6 ms·

I'm on team Generation 4 Nuclear. I think the distinction is important. Eg: https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-advanced-reactor-systems-watch-2030 https://ww

I'm on team Generation 4 Nuclear. I think the distinction is important. Eg: https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-advanced-reactor-systems-watch-2030 https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-advanced-reactor-system...

hanniabu 3y ago
Generation doesn't matter, the weakest link will always be human greef, changing the spec to save cost, changing safety tests to extend the lifetime past when it should be shut down, poor maintenance, etc
- spullara 3y ago
  Those are all just money. We could spend more for energy.
spullara 3y ago
I would build 100 3 mile islands instead of using fossil fuels.
- wateralien 3y ago
  Mmmm, I think that would be a mistake. The former residents of Fukushima prefecture and Chernobyl would probably agree.
  - nickpp 3y ago
    But the millions killed each year by pollution created burning gas, oil and coal would strongly disagree - if they were still alive.
  - unglaublich 3y ago
    - 20.000 died because of the Tsunami. - 2.000 died in the evacuation attempt. - ONE person died because of actual radiation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - ViewTrick1002 3y ago
      Then we can discount all people being hurt from falls when building solar plants because the panels themselves did not kill them, they just did not follow OSHA regulations! Solar = 0.0! Why don't we abolish the Price–Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act and see how far nuclear gets when having to pay the true cost for their insurance? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear...
      - spi 3y ago
        Are you implying that if there was no Nuclear plant in Fukushima, the Tsunami would not have happened, or the people living there wouldn't have been needed to be evacuated?
        hef19898 3y ago
        Tsunami? Yes. Evacuatiom due a nuclear melt down of a non-existing nuclear power plant? I don't know, but maybe not.
      - stjohnswarts 3y ago
        Show me a general solar or wind solution that works just about anywhere that is guaranteed to have at least 1 week of back up power when the power takes a nose dive during extreme weather or even just when the wind/solar dips, even 1 day would be a great improvement over what we have now. I would be onboard with solar/wind all day if this was true.
    - demondemidi 3y ago
      The solution is clear. Ban tsunamis.
    - natmaka 3y ago
      "In 2012, ex-prime minister Naoto Kan was interviewed about the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and has said that at one point Japan faced a situation where there was a chance that people might not be able to live in the capital zone including Tokyo and would have to evacuate ((...)) If things had reached that level, not only would the public have had to face hardships but Japan's very existence would have been in peril" Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_reaction_to_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Evacuations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_reaction_to_Fukushima...
  - rekoil 3y ago
    Mortality rate in deaths per thousand terawatt hour[1]: - Brown coal: 32.72 - Coal: 24.62 - Oil: 18.43 - Biomass: 4.63 - Natural gas: 2.82 - Hydro: 1.30 - Wind: 0.04 - Nuclear: 0.03 - Solar: 0.02 Again, these are adjusted per 1000TWh, and includes nuclear catastrophes like Chernobyl and Fukushima 1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...
    - hef19898 3y ago
      Nominally it includes Chernobyl. Caveat, noby, not in the USSR, the successor states nor the West ever really counted the Chernobyl victims, hence the official.number of what, 30-ish victims.
    - natmaka 3y ago
      The hydro stats are mainly due to the Banqiao case, which is a fluke: in similar conditions anything would go boom with way less latency: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35521090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35521090
    - stjohnswarts 3y ago
      do you know if the solar ratio includes falling off roofs?
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  Here's the thing: you wouldn't have to, there's no need for compromise. We can build a safe nuclear energy infrastructure, go 100% carbon emission free, etc. But there's still no solution for safely storing or disposing of nuclear waste, so all those power plants currently have a stockpile of spent fuel rods, which is a huge risk imo. But everyone's like "not in my backyard", even though the backyard is a deep cave in a mountain or down in the earth where the stuff will be put in lead and reinforced concrete, the cave sealed off or collapsed, forgotten by time and where it will remain dormant and slowly go inert over the next geological era.
  - CharlieDigital 3y ago
    "Backyard" in this case is the entire transit route to get the spent fuel to a storage location, not just the final destination.
    - whywhywhywhy 3y ago
      Fear mongering tbh, the containers can survive a direct train hit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mHtOW-OBO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mHtOW-OBO4
  - preisschild 3y ago
    Of course there is a technical solution already and there has been one for decades. You Yanks could have a deep geological repository by now, but NIMBYs in Nevada blocked it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...
  - gambiting 3y ago
    >>But there's still no solution for safely storing or disposing of nuclear waste, so all those power plants currently have a stockpile of spent fuel rods, There is, we know what it is, but no one wants to pay for it - it's called deep borehole storage. You basically put your fuel in cylinders, dig boreholes few miles deep, put all the waste at the bottom, done. It's not coming back ever, it doesn't pose any danger to anything or anyone on anything other than geological timescales(and if the geology starts pushing stuff buried 5 miles deep to the surface you have other bigger problems to worry about). It's estimated that "just" 800 boreholes would be enough to store all nuclear waste ever produced. But yeah, cost is one thing, but the other is that this material then becomes truly and irreversibly irretrievable - which actually might not be desirable since we know that even spent nuclear fuel can be reprocessed to make more fuel or weapons, which is not something that countries like US would want to dismiss as a possibility. And also - storage of spent nuclear fuel is actually a lot safer and less scary than most people think. In Netherlands they literally made a museum out of their spent fuel storage facility, you can walk in between the casks that hold material radioactive enough to kill you in minutes, it's that safe.
- manonthewall 3y ago
  yep, I've been saying this for a couple decades

hanniabu 3y ago

Generation doesn't matter, the weakest link will always be human greef, changing the spec to save cost, changing safety tests to extend the lifetime past when it should be shut down, poor maintenance, etc

spullara 3y ago
Those are all just money. We could spend more for energy.

spullara 3y ago

I would build 100 3 mile islands instead of using fossil fuels.

wateralien 3y ago
Mmmm, I think that would be a mistake. The former residents of Fukushima prefecture and Chernobyl would probably agree.
- nickpp 3y ago
  But the millions killed each year by pollution created burning gas, oil and coal would strongly disagree - if they were still alive.
- unglaublich 3y ago
  - 20.000 died because of the Tsunami. - 2.000 died in the evacuation attempt. - ONE person died because of actual radiation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - ViewTrick1002 3y ago
    Then we can discount all people being hurt from falls when building solar plants because the panels themselves did not kill them, they just did not follow OSHA regulations! Solar = 0.0! Why don't we abolish the Price–Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act and see how far nuclear gets when having to pay the true cost for their insurance? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear...
    - spi 3y ago
      Are you implying that if there was no Nuclear plant in Fukushima, the Tsunami would not have happened, or the people living there wouldn't have been needed to be evacuated?
      - hef19898 3y ago
        Tsunami? Yes. Evacuatiom due a nuclear melt down of a non-existing nuclear power plant? I don't know, but maybe not.
    - stjohnswarts 3y ago
      Show me a general solar or wind solution that works just about anywhere that is guaranteed to have at least 1 week of back up power when the power takes a nose dive during extreme weather or even just when the wind/solar dips, even 1 day would be a great improvement over what we have now. I would be onboard with solar/wind all day if this was true.
  - demondemidi 3y ago
    The solution is clear. Ban tsunamis.
  - natmaka 3y ago
    "In 2012, ex-prime minister Naoto Kan was interviewed about the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and has said that at one point Japan faced a situation where there was a chance that people might not be able to live in the capital zone including Tokyo and would have to evacuate ((...)) If things had reached that level, not only would the public have had to face hardships but Japan's very existence would have been in peril" Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_reaction_to_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Evacuations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_reaction_to_Fukushima...
- rekoil 3y ago
  Mortality rate in deaths per thousand terawatt hour[1]: - Brown coal: 32.72 - Coal: 24.62 - Oil: 18.43 - Biomass: 4.63 - Natural gas: 2.82 - Hydro: 1.30 - Wind: 0.04 - Nuclear: 0.03 - Solar: 0.02 Again, these are adjusted per 1000TWh, and includes nuclear catastrophes like Chernobyl and Fukushima 1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...
  - hef19898 3y ago
    Nominally it includes Chernobyl. Caveat, noby, not in the USSR, the successor states nor the West ever really counted the Chernobyl victims, hence the official.number of what, 30-ish victims.
  - natmaka 3y ago
    The hydro stats are mainly due to the Banqiao case, which is a fluke: in similar conditions anything would go boom with way less latency: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35521090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35521090
  - stjohnswarts 3y ago
    do you know if the solar ratio includes falling off roofs?
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
Here's the thing: you wouldn't have to, there's no need for compromise. We can build a safe nuclear energy infrastructure, go 100% carbon emission free, etc. But there's still no solution for safely storing or disposing of nuclear waste, so all those power plants currently have a stockpile of spent fuel rods, which is a huge risk imo. But everyone's like "not in my backyard", even though the backyard is a deep cave in a mountain or down in the earth where the stuff will be put in lead and reinforced concrete, the cave sealed off or collapsed, forgotten by time and where it will remain dormant and slowly go inert over the next geological era.
- CharlieDigital 3y ago
  "Backyard" in this case is the entire transit route to get the spent fuel to a storage location, not just the final destination.
  - whywhywhywhy 3y ago
    Fear mongering tbh, the containers can survive a direct train hit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mHtOW-OBO4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mHtOW-OBO4
- preisschild 3y ago
  Of course there is a technical solution already and there has been one for decades. You Yanks could have a deep geological repository by now, but NIMBYs in Nevada blocked it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...
- gambiting 3y ago
  >>But there's still no solution for safely storing or disposing of nuclear waste, so all those power plants currently have a stockpile of spent fuel rods, There is, we know what it is, but no one wants to pay for it - it's called deep borehole storage. You basically put your fuel in cylinders, dig boreholes few miles deep, put all the waste at the bottom, done. It's not coming back ever, it doesn't pose any danger to anything or anyone on anything other than geological timescales(and if the geology starts pushing stuff buried 5 miles deep to the surface you have other bigger problems to worry about). It's estimated that "just" 800 boreholes would be enough to store all nuclear waste ever produced. But yeah, cost is one thing, but the other is that this material then becomes truly and irreversibly irretrievable - which actually might not be desirable since we know that even spent nuclear fuel can be reprocessed to make more fuel or weapons, which is not something that countries like US would want to dismiss as a possibility. And also - storage of spent nuclear fuel is actually a lot safer and less scary than most people think. In Netherlands they literally made a museum out of their spent fuel storage facility, you can walk in between the casks that hold material radioactive enough to kill you in minutes, it's that safe.
manonthewall 3y ago
yep, I've been saying this for a couple decades