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As a state that's 49% nuclear power (New Hampshire) I really welcome this news. It almost seems too good to be true. I hope we will someday be able to close do

As a state that's 49% nuclear power (New Hampshire) I really welcome this news. It almost seems too good to be true. I hope we will someday be able to close down the single coal plant in my state (coal is 14% of NH power). For all its faults I think Nuclear has gotten a bad reputation from an extremely small amount of catastrophes. Obviously those events are very salient in the public's mind, but it is worth remembering that coal plants are a catastrophe every single day. There are lakes in New Hampshire with abnormally high mercury levels that have never been touched by humans save for testing the water. Coal from as far as Ohio give rise to uncomfortable asthma statistics. I know it won't be soon, but there's at least one technology I can't wait to shutter.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
lukifer 15y ago
> it is worth remembering that coal plants are a catastrophe every single day. In addition to CO2 levels, most people are unaware of how much radioactive material is released by burning coal, because it's spread out of over time rather than in a few big dramatic incidents.
- beloch 15y ago
  More people die mining coal each year than have died in Nuclear power plant accidents in the entire history of Nuclear power. The Bhopal chemical plant disaster killed more people than all the nuclear power incidents in history combined. This plant manufactured pesticides. Nuclear power is not completely risk free, but it's much safer than most people give it credit for. Anyone who would picket a nuclear power plant before a coal plant or a pesticide plant is an uninformed twit. Nuclear power also promises to get much safer. China is currently testing thorium reactors based on Canada's CANDU design. Thorium reactors have several safety advantages over Uranium reactors, produce less waste with a shorter half-life, and do not produce weapons-grade fissionable materials as a byproduct. Thorium is far more abundant than Uranium to boot. If Iran went after Thorium based nuclear power Israel would be able to sleep more easily at night.
  - PakG1 15y ago
    More people die mining coal each year than have died in Nuclear power plant accidents in the entire history of Nuclear power. Just noting that to fairly compare apples to apples, you should compare stats of coal mining deaths and accidents to uranium mining deaths and accidents.
    - Tuna-Fish 15y ago
      That statistic would be even more violently pro-nuclear -- you need to dig up roughly 20 000 times more coal than uranium to produce the similar amounts of energy, assuming a steam thermal coal plant and a light-water nuclear reactor. If you swap that light-water plant to an advanced heavy water plant like CANDU, that multiplier goes up to about 2 000 000 times. A fun fact: the extractable amount of energy in the trace radioactive elements (notably thorium) that is dug up with coal (and mostly distributed into the environment) is several times higher than the extractable energy content of the coal.
  - Tuna-Fish 15y ago
    > More people die mining coal each year than have died in Nuclear power plant accidents in the entire history of Nuclear power. And the miner deaths are completely insignificant part of the total death toll of coal. Most of the death toll comes from NOx and SO2 poisoning, and manifests in cancer and respiratory diseases. The total death toll is hard to tally, but it is typically estimated to be between 100k and 1M a year.
r00fus 15y ago
Have these new designs improved on water usage problems [1]? Although I agree about the closure of coal plants, it seems nuclear still has water usage issues (cooling needs) and given the upcoming fresh-water crisis [2], wouldn't solar be a better bet? [1] http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_technology/got-water-nuclear-power.html http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_technology... [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12291371 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12291371
- tptacek 15y ago
  Is solar feasible at the scale we're talking about? What's the $/kwh?
  - ams6110 15y ago
    No.
  - icebraining 15y ago
    I'm not well informed, but according to John Quiggin[1], yes: (PV is photovoltaics) the cost of PV has already fallen well below that of nuclear and is set to fall further. The average retail price of solar cells as monitored by the Solarbuzz group fell from $3.50/watt to $2.43/watt over the course of the year, and a decline to prices below $2.00/watt seems inevitable. For large-scale installations, prices below $1.00/watt are now common. In some locations, PV has reached grid parity, the cost at which it is competitive with coal or gas-fired generation. More generally, it is now evident that, given a carbon price of $50/ton, which would raise the price of coal-fired power by 5c/kWh, solar PV will be cost-competitive in most locations. http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-end-the-nuclear-renaissance-6325 http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-end-the-nuclear-r... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Quiggin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Quiggin
    - DennisP 15y ago
      Those are valid numbers as long as solar is backed up by fossil fuels or nuclear, but if you want use solar for most of your electric power, you have to take energy storage into account. That's a lot more expensive.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

lukifer 15y ago

> it is worth remembering that coal plants are a catastrophe every single day. In addition to CO2 levels, most people are unaware of how much radioactive material is released by burning coal, because it's spread out of over time rather than in a few big dramatic incidents.

beloch 15y ago
More people die mining coal each year than have died in Nuclear power plant accidents in the entire history of Nuclear power. The Bhopal chemical plant disaster killed more people than all the nuclear power incidents in history combined. This plant manufactured pesticides. Nuclear power is not completely risk free, but it's much safer than most people give it credit for. Anyone who would picket a nuclear power plant before a coal plant or a pesticide plant is an uninformed twit. Nuclear power also promises to get much safer. China is currently testing thorium reactors based on Canada's CANDU design. Thorium reactors have several safety advantages over Uranium reactors, produce less waste with a shorter half-life, and do not produce weapons-grade fissionable materials as a byproduct. Thorium is far more abundant than Uranium to boot. If Iran went after Thorium based nuclear power Israel would be able to sleep more easily at night.
- PakG1 15y ago
  More people die mining coal each year than have died in Nuclear power plant accidents in the entire history of Nuclear power. Just noting that to fairly compare apples to apples, you should compare stats of coal mining deaths and accidents to uranium mining deaths and accidents.
  - Tuna-Fish 15y ago
    That statistic would be even more violently pro-nuclear -- you need to dig up roughly 20 000 times more coal than uranium to produce the similar amounts of energy, assuming a steam thermal coal plant and a light-water nuclear reactor. If you swap that light-water plant to an advanced heavy water plant like CANDU, that multiplier goes up to about 2 000 000 times. A fun fact: the extractable amount of energy in the trace radioactive elements (notably thorium) that is dug up with coal (and mostly distributed into the environment) is several times higher than the extractable energy content of the coal.
- Tuna-Fish 15y ago
  > More people die mining coal each year than have died in Nuclear power plant accidents in the entire history of Nuclear power. And the miner deaths are completely insignificant part of the total death toll of coal. Most of the death toll comes from NOx and SO2 poisoning, and manifests in cancer and respiratory diseases. The total death toll is hard to tally, but it is typically estimated to be between 100k and 1M a year.

r00fus 15y ago

Have these new designs improved on water usage problems [1]? Although I agree about the closure of coal plants, it seems nuclear still has water usage issues (cooling needs) and given the upcoming fresh-water crisis [2], wouldn't solar be a better bet? [1] http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_technology/got-water-nuclear-power.html http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_technology... [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12291371 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12291371

tptacek 15y ago
Is solar feasible at the scale we're talking about? What's the $/kwh?
- ams6110 15y ago
  No.
- icebraining 15y ago
  I'm not well informed, but according to John Quiggin[1], yes: (PV is photovoltaics) the cost of PV has already fallen well below that of nuclear and is set to fall further. The average retail price of solar cells as monitored by the Solarbuzz group fell from $3.50/watt to $2.43/watt over the course of the year, and a decline to prices below $2.00/watt seems inevitable. For large-scale installations, prices below $1.00/watt are now common. In some locations, PV has reached grid parity, the cost at which it is competitive with coal or gas-fired generation. More generally, it is now evident that, given a carbon price of $50/ton, which would raise the price of coal-fired power by 5c/kWh, solar PV will be cost-competitive in most locations. http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-end-the-nuclear-renaissance-6325 http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-end-the-nuclear-r... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Quiggin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Quiggin
  - DennisP 15y ago
    Those are valid numbers as long as solar is backed up by fossil fuels or nuclear, but if you want use solar for most of your electric power, you have to take energy storage into account. That's a lot more expensive.