5 ms·

Unfortunately, nuclear seems to get a bad rep from a lot of people. I suspect this is because of a mixture of things: 1. The rare instances of it going wrong l

by CM30 3y ago

Unfortunately, nuclear seems to get a bad rep from a lot of people. I suspect this is because of a mixture of things: 1. The rare instances of it going wrong look catastrophic, while the many times it does better than coal/oil/gas go ignored. Kinda like how people fear plane travel more than driving, despite the former being far safer than the latter. 2. It's more expensive to setup, so there's an economic incentive to either stick with what's there already (fossil fuels) or try and go with renewable solutions. 3. A certain percentage of the left/environmental movement seem to hate the concept, either because of subtle influencing from the fossil fuels lobby or because the idea of compromising and going with a system that isn't 'perfect' doesn't appeal to them.

retendo 3y ago
Isn't the number one reason that nuclear gets a bad rep because there is no compelling solution for getting rid of the waste?
- tialaramex 3y ago
  We don't have a solution to the waste from fossil fuels either, so... We just ignore that. Coal in particular results in incredible toxic waste. Even if it was inert (which it very much is not) you get enormous heaps of rock you dug the coal out of and those have to be stored forever. Typically people just leave it in a big pile as somebody else's problem until one day the wind blows and it collapses and kills a bunch of people. Oops. But even for natural gas in the best case your waste is excess carbon dioxide, which renders your planet inhospitable so that's not great either.
- fsflover 3y ago
  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-...
  - master-lincoln 3y ago
    > As a general clarification, ounce for ounce, coal ash released from a power plant delivers more radiation than nuclear waste shielded via water or dry cask storage. What a comparison... The worry with nuclear waste is of course that the shielding doesn't last long enough and waste then contaminates surroundings with much much higher radiation than in coal ash
    - fsflover 3y ago
      AFAIK it's pretty well know how long the shielding works, so you can always renew it. Also, with coal the shielding is impossible at all.
      - ashildr 3y ago
        The shielding of the waste, not the shielding of the plants.
        fsflover 3y ago
        Yes this is what I'm talking about.
    - smegger001 3y ago
      We know how to store it safely though melt the radioactive material into glass ingots and store them in stainless steel barrels at the bottom of old mineshaft in geologicly stable dry areas like yukca mountain. But NIMBYs wont let us. The fear of leaking containment vessels goes back to early days of nuclear such as the Hanford site. Yes thats a horrible mess and a Superfund site. It also dates back to the Manhattan project and waste from the first nuclear pile. We have learned a bit more since the 1940's.
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  There are compelling solutions, they just run into the same opposition as the plants themselves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...
  - rcbdev 3y ago
    There's also the Finnish solution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...
    - paulmd 3y ago
      now there's a multilevel dungeon if I've ever seen one... must be some real neat loot stored at the bottom!
- saywhanow 3y ago
  The waste problem is solved. As with the rest of the nuclear discussion, it’s mostly hysteria. Here’s a guy kissing nuclear waste. It’s a bit tongue in cheek on the surface, but he’s PhD and there is quality information in the video. https://youtu.be/lhHHbgIy9jU?si=wE0FvscMgBpLUZ0g https://youtu.be/lhHHbgIy9jU?si=wE0FvscMgBpLUZ0g
  - raxxorraxor 3y ago
    The waste problem is pretty much not solved. Neither on the technical, nor the political front. That doesn't mean nuclear isn't an option. Try to list the countries with a permanent nuclear storage site. Pretty short list.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      The political front, sure. The technical front, however, really is fine. All the high-level nuclear waste on Earth would fit in a 21m cube. The lower level stuff is substantially greater in volume, but overall this is one of the (IMO few) cases where nuclear proponent's arguments about energy density do actually matter. And that means it's fine for the list of countries with a permanent nuclear storage site to be pretty short.
- thiht 3y ago
  At least the waste is not dumped in the atmosphere. We have better waste management for nuclear than coal or oil.
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
"Unfortunately, nuclear seems to get a bad rep from a lot of people." Well, there was Chernobyl. Then Fukushima. I'm all for Nuclear. But I think humans have shown repeatedly they can't really handle it. So think the trepidation is justified. But, I am hoping with all the technology advances in last 50 years, maybe Nuclear can be made safe. If we do learn from past.
- atonse 3y ago
  As far as I know though, Chernobyl and Fukushima had completely different reasons and don't really clump together apart from "both were meltdowns" Chernobyl was entirely a product of design compromises due to cost savings, combined by a totalitarian system suppressing the known impact of those design decisions. It was also a much older design. Fukushima also seemed like a design mistake (I remember reading it that the generators or something like that were flooded with water) , but then caused by a natural disaster and flooding. The nuclear plans (in on paper at least) we have now as a result of decades of additional knowledge, and are way more safe. Combined with the fact that we have incredible computing firepower to better simulate scenarios, all this has convinced me to feel much better about the prospect of nuclear power plants and their safety.
  - charlieyu1 3y ago
    So 2 mistakes in the last 50 years, each wiping out a radius of 25km from being habitable for 1000 years. I won’t trust people for not making more mistakes.
    - smegger001 3y ago
      Its not likely to be a thousand years before its habitatable again. Long lived isotopes are safer as they are less radioactive and less energetic. And short lived isotopes while dangerous are short lived. Its the medium lived that are a problem 70-150 years that are the biggest problem. Secondly we dont have to wait for it to all to be gone just down to a safe background level
  - cesarb 3y ago
cesarb 3y ago
You didn't mention what I believe is the true reason nuclear power got its bad reputation: nuclear weapons. (Tough you could argue that it's your item 3, since nuclear weapons and their open-air testing would be the reason the left/environmental/peace movement started to hate the concept.)
- master-lincoln 3y ago
  Wasn't it rather events like in Chernobyl and Fukushima?
citrin_ru 3y ago
1. and 2. are closely related. High cost at least partially can be attributed to the requirement for nuclear to be in not the safest then at least safer than coal/hydro and many other currently used sources. Pretty much like people demand air travel to be the safest form of transportation. But given that without nuclear we would continue to burn coal/gas which is not risk free either may be the balance should be struck on the other point of the cost-safety spectrum.
fragmede 3y ago
There's also the small detail of fission vs fusion. We don't currently have fusion power except from the sun, but if we could make it work (which, noted, we've been trying for quite a number of years to make it work), then we'd have rather nuclear power that is quite a bit better than what we can do today. that might be enough to move the needle on nuclear power, since it doesn't have the waste or melt down issue.

by CM30 3y ago

retendo 3y ago

Isn't the number one reason that nuclear gets a bad rep because there is no compelling solution for getting rid of the waste?

tialaramex 3y ago
We don't have a solution to the waste from fossil fuels either, so... We just ignore that. Coal in particular results in incredible toxic waste. Even if it was inert (which it very much is not) you get enormous heaps of rock you dug the coal out of and those have to be stored forever. Typically people just leave it in a big pile as somebody else's problem until one day the wind blows and it collapses and kills a bunch of people. Oops. But even for natural gas in the best case your waste is excess carbon dioxide, which renders your planet inhospitable so that's not great either.
fsflover 3y ago
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-...
- master-lincoln 3y ago
  > As a general clarification, ounce for ounce, coal ash released from a power plant delivers more radiation than nuclear waste shielded via water or dry cask storage. What a comparison... The worry with nuclear waste is of course that the shielding doesn't last long enough and waste then contaminates surroundings with much much higher radiation than in coal ash
  - fsflover 3y ago
    AFAIK it's pretty well know how long the shielding works, so you can always renew it. Also, with coal the shielding is impossible at all.
    - ashildr 3y ago
      The shielding of the waste, not the shielding of the plants.
      - fsflover 3y ago
        Yes this is what I'm talking about.
  - smegger001 3y ago
    We know how to store it safely though melt the radioactive material into glass ingots and store them in stainless steel barrels at the bottom of old mineshaft in geologicly stable dry areas like yukca mountain. But NIMBYs wont let us. The fear of leaking containment vessels goes back to early days of nuclear such as the Hanford site. Yes thats a horrible mess and a Superfund site. It also dates back to the Manhattan project and waste from the first nuclear pile. We have learned a bit more since the 1940's.
AlexandrB 3y ago
There are compelling solutions, they just run into the same opposition as the plants themselves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...
- rcbdev 3y ago
  There's also the Finnish solution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo...
  - paulmd 3y ago
    now there's a multilevel dungeon if I've ever seen one... must be some real neat loot stored at the bottom!
saywhanow 3y ago
The waste problem is solved. As with the rest of the nuclear discussion, it’s mostly hysteria. Here’s a guy kissing nuclear waste. It’s a bit tongue in cheek on the surface, but he’s PhD and there is quality information in the video. https://youtu.be/lhHHbgIy9jU?si=wE0FvscMgBpLUZ0g https://youtu.be/lhHHbgIy9jU?si=wE0FvscMgBpLUZ0g
- raxxorraxor 3y ago
  The waste problem is pretty much not solved. Neither on the technical, nor the political front. That doesn't mean nuclear isn't an option. Try to list the countries with a permanent nuclear storage site. Pretty short list.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    The political front, sure. The technical front, however, really is fine. All the high-level nuclear waste on Earth would fit in a 21m cube. The lower level stuff is substantially greater in volume, but overall this is one of the (IMO few) cases where nuclear proponent's arguments about energy density do actually matter. And that means it's fine for the list of countries with a permanent nuclear storage site to be pretty short.
thiht 3y ago
At least the waste is not dumped in the atmosphere. We have better waste management for nuclear than coal or oil.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

"Unfortunately, nuclear seems to get a bad rep from a lot of people." Well, there was Chernobyl. Then Fukushima. I'm all for Nuclear. But I think humans have shown repeatedly they can't really handle it. So think the trepidation is justified. But, I am hoping with all the technology advances in last 50 years, maybe Nuclear can be made safe. If we do learn from past.

atonse 3y ago
As far as I know though, Chernobyl and Fukushima had completely different reasons and don't really clump together apart from "both were meltdowns" Chernobyl was entirely a product of design compromises due to cost savings, combined by a totalitarian system suppressing the known impact of those design decisions. It was also a much older design. Fukushima also seemed like a design mistake (I remember reading it that the generators or something like that were flooded with water) , but then caused by a natural disaster and flooding. The nuclear plans (in on paper at least) we have now as a result of decades of additional knowledge, and are way more safe. Combined with the fact that we have incredible computing firepower to better simulate scenarios, all this has convinced me to feel much better about the prospect of nuclear power plants and their safety.
- charlieyu1 3y ago
  So 2 mistakes in the last 50 years, each wiping out a radius of 25km from being habitable for 1000 years. I won’t trust people for not making more mistakes.
  - smegger001 3y ago
    Its not likely to be a thousand years before its habitatable again. Long lived isotopes are safer as they are less radioactive and less energetic. And short lived isotopes while dangerous are short lived. Its the medium lived that are a problem 70-150 years that are the biggest problem. Secondly we dont have to wait for it to all to be gone just down to a safe background level
- cesarb 3y ago

cesarb 3y ago

You didn't mention what I believe is the true reason nuclear power got its bad reputation: nuclear weapons. (Tough you could argue that it's your item 3, since nuclear weapons and their open-air testing would be the reason the left/environmental/peace movement started to hate the concept.)

master-lincoln 3y ago
Wasn't it rather events like in Chernobyl and Fukushima?

citrin_ru 3y ago

1. and 2. are closely related. High cost at least partially can be attributed to the requirement for nuclear to be in not the safest then at least safer than coal/hydro and many other currently used sources. Pretty much like people demand air travel to be the safest form of transportation. But given that without nuclear we would continue to burn coal/gas which is not risk free either may be the balance should be struck on the other point of the cost-safety spectrum.

fragmede 3y ago

There's also the small detail of fission vs fusion. We don't currently have fusion power except from the sun, but if we could make it work (which, noted, we've been trying for quite a number of years to make it work), then we'd have rather nuclear power that is quite a bit better than what we can do today. that might be enough to move the needle on nuclear power, since it doesn't have the waste or melt down issue.