4 ms·

The harms of radiation are massively overhyped. Nobody from the Fukushima accident died from radiation sickness or radiation syndrome, and so far there's been

The harms of radiation are massively overhyped. Nobody from the Fukushima accident died from radiation sickness or radiation syndrome, and so far there's been no evidence of long term elevated cancer rates either. Meanwhile the nuclear industry has been drowning for 50+ years from egregious layers of overregulation. It costed NuScale $500+ Million just to write the documents required for regulatory approval for a new reactor design. Microsoft is spending $60 Million a year to build an LLM whose only purpose is to automate writing nuclear regulatory documents. I don't support the Trump admin one iota, but I'm also saddened that democrats tend to be too safetyist to do an honest cost benefit evaluation of some of these insane regulations.

a34729t 2mo ago
Country of lawers vs country of engineers
Kon5ole 2mo ago
>The harms of radiation are massively overhyped. >Nobody from the Fukushima accident died from radiation sickness or radiation syndrome, and so far there's been no evidence of long term elevated cancer rates either. You say these two things as if the second statement supports the first, but it doesn't. The dangers of radiation are very well known and don't change at all based on what happened at Fukushima. If you fire a gun and miss, the gun is still dangerous. >Meanwhile the nuclear industry has been drowning for 50+ years from egregious layers of overregulation. Here's an account of two gruesome deaths caused by poor regulation of nuclear materials in Japan. It happened 12 years before Fukushima. https://science.howstuffworks.com/hisashi-ouchi.htm https://science.howstuffworks.com/hisashi-ouchi.htm
- herewulf 2mo ago
  Interesting but people die (or are severely injured) in all kinds of industrial accidents all the time. Unfortunately, with or without regulation it comes with the territory of a modern industrial society.
  - Kon5ole 2mo ago
    >Interesting but people die (or are severely injured) in all kinds of industrial accidents all the time. Very few other industrial accidents cause effects that have to be dealt with for decades over 1000 miles away, even across oceans. Nuclear power really is in a league of its own when it comes to risk. I am not aware of anything that comes close. Dam accidents have killed many more people and devastated towns, but the day after that happens, the area can be reused and the risk is entirely gone. The risks of nuclear power remain for decades or even centuries. Finding ways to deal with that risk is fine, arguing that it can be managed is fine, but pretending that the risk is exaggerated based on the accidents that have happened so far is a mistake. The risk is things that could happen, not what has actually happened.
    - leonidasrup 2mo ago
      You probably mean the Chernobyl accident. There are estimates that pollution from European coal power plants cause more deaths EACH year in Europe, than the total estimated deaths from Chernobyl accidents (most pessimistic estimate 4000-8000 deaths). For example, just the Great Smog event that affected London, England, in December 1952 caused by modern estimate 10,000–12,000 deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London
      - Kon5ole 2mo ago
        >There are estimates that pollution from European coal power plants cause more deaths EACH year in Europe, First and foremost - coal sucks. Secondly - the choice isn't between nuclear or coal. That said, the estimates you mention are not believable. Pollution as a whole causes lots of premature deaths, but coal burned in electricity plants are a very small part of total pollution. Especially in Europe, where most countries no longer operate coal power plants. Not even the UK.
- Hammershaft 2mo ago
  https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p... People die from the operation & externalities of every energy source, it's just that Nuclear power has orders of magnitude fewer deaths per kilowatt-hour than the dirtier energy sources these regulations have pushed energy production towards. I'm sure some lives would be lost if Nuclear Power faced the same regulatory costs that other energy sources do, rather than the egregious and absurd costs they face today. But many many more lives would be saved by deregulating nuclear energy and making it more cost competitive with coal and natural gas. Many children wouldn't contract asthma & the other respiratory illnesses they do today if nuclear energy hadn't been killed via overregulation and replaced by coal and natural gas.
  - inigyou 2mo ago
    Where would unregulated nuclear power go on that chart?
    - Hammershaft 2mo ago
      Most of the nuclear power that makes up that chart was built when there was significantly less regulation on reactors than there is today. Even if deregulation increased nuclear deaths per watt by two orders of magnitude (which I strongly doubt!), nuclear would still be orders of magnitude safer than the fossil fuels that have replaced it across the western world.
      - Kon5ole 2mo ago
        >Even if deregulation increased nuclear deaths per watt by two orders of magnitude (which I strongly doubt!) Why doubt it? Chernobyl alone was very close to causing millions of deaths. The actual accident released only about 5% of the core, but had the graphite fire not been extinguished, places as far away as Scotland and Scandinavia would not be able to grow enough edible food within their borders for decades. Europe would starve. Leukemia cases would be in the millions. The exclusion zone around Chernobyl would be hundreds of kilometers instead of 30. If the ground water barrier had been broken - which was likely - the ground water for tens of millions of people would be poisoned for centuries. The only reason to doubt it is that two orders of magnitude is probably not enough.
Georgelemental 2mo ago
> Nobody from the Fukushima accident died from radiation sickness or radiation syndrome, and so far there's been no evidence of long term elevated cancer rates either. There has actually been 1 radiation death
inigyou 2mo ago
How can writing documents possibly cost $500,000,000?
- rcxdude 2mo ago
  How could writing code possibly cost that much? And yet tech companies spend significantly more than that per year on it. You need a lot of highly paid, experienced people to do it (negotiating regulatory frameworks is pretty much its own profession).
- Hammershaft 2mo ago
  https://www.nuscalepower.com/press-releases/2020/nuscale-power-makes-history-as-the-first-ever-smr-to-receive-us-nrc-design-approval https://www.nuscalepower.com/press-releases/2020/nuscale-pow... "NuScale spent over $500 million, with the backing of Fluor, and over 2 million labor hours to develop the information needed to prepare its DCA application. The company also submitted 14 separate Topical Reports in addition to the over 12,000 pages for its DCA application and provided more than 2 million pages of supporting information for NRC audits."

a34729t 2mo ago

Country of lawers vs country of engineers

Kon5ole 2mo ago

>The harms of radiation are massively overhyped. >Nobody from the Fukushima accident died from radiation sickness or radiation syndrome, and so far there's been no evidence of long term elevated cancer rates either. You say these two things as if the second statement supports the first, but it doesn't. The dangers of radiation are very well known and don't change at all based on what happened at Fukushima. If you fire a gun and miss, the gun is still dangerous. >Meanwhile the nuclear industry has been drowning for 50+ years from egregious layers of overregulation. Here's an account of two gruesome deaths caused by poor regulation of nuclear materials in Japan. It happened 12 years before Fukushima. https://science.howstuffworks.com/hisashi-ouchi.htm https://science.howstuffworks.com/hisashi-ouchi.htm

herewulf 2mo ago
Interesting but people die (or are severely injured) in all kinds of industrial accidents all the time. Unfortunately, with or without regulation it comes with the territory of a modern industrial society.
- Kon5ole 2mo ago
  >Interesting but people die (or are severely injured) in all kinds of industrial accidents all the time. Very few other industrial accidents cause effects that have to be dealt with for decades over 1000 miles away, even across oceans. Nuclear power really is in a league of its own when it comes to risk. I am not aware of anything that comes close. Dam accidents have killed many more people and devastated towns, but the day after that happens, the area can be reused and the risk is entirely gone. The risks of nuclear power remain for decades or even centuries. Finding ways to deal with that risk is fine, arguing that it can be managed is fine, but pretending that the risk is exaggerated based on the accidents that have happened so far is a mistake. The risk is things that could happen, not what has actually happened.
  - leonidasrup 2mo ago
    You probably mean the Chernobyl accident. There are estimates that pollution from European coal power plants cause more deaths EACH year in Europe, than the total estimated deaths from Chernobyl accidents (most pessimistic estimate 4000-8000 deaths). For example, just the Great Smog event that affected London, England, in December 1952 caused by modern estimate 10,000–12,000 deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London
    - Kon5ole 2mo ago
      >There are estimates that pollution from European coal power plants cause more deaths EACH year in Europe, First and foremost - coal sucks. Secondly - the choice isn't between nuclear or coal. That said, the estimates you mention are not believable. Pollution as a whole causes lots of premature deaths, but coal burned in electricity plants are a very small part of total pollution. Especially in Europe, where most countries no longer operate coal power plants. Not even the UK.
Hammershaft 2mo ago
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p... People die from the operation & externalities of every energy source, it's just that Nuclear power has orders of magnitude fewer deaths per kilowatt-hour than the dirtier energy sources these regulations have pushed energy production towards. I'm sure some lives would be lost if Nuclear Power faced the same regulatory costs that other energy sources do, rather than the egregious and absurd costs they face today. But many many more lives would be saved by deregulating nuclear energy and making it more cost competitive with coal and natural gas. Many children wouldn't contract asthma & the other respiratory illnesses they do today if nuclear energy hadn't been killed via overregulation and replaced by coal and natural gas.
- inigyou 2mo ago
  Where would unregulated nuclear power go on that chart?
  - Hammershaft 2mo ago
    Most of the nuclear power that makes up that chart was built when there was significantly less regulation on reactors than there is today. Even if deregulation increased nuclear deaths per watt by two orders of magnitude (which I strongly doubt!), nuclear would still be orders of magnitude safer than the fossil fuels that have replaced it across the western world.
    - Kon5ole 2mo ago
      >Even if deregulation increased nuclear deaths per watt by two orders of magnitude (which I strongly doubt!) Why doubt it? Chernobyl alone was very close to causing millions of deaths. The actual accident released only about 5% of the core, but had the graphite fire not been extinguished, places as far away as Scotland and Scandinavia would not be able to grow enough edible food within their borders for decades. Europe would starve. Leukemia cases would be in the millions. The exclusion zone around Chernobyl would be hundreds of kilometers instead of 30. If the ground water barrier had been broken - which was likely - the ground water for tens of millions of people would be poisoned for centuries. The only reason to doubt it is that two orders of magnitude is probably not enough.

Georgelemental 2mo ago

> Nobody from the Fukushima accident died from radiation sickness or radiation syndrome, and so far there's been no evidence of long term elevated cancer rates either. There has actually been 1 radiation death

inigyou 2mo ago

How can writing documents possibly cost $500,000,000?

rcxdude 2mo ago
How could writing code possibly cost that much? And yet tech companies spend significantly more than that per year on it. You need a lot of highly paid, experienced people to do it (negotiating regulatory frameworks is pretty much its own profession).
Hammershaft 2mo ago
https://www.nuscalepower.com/press-releases/2020/nuscale-power-makes-history-as-the-first-ever-smr-to-receive-us-nrc-design-approval https://www.nuscalepower.com/press-releases/2020/nuscale-pow... "NuScale spent over $500 million, with the backing of Fluor, and over 2 million labor hours to develop the information needed to prepare its DCA application. The company also submitted 14 separate Topical Reports in addition to the over 12,000 pages for its DCA application and provided more than 2 million pages of supporting information for NRC audits."