3 ms·

In your mind, I'm trying to convince you to accept a risk that's unacceptable to you. But I'm not. I don't want to change your risk-tolerance. It's very labori

In your mind, I'm trying to convince you to accept a risk that's unacceptable to you. But I'm not. I don't want to change your risk-tolerance. It's very laborious explaining that to vehemently anti-nuclear people. Please read my other comment in this thread, because I'm not going to repeat myself. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34248266 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34248266

Schroedingersat 4y ago
No. You're trying to shift the focus away from reality and on to an imaginary world where an industry that has consistently lied and done the worst thing they can get away with will do the right thing if we stop holding them to account. And where the very real externalities at mines and fabrication plants and enrichment plants and reprocessing plants that have been accumulating since the 50s are not allowed to be spoken about. And where there will never be an actually bad accident in spite of the yearly near misses and frequent events that 'can never happen'. And where the promises of reactors that exist on paper will come true despite that being the opposite of what happened every single other time. And you're positioning dealing with this as necessary due to an imagined need that can't be better solved with alternatives. And instead of acknowledging the industry's unbroken history of gaslighting and lies you are positioning anything other than credulous paying of the scammers to continue doing nothing other than grift as an unfounded panic.
- marmetio 4y ago
  Either you haven't read the comment like I asked, or you're wilfully ignoring me. Again, I don't want to change your risk-tolerance. Do you understand what that means?
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    I understand perfectly what it means. You're continuing to try to paint any objection as an unfounded fear of an extremely rare event given the assumption that there is no mismanagement or corruption or lying, and to paint any scepticism about non-existent gen IV reactors as unfounded fear of them failing in the exact same ways. Without specifying which non-existent design you are vaguely gesturing at, the objection cannot be made more concrete. One concern will be 'addressed' with a half lie about one technology, which then isn't allowed to come up when talking about a completely different technology where the half lie doesn't apply. Gen III+ reactors have many many failure modes that 'can't happen' but require assumptiona and defense in depth princies that are regularly violated. MOX is a complete lie, especially with regard to Pu240 and Pu241 or meaningfully solving fuel shortages. There is nowhere near enough fuel for large scale expansion of them. Molten salt reactors skate on the edge of prompt criticality and there's no process for cleaning the salt. They also leak constantly. Sodium cooled Uranium breeders operate on the certainty of emitting more fission products into the ocean (or the Techa river) than fukushima did during reprocessing. Primary coolant leaks are also on fire in addition to being radioactive. They also catch fire constantly and skate on the edge of prompt criticality if used in breeding mode. Neither has a strategy for dealing with the primary coolant after a plant is done or shuts early other than making the public pay to look after it for 50 years then putting it in a hole. Neither actually helps reduce Pu240 or Pu241 meaningfully. Neither can breed enough fuel to maintin a significant fleet of burner reactors. HTGRs have yet to manifest and either no-one outside of the boys club will be allowed to make fuel for them or they will produce an order of magnitude more waste. The claims about having '3x' the fuel efficiency are based on 6x as much U235, so they actually run out of fuel twice as fast. The lies about the rest of the fuel cycle are too numerous to summarize.
    - marmetio 4y ago
      Well, the summary you gave in the first paragraph is wrong. I'm running out of ways to say the same thing over and over again. I DON'T WANT TO CONVINCE YOU TO BE OK WITH RARE EVENTS. I don't want to change your risk-tolerance. Look at this comment thread. You're the only one who's raised points against yourself. You surmised what you thought I would say, and then got mad at me for it. I keep telling you I wouldn't say those things, but you just don't want to hear it. You're arguing with yourself.
      - Schroedingersat 4y ago
        And this is disingenuous on several fronts. You're packaging several assumptions into your framing and refusing to allow them to be examined, then responding to any attempt to point them out as if it is irrational fear or a subject change. Firstly that Fukushima was a severity 5 event rather than a severity 2 event. Even chernobyl and mayak had most of the consequences narrowly avoided by acts of heroism and dumb luck. Secondly that Gen III+ reactors already eliminate severity 5 events or whatever Gen IV reactor you're imagining will do so once it meets reality in spite of that being the exact same story we were given about Gen II and Gen III. This can only happen if the physical assumptions about the reactor's normal operational state hold, which can only happen if defense in depth is followed and there is no complacency or corruption and there are no black swan events. This assumption is incompatible with a world in which there isn't constant and strenuous objection and externally imposed accountability to the nuclear industry and sufficient attention to cover all malfeasance in depth. It is only barely compatible with the world we have now. Thirdly that the severity 2 events with likelyhood of 100% are non-existent, when they have been constant, and the ones that happened 70 years ago are only just having their financial and health consequences felt now. Then on top of that you're bundling in a bunch of assumptions about upsides that don't exist, and framing any objection based on those as the same allegedly unfounded fear of the same type of failure. You are the one who is claiming any objection is irrational fear and refusal to accept new information. Refusing to accept any objection that is different is entirely circular.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]

Schroedingersat 4y ago

No. You're trying to shift the focus away from reality and on to an imaginary world where an industry that has consistently lied and done the worst thing they can get away with will do the right thing if we stop holding them to account. And where the very real externalities at mines and fabrication plants and enrichment plants and reprocessing plants that have been accumulating since the 50s are not allowed to be spoken about. And where there will never be an actually bad accident in spite of the yearly near misses and frequent events that 'can never happen'. And where the promises of reactors that exist on paper will come true despite that being the opposite of what happened every single other time. And you're positioning dealing with this as necessary due to an imagined need that can't be better solved with alternatives. And instead of acknowledging the industry's unbroken history of gaslighting and lies you are positioning anything other than credulous paying of the scammers to continue doing nothing other than grift as an unfounded panic.

marmetio 4y ago
Either you haven't read the comment like I asked, or you're wilfully ignoring me. Again, I don't want to change your risk-tolerance. Do you understand what that means?
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  I understand perfectly what it means. You're continuing to try to paint any objection as an unfounded fear of an extremely rare event given the assumption that there is no mismanagement or corruption or lying, and to paint any scepticism about non-existent gen IV reactors as unfounded fear of them failing in the exact same ways. Without specifying which non-existent design you are vaguely gesturing at, the objection cannot be made more concrete. One concern will be 'addressed' with a half lie about one technology, which then isn't allowed to come up when talking about a completely different technology where the half lie doesn't apply. Gen III+ reactors have many many failure modes that 'can't happen' but require assumptiona and defense in depth princies that are regularly violated. MOX is a complete lie, especially with regard to Pu240 and Pu241 or meaningfully solving fuel shortages. There is nowhere near enough fuel for large scale expansion of them. Molten salt reactors skate on the edge of prompt criticality and there's no process for cleaning the salt. They also leak constantly. Sodium cooled Uranium breeders operate on the certainty of emitting more fission products into the ocean (or the Techa river) than fukushima did during reprocessing. Primary coolant leaks are also on fire in addition to being radioactive. They also catch fire constantly and skate on the edge of prompt criticality if used in breeding mode. Neither has a strategy for dealing with the primary coolant after a plant is done or shuts early other than making the public pay to look after it for 50 years then putting it in a hole. Neither actually helps reduce Pu240 or Pu241 meaningfully. Neither can breed enough fuel to maintin a significant fleet of burner reactors. HTGRs have yet to manifest and either no-one outside of the boys club will be allowed to make fuel for them or they will produce an order of magnitude more waste. The claims about having '3x' the fuel efficiency are based on 6x as much U235, so they actually run out of fuel twice as fast. The lies about the rest of the fuel cycle are too numerous to summarize.
  - marmetio 4y ago
    Well, the summary you gave in the first paragraph is wrong. I'm running out of ways to say the same thing over and over again. I DON'T WANT TO CONVINCE YOU TO BE OK WITH RARE EVENTS. I don't want to change your risk-tolerance. Look at this comment thread. You're the only one who's raised points against yourself. You surmised what you thought I would say, and then got mad at me for it. I keep telling you I wouldn't say those things, but you just don't want to hear it. You're arguing with yourself.
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      And this is disingenuous on several fronts. You're packaging several assumptions into your framing and refusing to allow them to be examined, then responding to any attempt to point them out as if it is irrational fear or a subject change. Firstly that Fukushima was a severity 5 event rather than a severity 2 event. Even chernobyl and mayak had most of the consequences narrowly avoided by acts of heroism and dumb luck. Secondly that Gen III+ reactors already eliminate severity 5 events or whatever Gen IV reactor you're imagining will do so once it meets reality in spite of that being the exact same story we were given about Gen II and Gen III. This can only happen if the physical assumptions about the reactor's normal operational state hold, which can only happen if defense in depth is followed and there is no complacency or corruption and there are no black swan events. This assumption is incompatible with a world in which there isn't constant and strenuous objection and externally imposed accountability to the nuclear industry and sufficient attention to cover all malfeasance in depth. It is only barely compatible with the world we have now. Thirdly that the severity 2 events with likelyhood of 100% are non-existent, when they have been constant, and the ones that happened 70 years ago are only just having their financial and health consequences felt now. Then on top of that you're bundling in a bunch of assumptions about upsides that don't exist, and framing any objection based on those as the same allegedly unfounded fear of the same type of failure. You are the one who is claiming any objection is irrational fear and refusal to accept new information. Refusing to accept any objection that is different is entirely circular.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]