4 ms·

Anti nuclear fearmongering is based on ignorance for the most part, and a kind of exploitative cynicism on the other. Most people just don’t know how safe nucl

by jwie 4y ago

Anti nuclear fearmongering is based on ignorance for the most part, and a kind of exploitative cynicism on the other. Most people just don’t know how safe nuclear power is. I worked on a nuclear reactor personally. We used to joke that the safest thing we had in the power plant was the radiation. I received less operational exposure in 6 years than typical nuclear medicine procedures create. The other source is entrenched players in the power industry hate nuclear power because it works, and can credibly produce post scarcity levels of power production. It is unfortunate that the green energy movement has been lied to and co-opted against this genuinely fantastic energy source.

arez 4y ago
tell that to france and their inability to generate power with many reactors because either the rivers are dry or too hot. How is that a sustainable solution
- rglover 4y ago
  Depends on perspective. I hadn't heard about this but looking it up quick and the reason it's considered too hot [1] is: > After the 2003 heatwave, France’s nuclear safety authority (ASN) set temperature and river flow limits beyond which power stations must reduce their production, to ensure the water used to cool the plants will not harm wildlife when it is released back into the rivers. And also... > Since 2000, production losses due to high river temperatures and low river flows have represented an average of 0.3% of annual production. However, half of EDF’s 56 nuclear reactors are offline due to planned maintenance and work to repair corrosion which was delayed by the pandemic, just as Europe faces an energy crunch following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. So, in essence the inability to use the water appears to be a regulatory/timing issue, not a technical one, as far as I can gather. While I wouldn't advocate for harming wildlife, I'd say the answer to your question is "locate nuclear plant developments in areas that will have the least impact on wildlife (or, where wildlife can easily be relocated and protected from potential harm)." [1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/03/edf-to-reduce-nuclear-power-output-as-french-river-temperatures-rise https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/03/edf-to-redu...
  - nullc 4y ago
    ... as if the alternative energy solutions don't harm wildlife (including solar and wind). Is this again an example of expecting nuclear to mitigate its externalities while ignoring them for everything else?
    - desindol 4y ago
      Ah yes, the strawman argument... possibility to kill the entire planet vs killing some birds.
      - nullc 4y ago
        kill the entire planet? From exceeding a delta-t of 2 degree C in their discharge water?
      - delroth 4y ago
        In this specific case (regulations on the cooling water temperature) it's killing some fishes vs killing some birds. That seems very comparable to me. Why wouldn't we require wind turbines to stop when birds are migrating to reduce their environmental externalities?
      - rglover 4y ago
        Desert tortoise has entered the chat
    - jwie 4y ago
      This is a very important point. The externalities of nuclear are actually containable because they are so small. Hundreds of kilos of waste product compared to billions in spent fuel products. The heavy industry footprints of logistics to create the plant and equipment also are more efficient. How many solar panels or wind turbines would you need to produce to generate a nuclear reactor’s worth of power? How expensive would that process be comparatively? These factors weigh heavily in nuclear power’s favor because it is so energy dense.
      - 4y ago
Sporktacular 4y ago
Nuclear had decades to become affordable, safer and sustainable. Instead plants have remained hugely expensive and slow to commission, intrinsically safe reactors are still a pipe dream, the environmental impact of building plants and mining and refining uranium is still large when only 1% of it is used, thorium reactors are a rarity and there is only one dependable, permanent waste depot in operation. Economics is nuclear's enemy, not environmentalists. Solving the energy storage issue is a hell of a lot easier than solving all the above. The greenies got it right, the future is in renewable sources.
- kleene_op 4y ago
  I'm sorry but let me just drop this reality check here real quick: Nuclear provided 50 years of low cost energy to France despite an uphill battle in the public opinion. Renewable energy is failing to save Germany this winter despite being hailed as the holy grail for the past few decades. Everytime you listen to environmentalists talk you'd think we're already there, that countries are already covered with batteries for long term energy conservation, that a continental-wide energy grid has already been deployed (or will in the incoming week) so Finland can get electricity from solar pannels in Spain, that solar panels or wind turbines are great for our sovereignity when they're being produced in China, that they are infallible ecologically when they require rare materials and aren't systematically recycled. No, green energy is not there yet, and it definitely won't before quite a bit of time. People failing to realize that and fighting teeth and nails against nuclear are gonna cause our demise if they keep at it.
  - Sporktacular 4y ago
    "Nuclear provided 50 years of low cost energy to France despite an uphill battle in the public opinion. Renewable energy is failing to save Germany this winter despite being hailed as the holy grail for the past few decades." Its ability to supply France in the past is irrelevant to its ability to power global demand in future. The fuel is too limited and the technology too immature to turn this around. Nuclear is uneconomical as it is, fancy future designs even more so, if they ever arrive on scale. Nuclear has a limited future. The Germany talking point is deliberately misleading. It was in transition and couldn't reasonably have been expected to predict gas would be switched off overnight. But it could reasonably be expected to predict the serious consequences of runaway global warming. The risk of the former was lower than the risk of the latter and while it was unlucky, it was a reasonable bet as a good global citizen that's done more than almost any country in trying to address a problem that affects literally everyone. So you don't get to knock it for doing what most countries weren't brave enough to even try. No one credible called renewables the holy grail. No serious environmentalist said green energy is already there. They have been arguing for decades for more R&D, expansion of sustainable power infrastructure, local jobs for installers etc. We should have listened. And you might have heard them if lazy, right wing, straw man talking points weren't drowning them out. I'm sorry but that's just a quick reality check for you.
makeitdouble 4y ago
> Anti nuclear fearmongering is based on ignorance for the most part, and a kind of exploitative cynicism on the other. Is it fearmongering when incidents actually happened and right now we have a country that could potentially have a reactor get destroyed by act of war ? You seem to focus purely on the technical part, and swiping away the margin for human error, unpredicted issues, political incompetence, and straight hostility. Those are also part of the discussion.
- jwie 4y ago
  Nuclear power is not without risk. Those risks are far more attractive compared to the risks of not using it. Nuclear power is far simpler than people would intuitively believe. The nuclear reactor boils water at scale, the steam spins an electric generator via a steam turbine. The steam plant side of things is well understood technology, almost 170 years old at this point, nuclear power itself is about 70 years old. As technologies go, it's incredibly simple, and thus far less prone to error. It is fearmongering to suggest or imply that there's catastrophe right around the corner of every nuclear reactor. This is just not so. It's not possible to have the kinds of nuclear disasters people are afraid of. Fatalities from nuclear power measure around 100 per thousand terawatt hours, far lower than any other power production source by orders of magnitude. There is simply no evidence that nuclear power is dangerous, and a lot of evidence to suggest it is the safest, most effective power source we have created.
  - makeitdouble 4y ago
    > There is simply no evidence that nuclear power is dangerous Wait, what? You even started your own reply with “Nuclear power is not without risk.” > a lot of evidence to suggest it is the safest, most effective power source we have created. A lot of evidence also suggest the opposite. Again, you took the time to explain how technically nuclear was simple, without engaging with the context it is used in. PS: Fatalities per thousand terawatt hours is an interesting metric, except it completely ignores non lethal effects (cancers can be survived, and might also not be attributed to exposure officially, same way low dose exposure don’t have obvious consequences that feed the numbers), and environmental issues that don’t lead to standard air pollution, like soil and water contamination for instance. Basically that’s looks like a feel good number to discredit coal, but isn’t that relevant in any other context.

by jwie 4y ago

arez 4y ago

tell that to france and their inability to generate power with many reactors because either the rivers are dry or too hot. How is that a sustainable solution

rglover 4y ago
Depends on perspective. I hadn't heard about this but looking it up quick and the reason it's considered too hot [1] is: > After the 2003 heatwave, France’s nuclear safety authority (ASN) set temperature and river flow limits beyond which power stations must reduce their production, to ensure the water used to cool the plants will not harm wildlife when it is released back into the rivers. And also... > Since 2000, production losses due to high river temperatures and low river flows have represented an average of 0.3% of annual production. However, half of EDF’s 56 nuclear reactors are offline due to planned maintenance and work to repair corrosion which was delayed by the pandemic, just as Europe faces an energy crunch following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. So, in essence the inability to use the water appears to be a regulatory/timing issue, not a technical one, as far as I can gather. While I wouldn't advocate for harming wildlife, I'd say the answer to your question is "locate nuclear plant developments in areas that will have the least impact on wildlife (or, where wildlife can easily be relocated and protected from potential harm)." [1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/03/edf-to-reduce-nuclear-power-output-as-french-river-temperatures-rise https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/03/edf-to-redu...
- nullc 4y ago
  ... as if the alternative energy solutions don't harm wildlife (including solar and wind). Is this again an example of expecting nuclear to mitigate its externalities while ignoring them for everything else?
  - desindol 4y ago
    Ah yes, the strawman argument... possibility to kill the entire planet vs killing some birds.
    - nullc 4y ago
      kill the entire planet? From exceeding a delta-t of 2 degree C in their discharge water?
    - delroth 4y ago
      In this specific case (regulations on the cooling water temperature) it's killing some fishes vs killing some birds. That seems very comparable to me. Why wouldn't we require wind turbines to stop when birds are migrating to reduce their environmental externalities?
    - rglover 4y ago
      Desert tortoise has entered the chat
  - jwie 4y ago
    This is a very important point. The externalities of nuclear are actually containable because they are so small. Hundreds of kilos of waste product compared to billions in spent fuel products. The heavy industry footprints of logistics to create the plant and equipment also are more efficient. How many solar panels or wind turbines would you need to produce to generate a nuclear reactor’s worth of power? How expensive would that process be comparatively? These factors weigh heavily in nuclear power’s favor because it is so energy dense.
    - 4y ago

Sporktacular 4y ago

Nuclear had decades to become affordable, safer and sustainable. Instead plants have remained hugely expensive and slow to commission, intrinsically safe reactors are still a pipe dream, the environmental impact of building plants and mining and refining uranium is still large when only 1% of it is used, thorium reactors are a rarity and there is only one dependable, permanent waste depot in operation. Economics is nuclear's enemy, not environmentalists. Solving the energy storage issue is a hell of a lot easier than solving all the above. The greenies got it right, the future is in renewable sources.

kleene_op 4y ago
I'm sorry but let me just drop this reality check here real quick: Nuclear provided 50 years of low cost energy to France despite an uphill battle in the public opinion. Renewable energy is failing to save Germany this winter despite being hailed as the holy grail for the past few decades. Everytime you listen to environmentalists talk you'd think we're already there, that countries are already covered with batteries for long term energy conservation, that a continental-wide energy grid has already been deployed (or will in the incoming week) so Finland can get electricity from solar pannels in Spain, that solar panels or wind turbines are great for our sovereignity when they're being produced in China, that they are infallible ecologically when they require rare materials and aren't systematically recycled. No, green energy is not there yet, and it definitely won't before quite a bit of time. People failing to realize that and fighting teeth and nails against nuclear are gonna cause our demise if they keep at it.
- Sporktacular 4y ago
  "Nuclear provided 50 years of low cost energy to France despite an uphill battle in the public opinion. Renewable energy is failing to save Germany this winter despite being hailed as the holy grail for the past few decades." Its ability to supply France in the past is irrelevant to its ability to power global demand in future. The fuel is too limited and the technology too immature to turn this around. Nuclear is uneconomical as it is, fancy future designs even more so, if they ever arrive on scale. Nuclear has a limited future. The Germany talking point is deliberately misleading. It was in transition and couldn't reasonably have been expected to predict gas would be switched off overnight. But it could reasonably be expected to predict the serious consequences of runaway global warming. The risk of the former was lower than the risk of the latter and while it was unlucky, it was a reasonable bet as a good global citizen that's done more than almost any country in trying to address a problem that affects literally everyone. So you don't get to knock it for doing what most countries weren't brave enough to even try. No one credible called renewables the holy grail. No serious environmentalist said green energy is already there. They have been arguing for decades for more R&D, expansion of sustainable power infrastructure, local jobs for installers etc. We should have listened. And you might have heard them if lazy, right wing, straw man talking points weren't drowning them out. I'm sorry but that's just a quick reality check for you.

makeitdouble 4y ago

> Anti nuclear fearmongering is based on ignorance for the most part, and a kind of exploitative cynicism on the other. Is it fearmongering when incidents actually happened and right now we have a country that could potentially have a reactor get destroyed by act of war ? You seem to focus purely on the technical part, and swiping away the margin for human error, unpredicted issues, political incompetence, and straight hostility. Those are also part of the discussion.

jwie 4y ago
Nuclear power is not without risk. Those risks are far more attractive compared to the risks of not using it. Nuclear power is far simpler than people would intuitively believe. The nuclear reactor boils water at scale, the steam spins an electric generator via a steam turbine. The steam plant side of things is well understood technology, almost 170 years old at this point, nuclear power itself is about 70 years old. As technologies go, it's incredibly simple, and thus far less prone to error. It is fearmongering to suggest or imply that there's catastrophe right around the corner of every nuclear reactor. This is just not so. It's not possible to have the kinds of nuclear disasters people are afraid of. Fatalities from nuclear power measure around 100 per thousand terawatt hours, far lower than any other power production source by orders of magnitude. There is simply no evidence that nuclear power is dangerous, and a lot of evidence to suggest it is the safest, most effective power source we have created.
- makeitdouble 4y ago
  > There is simply no evidence that nuclear power is dangerous Wait, what? You even started your own reply with “Nuclear power is not without risk.” > a lot of evidence to suggest it is the safest, most effective power source we have created. A lot of evidence also suggest the opposite. Again, you took the time to explain how technically nuclear was simple, without engaging with the context it is used in. PS: Fatalities per thousand terawatt hours is an interesting metric, except it completely ignores non lethal effects (cancers can be survived, and might also not be attributed to exposure officially, same way low dose exposure don’t have obvious consequences that feed the numbers), and environmental issues that don’t lead to standard air pollution, like soil and water contamination for instance. Basically that’s looks like a feel good number to discredit coal, but isn’t that relevant in any other context.