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I have a personal theory, that I haven't really been able to confirm or deny. Here it is. After Hiroshima and during the cold war nuclear energy was associated

by mixmax 13y ago

I have a personal theory, that I haven't really been able to confirm or deny. Here it is. After Hiroshima and during the cold war nuclear energy was associated with death and destruction. Hiroshima for obvious reasons, and the cold war because the population of the western world was constantly reminded how The Soviet Union had thousands of missiles with nuclear bombs pointing at us, ready to go. Western governments used nuclear weapons to picture the threat and to terrify populations into spending more on defense against the Soviets. There were scary videos of mushroom clouds, scary instructions on how to survive a nuclear blast, and scary stories of how a nuclear winter would pan out. This, obviously, made people scared of nuclear bombs, and nuclear energy in general. Through decades the population was told by the government that nuclear radiation was the evil silent killer. The byproduct of all this cold war propoganda was that people are now irrationally scared of nuclear radiation from power plants. If you look at the numbers you'll see that nuclear energy is the safest and cleanest scalable energy source we've got. It's the energy source that has the fewest deaths per MWH produced, it doesn't produce CO2, etc. etc. Yet we think of it as getting power from the devil. I blame the cold war propoganda for our irrational fear of nuclear energy. Here's one of the old propaganda videos from the US, "Duck and cover" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4MVJIU0gFk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4MVJIU0gFk

elorant 13y ago
What about nuclear waste though? You end up with some tons of radioactive material which you have to store in high-security underground facilities with the hope that in some time in the future humanity will find a way to dispose it in a safer way.
- scythe 13y ago
  On the plus side, we are really good at it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X697yZBCN8w http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X697yZBCN8w
- nemof 13y ago
  one possibility which has never seen the light of day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor#Nuclear_waste http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor#Nuclear_w...
- justatdotin 13y ago
  G'day mate, here in australia we're leading the world in nuclear waste storage. After giving our best scientists 30 years to spend on the question, we've finally brought it to a head, and are in the process of unveiling a state of the art solution. here's what we've done: found a remote and isolated spot of land in the middle of a 3000km long highway. we've paid a pittance and reminded the small local indigenous community who actually own the land that they don't have any political, economic or social power. Their economic disempowerment was exacerbated a couple of years after they were targetted, when new apartheid-style laws quarantined welfare to natives. Their political disempowerment was reinforced by unprecedented laws that negate their rights as land owners and remove any possible legal obstacle to the dump plan. Right, so with the social engineering out of the way, let's get into the nuts and bolts: we're gonna grade a dirt road onto a dry patch of land, and build a barbed wire shed. to hold the most highly radioactive nuclear wastes we produce. I'm sure before too long the rest of the world will get on side to endorse the engineering, and of course site selection. As we say down under, she'll be right mate!
  - peterpathname 13y ago
    "The idea that the best way to promote economic advancement in the Northern Territory is to post six of the loneliest security guards in the country to guard against people tampering with radioactive waste for the next three centuries absolutely beggars belief. They waved around a $12 million cheque in the community, north of Tennant Creek, which wanted a decent road and some community education support for their kids. That $12 million cheque was dangled in their faces in exchange for hosting what they thought was going to be a rubbish dump." http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/content/speeches/aboriginal-disadvantage-nuclear-waste http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/content/speeches/aborig...
- Symmetry 13y ago
  Well, the really radioactive parts of the waste will decay after a fairly short number of years. With regards to the less radioactive, slower decaying part I'm not sure why we worry about it so much more than naturally occurring radioactive substances. There are streams in Colorado that are measurably radioactive because they interact with natural Uranium deposits but the levels are low enough to not pose a real public health hazard. I don't see why buried man-made radioactive substances are unacceptable when buried natural radioactive substances aren't.
  - Xylakant 13y ago
    Because for example plutonium has that nasty tendency to go boom once you amass a kilo or so, so safe storage is required to keep all lunatics at bay. It's also a very potent poison. It's also not found in natural deposits.
- colinshark 13y ago
  The problem of radioactive waste... Let's put it this way: In exchange for clean, constant, domestically sourced, almost unlimited energy for an entire year, each person must dispose of or store their waste, which is the size of... A pill of aspirin. You could just put it in a little lead jar. That's all the waste. The alternative is fossil fuel waste, which would be... 10 tons of CO2 (volume = 5 American houses) which floats into the atmosphere, plus 2 tons of coal ash. Of course, everyone can just pool their resources and put all the radioactive waste together. I don't consider it to be a very serious or unsolvable problem.
  - juandopazo 13y ago
    > The alternative is fossil fuel waste You make it sounds as if there were no other alternative.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      For baseload power? There effectively isn't. Renewable energy generation requires a substantial investment in energy storage systems if you don't have thermal power generation (such as nuclear or fossil-fueled plants), as having rolling blackouts just because the wind unexpectedly isn't blowing as hard is not good for business.
      - Pxtl 13y ago
        The thing is that nuclear isn't really good at this. Nuclear plants don't have much in the way of a throttle - they're just "on" or "complete shut-down and it will take substantial measures to start it up again". Fossil fuels or some sort of capacitive system (even just using the peak surpluses to pump water into a reservoir above a turbine) would do that task better. The panicky nay-sayers of nuclear power are too obsessed with the risks of radiation, but there are a lot of other legitimate reasons that it might not have a place in our future. Uranium just isn't that plentiful, for example.
        TeMPOraL 13y ago
- kmm 13y ago
  Nuclear waste is stored very, very deep and secure. I cannot imagine future humans having the technology to open these up, without knowing what is in there. Either we lose all of our knowledge and no soul will ever see that site, or we stay an advanced civilization and we are warned of the dangers before opening the nuclear waste facilities. Don't forget that uranium is found naturally in the ground, in geologically vastly more unstable regions, with water flowing through it. What we're doing is concentrating the radioactivity, and putting it deeper and safer. If you're afraid of mankind finding these waste sites in the future, are you not afraid of them finding uranium in their drinking water?
  - _delirium 13y ago
    > Nuclear waste is stored very, very deep and secure. Ideally it would be. But in many cases in practice, that isn't the case, because those facilities have either not been built, or not opened. In the U.S., since the long-planned Yucca Mountain facility has never opened, most nuclear waste is stored on-site at the reactor complex, in above-ground facilities. For the first few years it's immersed in cooling pools [1], and then subsequently is parked in metal/concrete cylinders [2]. This is considered interim storage awaiting final burial in geologically stable vaults, but without Yucca Mountain the "interim" storage has become de-facto permanent. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_fuel_pool http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_fuel_pool [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage
  - kgarten 13y ago
    In Germany half is currently stored in an old salt mine which is at risk of water breaking in (in a region with seismic activity) ... the other half sits in bright daylight under tin roofs (not my definition of very very deep ... :)
    - Xylakant 13y ago
      Even worse - the risk is not water breaking in, since that's already happening. The risk is total collapse and contamination of the ground water: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine So now the plan is to retrieve all the waste and store it - this time better at an estimated cost of at least 4 - 6 billion Euro. The general problem I have with nuclear power is that it's all fine and dandy as long as everything goes as planned. If not, then everything goes boom in a big way. And where humans and profits are involved, plans tend not to involve all failure modes: The explosions in fukushima could have been avoided using catalytic recombinators which are for example mandatory in germany [1]. [1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaktorsicherheit#T.C3.B6pfer-Kerzen http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaktorsicherheit#T.C3.B6pfer-K... (sorry, german)
- Pxtl 13y ago
  You can't make this argument in a vacuum. You need to compare it to the alternatives - most energy today is generated by burning fossil fuels, which might be the way to a global environmental apocalypse. An old mine containing dangerous chemicals seems pretty mild compared to depopulating Mexico. Now obviously 100% clean means like wind and solar are preferred, but are those really viable at a global level?
scheeko 13y ago
It's likely more than that. Chernobyl had a great impact on people's idea of nuclear. Also its damage, when occurring, is done in a spectacular way by something invisible. Radiation poisoning is dramatic, horrific and you can't see, smell or feel. That scares the living hell out of most people and the fact that is statistically unlikely becomes irrelevant as soon as it becomes an irrational fear. There are things that cause more deaths by cancer, slowly and steadily, that don't (or didn't) scare anyone - tobacco was an example. Junk food may be another.
- justatdotin 13y ago
  I think another parameter is the intergenerational teratogenic impacts: Radiation fades your genes.
  - jimworm 13y ago
    I think another parameter is the long-lasting data corruption in the network. Unclean power fades the processor channel on your hard drive. EDIT: this is a sarcastic response to a comment that backs up an assertion with nonsense.
    - justatdotin 13y ago
      unlike some of the other risks to life listed, ionizing radiation can cause genetic damage. An impact that is passed on to future generations. I propose that's a factor for the special place the nuclear industry has in so many hearts. how's that nonsense?
      - jimworm 13y ago
        That is a theoretical possibility, and a highly unlikely and unobserved possibility at that. Real life mutations aren't like in children's cartoons. Most of the genetic material in a multicellular organism do not belong to germ cells, and most mutations caused by ionizing radiation either cause death of the cell or no effect at all, especially in eukaryotic chromosomes. Cancer, highly unlikely itself, is many orders of magnitude more likely than any inheritable effect. Studies of the Chernobyl disaster have not found evidence of teratogenic effects in humans [1], and neither have studies of survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings [2]. The malevolent-sounding yet meaningless phrase "fades your genes" is nothing short of nonsense, especially in reference to inheritable teratogenic effects. The number of special places in hearts can do nothing to alter that judgement. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10440782 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10440782 [2] http://www.rerf.jp/radefx/genetics_e/birthdef.html http://www.rerf.jp/radefx/genetics_e/birthdef.html
gmac 13y ago
> Through decades the population was told by the government that nuclear radiation was the evil silent killer. Well, two out of three's not bad: it is silent, and it can kill. > people are now irrationally scared of nuclear radiation from power plants You may not fear nuclear energy, but it's not irrational to do so. Even the current generation of reactors rely on active safety systems, and can't just be shut down. Even with multiple redundant systems of this sort, things will go wrong, since making these systems truly independent — including in the face of floods, earthquakes, human error, etc. — is effectively impossible. So plants will continue to melt down from time to time, irradiating large areas of land. Bad luck if those areas are near you: in the best case, you'll have to leave your home and neighbourhood for decades. Sure, it's a low probability event for each of us, but in my opinion those consequences are unacceptable for essentially any probability of occurrence.
- JoeAltmaier 13y ago
  The fear prevents development of safe nuclear reactors. Irrational, yes?
  - peterpathname 13y ago
    safe reactors certainly do exist : on paper. I'm old enough to remember chernobyl. at the time, we were assured it was a dodgy old design, and that they future models would be foolproof. Then fukushima, and we started hearing the same soothing stories of fantasy designs that could never cause such havoc. Ever since day one, this industry has over-promised and under-delivered. Remember "power too cheap to meter"? It's right and appropriate that we make decisions based on the realities of the industry's present day detriments, not their promises for tomorrow.
    - dragontamer 13y ago
      http://singularityhub.com/2012/12/11/norway-begins-four-year-test-of-thorium-nuclear-reactor/ http://singularityhub.com/2012/12/11/norway-begins-four-year... Thorium Reactors exist and are being tested in other countries. Unlike Uranium, it is impossible to create a chain reaction and go critical. Thorium also creates 40x more energy than a Uranium reaction.
s_kilk 13y ago
Related to your link, Not propaganda, but a weird pseudo-documentary drama about nuclear devastation over Sheffield: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads It's a "fun" watch, probably the most frightening piece of film I've ever seen. EDIT: and a link to the fun part, for the lazy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKLSGLjcJJc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKLSGLjcJJc
- artmageddon 13y ago
  I remember watching Threads years ago... creepy as hell, but well worth it.
fhd2 13y ago
> If you look at the numbers you'll see that nuclear energy is the safest and cleanest scalable energy source we've got. It's the energy source that has the fewest deaths per MWH produced, it doesn't produce CO2, etc. etc. How about nuclear waste though? Where do we put that? I'm with you, it seems like humanity at large is hysterical beyond reasonable levels about radiation. However, it's not like it's completely harmless or unproblematic either. Maybe - just maybe - we should just use less energy, so that the renewables suffice. Just a crazy idea.
- qwertyboy 13y ago
  Actually, fossil fuel power plants release more radioactive waste than nuclear ones. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#Comparing_radioactive_waste_to_industrial_toxic_waste http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#Comparing_radioac... Nuclear power really is a darn good solution to our energy problems, and is more feasible and entirely more humane than using less energy. Our growing energy demands are not just a result of us being spoiled, they are a direct result of our need to sustain more and more people. Cut down on the energy, and you quickly fund yourself cutting down on progress and on the welfare of the poor. Progress has created a lot of problems, but we can't really slow down in any significant way. Our only hope is to use our momentum to find solutions.
  - fhd2 13y ago
    > Actually, fossil fuel power plants release more radioactive waste than nuclear ones. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#Comparing_radioac.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#Comparing_radioac.... That surprised me, but I didn't mean to say that fossil fuel power plants are a great alternative. > Progress has created a lot of problems, but we can't really slow down in any significant way. Our only hope is to use our momentum to find solutions. I'm not saying we should go back to not having energy at all. But it seems like there's quite a bit of potential for saving energy without seriously lowering anyone's quality of life. For instance, does 50% of the population have to commute in a big car every day? That doesn't sound like progress to me. The US's per capita energy consumption is more than twice that of the UK [1], is there really no way to save some of that? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_con...
VLM 13y ago
"I blame the cold war propoganda for our irrational fear of nuclear energy." That's interesting, certainly very complicated, but consider an occams razor explanation like "Dumb people almost always viciously hate whatever they don't understand, and (intentionally?) not too many people understand nukes, so ... "
gjnxfrnv 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#Nuclear_proliferation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#Nuclear_prolifera... "Many technologies and materials associated with the creation of a nuclear power program have a dual-use capability, in that they can be used to make nuclear weapons if a country chooses to do so. "
kgarten 13y ago
just watch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Eternity_(film) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Eternity_(film) for a start ... (it can silently kill even in generations).
blablabla123 13y ago
>It's the energy source that has the fewest deaths per MWH produced Source? I want to remind that the nuclear material needs to be mined somewhere. I never worked in a Uranium mine but it's probably not the healthiest job in the world. Then the material needs to be transported, transported a long way. During this way it gets enriched, used, cooled down. Maybe even re-enriched, used, some part get stuck in walls, pipes ("contamination") etc. At some point it gets stored, somewhere in the ground. During this long way radiation and material gets emitted. Nuclear dust is cancerogenous for the lungs, radiation in general is suspected of boosting leucemia rates. But the worst part in my opinion is this: NO insurance company in the world will insure a nuclear power plant.
- mixmax 13y ago
  Here is a source - http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-so... Note that nuclear is significantly safer than even hydro and solar. I think your fear of uranium mines is overblown, as these numbers are included in the calculations. Many more people die in coalmines. Did you know that a coal plant emits significantly more radiation than a nuclear plant because coal is radioactive and isn't shielded like nuclear power plants?
  - blablabla123 13y ago
    mixmax, this source is about China.
- dpark 13y ago
  > NO insurance company in the world will insure a nuclear power plant. This is hardly a meaningful claim. Insurance companies in the US won't write flood insurance policies, either. This doesn't mean that your house is very likely to get washed away in a flood. It means that the business is not profitable because no one wants to pay the premiums required to insure for the worst-case, nor do insurance companies want to sit on the piles of cash necessary to insure these sorts of events. As a counter-point, hydroelectric power plants are also not insured for worst-case scenarios. And when hydroelectric dams fail, the results can be orders of magnitude worse than Nuclear meltdown. e.g.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
altcognito 13y ago
I have a much simpler theory. Everytime an "event" occurs, nuclear scientists tell us, everything is ok, it is all handled, and then shortly thereafter, leaks are discovered to be worse than reported, handling of waste is done very poorly, or things just implode, as they did in Fukishama. http://www.king5.com/news/investigators/Hanford-no-ENRAF-nuclear-waste-leak-alarm-response-plan-207008571.html http://www.king5.com/news/investigators/Hanford-no-ENRAF-nuc... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/world/asia/tepco-says-water-at-fukushima-is-contaminated.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/world/asia/tepco-says-wate... Stop looking for elaborate answers. As a "lay" person, my impression is that their credibility is completely shot.
- tbrownaw 13y ago
  But the thing is, this is no worse than how "events" in other areas are handled. I don't trust reports of nuclear accidents any less than I trust reports of refinery or offshore oil-well or chemical plant or ... accidents.
Dn_Ab 13y ago
There is a lot of sense in this. From youth we've been trained that nuclear radiation is associated with cancer, Godzilla and mutant fish. My own irrational hate of Nuclear Fission plants comes from the hard learned lessons of Civilization 3; which teaches one to avoid building Nuclear plants due to the incredible rate of meltdowns and the subsequent massive death count and many turn loss of productive tiles. And global warming. Given all that, the level of trepidation around them should not come as a surprise. And if that isn't bad enough, fission plants are like airplanes. Crashes I mean. People are afraid of Airplanes despite their incredible safety record because failure is spectacular and newsworthy. Consequence is concentrated and easily compartmentalized vs the more background event of the relatively near constant death from cars/coal (I wonder if this is leakage due to the brain reusing the smell cancellation modules on abstract frequencies like death rate). Similarly, the impact of meltdowns can be more viscerally felt in terms of relocation and ghost towning - even if they lead to little to no measured cancers or ill health (the worst case of incompetency in the form of Chernobyl is a fraction of the time integral health/death/radiative burden of coal plants to locals and workers). And to top it off, damage can be easily visualized in terms of three eyed fish, Godzilla and those ugly, ugly orange tiles. Shiver. Availability Heuristic at work. At the same time I believe there is some cause for apprehension. It has to do with what the state current US infrastructure suggests on the real risks of a plant; failure of which might trigger an AI Winter type event at the worst possible time. The risk of Fission Plants is mainly in human competency and complacency. Will there be any corners cut in design and will operators become complacent due to extended runs of non-events? Will vital maintenance be done? I have not seen evidence that much of the world is ready for that kind of thing. The west is yes, mostly, but as the rest of the world comes online it would be preferable to have clean energy that doesn't jump to 50% chance of meltdown during revolts. So looking at alternative replacements at the same time as - instead of just focusing on -Nuclear is worthwhile. A single large failure and human reaction to that kind of thing will lead to cascading moving away from Nuclear at just the time when it is most needed. It is thus in my opinion, better to do limited roll outs on newer incompetency resistant designs before any universal switching. Education on the nature of different types of radiation and their effects (focus on neutron vs bio, halflives vs waste), drastically reduced dangers to workers of nuclear vs coal plants, unloading the weighting on the bomb aspect of nuclear, probability theory, and shining a clarifying light on the stellar safety record of nuclear plants; will all go a long way towards solving the world's future energy problems. As for me, while (I think) Civ 5 doesn't have that stupid penalty, the damage is already done. I will always recommend Solar and Hydro in place of Nuclear.

by mixmax 13y ago

elorant 13y ago

What about nuclear waste though? You end up with some tons of radioactive material which you have to store in high-security underground facilities with the hope that in some time in the future humanity will find a way to dispose it in a safer way.

scythe 13y ago
On the plus side, we are really good at it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X697yZBCN8w http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X697yZBCN8w
nemof 13y ago
one possibility which has never seen the light of day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor#Nuclear_waste http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor#Nuclear_w...
justatdotin 13y ago
G'day mate, here in australia we're leading the world in nuclear waste storage. After giving our best scientists 30 years to spend on the question, we've finally brought it to a head, and are in the process of unveiling a state of the art solution. here's what we've done: found a remote and isolated spot of land in the middle of a 3000km long highway. we've paid a pittance and reminded the small local indigenous community who actually own the land that they don't have any political, economic or social power. Their economic disempowerment was exacerbated a couple of years after they were targetted, when new apartheid-style laws quarantined welfare to natives. Their political disempowerment was reinforced by unprecedented laws that negate their rights as land owners and remove any possible legal obstacle to the dump plan. Right, so with the social engineering out of the way, let's get into the nuts and bolts: we're gonna grade a dirt road onto a dry patch of land, and build a barbed wire shed. to hold the most highly radioactive nuclear wastes we produce. I'm sure before too long the rest of the world will get on side to endorse the engineering, and of course site selection. As we say down under, she'll be right mate!
- peterpathname 13y ago
  "The idea that the best way to promote economic advancement in the Northern Territory is to post six of the loneliest security guards in the country to guard against people tampering with radioactive waste for the next three centuries absolutely beggars belief. They waved around a $12 million cheque in the community, north of Tennant Creek, which wanted a decent road and some community education support for their kids. That $12 million cheque was dangled in their faces in exchange for hosting what they thought was going to be a rubbish dump." http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/content/speeches/aboriginal-disadvantage-nuclear-waste http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/content/speeches/aborig...
Symmetry 13y ago
Well, the really radioactive parts of the waste will decay after a fairly short number of years. With regards to the less radioactive, slower decaying part I'm not sure why we worry about it so much more than naturally occurring radioactive substances. There are streams in Colorado that are measurably radioactive because they interact with natural Uranium deposits but the levels are low enough to not pose a real public health hazard. I don't see why buried man-made radioactive substances are unacceptable when buried natural radioactive substances aren't.
- Xylakant 13y ago
  Because for example plutonium has that nasty tendency to go boom once you amass a kilo or so, so safe storage is required to keep all lunatics at bay. It's also a very potent poison. It's also not found in natural deposits.
colinshark 13y ago
The problem of radioactive waste... Let's put it this way: In exchange for clean, constant, domestically sourced, almost unlimited energy for an entire year, each person must dispose of or store their waste, which is the size of... A pill of aspirin. You could just put it in a little lead jar. That's all the waste. The alternative is fossil fuel waste, which would be... 10 tons of CO2 (volume = 5 American houses) which floats into the atmosphere, plus 2 tons of coal ash. Of course, everyone can just pool their resources and put all the radioactive waste together. I don't consider it to be a very serious or unsolvable problem.
- juandopazo 13y ago
  > The alternative is fossil fuel waste You make it sounds as if there were no other alternative.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    For baseload power? There effectively isn't. Renewable energy generation requires a substantial investment in energy storage systems if you don't have thermal power generation (such as nuclear or fossil-fueled plants), as having rolling blackouts just because the wind unexpectedly isn't blowing as hard is not good for business.
    - Pxtl 13y ago
      The thing is that nuclear isn't really good at this. Nuclear plants don't have much in the way of a throttle - they're just "on" or "complete shut-down and it will take substantial measures to start it up again". Fossil fuels or some sort of capacitive system (even just using the peak surpluses to pump water into a reservoir above a turbine) would do that task better. The panicky nay-sayers of nuclear power are too obsessed with the risks of radiation, but there are a lot of other legitimate reasons that it might not have a place in our future. Uranium just isn't that plentiful, for example.
      - TeMPOraL 13y ago
kmm 13y ago
Nuclear waste is stored very, very deep and secure. I cannot imagine future humans having the technology to open these up, without knowing what is in there. Either we lose all of our knowledge and no soul will ever see that site, or we stay an advanced civilization and we are warned of the dangers before opening the nuclear waste facilities. Don't forget that uranium is found naturally in the ground, in geologically vastly more unstable regions, with water flowing through it. What we're doing is concentrating the radioactivity, and putting it deeper and safer. If you're afraid of mankind finding these waste sites in the future, are you not afraid of them finding uranium in their drinking water?
- _delirium 13y ago
  > Nuclear waste is stored very, very deep and secure. Ideally it would be. But in many cases in practice, that isn't the case, because those facilities have either not been built, or not opened. In the U.S., since the long-planned Yucca Mountain facility has never opened, most nuclear waste is stored on-site at the reactor complex, in above-ground facilities. For the first few years it's immersed in cooling pools [1], and then subsequently is parked in metal/concrete cylinders [2]. This is considered interim storage awaiting final burial in geologically stable vaults, but without Yucca Mountain the "interim" storage has become de-facto permanent. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_fuel_pool http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_fuel_pool [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage
- kgarten 13y ago
  In Germany half is currently stored in an old salt mine which is at risk of water breaking in (in a region with seismic activity) ... the other half sits in bright daylight under tin roofs (not my definition of very very deep ... :)
  - Xylakant 13y ago
    Even worse - the risk is not water breaking in, since that's already happening. The risk is total collapse and contamination of the ground water: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine So now the plan is to retrieve all the waste and store it - this time better at an estimated cost of at least 4 - 6 billion Euro. The general problem I have with nuclear power is that it's all fine and dandy as long as everything goes as planned. If not, then everything goes boom in a big way. And where humans and profits are involved, plans tend not to involve all failure modes: The explosions in fukushima could have been avoided using catalytic recombinators which are for example mandatory in germany [1]. [1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaktorsicherheit#T.C3.B6pfer-Kerzen http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaktorsicherheit#T.C3.B6pfer-K... (sorry, german)
Pxtl 13y ago
You can't make this argument in a vacuum. You need to compare it to the alternatives - most energy today is generated by burning fossil fuels, which might be the way to a global environmental apocalypse. An old mine containing dangerous chemicals seems pretty mild compared to depopulating Mexico. Now obviously 100% clean means like wind and solar are preferred, but are those really viable at a global level?

scheeko 13y ago

It's likely more than that. Chernobyl had a great impact on people's idea of nuclear. Also its damage, when occurring, is done in a spectacular way by something invisible. Radiation poisoning is dramatic, horrific and you can't see, smell or feel. That scares the living hell out of most people and the fact that is statistically unlikely becomes irrelevant as soon as it becomes an irrational fear. There are things that cause more deaths by cancer, slowly and steadily, that don't (or didn't) scare anyone - tobacco was an example. Junk food may be another.

justatdotin 13y ago
I think another parameter is the intergenerational teratogenic impacts: Radiation fades your genes.
- jimworm 13y ago
  I think another parameter is the long-lasting data corruption in the network. Unclean power fades the processor channel on your hard drive. EDIT: this is a sarcastic response to a comment that backs up an assertion with nonsense.
  - justatdotin 13y ago
    unlike some of the other risks to life listed, ionizing radiation can cause genetic damage. An impact that is passed on to future generations. I propose that's a factor for the special place the nuclear industry has in so many hearts. how's that nonsense?
    - jimworm 13y ago
      That is a theoretical possibility, and a highly unlikely and unobserved possibility at that. Real life mutations aren't like in children's cartoons. Most of the genetic material in a multicellular organism do not belong to germ cells, and most mutations caused by ionizing radiation either cause death of the cell or no effect at all, especially in eukaryotic chromosomes. Cancer, highly unlikely itself, is many orders of magnitude more likely than any inheritable effect. Studies of the Chernobyl disaster have not found evidence of teratogenic effects in humans [1], and neither have studies of survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings [2]. The malevolent-sounding yet meaningless phrase "fades your genes" is nothing short of nonsense, especially in reference to inheritable teratogenic effects. The number of special places in hearts can do nothing to alter that judgement. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10440782 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10440782 [2] http://www.rerf.jp/radefx/genetics_e/birthdef.html http://www.rerf.jp/radefx/genetics_e/birthdef.html

gmac 13y ago

> Through decades the population was told by the government that nuclear radiation was the evil silent killer. Well, two out of three's not bad: it is silent, and it can kill. > people are now irrationally scared of nuclear radiation from power plants You may not fear nuclear energy, but it's not irrational to do so. Even the current generation of reactors rely on active safety systems, and can't just be shut down. Even with multiple redundant systems of this sort, things will go wrong, since making these systems truly independent — including in the face of floods, earthquakes, human error, etc. — is effectively impossible. So plants will continue to melt down from time to time, irradiating large areas of land. Bad luck if those areas are near you: in the best case, you'll have to leave your home and neighbourhood for decades. Sure, it's a low probability event for each of us, but in my opinion those consequences are unacceptable for essentially any probability of occurrence.

JoeAltmaier 13y ago
The fear prevents development of safe nuclear reactors. Irrational, yes?
- peterpathname 13y ago
  safe reactors certainly do exist : on paper. I'm old enough to remember chernobyl. at the time, we were assured it was a dodgy old design, and that they future models would be foolproof. Then fukushima, and we started hearing the same soothing stories of fantasy designs that could never cause such havoc. Ever since day one, this industry has over-promised and under-delivered. Remember "power too cheap to meter"? It's right and appropriate that we make decisions based on the realities of the industry's present day detriments, not their promises for tomorrow.
  - dragontamer 13y ago
    http://singularityhub.com/2012/12/11/norway-begins-four-year-test-of-thorium-nuclear-reactor/ http://singularityhub.com/2012/12/11/norway-begins-four-year... Thorium Reactors exist and are being tested in other countries. Unlike Uranium, it is impossible to create a chain reaction and go critical. Thorium also creates 40x more energy than a Uranium reaction.

s_kilk 13y ago

Related to your link, Not propaganda, but a weird pseudo-documentary drama about nuclear devastation over Sheffield: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads It's a "fun" watch, probably the most frightening piece of film I've ever seen. EDIT: and a link to the fun part, for the lazy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKLSGLjcJJc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKLSGLjcJJc

artmageddon 13y ago
I remember watching Threads years ago... creepy as hell, but well worth it.

fhd2 13y ago

> If you look at the numbers you'll see that nuclear energy is the safest and cleanest scalable energy source we've got. It's the energy source that has the fewest deaths per MWH produced, it doesn't produce CO2, etc. etc. How about nuclear waste though? Where do we put that? I'm with you, it seems like humanity at large is hysterical beyond reasonable levels about radiation. However, it's not like it's completely harmless or unproblematic either. Maybe - just maybe - we should just use less energy, so that the renewables suffice. Just a crazy idea.

qwertyboy 13y ago
Actually, fossil fuel power plants release more radioactive waste than nuclear ones. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#Comparing_radioactive_waste_to_industrial_toxic_waste http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#Comparing_radioac... Nuclear power really is a darn good solution to our energy problems, and is more feasible and entirely more humane than using less energy. Our growing energy demands are not just a result of us being spoiled, they are a direct result of our need to sustain more and more people. Cut down on the energy, and you quickly fund yourself cutting down on progress and on the welfare of the poor. Progress has created a lot of problems, but we can't really slow down in any significant way. Our only hope is to use our momentum to find solutions.
- fhd2 13y ago
  > Actually, fossil fuel power plants release more radioactive waste than nuclear ones. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#Comparing_radioac.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#Comparing_radioac.... That surprised me, but I didn't mean to say that fossil fuel power plants are a great alternative. > Progress has created a lot of problems, but we can't really slow down in any significant way. Our only hope is to use our momentum to find solutions. I'm not saying we should go back to not having energy at all. But it seems like there's quite a bit of potential for saving energy without seriously lowering anyone's quality of life. For instance, does 50% of the population have to commute in a big car every day? That doesn't sound like progress to me. The US's per capita energy consumption is more than twice that of the UK [1], is there really no way to save some of that? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_con...

VLM 13y ago

"I blame the cold war propoganda for our irrational fear of nuclear energy." That's interesting, certainly very complicated, but consider an occams razor explanation like "Dumb people almost always viciously hate whatever they don't understand, and (intentionally?) not too many people understand nukes, so ... "

gjnxfrnv 13y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#Nuclear_proliferation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power#Nuclear_prolifera... "Many technologies and materials associated with the creation of a nuclear power program have a dual-use capability, in that they can be used to make nuclear weapons if a country chooses to do so. "

kgarten 13y ago

just watch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Eternity_(film) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Eternity_(film) for a start ... (it can silently kill even in generations).

blablabla123 13y ago

>It's the energy source that has the fewest deaths per MWH produced Source? I want to remind that the nuclear material needs to be mined somewhere. I never worked in a Uranium mine but it's probably not the healthiest job in the world. Then the material needs to be transported, transported a long way. During this way it gets enriched, used, cooled down. Maybe even re-enriched, used, some part get stuck in walls, pipes ("contamination") etc. At some point it gets stored, somewhere in the ground. During this long way radiation and material gets emitted. Nuclear dust is cancerogenous for the lungs, radiation in general is suspected of boosting leucemia rates. But the worst part in my opinion is this: NO insurance company in the world will insure a nuclear power plant.

mixmax 13y ago
Here is a source - http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-so... Note that nuclear is significantly safer than even hydro and solar. I think your fear of uranium mines is overblown, as these numbers are included in the calculations. Many more people die in coalmines. Did you know that a coal plant emits significantly more radiation than a nuclear plant because coal is radioactive and isn't shielded like nuclear power plants?
- blablabla123 13y ago
  mixmax, this source is about China.
dpark 13y ago
> NO insurance company in the world will insure a nuclear power plant. This is hardly a meaningful claim. Insurance companies in the US won't write flood insurance policies, either. This doesn't mean that your house is very likely to get washed away in a flood. It means that the business is not profitable because no one wants to pay the premiums required to insure for the worst-case, nor do insurance companies want to sit on the piles of cash necessary to insure these sorts of events. As a counter-point, hydroelectric power plants are also not insured for worst-case scenarios. And when hydroelectric dams fail, the results can be orders of magnitude worse than Nuclear meltdown. e.g.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

altcognito 13y ago

I have a much simpler theory. Everytime an "event" occurs, nuclear scientists tell us, everything is ok, it is all handled, and then shortly thereafter, leaks are discovered to be worse than reported, handling of waste is done very poorly, or things just implode, as they did in Fukishama. http://www.king5.com/news/investigators/Hanford-no-ENRAF-nuclear-waste-leak-alarm-response-plan-207008571.html http://www.king5.com/news/investigators/Hanford-no-ENRAF-nuc... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/world/asia/tepco-says-water-at-fukushima-is-contaminated.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/world/asia/tepco-says-wate... Stop looking for elaborate answers. As a "lay" person, my impression is that their credibility is completely shot.

tbrownaw 13y ago
But the thing is, this is no worse than how "events" in other areas are handled. I don't trust reports of nuclear accidents any less than I trust reports of refinery or offshore oil-well or chemical plant or ... accidents.

Dn_Ab 13y ago

There is a lot of sense in this. From youth we've been trained that nuclear radiation is associated with cancer, Godzilla and mutant fish. My own irrational hate of Nuclear Fission plants comes from the hard learned lessons of Civilization 3; which teaches one to avoid building Nuclear plants due to the incredible rate of meltdowns and the subsequent massive death count and many turn loss of productive tiles. And global warming. Given all that, the level of trepidation around them should not come as a surprise. And if that isn't bad enough, fission plants are like airplanes. Crashes I mean. People are afraid of Airplanes despite their incredible safety record because failure is spectacular and newsworthy. Consequence is concentrated and easily compartmentalized vs the more background event of the relatively near constant death from cars/coal (I wonder if this is leakage due to the brain reusing the smell cancellation modules on abstract frequencies like death rate). Similarly, the impact of meltdowns can be more viscerally felt in terms of relocation and ghost towning - even if they lead to little to no measured cancers or ill health (the worst case of incompetency in the form of Chernobyl is a fraction of the time integral health/death/radiative burden of coal plants to locals and workers). And to top it off, damage can be easily visualized in terms of three eyed fish, Godzilla and those ugly, ugly orange tiles. Shiver. Availability Heuristic at work. At the same time I believe there is some cause for apprehension. It has to do with what the state current US infrastructure suggests on the real risks of a plant; failure of which might trigger an AI Winter type event at the worst possible time. The risk of Fission Plants is mainly in human competency and complacency. Will there be any corners cut in design and will operators become complacent due to extended runs of non-events? Will vital maintenance be done? I have not seen evidence that much of the world is ready for that kind of thing. The west is yes, mostly, but as the rest of the world comes online it would be preferable to have clean energy that doesn't jump to 50% chance of meltdown during revolts. So looking at alternative replacements at the same time as - instead of just focusing on -Nuclear is worthwhile. A single large failure and human reaction to that kind of thing will lead to cascading moving away from Nuclear at just the time when it is most needed. It is thus in my opinion, better to do limited roll outs on newer incompetency resistant designs before any universal switching. Education on the nature of different types of radiation and their effects (focus on neutron vs bio, halflives vs waste), drastically reduced dangers to workers of nuclear vs coal plants, unloading the weighting on the bomb aspect of nuclear, probability theory, and shining a clarifying light on the stellar safety record of nuclear plants; will all go a long way towards solving the world's future energy problems. As for me, while (I think) Civ 5 doesn't have that stupid penalty, the damage is already done. I will always recommend Solar and Hydro in place of Nuclear.