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Nuclear power can quickly hurt people or the environment if mistakes happen. Others types of power plants slowly hurt people or the environment even if mistake

Nuclear power can quickly hurt people or the environment if mistakes happen. Others types of power plants slowly hurt people or the environment even if mistakes don't happen.

pfdietz 3y ago
On the subject of "hurting people"... One can get a handle on the magnitude of this issue by looking at the cost per person killed. Typically, policy decisions on this are based on the statistical value of a human life, which is somewhere around $9M/life. If you use that value, then the extra "life value cost" from renewables is orders of magnitude below their direct cost. So it makes no sense to use a more expensive energy source than renewables just because you've been convinced renewables are too unsafe.
- kube-system 3y ago
  > So it makes no sense to use a more expensive energy source than renewables just because you've been convinced renewables are too unsafe. I agree. But it does make sense to use nuclear for other practical reasons. It works well for fulfilling base load. Renewables are great but transmission and storage is a bitch for those which are not dispatchable. Where nuclear shines is in replacing other base loads, like coal.
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    Nuclear is so much more expensive than renewables that even with issues of storage and transmission, nuclear still loses at base load. This is especially the case when one projects costs into the future, with nuclear having to compete against the renewable and storage technologies of 10, 20, 30 years hence.
    - kube-system 3y ago
      This can depend on the local market and natural resources available.
      - pfdietz 3y ago
        It's becoming true in most places. Nuclear has been backed into a corner in places like Poland. But if nuclear is a niche technology it has two problems: it won't improve quickly, and it will have a hard time maintaining its technology base and may even regress. As an example of that, the US can no longer make the forged steel pressure vessels for PWRs. At this point, pro-nuclear thinking is increasingly magical in nature. New reactor types will solve everything, never mind they can't be on the market for a very long time.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  > which is somewhere around $9M/life. Update: it was $12.5M in 2022.

Nuclear power can quickly hurt people or the environment if mistakes happen. Others types of power plants slowly hurt people or the environment even if mistakes don't happen.

pfdietz 3y ago

On the subject of "hurting people"... One can get a handle on the magnitude of this issue by looking at the cost per person killed. Typically, policy decisions on this are based on the statistical value of a human life, which is somewhere around $9M/life. If you use that value, then the extra "life value cost" from renewables is orders of magnitude below their direct cost. So it makes no sense to use a more expensive energy source than renewables just because you've been convinced renewables are too unsafe.

kube-system 3y ago
> So it makes no sense to use a more expensive energy source than renewables just because you've been convinced renewables are too unsafe. I agree. But it does make sense to use nuclear for other practical reasons. It works well for fulfilling base load. Renewables are great but transmission and storage is a bitch for those which are not dispatchable. Where nuclear shines is in replacing other base loads, like coal.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  Nuclear is so much more expensive than renewables that even with issues of storage and transmission, nuclear still loses at base load. This is especially the case when one projects costs into the future, with nuclear having to compete against the renewable and storage technologies of 10, 20, 30 years hence.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    This can depend on the local market and natural resources available.
    - pfdietz 3y ago
      It's becoming true in most places. Nuclear has been backed into a corner in places like Poland. But if nuclear is a niche technology it has two problems: it won't improve quickly, and it will have a hard time maintaining its technology base and may even regress. As an example of that, the US can no longer make the forged steel pressure vessels for PWRs. At this point, pro-nuclear thinking is increasingly magical in nature. New reactor types will solve everything, never mind they can't be on the market for a very long time.
pfdietz 3y ago
> which is somewhere around $9M/life. Update: it was $12.5M in 2022.