5 ms·

Nuclear quite obviously isn't 'quite safe' and I say that as a general supporter. Chernobyl and Fukushima show it's not entirely safe. There's a risk with nucle

Nuclear quite obviously isn't 'quite safe' and I say that as a general supporter. Chernobyl and Fukushima show it's not entirely safe. There's a risk with nuclear, even in the safest reactor. Who knows what might happen in the future to force a country to run a reactor dangerously, budget cuts, government changes, national unrest, wars, sabotage. There's always going to be a % risk of something horrible happening. And of course, there's the waste.

wstrange 11y ago
If one measures fatalities per Kw/H generated, the data shows that nuclear is by far the safest form of power generated. See for example: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-so... Nuclear is two orders of magnitude safer than coal, and is even safer than solar. The issue of nuclear waste is extremely overblown.
- mjevans 11y ago
  The issue is also compounded by NIMBY people and clueless politicians preventing the construction of newer, safer, reactors and the correct operations of older ones until replacements are complete.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  I discussed this, at length, a week or two ago on HN. Nuclear power, while useful for military or space applications, can no longer compete on price for commercial electric generation. "Solar is already cheaper than utility power in 36 states [1], it estimated to reach grid parity in all 50 states next year [2], and US solar generation capacity surging to almost 40GW by the end of 2016 [3]" [1] http://news.investors.com/technology/061515-757277-tesla-sees-battery-costs-following-solar.htm http://news.investors.com/technology/061515-757277-tesla-see... [2] http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/deutsche-bank-sees-50-us-states-solar-grid-parity-2016 http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/deutsche-bank-sees-50-us-sta... [3] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-26/solar-as-fastest-growing-u-s-power-source-rivals-shale-boom http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-26/solar-as-f... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9728767 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9728767 "Nuclear power plants take 10+ years to commission (Watts Bar in TN took nearly 36 years to complete), $1 billion USD to start (frequently approaching $2-4 billion), and have no permanent waste storage. Newer reactor designs that can burn up waste products instead of a once-through system haven't been tested in over 60 years (since first tested at Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project in the late 50s; Thorium in a breeder blanket configuration)." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9728721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9728721 "> Yes, solar is cheaper than the retail with massive subsidies The numbers I quote are without subsidies. Wind is already cheaper than nuclear without subsidies, even taking into account nuclear power plants receive enormous liability waivers that wind doesn't require (they're only liable for the first $13 billion USD in damages from an accident; the US government picks up the rest). > So the rest of us are subsidizing solar owners through income taxes (federal) and the rates we pay for electricity. And the rest of us our subsidizing cheap coal by not paying for the damage it does through carbon dioxide and radioactive material release. Your point?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9728901 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9728901
  - joshuapants 11y ago
    How about the space required to generate a given amount of power? How big does a wind farm have to be to equal a typical nuclear plant?
    - dmitriy_ko 11y ago
      Wind farm would have to be about 30 times bigger than area taken by nuclear plant. Solar farm -- about 15 times [1]. Renewables definitely take more land. But there's no shortage of land in most places in the world. Shortage of arable land? Sure. But not land in general. E.g. all US energy demand could be met by covering a small fraction of Arizona deserts with solar panels. Solar and wind could also be located offshore. [1] http://wilderness.org/sites/default/files/legacy/Website-Land%20Use%20and%20Renewable%20Energy%20Generation.pdf http://wilderness.org/sites/default/files/legacy/Website-Lan...
      - rbanffy 11y ago
        And you can still use the arable land under a wind farm.
        ZeroGravitas 11y ago
        Solar farms in temperate regions can be mounted higher to let animals graze below them, assuming you don't stick them on an existing roof.
        rbanffy 11y ago
        They'll still reduce the amount of sunlight plants under them receive. Not sure the side-effects are negligible.
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        People will argue with you, "What about transmission losses?" Transmission losses are ~6%. Build more renewables.
- dredmorbius 11y ago
  If you look at the IPPC's SRREN report you'll find that most renewables actually do slightly better than nuclear. I've spent a day or so trying to find my previous comments on this without luck, but it's burried somewhere in the thousand-plus pages: http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report See p. 746. Nuclear, excluding Chernobyl, in fatalities per GWeyr (GW electricity per year) does worse than EU Hydro, PV, Onshore and offshore wind, or Geothermal EGS. Biomass CHP biogas risks are very slightly higher, but comparable. Even the worst power-related disaster of all time, a hydro failure in China, has the characteristic that, once it got done being a massive flood, things recovered fairly quickly. Zhumadian City in China is now home to over 7 million people, though 171,000 perished in the 1975 disaster https://www.google.com/maps/place/Banqiao+Reservoir,+Zhumadian,+China/@32.9582291,113.7575957,194539a,20y,270h/data= https://www.google.com/maps/place/Banqiao+Reservoir,+Zhumadi... 3m1 1e3 4m2 3m1 1s0x35d459f7ba9ab71b:0x817178d5dd5efc23 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhumadian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhumadian Nuclear has been safer than fossil fuel generation, but that doesn't make it the safest generating option around. There's also that pesky little problem that solar's failure modes are pretty self-limiting. A nuclear plant emits, as nuclear advocates are quite fond of noting, less radioactivity than a coal plant, under normal conditions. It's just that other than normal conditions change that characteristics by many millions of fold, with consequences lasting from centuries to millennia.
guscost 11y ago
> Chernobyl and Fukushima Please consider not casually grouping those together. They are/were very different situations, but people who don't know any better are naturally going to assume you are referring to two similar events.
- TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago
  I'll loosely group them in the 'nuclear containment failure' and 'meltdown' categories, if you don't mind. The first was 'human error', the second could be said to have been caused by 'human error' also insofar as, well, Fukushima wasn't built by whales.
  - guscost 11y ago
    Fukushima was designed with passive safety[0], so that even in the event of a tsunami the reactor core would have a good chance to maintain integrity. To date nobody has died from the event (although thousands were killed by the tsunami). I'm sure there are some dubious estimates as there were for decades after Chernobyl but I'll be surprised if there is ever a single provable casualty. Chernobyl on the other hand was not designed with passive safety, and when the control system failed the reactor core went up in a fireball, killing several people immediately, and then many more from acute radiation exposure. Then there were at least a thousand cases of thyroid cancer, which thankfully is not untreatable. There are really only two similarities that I'll grant you, and they are not unrelated. One is the association with atomic power. The other is the serious psychological damage caused in part by each event, but greatly amplified by the parasitic media peddling their usual doomsday nonsense. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety
    - TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago
      While I thoroughly agree with you all your points, it is your last paragraph that sets the stage. Nuclear = scary. And we have the 50's and 60's and 70's and their bug-eye green (well, black and white maybe) nuclear monsters to thank for that, along with Friends of the Earth[1] and their ilk. Chernobyl and Fukushima are PR disasters way more than they environmental disasters. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_the_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_the_Earth
Symmetry 11y ago
Chernobyl was horrible but Fukushima didn't actually cause any more damage than a typical coal power plant generating the same number of megawatt-years. http://hopefullyintersting.blogspot.com/2013/12/fukushima-vs-coal.html http://hopefullyintersting.blogspot.com/2013/12/fukushima-vs...
- walshemj 11y ago
  And rember that a single bad coal mine accident can kill hundreds at a go - one small village in Wales lost virtualy an entire school (100 plus) at abaervan.
  - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster (the Cymraeg language F is an aspirated English V sound).
walshemj 11y ago
No big power plant is safe - Civil engineers darkly joke about big projects needing there blood sacrifice.
- kaybe 11y ago
  Space flight even gives you numbers for what is acceptable, e.g.: "It is the policy of SSC that the risk associated with each launch of rockets, balloons, UAV’s and other airspace vehicles at Esrange Space Center is controlled so that the hurt risk or casualty expectation (i.e. personal injury) to the public never exceeds 30x10-6 and that the hurt risk for personnel at Esrange Space Center never exceeds 30x10-5." [1] which comes down to one or two deaths per a few decades being accepted for the risk. Does the power plant industry have numbers? [1] www.sscspace.com/file/esrange-safety-manual.pdf (in Sweden)

wstrange 11y ago

If one measures fatalities per Kw/H generated, the data shows that nuclear is by far the safest form of power generated. See for example: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-so... Nuclear is two orders of magnitude safer than coal, and is even safer than solar. The issue of nuclear waste is extremely overblown.

mjevans 11y ago
The issue is also compounded by NIMBY people and clueless politicians preventing the construction of newer, safer, reactors and the correct operations of older ones until replacements are complete.
toomuchtodo 11y ago
I discussed this, at length, a week or two ago on HN. Nuclear power, while useful for military or space applications, can no longer compete on price for commercial electric generation. "Solar is already cheaper than utility power in 36 states [1], it estimated to reach grid parity in all 50 states next year [2], and US solar generation capacity surging to almost 40GW by the end of 2016 [3]" [1] http://news.investors.com/technology/061515-757277-tesla-sees-battery-costs-following-solar.htm http://news.investors.com/technology/061515-757277-tesla-see... [2] http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/deutsche-bank-sees-50-us-states-solar-grid-parity-2016 http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/deutsche-bank-sees-50-us-sta... [3] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-26/solar-as-fastest-growing-u-s-power-source-rivals-shale-boom http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-26/solar-as-f... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9728767 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9728767 "Nuclear power plants take 10+ years to commission (Watts Bar in TN took nearly 36 years to complete), $1 billion USD to start (frequently approaching $2-4 billion), and have no permanent waste storage. Newer reactor designs that can burn up waste products instead of a once-through system haven't been tested in over 60 years (since first tested at Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project in the late 50s; Thorium in a breeder blanket configuration)." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9728721 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9728721 "> Yes, solar is cheaper than the retail with massive subsidies The numbers I quote are without subsidies. Wind is already cheaper than nuclear without subsidies, even taking into account nuclear power plants receive enormous liability waivers that wind doesn't require (they're only liable for the first $13 billion USD in damages from an accident; the US government picks up the rest). > So the rest of us are subsidizing solar owners through income taxes (federal) and the rates we pay for electricity. And the rest of us our subsidizing cheap coal by not paying for the damage it does through carbon dioxide and radioactive material release. Your point?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9728901 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9728901
- joshuapants 11y ago
  How about the space required to generate a given amount of power? How big does a wind farm have to be to equal a typical nuclear plant?
  - dmitriy_ko 11y ago
    Wind farm would have to be about 30 times bigger than area taken by nuclear plant. Solar farm -- about 15 times [1]. Renewables definitely take more land. But there's no shortage of land in most places in the world. Shortage of arable land? Sure. But not land in general. E.g. all US energy demand could be met by covering a small fraction of Arizona deserts with solar panels. Solar and wind could also be located offshore. [1] http://wilderness.org/sites/default/files/legacy/Website-Land%20Use%20and%20Renewable%20Energy%20Generation.pdf http://wilderness.org/sites/default/files/legacy/Website-Lan...
    - rbanffy 11y ago
      And you can still use the arable land under a wind farm.
      - ZeroGravitas 11y ago
        Solar farms in temperate regions can be mounted higher to let animals graze below them, assuming you don't stick them on an existing roof.
        rbanffy 11y ago
        They'll still reduce the amount of sunlight plants under them receive. Not sure the side-effects are negligible.
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      People will argue with you, "What about transmission losses?" Transmission losses are ~6%. Build more renewables.
dredmorbius 11y ago
If you look at the IPPC's SRREN report you'll find that most renewables actually do slightly better than nuclear. I've spent a day or so trying to find my previous comments on this without luck, but it's burried somewhere in the thousand-plus pages: http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report See p. 746. Nuclear, excluding Chernobyl, in fatalities per GWeyr (GW electricity per year) does worse than EU Hydro, PV, Onshore and offshore wind, or Geothermal EGS. Biomass CHP biogas risks are very slightly higher, but comparable. Even the worst power-related disaster of all time, a hydro failure in China, has the characteristic that, once it got done being a massive flood, things recovered fairly quickly. Zhumadian City in China is now home to over 7 million people, though 171,000 perished in the 1975 disaster https://www.google.com/maps/place/Banqiao+Reservoir,+Zhumadian,+China/@32.9582291,113.7575957,194539a,20y,270h/data= https://www.google.com/maps/place/Banqiao+Reservoir,+Zhumadi... 3m1 1e3 4m2 3m1 1s0x35d459f7ba9ab71b:0x817178d5dd5efc23 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhumadian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhumadian Nuclear has been safer than fossil fuel generation, but that doesn't make it the safest generating option around. There's also that pesky little problem that solar's failure modes are pretty self-limiting. A nuclear plant emits, as nuclear advocates are quite fond of noting, less radioactivity than a coal plant, under normal conditions. It's just that other than normal conditions change that characteristics by many millions of fold, with consequences lasting from centuries to millennia.

guscost 11y ago

> Chernobyl and Fukushima Please consider not casually grouping those together. They are/were very different situations, but people who don't know any better are naturally going to assume you are referring to two similar events.

TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago
I'll loosely group them in the 'nuclear containment failure' and 'meltdown' categories, if you don't mind. The first was 'human error', the second could be said to have been caused by 'human error' also insofar as, well, Fukushima wasn't built by whales.
- guscost 11y ago
  Fukushima was designed with passive safety[0], so that even in the event of a tsunami the reactor core would have a good chance to maintain integrity. To date nobody has died from the event (although thousands were killed by the tsunami). I'm sure there are some dubious estimates as there were for decades after Chernobyl but I'll be surprised if there is ever a single provable casualty. Chernobyl on the other hand was not designed with passive safety, and when the control system failed the reactor core went up in a fireball, killing several people immediately, and then many more from acute radiation exposure. Then there were at least a thousand cases of thyroid cancer, which thankfully is not untreatable. There are really only two similarities that I'll grant you, and they are not unrelated. One is the association with atomic power. The other is the serious psychological damage caused in part by each event, but greatly amplified by the parasitic media peddling their usual doomsday nonsense. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety
  - TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago
    While I thoroughly agree with you all your points, it is your last paragraph that sets the stage. Nuclear = scary. And we have the 50's and 60's and 70's and their bug-eye green (well, black and white maybe) nuclear monsters to thank for that, along with Friends of the Earth[1] and their ilk. Chernobyl and Fukushima are PR disasters way more than they environmental disasters. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_the_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_the_Earth

Symmetry 11y ago

Chernobyl was horrible but Fukushima didn't actually cause any more damage than a typical coal power plant generating the same number of megawatt-years. http://hopefullyintersting.blogspot.com/2013/12/fukushima-vs-coal.html http://hopefullyintersting.blogspot.com/2013/12/fukushima-vs...

walshemj 11y ago
And rember that a single bad coal mine accident can kill hundreds at a go - one small village in Wales lost virtualy an entire school (100 plus) at abaervan.
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster (the Cymraeg language F is an aspirated English V sound).

walshemj 11y ago

No big power plant is safe - Civil engineers darkly joke about big projects needing there blood sacrifice.

kaybe 11y ago
Space flight even gives you numbers for what is acceptable, e.g.: "It is the policy of SSC that the risk associated with each launch of rockets, balloons, UAV’s and other airspace vehicles at Esrange Space Center is controlled so that the hurt risk or casualty expectation (i.e. personal injury) to the public never exceeds 30x10-6 and that the hurt risk for personnel at Esrange Space Center never exceeds 30x10-5." [1] which comes down to one or two deaths per a few decades being accepted for the risk. Does the power plant industry have numbers? [1] www.sscspace.com/file/esrange-safety-manual.pdf (in Sweden)