6 ms·

Three step process: 1) buy perrows book "normal accidents" 2) read the nuclear accident chapters 3) begin marching in the streets at the sign of any new old-

by rsync 13y ago

Three step process: 1) buy perrows book "normal accidents" 2) read the nuclear accident chapters 3) begin marching in the streets at the sign of any new old-style nuclear plants, or the continued operation of the existing ones. optional: 4) wonder in amazement how a chernobyl or fukushima isn't happening every year. That type of nuclear power generation really is that terrible. (note - I am actually pro-nuclear-power ... just not the way we do it now)

pdonis 13y ago
wonder in amazement how a chernobyl or fukushima isn't happening every year. Comparing Fukushima and Chernobyl is like comparing apples and turds. The debacle at Fukushima had nothing to do with the reactor design; it was due to the braindead siting of the backup diesel generators and their switchgear behind a seawall that got overrun by the tsunami. The reactor design itself was fine, and in fact has withstood loss of coolant conditions that, by any reasonable prior expectation, should have caused much more radiation release than they did. Chernobyl, on the other hand, had: * No secondary containment; * A Soviet-run staff that thought running badly controlled experiments at high power levels was just dandy; * A graphite moderator that ignited when exposed to air. Fukushima is not even in the same league from that perspective. That type of nuclear power generation really is that terrible. This is a serious overstatement. Many reactors designed along the same general lines have delivered decades of power with no problems. (Not to mention that the US Navy has run reactors of similar design on its ships for decades with no problems.) I'm all for improving reactor designs, but I also think there are existing designs that could have gotten plenty more use without significant added risk. The fact that we haven't done that is a bug, not a feature.
- msandford 13y ago
  Yeah but the notion that you can have a power plant which requires outside power in order to not melt-down is -- frankly -- retarded. Imagine a coal plant that burns down 100,000 acres around it if the primary coal containment system (made up) loses power. Would anyone like that in their backyard? Or a hydro plant that if power isn't continuously supplied to, not only could the dam breach and flood downhill but also somehow miraculously uphill too (not realistic but comparative to nukes). That's what a nuclear power plant that can't slowly coast to a stop is like. I don't care how many backups and backups of backups you have, if physics isn't on your side if/when the plant loses power it's a horrible design. EDIT: a few changes for clarity
  - pdonis 13y ago
    the notion that you can have a power plant which requires outside power in order to not melt-down is -- frankly -- retarded You're right that this is an additional risk factor, which would be eliminated in a design that required only passive cooling after shutdown (and newer designs have this feature). But "retarded" is too strong. Just having the backup generators not come on for a short time period isn't enough; they have to be unavailable for days or weeks, as the Fukushima ones were. Also, the switchgear has to be such that portable generators can't be brought in and hooked up. I was extremely surprised to find that all of those design decisions were apparently made wrong in the Fukushima plant. And even then, when put in proper perspective, the negative consequences of nuclear power are less severe, when averaged over all the kilowatt-hours of power produced by nuclear plants, than the negative consequences of other forms of energy. Coal causes far more mortality and morbidity per unit of energy generated, for example. It's not "retarded" to choose a power source that has less severe side effects all things considered. Again, that's not to say that reactor designs should not be improved. But by any reasonable standard, nuclear power even with existing designs is safer, all things considered, than other major forms of energy. The only reason the public does not understand that is that "radiation" is a buzz word, whereas "respiratory failure due to coal dust", for example, is not. (And even "radiation" is not used fairly; coal ash has higher levels of radioactivity than many forms of nuclear waste. But the public isn't exhorted to protest about radiation from coal ash.)
    - msandford 13y ago
      I agree that average over the kilowatt-hours nuclear might be safer than coal. But the problem is that the risk is HIGHLY concentrated. I can self-insure my computers because if one ever fails I have the cash to handle it. It's not a financial crisis. I don't self insure my car (for collision/comprehensive) because it's too big of an expense for me to absorb at any one time without severe hardship. Nuclear reactors (as they stand today) are more like cars than computers. They tend to rob a few people of their whole lives and really eff up the ones that don't die. Coal plants have the "advantage" of robbing many people of a portion of their lives in a more subtle way. LFTR reactors have physics on their side in that if containment is lost, so is criticality. Boiling water reactors, pressurized boiling water reactors, etc in my mind can't be made safe because they require power to stay safe, even if they're not generating power. You've suggested that so long as the generators and whatnot arrive eventually, things will be fine. The problem is that you've made the assumption that somehow, some way the generators will arrive and the reactor can be made safe again over the course of some weeks or months. Nuclear reactors are one of the few pieces of infrastructure that can't simply be abandoned if something bad happens, or else the problem gets worse and worse and worse. This is a positive feedback cycle rather than a negative one. Positive feedback often "blows up" (a term we use in electrical engineering) or grows without bound. Nearly everything else in modern society functions with negative feedback and that kind of intrinsic safety is what most people want. That's not to say that ALL nuclear reactors are by definition unsafe; just all the ones that are currently operating commercially because it's such a nightmare to permit new designs and the existing manufacturers have no interest in inviting competitors into their market.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  The problems at Fukushima had to do with design and siting of the overall plant, which is, in fact, very much an element of engineering. Truth is, there are lots of ways for a nuke to fail, and the small comfort that Fukushima didn't fail in the same way Chernobyl did doesn't make Fukushima any less of a failure. The Japanese have also exhibited some spectacularly poor nuclear management in the past (a criticality incident in fuel handling at Tokaimura: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accident) and significant involvement by the Japanese mafia in TEPCO). In fact many or most nuclear incidents anywhere can be chalked up to poor management -- it's a major risk factor. As for the US Navy, the man who made that happen argued strongly against nuclear power. US Navy Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover: I do not believe that nuclear power is worth it if it creates radiation. Then you might ask me why do I have nuclear powered ships. That is a necessary evil. I would sink them all. I am not proud of the part I played in it. I did it because it was necessary for the safety of this country. (see full quote and others at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover#Willingness_to_.22sink_them_all.22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover#Willingness_...) Rickover also explicitly noted that the US Navy's safety was the result of a total philosophy and approach, not a solution which could be ladled or patched on to other systems.
  - pdonis 13y ago
    poor management -- it's a major risk factor This is true of any field in which, in the words of Feynman in his report on the Challenger disaster, "reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled". the man who made that happen argued strongly against nuclear power. As the Rickover quote you give shows, Rickover thought of "radiation" as having magical powers, like many members of the uninformed public. His arguments on such grounds are not cogent. (Another quote in the Wiki article shows that Rickover also disliked nuclear power because of its relationship to nuclear weapons, which is more reasonable, although still not sufficient to justify getting rid of nuclear power IMO.) His comments on the US Navy's particular philosophy, which worked for a military organization but would not work for civilian power companies, are valid as far as they go. However, to me that's a bug, not a feature. To see why, consider the following sketch of an alternate history: in the mid-1970's, having realized that OPEC is not going to play nice any more and therefore foreign oil is not a good basis on which to run the US economy, the US government makes nuclear power a national priority on national security grounds (much as France did). Knowing that existing reactor designs require skilled operators and strict procedures to ensure safety, the government institutes licensing similar to what is done with professionals in various fields, such as engineers, whose activities can, if done incorrectly, pose significant risk to the public. The US Navy program is used as a model, but the military-style aspects of it are adjusted to something more appropriate for a commercial endeavor. Result: in the alternate 2014, the US imports no oil (except possibly from Canada), the majority of base load electricity comes from nuclear power plants, coal mines are all shut down and their sites cleaned up to serve as ski resorts, offshore oil drilling is a thing of the past (so no Deepwater Horizon spill), and the US can just leave the Middle East alone (so no special treatment of Saudi Arabia, probably no 9/11, no invasion of Iraq).
- specialist 13y ago
  Comparing Fukushima and Chernobyl is... Perfectly valid. Neither were failsafe. Where failsafes existed, they were disabled. Bad things happened. ...have delivered decades of power with no problems. Yet. The externalities are brutal.
  - pdonis 13y ago
    Neither were failsafe. Where failsafes existed, they were disabled. What failsafes were deliberately disabled at Fukushima? Yet. The externalities are brutal. So are the externalities from coal mining and oil drilling. They just have a much more diffuse impact, so nobody complains. Per unit of energy delivered, nuclear has much less impact.
    - specialist 13y ago
      Fukushima's shield wall failed. Pretty much the opposite of failsafe. Anticipating your continued argumentative retorts in your spirited defense of nukes, it's also well known (documented) that this was an identified risk, and that other reactors along the coast did have sufficiently high shield walls. You've omitted stockpiling reactive waste from your calculus. Ditto the inadvertent release of contamination. A small tip: If you're pro nuke, you may want to advocate traveling wave reactors. Treehuggers like me are looking for solutions, not more rhetoric.
      - pdonis 13y ago
        Fukushima's shield wall failed. You mean the seawall that was protecting the switchgear for the backup diesel generators? That didn't fail; it was simply not high enough to keep out the tsunami. Which, as you note, was not the case for other similar reactors: it's also well known (documented) that this was an identified risk, and that other reactors along the coast did have sufficiently high shield walls. Agreed. Which shows that reactor designs of that generation can be operated safely. See below. You've omitted stockpiling reactive waste from your calculus. Which is a lot easier if you reprocess the spent fuel, as every nuclear-using country except the US does (US policy forbade it from the mid-1970's until about 2000, since then there have been, IIRC, contractual issues getting it started). Ditto the inadvertent release of contamination. Which, once again, is much smaller than other major energy sources when evaluated per unit of energy produced. Treehuggers like me are looking for solutions, not more rhetoric. And once again, of all the other major energy sources--by "major" I mean "capable of sustaining the required base load capacity for a country the size of the US at first world standards of living"--nuclear is by far the safest. What opposition to nuclear power by treehuggers like yourself has done is to force people to make a choice: either drastically reduce our standard of living, or use energy sources with much greater health and environmental impacts like coal and oil. Guess which choice people picked? I completely agree that, now that we have safer nuclear reactor designs, we should be building them, and not building any more of the older, less safe designs. (I don't know that traveling wave reactors are at the point where we can build operating plants, btw; but there are other inherently safe designs that are further along.) But given that we have plenty of existing plants that are perfectly capable of being operated safely, we can get cleaner energy from them than we can from coal and oil.
- htns 13y ago
  The real difference between Chernobyl and Fukushima are the earthquake and tsunami which killed tens of thousands and leveled much more infrastructure. Fukushima makes for a very poor counterpoint to nuclear energy; the nuclear accident pales in comparison to the real disaster.

by rsync 13y ago

pdonis 13y ago

wonder in amazement how a chernobyl or fukushima isn't happening every year. Comparing Fukushima and Chernobyl is like comparing apples and turds. The debacle at Fukushima had nothing to do with the reactor design; it was due to the braindead siting of the backup diesel generators and their switchgear behind a seawall that got overrun by the tsunami. The reactor design itself was fine, and in fact has withstood loss of coolant conditions that, by any reasonable prior expectation, should have caused much more radiation release than they did. Chernobyl, on the other hand, had: * No secondary containment; * A Soviet-run staff that thought running badly controlled experiments at high power levels was just dandy; * A graphite moderator that ignited when exposed to air. Fukushima is not even in the same league from that perspective. That type of nuclear power generation really is that terrible. This is a serious overstatement. Many reactors designed along the same general lines have delivered decades of power with no problems. (Not to mention that the US Navy has run reactors of similar design on its ships for decades with no problems.) I'm all for improving reactor designs, but I also think there are existing designs that could have gotten plenty more use without significant added risk. The fact that we haven't done that is a bug, not a feature.

msandford 13y ago
Yeah but the notion that you can have a power plant which requires outside power in order to not melt-down is -- frankly -- retarded. Imagine a coal plant that burns down 100,000 acres around it if the primary coal containment system (made up) loses power. Would anyone like that in their backyard? Or a hydro plant that if power isn't continuously supplied to, not only could the dam breach and flood downhill but also somehow miraculously uphill too (not realistic but comparative to nukes). That's what a nuclear power plant that can't slowly coast to a stop is like. I don't care how many backups and backups of backups you have, if physics isn't on your side if/when the plant loses power it's a horrible design. EDIT: a few changes for clarity
- pdonis 13y ago
  the notion that you can have a power plant which requires outside power in order to not melt-down is -- frankly -- retarded You're right that this is an additional risk factor, which would be eliminated in a design that required only passive cooling after shutdown (and newer designs have this feature). But "retarded" is too strong. Just having the backup generators not come on for a short time period isn't enough; they have to be unavailable for days or weeks, as the Fukushima ones were. Also, the switchgear has to be such that portable generators can't be brought in and hooked up. I was extremely surprised to find that all of those design decisions were apparently made wrong in the Fukushima plant. And even then, when put in proper perspective, the negative consequences of nuclear power are less severe, when averaged over all the kilowatt-hours of power produced by nuclear plants, than the negative consequences of other forms of energy. Coal causes far more mortality and morbidity per unit of energy generated, for example. It's not "retarded" to choose a power source that has less severe side effects all things considered. Again, that's not to say that reactor designs should not be improved. But by any reasonable standard, nuclear power even with existing designs is safer, all things considered, than other major forms of energy. The only reason the public does not understand that is that "radiation" is a buzz word, whereas "respiratory failure due to coal dust", for example, is not. (And even "radiation" is not used fairly; coal ash has higher levels of radioactivity than many forms of nuclear waste. But the public isn't exhorted to protest about radiation from coal ash.)
  - msandford 13y ago
    I agree that average over the kilowatt-hours nuclear might be safer than coal. But the problem is that the risk is HIGHLY concentrated. I can self-insure my computers because if one ever fails I have the cash to handle it. It's not a financial crisis. I don't self insure my car (for collision/comprehensive) because it's too big of an expense for me to absorb at any one time without severe hardship. Nuclear reactors (as they stand today) are more like cars than computers. They tend to rob a few people of their whole lives and really eff up the ones that don't die. Coal plants have the "advantage" of robbing many people of a portion of their lives in a more subtle way. LFTR reactors have physics on their side in that if containment is lost, so is criticality. Boiling water reactors, pressurized boiling water reactors, etc in my mind can't be made safe because they require power to stay safe, even if they're not generating power. You've suggested that so long as the generators and whatnot arrive eventually, things will be fine. The problem is that you've made the assumption that somehow, some way the generators will arrive and the reactor can be made safe again over the course of some weeks or months. Nuclear reactors are one of the few pieces of infrastructure that can't simply be abandoned if something bad happens, or else the problem gets worse and worse and worse. This is a positive feedback cycle rather than a negative one. Positive feedback often "blows up" (a term we use in electrical engineering) or grows without bound. Nearly everything else in modern society functions with negative feedback and that kind of intrinsic safety is what most people want. That's not to say that ALL nuclear reactors are by definition unsafe; just all the ones that are currently operating commercially because it's such a nightmare to permit new designs and the existing manufacturers have no interest in inviting competitors into their market.
dredmorbius 13y ago
The problems at Fukushima had to do with design and siting of the overall plant, which is, in fact, very much an element of engineering. Truth is, there are lots of ways for a nuke to fail, and the small comfort that Fukushima didn't fail in the same way Chernobyl did doesn't make Fukushima any less of a failure. The Japanese have also exhibited some spectacularly poor nuclear management in the past (a criticality incident in fuel handling at Tokaimura: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accident) and significant involvement by the Japanese mafia in TEPCO). In fact many or most nuclear incidents anywhere can be chalked up to poor management -- it's a major risk factor. As for the US Navy, the man who made that happen argued strongly against nuclear power. US Navy Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover: I do not believe that nuclear power is worth it if it creates radiation. Then you might ask me why do I have nuclear powered ships. That is a necessary evil. I would sink them all. I am not proud of the part I played in it. I did it because it was necessary for the safety of this country. (see full quote and others at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover#Willingness_to_.22sink_them_all.22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover#Willingness_...) Rickover also explicitly noted that the US Navy's safety was the result of a total philosophy and approach, not a solution which could be ladled or patched on to other systems.
- pdonis 13y ago
  poor management -- it's a major risk factor This is true of any field in which, in the words of Feynman in his report on the Challenger disaster, "reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled". the man who made that happen argued strongly against nuclear power. As the Rickover quote you give shows, Rickover thought of "radiation" as having magical powers, like many members of the uninformed public. His arguments on such grounds are not cogent. (Another quote in the Wiki article shows that Rickover also disliked nuclear power because of its relationship to nuclear weapons, which is more reasonable, although still not sufficient to justify getting rid of nuclear power IMO.) His comments on the US Navy's particular philosophy, which worked for a military organization but would not work for civilian power companies, are valid as far as they go. However, to me that's a bug, not a feature. To see why, consider the following sketch of an alternate history: in the mid-1970's, having realized that OPEC is not going to play nice any more and therefore foreign oil is not a good basis on which to run the US economy, the US government makes nuclear power a national priority on national security grounds (much as France did). Knowing that existing reactor designs require skilled operators and strict procedures to ensure safety, the government institutes licensing similar to what is done with professionals in various fields, such as engineers, whose activities can, if done incorrectly, pose significant risk to the public. The US Navy program is used as a model, but the military-style aspects of it are adjusted to something more appropriate for a commercial endeavor. Result: in the alternate 2014, the US imports no oil (except possibly from Canada), the majority of base load electricity comes from nuclear power plants, coal mines are all shut down and their sites cleaned up to serve as ski resorts, offshore oil drilling is a thing of the past (so no Deepwater Horizon spill), and the US can just leave the Middle East alone (so no special treatment of Saudi Arabia, probably no 9/11, no invasion of Iraq).
specialist 13y ago
Comparing Fukushima and Chernobyl is... Perfectly valid. Neither were failsafe. Where failsafes existed, they were disabled. Bad things happened. ...have delivered decades of power with no problems. Yet. The externalities are brutal.
- pdonis 13y ago
  Neither were failsafe. Where failsafes existed, they were disabled. What failsafes were deliberately disabled at Fukushima? Yet. The externalities are brutal. So are the externalities from coal mining and oil drilling. They just have a much more diffuse impact, so nobody complains. Per unit of energy delivered, nuclear has much less impact.
  - specialist 13y ago
    Fukushima's shield wall failed. Pretty much the opposite of failsafe. Anticipating your continued argumentative retorts in your spirited defense of nukes, it's also well known (documented) that this was an identified risk, and that other reactors along the coast did have sufficiently high shield walls. You've omitted stockpiling reactive waste from your calculus. Ditto the inadvertent release of contamination. A small tip: If you're pro nuke, you may want to advocate traveling wave reactors. Treehuggers like me are looking for solutions, not more rhetoric.
    - pdonis 13y ago
      Fukushima's shield wall failed. You mean the seawall that was protecting the switchgear for the backup diesel generators? That didn't fail; it was simply not high enough to keep out the tsunami. Which, as you note, was not the case for other similar reactors: it's also well known (documented) that this was an identified risk, and that other reactors along the coast did have sufficiently high shield walls. Agreed. Which shows that reactor designs of that generation can be operated safely. See below. You've omitted stockpiling reactive waste from your calculus. Which is a lot easier if you reprocess the spent fuel, as every nuclear-using country except the US does (US policy forbade it from the mid-1970's until about 2000, since then there have been, IIRC, contractual issues getting it started). Ditto the inadvertent release of contamination. Which, once again, is much smaller than other major energy sources when evaluated per unit of energy produced. Treehuggers like me are looking for solutions, not more rhetoric. And once again, of all the other major energy sources--by "major" I mean "capable of sustaining the required base load capacity for a country the size of the US at first world standards of living"--nuclear is by far the safest. What opposition to nuclear power by treehuggers like yourself has done is to force people to make a choice: either drastically reduce our standard of living, or use energy sources with much greater health and environmental impacts like coal and oil. Guess which choice people picked? I completely agree that, now that we have safer nuclear reactor designs, we should be building them, and not building any more of the older, less safe designs. (I don't know that traveling wave reactors are at the point where we can build operating plants, btw; but there are other inherently safe designs that are further along.) But given that we have plenty of existing plants that are perfectly capable of being operated safely, we can get cleaner energy from them than we can from coal and oil.
htns 13y ago
The real difference between Chernobyl and Fukushima are the earthquake and tsunami which killed tens of thousands and leveled much more infrastructure. Fukushima makes for a very poor counterpoint to nuclear energy; the nuclear accident pales in comparison to the real disaster.