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Regulations are also hitting coal hard, at least in Europe. UK got rid of coal. The article is making it sound like coal plants can do whatever they want, whil

Regulations are also hitting coal hard, at least in Europe. UK got rid of coal. The article is making it sound like coal plants can do whatever they want, while nuclear have it worse. I don't think the way is to lower the safety for nukes, but to raise the safety requirements of coal. This article sounds like someone claiming that airbags are barely used, and removing them is a good way to get cheaper cars for all at the low cost of a few thousand deaths. Friendly reminder that half french nukes are plagued with leaks since the last year, and we would never know how serious they are or how close we were to a disaster. With current safety standards.

roenxi 4y ago
> UK got rid of coal. Consult this graph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_Coal_Production.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_Coal_Production.png And then reflect on the fact that it probably wasn't regulation that resulted in them ceasing to use coal in the 2010s. It was predictable from the 60s by anyone equipped with a ruler.
- otherme123 4y ago
  UK was explicit in this: they regulated the National Grid to be carbon neutral by 2030 or so. That target effectively shutsdown coal generation, harder than any regulation that affects nuclear or any other energy source. Unless a coal plant discovers a magic way to produce while being carbon neutral, coal is gone. Nuclear power at least can keep going in the UK. It's not getting bigger, but is not falling either. Imagine they say today "National Grid targets being Nuclear free by 2040", like in Germany: it would hit harder than any safety regulation you could write, not just halting new plants, but shuting down existing ones.
austinjp 4y ago
> UK got rid of coal Not quite https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-56023895 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-56023895
- otherme123 4y ago
  Please: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Electricity-production-by-sourceUK1985-2020.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Electric... I guess while there's a guy in UK doing a barbeque with coal, I can't say "UK got rid of coal" here.
  - austinjp 4y ago
    Your point is what, exactly? Because "please" show me how >0 coal is okay, and where the current UK Govt has met its pledges regarding coal.
LorenPechtel 4y ago
It's effectively impossible to raise the safety standards for coal to anything like nuclear safety standards. What I would like to see is an across-the-board change to safety regulation: A technology is deemed safe enough if it's 50% better than the closest *meaningful* competitor. Let's evaluate nuclear by that standard and see what we get: The closest meaningful competitor is natural gas. (Although you could make an argument for considering gas-backed renewables a source. I have never seen safety numbers for such combos.) Natural gas has a death rate of 2.82/Twh--by my proposal nuke would be deemed adequate at 1.41/Twh even if better were possible. Reality: 0.03/Twh. 47x as safe as needed. (And note that the natural gas numbers do not include any global warming related deaths, the real picture is even more out of whack.) (As for coal--it's 6.5x as bad as natural gas, and more global warming to boot.) This is one of these cases where lowering safety standards would actually save lives by making the safer option more attractive. It's why the FAA accepts lap infants on airplanes--they know that a lap infant will fare considerably worse than someone properly strapped in if there's trouble, but said infant is still safer as a lap infant in an airplane than properly strapped in in a car. The lap infant rules shift some people on the edge from driving to flying.

roenxi 4y ago

> UK got rid of coal. Consult this graph: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_Coal_Production.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UK_Coal_Production.png And then reflect on the fact that it probably wasn't regulation that resulted in them ceasing to use coal in the 2010s. It was predictable from the 60s by anyone equipped with a ruler.

otherme123 4y ago
UK was explicit in this: they regulated the National Grid to be carbon neutral by 2030 or so. That target effectively shutsdown coal generation, harder than any regulation that affects nuclear or any other energy source. Unless a coal plant discovers a magic way to produce while being carbon neutral, coal is gone. Nuclear power at least can keep going in the UK. It's not getting bigger, but is not falling either. Imagine they say today "National Grid targets being Nuclear free by 2040", like in Germany: it would hit harder than any safety regulation you could write, not just halting new plants, but shuting down existing ones.

austinjp 4y ago

> UK got rid of coal Not quite https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-56023895 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-56023895

otherme123 4y ago
Please: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Electricity-production-by-sourceUK1985-2020.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Electric... I guess while there's a guy in UK doing a barbeque with coal, I can't say "UK got rid of coal" here.
- austinjp 4y ago
  Your point is what, exactly? Because "please" show me how >0 coal is okay, and where the current UK Govt has met its pledges regarding coal.

LorenPechtel 4y ago

It's effectively impossible to raise the safety standards for coal to anything like nuclear safety standards. What I would like to see is an across-the-board change to safety regulation: A technology is deemed safe enough if it's 50% better than the closest *meaningful* competitor. Let's evaluate nuclear by that standard and see what we get: The closest meaningful competitor is natural gas. (Although you could make an argument for considering gas-backed renewables a source. I have never seen safety numbers for such combos.) Natural gas has a death rate of 2.82/Twh--by my proposal nuke would be deemed adequate at 1.41/Twh even if better were possible. Reality: 0.03/Twh. 47x as safe as needed. (And note that the natural gas numbers do not include any global warming related deaths, the real picture is even more out of whack.) (As for coal--it's 6.5x as bad as natural gas, and more global warming to boot.) This is one of these cases where lowering safety standards would actually save lives by making the safer option more attractive. It's why the FAA accepts lap infants on airplanes--they know that a lap infant will fare considerably worse than someone properly strapped in if there's trouble, but said infant is still safer as a lap infant in an airplane than properly strapped in in a car. The lap infant rules shift some people on the edge from driving to flying.