6 ms·

"Lie" is such a click-baity triggering word to use here. Sounds more like they overstated the harm of cumulative small doses of radiation. But, I mostly just s

"Lie" is such a click-baity triggering word to use here. Sounds more like they overstated the harm of cumulative small doses of radiation. But, I mostly just skimmed through the beginning of the article, so maybe it gets better, like maybe the author reveals an international cabal of influential anti-nuclear activists who are holding human progress back.

antonvs 3mo ago
> Sounds more like they overstated the harm of cumulative small doses of radiation. Not even that, they simply didn’t know because they couldn’t measure, so they took a conservative approach. Btw you can count me in to the cabal of anti-nuclear activists. Humans simply are too greedy and incompetent to manage the technology responsibly over the long term. We’ve already irreversibly altered the biosphere with the nuclear activity we’ve engaged in so far. Time for it to stop.
- lisper 3mo ago
  The problem is that stopping nuclear activity has ancillary effects -- like increased carbon emissions -- that are potentially much more harmful than the radiation. The results of technological decisions are never independent of one another.
  - PaulHoule 3mo ago
    Don't forget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturally_occurring_radioactive_material https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturally_occurring_radioactiv... considerable amounts of low-level radiation is emitted by fossil fuel production and use as well as and construction materials.
  - Zigurd 3mo ago
    In theory. But in fact, attempting to build nuclear power plants results in big increases in electric rates, and the supposed benefits of nuclear power end up being delayed by many years and in many cases decades. The effect of trying and failing to build nuclear power plants on time and on budget uses up many billions in capital that could've been applied to reliable delivery of renewables. Even the supposedly efficient French nuclear power program vastly underestimated decommissioning costs. In other words project risk for nuclear is hideously expensive, even when you think you've dodged project risk problems, there's another whole very expensive project in decommissioning that has its own set of project risks.
    - lisper 3mo ago
      > attempting to build nuclear power plants results in big increases in electric rates Largely due to the costs of complying with draconian regulatory regimes.
      - antonvs 3mo ago
        Why do those regimes exist, do you think?
        Paradigm2020 3mo ago
        Because rich people would be impacted by nuclear fallout in an unlikely event but are not impacted by fallout of daily coal/gas etc burning... Also can read up on the bootleggers and baptist scenario that happened between the oil industry and greenpeace...
        shakow 3mo ago
        Because for some reason, our societies decided that cancer caused by radiation = bad, cancer caused by air pollution = OK.
      - Zigurd 3mo ago
        I know a thing or two about project management and I can tell you that the modularity of modern reactor design failed to deliver on de-risking nuclear reactor construction projects. Building modules offsite seems like a good idea on the surface but the problem is that if they're delivered out of order or if they need rework you've made the on-site construction problem 3X harder and more expensive. You might be thinking "But China!" China also over developed a number of ghost cities full of empty apartment towers so take their claims of an efficient nuclear power construction project with a grain of salt. Even in China, solar and wind projects come online faster, at a lower cost per kilowatt hour, and the projects are completed on time.
        lisper 3mo ago
        > the modularity of modern reactor design failed to deliver So? Just because one particular approach failed doesn't mean it's impossible. My father was a nuclear engineer so this is something I happen to know something about. I can tell you from speaking to my father back when he was working (from the 1970s to the 1990s), the nuclear industry was lousy with politics, and there were many, many innovative ideas (his own included) that never saw the light of day because the political pressure against doing anything new with nuclear power was insurmountable. The anti-nuclear lobby in the U.S. successfully killed nuclear power by 1) stopping all research and development and then 2) saying, "See? We told you it couldn't be done." Well, yeah, but the reason it couldn't be done was you, you idiots. And now we have climate change to deal with as a result, so thanks for that.
- amarant 3mo ago
  Your not wrong, but you seem to be missing one significant detail: we have altered the biosphere even more by not engaging in nuclear activity, instead opting for less-scary-but-worse alternatives like coal, oil and gas.
  - microgpt 3mo ago
    This could be a convincing argument 70 years ago but we have other options now - mostly batteries and renewables. "But what about the cobalt mines?" - that damage is limited in both space and time
  - antonvs 3mo ago
    Historically, yes. We have good alternatives now, though. What’s stopping us moving off carbon fuel is not the viability of alternatives.
    - loeg 3mo ago
      Unless by "viability" you're completely ignoring price, I disagree (I would argue that excessively expensive solutions aren't viable). We don't have good alternatives to gas (carbon fuel) peakers yet. Nor is winter generation a solved problem. Non-nuclear carbon-free generation needs a tremendous amount of battery storage to get to 0% carbon-emitting.
      - Schiendelman 3mo ago
        That is much, much cheaper than nuclear at today's prices.
        loeg 3mo ago
        Up to how many hours of battery capacity?
        Schiendelman 3mo ago
        I'm not sure I understand the question. It's always cheaper.
- UltraSane 3mo ago
  Global CO2 emissions would be drastically lower if people hadn't opposed nuclear energy so irrationally. No other technology can produce 1.2GW of zero CO2 electricity anywhere you want.

antonvs 3mo ago

> Sounds more like they overstated the harm of cumulative small doses of radiation. Not even that, they simply didn’t know because they couldn’t measure, so they took a conservative approach. Btw you can count me in to the cabal of anti-nuclear activists. Humans simply are too greedy and incompetent to manage the technology responsibly over the long term. We’ve already irreversibly altered the biosphere with the nuclear activity we’ve engaged in so far. Time for it to stop.

lisper 3mo ago
The problem is that stopping nuclear activity has ancillary effects -- like increased carbon emissions -- that are potentially much more harmful than the radiation. The results of technological decisions are never independent of one another.
- PaulHoule 3mo ago
  Don't forget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturally_occurring_radioactive_material https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturally_occurring_radioactiv... considerable amounts of low-level radiation is emitted by fossil fuel production and use as well as and construction materials.
- Zigurd 3mo ago
  In theory. But in fact, attempting to build nuclear power plants results in big increases in electric rates, and the supposed benefits of nuclear power end up being delayed by many years and in many cases decades. The effect of trying and failing to build nuclear power plants on time and on budget uses up many billions in capital that could've been applied to reliable delivery of renewables. Even the supposedly efficient French nuclear power program vastly underestimated decommissioning costs. In other words project risk for nuclear is hideously expensive, even when you think you've dodged project risk problems, there's another whole very expensive project in decommissioning that has its own set of project risks.
  - lisper 3mo ago
    > attempting to build nuclear power plants results in big increases in electric rates Largely due to the costs of complying with draconian regulatory regimes.
    - antonvs 3mo ago
      Why do those regimes exist, do you think?
      - Paradigm2020 3mo ago
        Because rich people would be impacted by nuclear fallout in an unlikely event but are not impacted by fallout of daily coal/gas etc burning... Also can read up on the bootleggers and baptist scenario that happened between the oil industry and greenpeace...
      - shakow 3mo ago
        Because for some reason, our societies decided that cancer caused by radiation = bad, cancer caused by air pollution = OK.
    - Zigurd 3mo ago
      I know a thing or two about project management and I can tell you that the modularity of modern reactor design failed to deliver on de-risking nuclear reactor construction projects. Building modules offsite seems like a good idea on the surface but the problem is that if they're delivered out of order or if they need rework you've made the on-site construction problem 3X harder and more expensive. You might be thinking "But China!" China also over developed a number of ghost cities full of empty apartment towers so take their claims of an efficient nuclear power construction project with a grain of salt. Even in China, solar and wind projects come online faster, at a lower cost per kilowatt hour, and the projects are completed on time.
      - lisper 3mo ago
        > the modularity of modern reactor design failed to deliver So? Just because one particular approach failed doesn't mean it's impossible. My father was a nuclear engineer so this is something I happen to know something about. I can tell you from speaking to my father back when he was working (from the 1970s to the 1990s), the nuclear industry was lousy with politics, and there were many, many innovative ideas (his own included) that never saw the light of day because the political pressure against doing anything new with nuclear power was insurmountable. The anti-nuclear lobby in the U.S. successfully killed nuclear power by 1) stopping all research and development and then 2) saying, "See? We told you it couldn't be done." Well, yeah, but the reason it couldn't be done was you, you idiots. And now we have climate change to deal with as a result, so thanks for that.
amarant 3mo ago
Your not wrong, but you seem to be missing one significant detail: we have altered the biosphere even more by not engaging in nuclear activity, instead opting for less-scary-but-worse alternatives like coal, oil and gas.
- microgpt 3mo ago
  This could be a convincing argument 70 years ago but we have other options now - mostly batteries and renewables. "But what about the cobalt mines?" - that damage is limited in both space and time
- antonvs 3mo ago
  Historically, yes. We have good alternatives now, though. What’s stopping us moving off carbon fuel is not the viability of alternatives.
  - loeg 3mo ago
    Unless by "viability" you're completely ignoring price, I disagree (I would argue that excessively expensive solutions aren't viable). We don't have good alternatives to gas (carbon fuel) peakers yet. Nor is winter generation a solved problem. Non-nuclear carbon-free generation needs a tremendous amount of battery storage to get to 0% carbon-emitting.
    - Schiendelman 3mo ago
      That is much, much cheaper than nuclear at today's prices.
      - loeg 3mo ago
        Up to how many hours of battery capacity?
        Schiendelman 3mo ago
        I'm not sure I understand the question. It's always cheaper.
UltraSane 3mo ago
Global CO2 emissions would be drastically lower if people hadn't opposed nuclear energy so irrationally. No other technology can produce 1.2GW of zero CO2 electricity anywhere you want.