8 ms·

Can we focus on renewables and stop trying to sell people hazardous waste that can last for millenia? You do realize that you can't actually guarantee what wil

Can we focus on renewables and stop trying to sell people hazardous waste that can last for millenia? You do realize that you can't actually guarantee what will happen in 10, 20... 50 years time. Earthquakes, Tsunamis, tornados, terrorist attacks, wars, neglect, malfunction, human error... How can you guarantee that a certain place is safe to store millions of tons of radioactive waste for thousands of years if we can't even guarantee what will happen tomorrow? We need to stop this nuclear madness!

electricEmu 9y ago
Well, damming rivers turned out to be a bad idea in cases so (Washington State)[https://relay.nationalgeographic.com/proxy/distribution/public/amp/2016/06/largest-dam-removal-elwha-river-restoration-environment https://relay.nationalgeographic.com/proxy/distribution/publ...] is undoing them. Wind turbines require surmounting large technical hurdles with storing energy. Solar takes a lot of resources/space. Heck, in 50 years we might be in a dust bowl and solar doesn't even work. Why would you suggest we prevent using all appropriate options at our disposal? Why not push for using a different type of fuel instead? I didn't grow up during the nuclear scare times. Fukushima wasn't great, but it wasn't so horrific either. If it gets us off coal and natural gas then I'm down.
- mikelyons 9y ago
  Fukushima isn't over, we don't know what it will have done in the next 50 years yet.
  - ploxiln 9y ago
    ... very likely less than coal power plants will have done.
    - mikelyons 9y ago
      Agreed, I'm not pro-nuclear in opposition to coal. But good point.
  - saulrh 9y ago
    Estimates of excess deaths due to nuclear, counting chernobyl, are the lowest of any energy technology. This isn't even counting the part where no new nuclear reactor could possibly be as unsafe as Chernobyl or Fukushima in the same way that no modern car could be as unsafe as as a car from the 1960s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPF4fBGNK0U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPF4fBGNK0U
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >This isn't even counting the part where no new nuclear reactor could possibly be as unsafe as Chernobyl or Fukushima That's what they say after every accident too. "This time, with the new designs, it's different".
      - 15155 9y ago
        Which "new designs" have failed catastrophically?
        coldtea 9y ago
        The recipe for the catastrophe is design + time, so it's not like "new designs have fewer failures" offers much comfort. Of course they would. Plus, previous installations had fewer potential non-design-related issues, such as terrorism, which (in today's nihilistic "more possible damage, including innocents and even myself" way) wasn't as much a thing in the 60s and 70s.
        saulrh 9y ago
        If you want to talk risk-of-terrorism, look at dams, not nuke plants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
        coldtea 9y ago
        At least damns damage only the area relatively near them. The implications of a nuclear catastrophe can impact thousands of miles around, including major cities.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Why would you suggest we prevent using all appropriate options at our disposal? He already answered that: because not all options are appropriate.
opo 9y ago
>Can we focus on renewables and stop trying to sell people hazardous waste that can last for millenia? No one I know is opposed to renewable energy, but advocates really do everybody a disservice when they try to argue that an intermittent power source without storage is a reasonable replacement for base load power. This comic illustrates the problem: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/capacity http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/capacity >... How can you guarantee that a certain place is safe to store millions of tons of radioactive waste for thousands of years if we can't even guarantee what will happen tomorrow? Millions of tons? Where are you getting that number from? Right now nuclear waste can and should be recycled which would reduce the amount of waste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste Soon it will be possible to use most of the waste as fuel: "...Fast reactors can "burn" long lasting nuclear transuranic waste (TRU) waste components (actinides: reactor-grade plutonium and minor actinides), turning liabilities into assets. Another major waste component, fission products (FP), would stabilize at a lower level of radioactivity than the original natural uranium ore it was attained from in two to four centuries, rather than tens of thousands of years" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor The worry people have about nuclear waste is greatly overblown. The amounts generated are manageable and in a relatively short amount of time we can use most of this "waste" to generate electricity. >...We need to stop this nuclear madness! NASA has estimated that using nuclear power has saved an estimated 1.8 million lives that would have been lost if the power has been replaced by fossil fuels: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/903/coal-and-gas-are-far-more-harmful-than-nuclear-power/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/903/coal-and-gas-are-far-more-... As someone in a previous discussion pointed out, the historical record for deaths from nuclear power have been very low: Energy Source Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr) Coal – U.S. 10,000 (32% U.S. electricity) Natural Gas 4,000 (22% global electricity) Solar (rooftop) 440 (< 1% global electricity) Wind 150 (2% global electricity) Nuclear – U.S. 0.1 (19% U.S. electricity)
- luca_ing 9y ago
  >> Can we focus on renewables and stop trying to sell people hazardous waste that can last for millenia? > No one I know is opposed to renewable energy, but advocates really do everybody a disservice when they try to argue that an intermittent power source without storage is a reasonable replacement for base load power. This comic illustrates the problem: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/capacity http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/capacity The comic is a bit disingenious as it implies that all renewables are intermittent. But many renewable energy sources are base load as well, e.g. hydro or wind. Yes, they have variations, but so does the load -- from the perspective of power grid management there's nothing new. In fact this is part of the problem: renewables and nuclear (or coal) are competing for base load. If we build a nuclear plant, we need to run it for 50 years for the investment to make sense. This means that it will economically and politically impede the installation of e.g. wind power for 50 years.

electricEmu 9y ago

Well, damming rivers turned out to be a bad idea in cases so (Washington State)[https://relay.nationalgeographic.com/proxy/distribution/public/amp/2016/06/largest-dam-removal-elwha-river-restoration-environment https://relay.nationalgeographic.com/proxy/distribution/publ...] is undoing them. Wind turbines require surmounting large technical hurdles with storing energy. Solar takes a lot of resources/space. Heck, in 50 years we might be in a dust bowl and solar doesn't even work. Why would you suggest we prevent using all appropriate options at our disposal? Why not push for using a different type of fuel instead? I didn't grow up during the nuclear scare times. Fukushima wasn't great, but it wasn't so horrific either. If it gets us off coal and natural gas then I'm down.

mikelyons 9y ago
Fukushima isn't over, we don't know what it will have done in the next 50 years yet.
- ploxiln 9y ago
  ... very likely less than coal power plants will have done.
  - mikelyons 9y ago
    Agreed, I'm not pro-nuclear in opposition to coal. But good point.
- saulrh 9y ago
  Estimates of excess deaths due to nuclear, counting chernobyl, are the lowest of any energy technology. This isn't even counting the part where no new nuclear reactor could possibly be as unsafe as Chernobyl or Fukushima in the same way that no modern car could be as unsafe as as a car from the 1960s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPF4fBGNK0U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPF4fBGNK0U
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >This isn't even counting the part where no new nuclear reactor could possibly be as unsafe as Chernobyl or Fukushima That's what they say after every accident too. "This time, with the new designs, it's different".
    - 15155 9y ago
      Which "new designs" have failed catastrophically?
      - coldtea 9y ago
        The recipe for the catastrophe is design + time, so it's not like "new designs have fewer failures" offers much comfort. Of course they would. Plus, previous installations had fewer potential non-design-related issues, such as terrorism, which (in today's nihilistic "more possible damage, including innocents and even myself" way) wasn't as much a thing in the 60s and 70s.
        saulrh 9y ago
        If you want to talk risk-of-terrorism, look at dams, not nuke plants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
        coldtea 9y ago
        At least damns damage only the area relatively near them. The implications of a nuclear catastrophe can impact thousands of miles around, including major cities.
coldtea 9y ago
>Why would you suggest we prevent using all appropriate options at our disposal? He already answered that: because not all options are appropriate.

opo 9y ago

>Can we focus on renewables and stop trying to sell people hazardous waste that can last for millenia? No one I know is opposed to renewable energy, but advocates really do everybody a disservice when they try to argue that an intermittent power source without storage is a reasonable replacement for base load power. This comic illustrates the problem: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/capacity http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/capacity >... How can you guarantee that a certain place is safe to store millions of tons of radioactive waste for thousands of years if we can't even guarantee what will happen tomorrow? Millions of tons? Where are you getting that number from? Right now nuclear waste can and should be recycled which would reduce the amount of waste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste Soon it will be possible to use most of the waste as fuel: "...Fast reactors can "burn" long lasting nuclear transuranic waste (TRU) waste components (actinides: reactor-grade plutonium and minor actinides), turning liabilities into assets. Another major waste component, fission products (FP), would stabilize at a lower level of radioactivity than the original natural uranium ore it was attained from in two to four centuries, rather than tens of thousands of years" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor The worry people have about nuclear waste is greatly overblown. The amounts generated are manageable and in a relatively short amount of time we can use most of this "waste" to generate electricity. >...We need to stop this nuclear madness! NASA has estimated that using nuclear power has saved an estimated 1.8 million lives that would have been lost if the power has been replaced by fossil fuels: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/903/coal-and-gas-are-far-more-harmful-than-nuclear-power/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/903/coal-and-gas-are-far-more-... As someone in a previous discussion pointed out, the historical record for deaths from nuclear power have been very low: Energy Source Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr) Coal – U.S. 10,000 (32% U.S. electricity) Natural Gas 4,000 (22% global electricity) Solar (rooftop) 440 (< 1% global electricity) Wind 150 (2% global electricity) Nuclear – U.S. 0.1 (19% U.S. electricity)

luca_ing 9y ago
>> Can we focus on renewables and stop trying to sell people hazardous waste that can last for millenia? > No one I know is opposed to renewable energy, but advocates really do everybody a disservice when they try to argue that an intermittent power source without storage is a reasonable replacement for base load power. This comic illustrates the problem: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/capacity http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/capacity The comic is a bit disingenious as it implies that all renewables are intermittent. But many renewable energy sources are base load as well, e.g. hydro or wind. Yes, they have variations, but so does the load -- from the perspective of power grid management there's nothing new. In fact this is part of the problem: renewables and nuclear (or coal) are competing for base load. If we build a nuclear plant, we need to run it for 50 years for the investment to make sense. This means that it will economically and politically impede the installation of e.g. wind power for 50 years.