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So now we're all back to "nuclear power is perfectly safe and cheap." The article fails to take into account that radiation is not like poison where you either

So now we're all back to "nuclear power is perfectly safe and cheap." The article fails to take into account that radiation is not like poison where you either die or don't. It's a statistical effect and how large the effect is can only be answered in a couple of decades. I'd not want to bet my life on that. Also, the radiation spills are not over yet. Radiated water still leaks from the reactors and flows into the ground and the sea - how and when those leaks can be plugged is yet unknown. Nobody has any idea how to treat the huge volumes of radiated water that have been captured so far. Cleanup costs and storage/disposal costs for the nuclear waste are usually also ignored when looking at the costs of nuclear power - as well as the environmental impact of mining uranium. Let's just not talk about the additional dangers associated with nuclear proliferation. Nuclear power generates elements that are extremely dangerous and extremely difficult to handle - unlike solar, wind or even coal power.

ghshephard 13y ago
Every single statement you made, with the exception of handling radioactive waste, applies more to coal than it does to nuclear power. Coal pollution doesn't "kill outright" - but does so slowly, over many years, and many, many more people than nuclear power. Coal waste continues to leak into the air, and into water systems. I'm not arguing that Nuclear power is "safe" (nothing, is - even solar power kills many people a year, mostly installers) - but I am suggesting we stay rational, and realize that there are consequences to any of our energy choices. If it turns out that C02 will have an outsized impact on global warming, that alone, will likely suggest that Coal powered energy systems are fairly bad for the environment - in a much greater way than the discretely managed radioactive waste put off by nuclear power plants - which can be buried underground without changing the earths environment.
- onli 13y ago
  I always love it when coal is used as a comparision. Because: Coal isn't the alternative, solar and wind are Furthermore: Nuclear energy has a fairly high CO2 output, if you count it all together. So this argument against coal is itself an argument against nuclear energy. Most importantly: We can't manage nuclear waste. There is just no feasible scenario which makes sure for future generations that the nuclear waste we produce now won't be the mulch of the society after us. This point is what seems to seperate the people pro and against the sharpest, some seriously believing we could manage that.
  - shawabawa3 13y ago
    but at the moment, coal is the alternative. Coal provides something like 25% of the world's energy production. Solar and wind more like 2%. The more nuclear plants we build the more coal ones we can shut down. The more wind and solar we build, the more coal we can shut down too, but it will take a lot longer and a lot more money to replace coal with wind and solar than with nuclear.
    - onli 13y ago
      Look at germany. Alternative energy doesn't have to be used that little. On a worldwide scale, it is even a different thing. You can't simply replace coal with nuclear energy worldwide, even if you were absolutely convinced that nuclear energy is safe when properly used and you have a concept for the nuclear waste produced like shooting it into space. Because many countries are just too instable, poor and iniffecient to consider building a nuclear plant. It wouldn't be safe at all. Also, don't overestimate the availability of uranium, which is estimated to only reach till 2080 (depends on who you ask probably).
      - JanezStupar 13y ago
        German renewables keep on threatening to collapse European power grid, which is much more advanced than any other power grid on the world. If other countries would be as aggressive with renewables as German are we would see a lot of Europe wide blackouts.
        tome 13y ago
        Collapse how?
        jacquesm 13y ago
        Overload. Specifically Czech and Polish grids suffer from this because they're old and can't deal with the fluctuations. For more info see for instance: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-25/windmills-overload-east-europe-s-grid-risking-blackout-energy.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-25/windmills-overload-...
- JanezStupar 13y ago
  Also coal power produces more nuclear radiation than nuclear power plants.
- Xylakant 13y ago
  See, most energy consumed is actually not consumed as electricity but for heat, for traffic etc. Nuclear power produces a mere 13%-14% of the worlds energy (less than hydro power btw.) and by no means can replace all uses of coal (or generally fossil fuel) unless you pop a nuclear plant in every city or village. A lot of coal plants in germany for example produce electricity as well as heat for buildings - something that a nuclear plant can in theory do, but it's just not something you'd want to stick to the edge of the city. If you want to save on CO2 and energy, there's far better ways than building new coal or nuclear plants: reduce energy consumption and - most importantly - reduce it where it can be cheaply done. Go to developing countries and replace inefficient stoves, air conditioning and fridges. It's dead cheap compared to what we can squeeze out here - but it's a political nightmare. It's simple to support buying an efficient freezer in germany or better insulation for buildings or solar collectors on the roof, it's very hard to do so in africa. I agree that that solar and wind are currently no perfect solution and alone probably will never be, but that's no reason not to invest money and do research. The progress that has been made so far is impressive. We're nerds, we all love a good challenge.
jonmrodriguez 13y ago
What you say, though true, is borderline FUD. As AndrewDucker linked to further down the thread, this report http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-ener... shows that nuclear power has the fewest deaths per terrawatt-hour out of any energy source, and coal has the highest.
- yk 13y ago
  Since the link to the source of the first table in that blog post does not work: http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull411/41104991518.pdf http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull411/... (pdf, Wilson &al. IAEA Bulletin 41/1 1999) Additionally, I recall that there are some problems with the estimate. For example it assumes that there are no more major accidents after Chernobyl. And he uses the WHO study, which may underestimate cancer fatalities by an order of magnitude. For a nice discussion of the problems of studies of Chernobyl see: http://allthingsnuclear.org/how-many-cancers-did-chernobyl-really-cause-updated/ http://allthingsnuclear.org/how-many-cancers-did-chernobyl-r...
  - jonmrodriguez 13y ago
    Thank you
andybak 13y ago
Apologies for half-remembered hearsay but weren't there conclusions from long-term Chernobyl studies that were basically "we might have seriously overestimated long-term effects of radiation"?
- DanBC 13y ago
  It's a bit controversial (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4029607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4029607)
  - andybak 13y ago
    The report I was thinking of was more about the human effects.
    - peterpathname 13y ago
      I think you're talking about the Academy of Sciences, in their review of the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation report. Here's my layman understanding: for many years, this authoritative basis for nuclear safety regulation recommended a precautionary adherance to LNT (linear no-threshold), a heuristic that states that small doses of radiation carry smalll risk, corelating to the linear relationship measured at higher doses. The latest review of this important report admitted doubt over the validity of linear models at low doses. I'm not certain how relevant this is to the fukushima disaster. Certainly, many people are today living in radiation levels well above those which defined the Chernobyl exclusion zone. I guess the abandonment of LNT has fed into the WHO calculations, that actually don't say there will be no deaths, just that the deaths due to the fukushima reactor disasters will not be discernable from cancers expected to occur in the population over the next lifetime due to other causes.
yk 13y ago
The question how many people have died will probably not be answered in a couple of decades. The problem is, that the sample size is limited and disentangling various reasons for diseases is quite hard. For example the highest radiation dosage after Chernobyl was in Belarus, but the population there did also go through the collapse of the Soviet Union.

ghshephard 13y ago

Every single statement you made, with the exception of handling radioactive waste, applies more to coal than it does to nuclear power. Coal pollution doesn't "kill outright" - but does so slowly, over many years, and many, many more people than nuclear power. Coal waste continues to leak into the air, and into water systems. I'm not arguing that Nuclear power is "safe" (nothing, is - even solar power kills many people a year, mostly installers) - but I am suggesting we stay rational, and realize that there are consequences to any of our energy choices. If it turns out that C02 will have an outsized impact on global warming, that alone, will likely suggest that Coal powered energy systems are fairly bad for the environment - in a much greater way than the discretely managed radioactive waste put off by nuclear power plants - which can be buried underground without changing the earths environment.

onli 13y ago
I always love it when coal is used as a comparision. Because: Coal isn't the alternative, solar and wind are Furthermore: Nuclear energy has a fairly high CO2 output, if you count it all together. So this argument against coal is itself an argument against nuclear energy. Most importantly: We can't manage nuclear waste. There is just no feasible scenario which makes sure for future generations that the nuclear waste we produce now won't be the mulch of the society after us. This point is what seems to seperate the people pro and against the sharpest, some seriously believing we could manage that.
- shawabawa3 13y ago
  but at the moment, coal is the alternative. Coal provides something like 25% of the world's energy production. Solar and wind more like 2%. The more nuclear plants we build the more coal ones we can shut down. The more wind and solar we build, the more coal we can shut down too, but it will take a lot longer and a lot more money to replace coal with wind and solar than with nuclear.
  - onli 13y ago
    Look at germany. Alternative energy doesn't have to be used that little. On a worldwide scale, it is even a different thing. You can't simply replace coal with nuclear energy worldwide, even if you were absolutely convinced that nuclear energy is safe when properly used and you have a concept for the nuclear waste produced like shooting it into space. Because many countries are just too instable, poor and iniffecient to consider building a nuclear plant. It wouldn't be safe at all. Also, don't overestimate the availability of uranium, which is estimated to only reach till 2080 (depends on who you ask probably).
    - JanezStupar 13y ago
      German renewables keep on threatening to collapse European power grid, which is much more advanced than any other power grid on the world. If other countries would be as aggressive with renewables as German are we would see a lot of Europe wide blackouts.
      - tome 13y ago
        Collapse how?
        jacquesm 13y ago
        Overload. Specifically Czech and Polish grids suffer from this because they're old and can't deal with the fluctuations. For more info see for instance: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-25/windmills-overload-east-europe-s-grid-risking-blackout-energy.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-25/windmills-overload-...
JanezStupar 13y ago
Also coal power produces more nuclear radiation than nuclear power plants.
Xylakant 13y ago
See, most energy consumed is actually not consumed as electricity but for heat, for traffic etc. Nuclear power produces a mere 13%-14% of the worlds energy (less than hydro power btw.) and by no means can replace all uses of coal (or generally fossil fuel) unless you pop a nuclear plant in every city or village. A lot of coal plants in germany for example produce electricity as well as heat for buildings - something that a nuclear plant can in theory do, but it's just not something you'd want to stick to the edge of the city. If you want to save on CO2 and energy, there's far better ways than building new coal or nuclear plants: reduce energy consumption and - most importantly - reduce it where it can be cheaply done. Go to developing countries and replace inefficient stoves, air conditioning and fridges. It's dead cheap compared to what we can squeeze out here - but it's a political nightmare. It's simple to support buying an efficient freezer in germany or better insulation for buildings or solar collectors on the roof, it's very hard to do so in africa. I agree that that solar and wind are currently no perfect solution and alone probably will never be, but that's no reason not to invest money and do research. The progress that has been made so far is impressive. We're nerds, we all love a good challenge.

jonmrodriguez 13y ago

What you say, though true, is borderline FUD. As AndrewDucker linked to further down the thread, this report http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-ener... shows that nuclear power has the fewest deaths per terrawatt-hour out of any energy source, and coal has the highest.

yk 13y ago
Since the link to the source of the first table in that blog post does not work: http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull411/41104991518.pdf http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull411/... (pdf, Wilson &al. IAEA Bulletin 41/1 1999) Additionally, I recall that there are some problems with the estimate. For example it assumes that there are no more major accidents after Chernobyl. And he uses the WHO study, which may underestimate cancer fatalities by an order of magnitude. For a nice discussion of the problems of studies of Chernobyl see: http://allthingsnuclear.org/how-many-cancers-did-chernobyl-really-cause-updated/ http://allthingsnuclear.org/how-many-cancers-did-chernobyl-r...
- jonmrodriguez 13y ago
  Thank you

andybak 13y ago

Apologies for half-remembered hearsay but weren't there conclusions from long-term Chernobyl studies that were basically "we might have seriously overestimated long-term effects of radiation"?

DanBC 13y ago
It's a bit controversial (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4029607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4029607)
- andybak 13y ago
  The report I was thinking of was more about the human effects.
  - peterpathname 13y ago
    I think you're talking about the Academy of Sciences, in their review of the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation report. Here's my layman understanding: for many years, this authoritative basis for nuclear safety regulation recommended a precautionary adherance to LNT (linear no-threshold), a heuristic that states that small doses of radiation carry smalll risk, corelating to the linear relationship measured at higher doses. The latest review of this important report admitted doubt over the validity of linear models at low doses. I'm not certain how relevant this is to the fukushima disaster. Certainly, many people are today living in radiation levels well above those which defined the Chernobyl exclusion zone. I guess the abandonment of LNT has fed into the WHO calculations, that actually don't say there will be no deaths, just that the deaths due to the fukushima reactor disasters will not be discernable from cancers expected to occur in the population over the next lifetime due to other causes.

yk 13y ago

The question how many people have died will probably not be answered in a couple of decades. The problem is, that the sample size is limited and disentangling various reasons for diseases is quite hard. For example the highest radiation dosage after Chernobyl was in Belarus, but the population there did also go through the collapse of the Soviet Union.