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Nuclear: Not a Faustian bargain, a near-perfect providential gift (2008) [pdf]
- arcticbull 3y agoI think we're going to end up looking back on the last 50 years as a lost half-century for nuclear energy. It's unequivocally the safest, cleanest, most abundant and zero-carbon energy source we have. With seawater extraction, it qualifies as renewable. Chernobyl was an awful incident no doubt, but the USCEAR report shows that it killed about 4000 people over the full course of time. Meanwhile, the US reliance on coal currently kills 25,000 people per year. The next-worst nuclear accident of all time, Fukushima, killed either 0 or 1 person. The next, Three Mile Island killed exactly zero. We've surely lost millions of lives globally over the last 50 years thanks to sticking to coal when we could have just moved huge quantities of power generation over to nuclear. In terms of cost, the reality is that a renewable + storage grid is still more expensive that nuclear power is today, let alone has been for the last 50 years. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p... [2] https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/areas-of-work/chernobyl.html https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/areas-of-work/chernobyl.h... [3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-seawater-extraction-makes-nuclear-power-completely-renewable/?sh=9422efd159ae https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-s...
- nl 3y ago> renewable + storage grid is still more expensive that nuclear power is today This isn't true. Leveled, unsubsidized cost ($/MWh) of: Utility scale solar + storage: $46 - $102 Onshore wind + storage: $42 - $114 Nuclear: $141 - $221 Source: https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/2023-levelized-cost-of-energyplus/ https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/2023-levelized-cost... (have to download the linked PDF: https://www.lazard.com/media/ruwg1jol/lazards-lcoeplus-april-2023.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/ruwg1jol/lazards-lcoeplus-april...)
- zizee 3y agoLevelized cost of energy doesn't take into account time effects, so is a poor tool to compare nuclear to intermittent energy sources like solar and wind. If you require a 99.99% guaranteed output at all times of the year, solar and wind require a prohibitive amount of storage, and significant over-provisioning. LCOE does not account for this. This is not to say solar and wind + storage are less economical than nuclear. But LCOE is not a good measure of real costs.
- wolfram74 3y ago4-9's of uptime doesn't match my lived experience in the US, that's one days worth of power outage every 10000 days, or about once every ~30 years. 2-9's is closer to what civilians in the US are used. The over provisioning could be considered more of a feature than a bug, offering new economic periods where the marginal energy cost of production go negative at times.
- mlyle 3y ago> 2-9's is closer to what civilians in the US are used. ??? Like 4 days of downtime per year? I've had about 1.5 hours of outage this year, which was an outlier (much more outage than normal). 3 9's is typical if you have above-ground utilities. If you have underground utilities, you may be doing far better than this...
- wolfram74 3y ago8 hours a year is pretty close to 3-9's, that's fair.
- zizee 3y agoThat's fine. 4-9's was just an number I pulled out of my ass, and it wasn't really my point. My point is that when talking about energy sources, LCOE is not a good measure as it doesn't take into account things like reliability over time (whatever your target reliability is). Over-provisioning has a cost. If it is required to achieve characteristics required to do a like-for-like comparison, it should be accounted for. The problem with these Nuclear conversations is that people are pushing their preferred option, always without coming to some sort of agreement on what the requirements are for the power generation option. Without agreeing on what needs to be achieved, everyone talks past each other, arguing with straw-man solutions.
- phkahler 3y ago>> It's unequivocally the safest, cleanest, most abundant and zero-carbon energy source we have... Don't dismiss Chernoble as if it's over. Let's not also forget Fukushima. And hey, how about 3 mile island? Nuclear seems to have potential to be a phenomenal gift, but the problem is giving it to humans.
- amelius 3y agoNuclear power plants still heat up cooling water (like coal plants), causing damage like killing thousands of fish in rivers in France recently. This is a real problem. And also water is getting too hot to cool plants.
- TehCorwiz 3y agoHow do do you think we harness the heat from a coal fired plant? We boil water! The steam turns a turbine and then the water is cooled in a tower and then expelled. Nuclear replaces the first step, heating the water. The other steps are the same.
- amelius 3y agoYes, if you insist on comparing to coal plants.
- skissane 3y agoIf you need guaranteed power at any time of day, fossil fuels and nuclear can provide that, solar and wind can't – while batteries can smooth over the intermittency, the amount of battery storage required to provide the same power availability as a coal or nuclear plant is cost-prohibitive. So, if we are comparing apples to apples, coal plants vs nuclear is a legitimate comparison, wind and solar aren't. Pumped hydro does better than batteries, but building new dams causes massive ecological damage, and in some parts of the world fresh water is a rather scarce resource. The heated water from a nuclear power plant arguably does less environmental damage overall than a big new dam does.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- genocidicbunny 3y agoCoal and Natural Gas also use plenty of water for cooling purposes, so it's not a problem inherent to Nuclear.
- shakow 3y ago
- wpietri 3y agoI agree coal's terrible, but death isn't the best way to compare. I think a better indicator is insurance cost. Nuclear power gets a major subsidy from the federal government via the Price-Anderson Act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear... The basic upshot is that nuclear power was not seen as economically viable if operators had to buy insurance to cover actual risk. The federal government (meaning taxpayers) pay everything above the $15 billion mark. Fukushima's cleanup cost is still unknown, but estimates went from $13 billion to $96 billion to $187 billion. If nuclear power is as safe as you say, then they shouldn't need these kinds of subsidies. Going further, between American business culture and American regulatory culture, I have real concerns about our ability to safely and economically operate nuclear plants. Is a nuclear plant really compatible with a reward system that prioritizes short-term cash extraction? Where it isn't, can we really count on regulators to keep things safe without drastically inflating costs? Looking at the recent spate of bank failures leaves me with a lot of questions there.
- cfraenkel 3y agoThats only because coal (and oil/gas) have gotten a bye on their externalized societal costs. If you held them to the same standards, the insurance companies would shut them down tomorrow.
- wpietri 3y agoSure, and I'm all for removing that subsidy too. Let's start with a carbon tax, for example, and then we can move on to taxes for other pollutants. But having made that mistake with coal is no reason to make it again for nuclear power.
- mlyle 3y ago> Fukushima's cleanup cost is still unknown, but estimates went from $13 billion to $96 billion to $187 billion. If nuclear power is as safe as you say, then they shouldn't need these kinds of subsidies. Insuring long tail risk is really, really hard to do and is likely to be very overpriced in the market.
- WheatMillington 3y agoI get very tired of pro nuclear posts that ignore entirely the legitimate downside of nuclear energy. It's the only energy generation which has made an entire city uninhabitable. An please enough with the "this could never happen again with modern reactors" nonsense, as if all possible outcomes can be anticipated.
- Thorondor 3y agoNuclear energy is hardly the only power source that has made an entire city uninhabitable. The Banqiao dam failure flooded 30 cities and affected over 10 million people. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure Then there's Centralia, PA, which was turned into a virtual ghost town by a coal mine fire. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire And we're not even considering the effects of global warming here. Sure, nuclear has risks, but our civilization needs energy and nuclear has proven to be one of the least risky ways to produce it.
- desro 3y agoThis is a complex issue, no way around it, and I'm not an expert in the field. My thought in response to this is to consider the way coal, oil, copper, uranium, silicon, [...] shape human activity and culture. More specifically, I wonder about: - major oil spills - "mining towns," boom & bust - generally any of the costs associated with resource extraction (copper's mined with diesel, they say) It's complex because it's hard to tell if any of us are making apples-to-apples comparisons in these discussions (broadly). And... I hope we figure it out before our current energy generation makes an entire planet uninhabitable.
- nocoiner 3y agoYeah, well, fossil fuels made the entire city of Houston unlivable.
- whatever1 3y agoEvery 10 years there is a 4+ level accident (on the INES scale of 7). And that is with less than 400 plants globally. If we 10x these then we should expect far more frequent accidents. And let’s not get started on the topic of the nuclear waste. https://www.statista.com/statistics/273002/the-biggest-nuclear-accidents-worldwide-rated-by-ines-scale/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/273002/the-biggest-nucle...
- BMc2020 3y agoThis article from 2008 did not age well. Just 3 years later, in Japan...
- arcticbull 3y agoJust 3 years later in Japan, an incident occurred where zero people died attributable to the fact the plant was nuclear. As of last year, they're back on the nuclear train. [1] [1] https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/12/22/news/japan-goes-all-nuclear https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/12/22/news/japan-goes-...
- BMc2020 3y ago150 square kilometers was made uninhabitable.
- Swenrekcah 3y agoHow many square kilometres of fertile land are we losing to fossil production and climate change effects each year? I don’t know the answer but probably more than 150 I’d wager.
- nl 3y agoYes! Replacing fossil fuel with renewables is a great solution!
- genocidicbunny 3y agoI wonder how much desertification just the ongoing heatwave in Africa, Middle East and Asia is going to cause -- probably much more than 150km^2.
- eropple 3y agoHow many fossil fuel sites are Superfunds? How much land is going to be rendered sub-arable over the next hundred years from climate change?
- 3y ago
- pbj1968 3y agoJapan proved that despite all our best precautions and designs this fundamentally unsafe.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- letrowekwel 3y agoNot as unsafe as using coal instead of nuclear, and pushing the world towards a climate disaster. Climate change has already done much more damage to Europe than Chernobyl.
- goatlover 3y agoGreens in Europe have something to answer for with all the anti-nuclear fear mongering.
- Prickle 3y agoLmao no. Fukushima No1 was a carbon copy of a US nuclear power plant that was intended to withstand earthquakes... And tornadoes. Tsunamis were not factored into the design. TEPCO wanted to minimize cost. So instead of redesigning the reactor, they just used the same blueprints and built a giant sea wall to block tsunamis. They then refused to upgrade the sea wall. This is despite multiple earthquake forecasts by public and private authorities. They even started a sea wall upgrade project 1 year before the earthquake. It was cancelled due to "excessive costs".
- allears 3y agoFukushima was neither best precautions nor best designs. And, as multiple posters have said, still far fewer fatalities, and less environmental damage, than any fossil fuel.
- BlytheSchuma 3y ago[dead]
- user6723 3y agoModern nuclear technologies are actually very safe. Leveraging an alternative model about eight years ago, this plasma generates its own magnetic fields, avoiding the multi-billion magnet infrastructure required by Tokomak. This plasma stays "lit" almost indefinitely with less than 280 watts of power input. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBInhPFFVog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBInhPFFVog
- nl 3y agoThat's a fusion (as opposed to fission 0 discussed in this article) reactor . Once that becomes economically viable it's pretty interesting. It remains a way off though.
- user6723 3y agoThey cost less than $30-million to build.
- wpietri 3y agoI took a look around for reliable sources on this and I can find nothing. Is there much reason to think this isn't just a scam or a bunch of goofs?
- nisa 3y agoNo. Looks like no peer-reviewed papers. No prototype that is independently verified. Considering their extraordinary claims no evidence can be found. If that thing works and can be independently verified it's Nobel prize territory.
- user6723 3y agoThe source linked above is what is called a primary source (as taught in grade school). The video is raw video footage, not CGI.
- wpietri 3y agoI agree it's a primary source, and primary sources are often terrible. That's why I'm looking for outside confirmation.
- nl 3y agoNeeds a 2008. It's pretty ironic how this article talks about how new designs are unsafe and yet commentators here are saying how much safer new designs are: > The Europeans at the WNA Symposium were talking proudly of how their latest reactor design, with its core catcher and superior leak-tight containment, is safer than the current plants’ designs. This is wrong in concept. Adding provisions to solve a nonproblem merely provides additional potential paths to failure.
- Prickle 3y agoBoth Chernobyl and Fukushima were caused by human idiocy. There are still a few reactors of the same design as Chernobyl, generating power today. These reactors have not exploded. Simply because they follow strict procedure. Fukushima was a consequence of continuous cost cutting by management. It was fully preventable, and construction of improvements even started! They were cancelled due to "cost". Onagawa Nuclear Powerplant survived the same earthquake and tsunami, despite being closer to the epicenter. An analogy: All planes are dangerous because a human can push a red button, or cut costs and crash the airplane. Nuclear Power has the same issue stemming from human idiocy and incompetence. This can be fixed, if only politics and MBAs got out of the way.
- nl 3y agoI think you summarise it really well. Putting that much at risk to a single piece of human idiocy is really risky.
- barathr 3y agoThere is a really unfortunate assumption about nuclear baked into the engineering mindset -- and this piece is a perfect example of an engineering mindset. All complex technologies are really best understood as socio-technical systems. They depend on people and machines, data and economics, and, in the case of nuclear, especially fickle things like geopolitics and warfare. It's all about unknown unknowns, and not the engineering kind. If it weren't for the unknown unknowns we are going to face in the 21st century from climate change alone (and not just the first order effects, but the second and third order effects on economics and geopolitics, which are basically unknowable), nuclear might make sense. But we have cheaper (solar PV + storage is cheaper, soon others will be too) and safer alternatives. The easy test is this: if a country has a currency crisis, a coup, two back to back 1000-year storms, another pandemic, or any number of other major events, and the plant gets damaged and nobody shows up to work for a month, is everything going to be fine? Will someone break in and steal something dangerous? Will something dangerous leak out? With modern renewables the cost is low, the tail risk is basically zero, and the power is compatible with hard times.
- Georgelemental 3y ago> But we have cheaper (solar PV + storage is cheaper, soon others will be too) and safer alternatives. It is not, not at the scale needed to reliably replace fossil fuels. This just isn't true.
- barathr 3y agoNeither is nuclear. And solar PV is vastly easier to scale up. The peak rate of fission power plant nameplate capacity construction was ~1985 and at that peak rate it would take something like 60 years to build what is needed globally.
- Georgelemental 3y agoYou can't "scale up" the frequency and regularity of sunny days in a year, the weather is beyond your control. In contrast, nuclear fission is one of the most predictable physical processes known to science; you just need to build the plants.
- bee_rider 3y agoI think we should have been building nuclear plants as fast as possible for the last 50 years or so. But does anyone foresee a modern America with a regulatory or financial environment that will allow for controversial projects that take decades to pay off? I don’t. Onward to solar and wind. You can install it on your own house, and it doesn’t make the nightly news if somebody falls off their roof and dies while installing solar.
- mentos 3y agoI’ve always wondered why not put an obscene amount of nuclear power underground in the deserts of Nevada and then distribute that across the west coast and maybe even middle America? I guess the physics of power loss make it uneconomical?
- maxerickson 3y agoThe transmission isn't the problem, extracting the energy from the reaction is the problem. Nuclear plants are mostly located near abundant water because the water is a key component of the energy extraction.
- mentos 3y agoThen I guess I’m team ‘carpet a large section of the desert with solar’ and take advantage of the free floating nuclear power we have in the sky.