5 ms·

After reading The Greenpeace Book of the Nuclear Age, which chronicles all major nuclear incidents (up to the 1990's I think) I had two key takeaways. There are

After reading The Greenpeace Book of the Nuclear Age, which chronicles all major nuclear incidents (up to the 1990's I think) I had two key takeaways. There are far more missing nuclear submarines than I would have ever expected, and Britain does not have the right cultural mindset for dealing with nuclear safety. Apologies if that offends anyone.

badcppdev 3y ago
Follow up question. Can you name a country that does have a good cultural mindset for nuclear safety? Years ago I used to naively assume the Japanese were very safety conscious and then I read details post-Fukushima that made me realise that the corporate managerial mindset rules there as well.
- willyt 3y ago
  I've come to think that France might have a good culture in this respect. No major train crashes for years; there's never been a serious accident on the TGV. They have nuclear reactors all over the place and they seem to have managed to operate them safely. Airbus by all accounts seems to have a good safety culture. Maybe it's because of the 'fraternité' in 'liberté égalité fraternité; they have very strong culture of public solidarity and very low income inequality compared to say Britain or the US. And maybe that's why it doesn't cost a fortune to build high speed rail there as well; because there is a moral element to it that means you don't rip off your fellow countrymen.
  - pookha 3y ago
    France standardized all of their reactors. You could swap components in and out of any number of their nuclear reactors. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-the-nuclear-fuel-cycle-what-can-oui-learn https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-t... That's not how most other countries handled their nuclear power architecture and I think it's one of the main reasons why France has had major success with no issues. There's nothing flashy about how their nuclear reactors operate but they're very easy to staff and maintain long-term.
    - jl6 3y ago
      It’s not all good news though - more than half of the fleet were offline at one point last year, to repair cracks that had developed. Arguably the standardized design led to all these reactors having the same problem at about the same time, where some diversity of design might have limited the “blast radius” of this flaw.
    - calaphos 3y ago
      Noticably when encountering issues with welds last year they also shut down all reactors with shared components for inspection/maintenance. While this has been a real problem and got them into some supply tight spots over winter it definitely speaks for their approach to safety.
  - pjc50 3y ago
    Don't be silly, everyone on HN knows that Europe has no industry! /sarcasm (more seriously, the French nuclear industry has avoided major disasters but at the cost of some expensive repairs as the fleet is aging together. At least they didn't skimp on the repairs.)
  - martinald 3y ago
    France has a gini coefficient of 32.4, UK 35.1. In comparison the US has one of 41.5, and Norway 27.7. There's not a huge difference in income inequality between France and the UK.
FredPret 3y ago
Is the number of missing nuclear submarines greater than zero???
- wcoenen 3y ago
  List of sunken nuclear submarines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submarines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submari... Edit: none of these seem to be "missing". I think they meant that there are a number of unrecovered (in some cases even intentionally scuttled) nuclear submarine wrecks.
- pjc50 3y ago
  There are a couple of missing nuclear weapons out there somewhere as well.
- itronitron 3y ago
  Yes, and you should read the book, it is very interesting and well written!
pookha 3y ago
I'm very hopeful that within a hundred years this madness will stop and nuclear power will be common place. It's evolved and come along way since Chernobyl... Small modular reactor's and molten salt reactors can pump out more than enough clean energy and without the fear mongering and waste side effects. Apologies to British Petroleum
- myrmidon 3y ago
  What exactly gives you any confidence that nuclear power will ever experience a resurgence in the future? To me, it appears to be a niche technology with a host of problems (fuel mining, decomissioning and fuel reprocessing are dirty and expensive) that is completely incapable of competing with renewable power on cost already, and current trendlines (plant vs. wind/solar/battery costs) are absolutely NOT favorable. I encounter this highly (and IMO irrationally) favorable view of nuclear power very frequently on HN and would really like to understand why this is so prevalent...
  - pookha 3y ago
    The newer breed of reactors should win out... For example MSR's can operate at very high temperatures, can recycle nuclear waste, don't use fuel-rod's and can be made to be smaller and more economical than the older pressurized water reactors that you're referring too. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/spotlight-on-innovation-molten-salt-reactors-for-a-sustainable-clean-energy-transition https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/spotlight-on-innovation...
    - myrmidon 3y ago
      That reads like a fluff piece to me, which seems unsurprising considering the source; my understanding is that all we have right now are research reactors, i.e. the things are not really suitable for commercial use even if they could already be built/deployed quickly and at scale (which they can't). And that makes the economics just wishful thinking-- to back them up, we would need first a finalized, commercial design, then to actually build it in some numbers, and verify cost effectiveness. And this is a point that renewables already reached a decade ago, while still getting cheaper... Nuclear power in general also suffers from the big problem that it becomes even less attractive the more cheap intermittent power is available, because all the costs are fixed; just turning these on when there is no wind/sun makes the already bad cost efficiency even worse...
George83728 3y ago
> There are far more missing nuclear submarines than I would have ever expected Of all nuclear accidents, these are easily the least concerning. For one, only two western nuclear submarines have ever been lost and those were well publicized, nobody should be surprised by those. The Soviets/Russians lost quite a few, which I don't think many people would find surprising, but it's really not a big deal anyway from an environmental perspective. Sea water is excellent shielding, the wrecks are now used as habitats for all kinds of sea life which is unfazed by the radiation. As for heavy metal pollution, ocean water already has several billion tons of uranium and other heavy metals dissolved in it, naturally. A few more tons from a few reactor cores is nothing. Quite frankly, we should view deliberately dropping old nuclear reactors into the ocean as a practical and economical method of disposal. In fact, the Soviets and the UK have deliberately done this several times and (the US and Switzerland did too, to a much lesser extent.) There is no evidence that any of this has caused any harm to the environment.
- bequanna 3y ago
  > Quite frankly, we should view deliberately dropping old nuclear reactors into the ocean as a practical and economical method of disposal. Imagine the optics! If this is a good solution it would most certainly have to be done by governments in secrecy.
- FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
  Maybe they should be buried deeply, in subduction zones, far from human habitation, so that they are pulled deep into the Earth by plate tectonics.

badcppdev 3y ago

Follow up question. Can you name a country that does have a good cultural mindset for nuclear safety? Years ago I used to naively assume the Japanese were very safety conscious and then I read details post-Fukushima that made me realise that the corporate managerial mindset rules there as well.

willyt 3y ago
I've come to think that France might have a good culture in this respect. No major train crashes for years; there's never been a serious accident on the TGV. They have nuclear reactors all over the place and they seem to have managed to operate them safely. Airbus by all accounts seems to have a good safety culture. Maybe it's because of the 'fraternité' in 'liberté égalité fraternité; they have very strong culture of public solidarity and very low income inequality compared to say Britain or the US. And maybe that's why it doesn't cost a fortune to build high speed rail there as well; because there is a moral element to it that means you don't rip off your fellow countrymen.
- pookha 3y ago
  France standardized all of their reactors. You could swap components in and out of any number of their nuclear reactors. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-the-nuclear-fuel-cycle-what-can-oui-learn https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/frances-efficiency-in-t... That's not how most other countries handled their nuclear power architecture and I think it's one of the main reasons why France has had major success with no issues. There's nothing flashy about how their nuclear reactors operate but they're very easy to staff and maintain long-term.
  - jl6 3y ago
    It’s not all good news though - more than half of the fleet were offline at one point last year, to repair cracks that had developed. Arguably the standardized design led to all these reactors having the same problem at about the same time, where some diversity of design might have limited the “blast radius” of this flaw.
  - calaphos 3y ago
    Noticably when encountering issues with welds last year they also shut down all reactors with shared components for inspection/maintenance. While this has been a real problem and got them into some supply tight spots over winter it definitely speaks for their approach to safety.
- pjc50 3y ago
  Don't be silly, everyone on HN knows that Europe has no industry! /sarcasm (more seriously, the French nuclear industry has avoided major disasters but at the cost of some expensive repairs as the fleet is aging together. At least they didn't skimp on the repairs.)
- martinald 3y ago
  France has a gini coefficient of 32.4, UK 35.1. In comparison the US has one of 41.5, and Norway 27.7. There's not a huge difference in income inequality between France and the UK.

FredPret 3y ago

Is the number of missing nuclear submarines greater than zero???

wcoenen 3y ago
List of sunken nuclear submarines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submarines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sunken_nuclear_submari... Edit: none of these seem to be "missing". I think they meant that there are a number of unrecovered (in some cases even intentionally scuttled) nuclear submarine wrecks.
pjc50 3y ago
There are a couple of missing nuclear weapons out there somewhere as well.
itronitron 3y ago
Yes, and you should read the book, it is very interesting and well written!

pookha 3y ago

I'm very hopeful that within a hundred years this madness will stop and nuclear power will be common place. It's evolved and come along way since Chernobyl... Small modular reactor's and molten salt reactors can pump out more than enough clean energy and without the fear mongering and waste side effects. Apologies to British Petroleum

myrmidon 3y ago
What exactly gives you any confidence that nuclear power will ever experience a resurgence in the future? To me, it appears to be a niche technology with a host of problems (fuel mining, decomissioning and fuel reprocessing are dirty and expensive) that is completely incapable of competing with renewable power on cost already, and current trendlines (plant vs. wind/solar/battery costs) are absolutely NOT favorable. I encounter this highly (and IMO irrationally) favorable view of nuclear power very frequently on HN and would really like to understand why this is so prevalent...
- pookha 3y ago
  The newer breed of reactors should win out... For example MSR's can operate at very high temperatures, can recycle nuclear waste, don't use fuel-rod's and can be made to be smaller and more economical than the older pressurized water reactors that you're referring too. https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/spotlight-on-innovation-molten-salt-reactors-for-a-sustainable-clean-energy-transition https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/spotlight-on-innovation...
  - myrmidon 3y ago
    That reads like a fluff piece to me, which seems unsurprising considering the source; my understanding is that all we have right now are research reactors, i.e. the things are not really suitable for commercial use even if they could already be built/deployed quickly and at scale (which they can't). And that makes the economics just wishful thinking-- to back them up, we would need first a finalized, commercial design, then to actually build it in some numbers, and verify cost effectiveness. And this is a point that renewables already reached a decade ago, while still getting cheaper... Nuclear power in general also suffers from the big problem that it becomes even less attractive the more cheap intermittent power is available, because all the costs are fixed; just turning these on when there is no wind/sun makes the already bad cost efficiency even worse...

George83728 3y ago

> There are far more missing nuclear submarines than I would have ever expected Of all nuclear accidents, these are easily the least concerning. For one, only two western nuclear submarines have ever been lost and those were well publicized, nobody should be surprised by those. The Soviets/Russians lost quite a few, which I don't think many people would find surprising, but it's really not a big deal anyway from an environmental perspective. Sea water is excellent shielding, the wrecks are now used as habitats for all kinds of sea life which is unfazed by the radiation. As for heavy metal pollution, ocean water already has several billion tons of uranium and other heavy metals dissolved in it, naturally. A few more tons from a few reactor cores is nothing. Quite frankly, we should view deliberately dropping old nuclear reactors into the ocean as a practical and economical method of disposal. In fact, the Soviets and the UK have deliberately done this several times and (the US and Switzerland did too, to a much lesser extent.) There is no evidence that any of this has caused any harm to the environment.

bequanna 3y ago
> Quite frankly, we should view deliberately dropping old nuclear reactors into the ocean as a practical and economical method of disposal. Imagine the optics! If this is a good solution it would most certainly have to be done by governments in secrecy.
FooBarBizBazz 3y ago
Maybe they should be buried deeply, in subduction zones, far from human habitation, so that they are pulled deep into the Earth by plate tectonics.