4 ms·

> if they did go ahead we would've had decades less coal burning If they did go ahead without safety measures, and had an incident, the plant would likely be s

> if they did go ahead we would've had decades less coal burning If they did go ahead without safety measures, and had an incident, the plant would likely be shut down, and then you have the domino effect that Fukishima had (e.g., Germany shutting down all their plants). Nuclear can be viable when both proper safety can be ensured economically, and when that surety can be shared by its voting population

bb88 4y ago
> If they did go ahead without safety measures, and had an incident, the plant would likely be shut down Three Mile Island had two close calls. The first was the reactor was only 30-60 minutes from going into complete meltdown. The second was potentially using a faulty crane to remove the lid of the reactor vessel. Either one of those would have made large areas of dense urban area unlivable.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  When was this crane thing? It would have been long after the reactor had reached cold shutdown, so what exactly was the accident it was supposed to have almost caused?
  - keneda7 4y ago
    Not the OP but the crane incident was shortly after the first incident. The higher ups wanted to use the polar crane to lift a bunch of radioactive debris out of the core that almost melted down. At least one of the workers (Rick Parks) ended up whistleblowing over it because the crane was the same one that was there during the incident and most likely had taken damage. He was concerned the crane would fail while lifting the radioactive debris out (around 1000 lbs of it) and fall back onto the core. Check out the Netflix document Meltdown: Three mile Island for more info.
    - bondarchuk 4y ago
      This is also in Moral Mazes somewhere, if you prefer a written summary.
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      Yeah, that "shortly after"... the reactor top wasn't lifted off until FIVE YEARS after the accident. So I ask again: just what horrible public-relevant accident is supposed to have nearly happened here? I can't imagine anything that would have caused anything catastrophic. The lid falling back onto the reactor vessel wouldn't be that.
      - keneda7 4y ago
        Sorry for the late response. The fear was that the crane would fail and drop the debris back into the core and set off a nuclear explosion.
        pfdietz 4y ago
        They added large amounts of borate to the water before opening the top. There was no way it was going to go critical (and if it had, it would at best have been a steam explosion, not a nuclear bomb, as the chain reaction if it could have occurred at all would have been with slow thermal neutrons.)
- actinium226 4y ago
  Why is nuclear judged by near misses while coal pollutes like crazy daily and causes real lung damage and no one bats an eye?
  - dillondoyle 4y ago
    * real death. Quick googling shows wildly different numbers, but the lowest study in top results says 1 million per year from coal alone. All global warming + pollution is way higher. One study estimated 1 in 5 deaths. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935121000487 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00139...
  - Gwypaas 4y ago
    Because coal is not an alternative today, renewables are and they have miniscule external pollution in relation to everything else.
    - kortilla 4y ago
      No, renewables are not an alternative to fossil fuels. That’s why natural gas and coal fire plants are still being cranked out today.
      - Gwypaas 4y ago
        Seems to work just fine? This will of course penetrate down to less ideal locations as costs continue to decline. > South Australia is at the vanguard of the global energy transition, having transformed its energy system from 1% to over 60% renewable energy in just over 15 years. > By 2025/2026, the Australian Energy Market Operator forecasts this could rise to approximately 85%. > South Australia’s aspiration is to achieve 100% net renewables by 2030. In 2021, South Australia met 100% of its operational demand from renewable resources on 180 days (49%). https://www.energymining.sa.gov.au/industry/modern-energy/leading-the-green-economy https://www.energymining.sa.gov.au/industry/modern-energy/le...
        4y ago
deevolution 4y ago
The natural disaster was responsible for killing people, not the nuclear meltdown... maybe if we had been consistently building nuclear since the 60s we wouldn't be in this global warming catastrophe? Obviously speculation, but I'm curious what our global CO2 levels would be if all the major industrialized nations transitioned to 100% nuclear Over the last 60 years. Anyone happen to have some charts?
- ant6n 4y ago
  The plant couldn’t deal with an electricity outage for 24h.
  - spfzero 4y ago
    An outage that was caused by something that, through a rare confluence of events, also destroyed their outage-backup-plan. The plant could have easily dealt with most power outages. Not to say there isn't a lesson to be learned, obviously, but to say the plant couldn't deal with an outage is ingenuous at minimum.
    - ant6n 4y ago
      Battery backup was good for 8h. Seems pretty risky to me, there are many scenarios thinkable where a power outage for more than 8h could occur. For example some natural disaster, which across ubiquitously deployed nuclear would occur every day somewhere on earth.
      - spfzero 4y ago
        >there are many scenarios thinkable where a power outage for more than 8h could occur. Sure, and they thought of them, which is why they had generators as well as batteries.
    - denton-scratch 4y ago
      > but to say the plant couldn't deal with an outage is ingenuous at minimum. Did you mean "disingenuous"? "Ingenuous" means lacking in guile or craftiness. "Disingenuous" means having the intent to deceive, and is used much more often.

bb88 4y ago

> If they did go ahead without safety measures, and had an incident, the plant would likely be shut down Three Mile Island had two close calls. The first was the reactor was only 30-60 minutes from going into complete meltdown. The second was potentially using a faulty crane to remove the lid of the reactor vessel. Either one of those would have made large areas of dense urban area unlivable.

pfdietz 4y ago
When was this crane thing? It would have been long after the reactor had reached cold shutdown, so what exactly was the accident it was supposed to have almost caused?
- keneda7 4y ago
  Not the OP but the crane incident was shortly after the first incident. The higher ups wanted to use the polar crane to lift a bunch of radioactive debris out of the core that almost melted down. At least one of the workers (Rick Parks) ended up whistleblowing over it because the crane was the same one that was there during the incident and most likely had taken damage. He was concerned the crane would fail while lifting the radioactive debris out (around 1000 lbs of it) and fall back onto the core. Check out the Netflix document Meltdown: Three mile Island for more info.
  - bondarchuk 4y ago
    This is also in Moral Mazes somewhere, if you prefer a written summary.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    Yeah, that "shortly after"... the reactor top wasn't lifted off until FIVE YEARS after the accident. So I ask again: just what horrible public-relevant accident is supposed to have nearly happened here? I can't imagine anything that would have caused anything catastrophic. The lid falling back onto the reactor vessel wouldn't be that.
    - keneda7 4y ago
      Sorry for the late response. The fear was that the crane would fail and drop the debris back into the core and set off a nuclear explosion.
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        They added large amounts of borate to the water before opening the top. There was no way it was going to go critical (and if it had, it would at best have been a steam explosion, not a nuclear bomb, as the chain reaction if it could have occurred at all would have been with slow thermal neutrons.)
actinium226 4y ago
Why is nuclear judged by near misses while coal pollutes like crazy daily and causes real lung damage and no one bats an eye?
- dillondoyle 4y ago
  * real death. Quick googling shows wildly different numbers, but the lowest study in top results says 1 million per year from coal alone. All global warming + pollution is way higher. One study estimated 1 in 5 deaths. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935121000487 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00139...
- Gwypaas 4y ago
  Because coal is not an alternative today, renewables are and they have miniscule external pollution in relation to everything else.
  - kortilla 4y ago
    No, renewables are not an alternative to fossil fuels. That’s why natural gas and coal fire plants are still being cranked out today.
    - Gwypaas 4y ago
      Seems to work just fine? This will of course penetrate down to less ideal locations as costs continue to decline. > South Australia is at the vanguard of the global energy transition, having transformed its energy system from 1% to over 60% renewable energy in just over 15 years. > By 2025/2026, the Australian Energy Market Operator forecasts this could rise to approximately 85%. > South Australia’s aspiration is to achieve 100% net renewables by 2030. In 2021, South Australia met 100% of its operational demand from renewable resources on 180 days (49%). https://www.energymining.sa.gov.au/industry/modern-energy/leading-the-green-economy https://www.energymining.sa.gov.au/industry/modern-energy/le...
      - 4y ago

deevolution 4y ago

The natural disaster was responsible for killing people, not the nuclear meltdown... maybe if we had been consistently building nuclear since the 60s we wouldn't be in this global warming catastrophe? Obviously speculation, but I'm curious what our global CO2 levels would be if all the major industrialized nations transitioned to 100% nuclear Over the last 60 years. Anyone happen to have some charts?

ant6n 4y ago
The plant couldn’t deal with an electricity outage for 24h.
- spfzero 4y ago
  An outage that was caused by something that, through a rare confluence of events, also destroyed their outage-backup-plan. The plant could have easily dealt with most power outages. Not to say there isn't a lesson to be learned, obviously, but to say the plant couldn't deal with an outage is ingenuous at minimum.
  - ant6n 4y ago
    Battery backup was good for 8h. Seems pretty risky to me, there are many scenarios thinkable where a power outage for more than 8h could occur. For example some natural disaster, which across ubiquitously deployed nuclear would occur every day somewhere on earth.
    - spfzero 4y ago
      >there are many scenarios thinkable where a power outage for more than 8h could occur. Sure, and they thought of them, which is why they had generators as well as batteries.
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    > but to say the plant couldn't deal with an outage is ingenuous at minimum. Did you mean "disingenuous"? "Ingenuous" means lacking in guile or craftiness. "Disingenuous" means having the intent to deceive, and is used much more often.