responses and Actions Taken by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan on Radiation Protection at Works Relating to the Accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant 9th Edition (Fiscal Year of 2021)" https://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/topics/2011eq/workers/ri/ar/rat_9th.pdf https://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/topics/2011eq/workers/ri/ar/r...
    - acidburnNSA 4y ago
      I understand that he received an estimated 74 mSv of radiation, somewhat below the level of 100 mSv acute / 300 mSv annual that has been shown to cause a measurable increase risk of cancer (e.g. from 40% lifetime risk to 40.1% lifetime risk). It's extremely dubious to say that this was definitely from Fukushima radiation. If that dose is accurate, the likelihood of it being from Fukushima radiation is probably less than 1%. Not impossible. But not likely, and far from a sure thing. For comparison, the 23 firefighters who died from acute radiation syndrome at Chernobyl got doses as high as 13,400 mSv, almost 2000x higher than this guy.
markvdb 4y ago
> They were bad, but just bad enough to roll over and give up on fission. Competent engineers are perfectly capable of maintaining a nuclear reactor, _technically_ speaking. Large projects are vulnerable to all vices of human nature though. Idiots in manglement. Greedy people trying to squeeze out more profit. Terrorists. Maffiosi, whether running a country or not. Let's not forget that scale is not just about money or spatial dimensions, but also time... We have a perfect example: Enerhodar, Ukraine. A working nuclear power plant is in the middle of a war zone right now.
- Banana699 4y ago
  This still doesn't address GP's comparison to fossil. Fossil powerplants are no less vulnerable to all of those things you listed, and in fact they were indeed used in wars, from Saddam burning Kuwait's fields in 1991 to Houthi drones attacking Saudi fields more recently to Libyan civil war. None of that is used against fossil the same way it's used against nuclear.

sweezyjeezy 4y ago

You keep bringing up climate change, like the only alternative is coal. Do you really think that nuclear fission can be a key player in reducing emissions to net zero? It seems far too expensive and slow to set up for something this urgent.

acidburnNSA 4y ago
Fossil + biofuel makes 80% of our energy today. Getting rid of that will require vast amounts of zero-carbon energy. Wind and solar need to be built out at breakneck speed if we want to be serious. Much faster than what we're doing now. So does nuclear fission. I assume you're only looking at the slow and expensive nuclear builds? China is looking to build 150 new reactors to meet its goals. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2021-11-03/china-is-planning-at-least-150-new-nuclear-reactors-video https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2021-11-03/china-is-pl... We also have ways of making nuclear reactors extremely quickly if we want to get really serious. In the 1970s we started building a facility in Jacksonville Fl capable of delivering 4 large LWRs per year in a shipyard-like factory. The reactors were to be floated off to their sites (the first of which were offshore). They installed the world's largest gantry crane at the facility. Sadly the oil shocks reduced the energy demand where their first customers were (New Jersey refineries) and the effort failed after they received a construction license from the nuclear regulatory commission. Building zero carbon power plant gigafactories like this can solve climate change, you betcha. https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-01-26-offshore-power-systems.html https://whatisnuclear.com/blog/2020-01-26-offshore-power-sys...
- sweezyjeezy 4y ago
  By expensive, I mean in $/kWh - yes we could build enough nuclear power plants to stop carbon emissions, but if the cost of energy is multiple times greater than that of renewables, why not invest in those instead? I've heard this idea that we should "do everything", but I don't get that, why don't we do the best thing as well and as fast as we can?
  - acidburnNSA 4y ago
    > but if the cost of energy is multiple times greater than that of renewables, why not invest in those instead? First of all, we are investing more in renewables right now than nuclear. Much much more. Second of all, your statement is true for LCOE, but LCOE is an inappropriate metric for systems costs. It does not include the cost of storage, additional transmission lines to reach thousands of distributed wind/solar sites, extra capacity to fill up the storage, the required smart grid tech, etc. Quoting just LCOE is becoming extremely problematic. Everyone does it, and it's very misleading. Details of why it's best to also invest in nuclear from a full systems perspective are published and peer reviewed here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.08.006
    - joak 4y ago
      Exactly, if you build a coal power plant today, the LCOE is calculated assuming the facility will run, let's say, for 30 years at 80% capacity. But what happens if you have to stop your power plant in ten years because its (LCOE-estimated) cost is not competitive anymore? So based on an biased LCOE computation, you sold your coal-based kWh at a third of it's real cost. Bad for the investor, bad for the climate.
      - sweezyjeezy 4y ago
        Yeah but we shouldn't be comparing to coal - I already said this.
- 7952 4y ago

miles 4y ago

> While Chernobyl killed people from radiation (around 50, with a hotly debated number between 0 and 4000 from long term effects), TMI and Fukushima did not. Japan confirms first Fukushima worker death from radiation https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45423575 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45423575

acidburnNSA 4y ago
That's basically a judge saying it. The scientific basis is very unclear.
- miles 4y ago
  > That's basically a judge saying it. The scientific basis is very unclear. "In January 2015, the MHLW [Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare] compiled medical knowledge on lung cancer and radiation exposure in a report resulting from a review meeting of medical experts, and published the immediate view similar to that for thyroid cancer. The first claim for case of lung cancer was approved by MHLW in August 2018, and this was also the first case involving death." --From "Responses and Actions Taken by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan on Radiation Protection at Works Relating to the Accident at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant 9th Edition (Fiscal Year of 2021)" https://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/topics/2011eq/workers/ri/ar/rat_9th.pdf https://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/topics/2011eq/workers/ri/ar/r...
  - acidburnNSA 4y ago
    I understand that he received an estimated 74 mSv of radiation, somewhat below the level of 100 mSv acute / 300 mSv annual that has been shown to cause a measurable increase risk of cancer (e.g. from 40% lifetime risk to 40.1% lifetime risk). It's extremely dubious to say that this was definitely from Fukushima radiation. If that dose is accurate, the likelihood of it being from Fukushima radiation is probably less than 1%. Not impossible. But not likely, and far from a sure thing. For comparison, the 23 firefighters who died from acute radiation syndrome at Chernobyl got doses as high as 13,400 mSv, almost 2000x higher than this guy.

markvdb 4y ago

> They were bad, but just bad enough to roll over and give up on fission. Competent engineers are perfectly capable of maintaining a nuclear reactor, _technically_ speaking. Large projects are vulnerable to all vices of human nature though. Idiots in manglement. Greedy people trying to squeeze out more profit. Terrorists. Maffiosi, whether running a country or not. Let's not forget that scale is not just about money or spatial dimensions, but also time... We have a perfect example: Enerhodar, Ukraine. A working nuclear power plant is in the middle of a war zone right now.

Banana699 4y ago
This still doesn't address GP's comparison to fossil. Fossil powerplants are no less vulnerable to all of those things you listed, and in fact they were indeed used in wars, from Saddam burning Kuwait's fields in 1991 to Houthi drones attacking Saudi fields more recently to Libyan civil war. None of that is used against fossil the same way it's used against nuclear.