Why do environmentalists hate nuclear energy?

[Nobel Hobos 2]

I am an environmentalist in favour of Nuclear but there are pretty obvious reasons why it isn't more popular.

• The cost. It's pretty obviously the biggest reason. If you can actually somehow get the government to fork out a little capital, would you have a better chance getting it for wind energy which costs $1.7 billion for a 1000 MW plant or for solar energy which costs just 0.6 billion for a 1000 MW farm or for nuclear energy which costs anywhere from 7 to 10 billion for 1000 MW? That kind of capital is very hard to get so we just don't bother to ask for it.

• The risks. Now, nuclear is nowhere as volatile as the general public thinks but it's a kind of risk completely different from other forms of energy. Without cooling, the components of the core of the reactors can literally melt from all the energy released from these reactions. There are also the added risks of human incompetence, natural disasters, just sheer bad luck, bureaucratic interferences etc. These might be rare but the risk they can cause is too high for comfort. A nuclear disaster in the best case scenario might just cause fatal damage to living beings and make a region uninhabitable for centuries. In the worst case scenario, it could explode. Doesn't look good on a government's report card. There is an estimated 44% chance of a nuclear meltdown in the next decade.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... 16.1145910


• Not the immediate solution we need. This is the one reason I most agree with. We need an alternative to fossil fuels and we needed it yesterday. It's already late, we need inmediate, actionable changes. Nuclear power requires highly skilled workers, immense capital, jumping through a multitude of bureaucratic hoops, transportation, storing, administration facilities setup. It's just too long a time to wait. Even in the most ideal of situations it would be decades before we can transition from fossil to nuclear. The average time to setup a nuclear plant is more than a decade. Planning for the Hinkley Point plant began in late 2007 and it's expected to be completed in 2025. It's not an uncommon case. Olkiluoto 3 was proposed in 2000 and is expected to begin production in 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto ... ower_Plant

In conclusion, I am pretty sure that Harold Feiveson can explain the criticisms much better than me.
https://easyupload.io/cfi32v

Costs: $7 billion is doable, in government money. If private enterprise doesn't like it, they can compete.

Risks: Nuclear fission is very safe, averaged over plants and years of operation ... even including Chernobyl and Fukushima. Fission power is a victim of its own success: nobody pays attention to the hundreds of plants providing them power with zero pollution, until once a decade there's a major accident and it's big news for a year ... even if hardly anyone dies. Meanwhile coal plants kill people gradually and less obviously, at a far greater rate. The biggest disaster (Chernobyl) being bad design and a stupid decision by the manager, is also overlooked: neither would apply at a US or German plant. Even at a Chinese plant I suspect.

Delay: Ten years isn't terrible. Solar isn't going to be that much better in ten years. But the problem is cumulative with 1:Costs. A fleet of reactors sufficient to replace all coal and gas plants, also account for future demand from electric cars and more aircon, is maybe fifty? Half a trillion is admittedly serious money. Furthermore it's cheapest and best to build reactors in tranches: construction problems in the first tranche can be fixed in the second, also specialists can keep working the same stage in successive tranches.

I think the biggest obstacle is government willpower, and perhaps the technology to build plants away from cities without too much power loss in transmission.

[Greed and Death]

I am an environmentalist in favour of Nuclear but there are pretty obvious reasons why it isn't more popular.

• The cost. It's pretty obviously the biggest reason. If you can actually somehow get the government to fork out a little capital, would you have a better chance getting it for wind energy which costs $1.7 billion for a 1000 MW plant or for solar energy which costs just 0.6 billion for a 1000 MW farm or for nuclear energy which costs anywhere from 7 to 10 billion for 1000 MW? That kind of capital is very hard to get so we just don't bother to ask for it.

• The risks. Now, nuclear is nowhere as volatile as the general public thinks but it's a kind of risk completely different from other forms of energy. Without cooling, the components of the core of the reactors can literally melt from all the energy released from these reactions. There are also the added risks of human incompetence, natural disasters, just sheer bad luck, bureaucratic interferences etc. These might be rare but the risk they can cause is too high for comfort. A nuclear disaster in the best case scenario might just cause fatal damage to living beings and make a region uninhabitable for centuries. In the worst case scenario, it could explode. Doesn't look good on a government's report card. There is an estimated 44% chance of a nuclear meltdown in the next decade.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... 16.1145910


• Not the immediate solution we need. This is the one reason I most agree with. We need an alternative to fossil fuels and we needed it yesterday. It's already late, we need inmediate, actionable changes. Nuclear power requires highly skilled workers, immense capital, jumping through a multitude of bureaucratic hoops, transportation, storing, administration facilities setup. It's just too long a time to wait. Even in the most ideal of situations it would be decades before we can transition from fossil to nuclear. The average time to setup a nuclear plant is more than a decade. Planning for the Hinkley Point plant began in late 2007 and it's expected to be completed in 2025. It's not an uncommon case. Olkiluoto 3 was proposed in 2000 and is expected to begin production in 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto ... ower_Plant

In conclusion, I am pretty sure that Harold Feiveson can explain the criticisms much better than me.
https://easyupload.io/cfi32v

We run into similar problems with wind and solar as well. Right now there isn't an issue because they make up such a small part of the power generated. Once you start getting above 10% energy generated then run into problems. These sources of power are intermittent. Some areas of the country are prone to windless cloudy days for weeks at a time.

Intermittency is not a a complete deal breaker and it can be worked around by building a more efficient grid so windy areas can provide excess power to windless areas and the west coast can ship solar to the east coast for the 5pm energy peak. You can also build massive battery complexes as well. But completely rebuilding the grid, creating massive battery storage sites, and creating redundancy pales in comparison to the capital cost of a nuclear reactor that can use existing infrastructure.

[Novus America]

I'll be honest with you, I'm not that well versed in the debate, and my only exposure to the discussion has been footage of anti-nuclear protests. Of course, Chernobyl is a resonating event.

What are the perks of using nuclear energy?

Perks: the safest.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fool.c ... -fear.aspx
This might seem counter intuitive but it is the truth.

Also lowest amount of materials and land used, and lowest amount of waste produced, per energy generated.
We should not focus only on emissions. Habitat destruction (a huge problem for wind), resource use, land use and the larger amounts of waste other sources produce have to be accounted for.

Highest capacity factor (this is one of the biggest weaknesses of solar and wind, they have poor capacity factors) but high capacity factor, while ideal for baseload is not ideal for peaking. Hence why rooftop solar works well with nuclear.
They perfectly compliment each other.

One does not work as well without that other. Especially solar works better with nuclear than without.

Nuclear also can be used in pretty much all conditions, nuclear can be used almost anywhere, even underwater.

Also nuclear can actually be more efficient cost wise:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshe ... power/amp/

I am not calling for only nuclear, or other emissions free sources to be banned, just that nuclear should receive at least the same subsidies and protections other emissions free sources get.

[Novus America]

What you think is the risk is not the reality. The risk is minimal.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fool.c ... -fear.aspx

And as pointed out many times, Chernobyl cannot happen in the US or pretty much any place anymore.
Because it was a obsolete type of graphite moderated reactor. Very different than the water moderated reactors used today.
It also lacked the passive safety features newer reactors have.
And the Soviets did an incredibly stupid experiment with it.

That is like saying just because the Trabant was a supper shitty and unreliable car, that modern trains are dangerous.

Also despite the poor design only one Soviet RBMK reactor exploded when they made it explode with that experiment,
The rest operated, and several still operate without major problems.
But obviously nobody is going to build a new Soviet RBMK. Or anything like it.

What you're saying is the specific events of Chernobyl can't happen again.

But you can't say the cause won't happen again. You can't say human error won't happen again. You can't say that corner cutting or bureaucracy or complacency won't happen again. You can't say that not following protocols won't happen again. Unless you can somehow build not just a reactor but several reactors that are immune to Murphy's Law, then while the specifics of Chernnobyl might not happen again, or Fukashima, or etc, the contributing factors will always be present.

Passive safety means you cannot really cause them to catastrophically fail, even if you tried. Passive safety does basically deal with Murphy’s law.

Fukushima killed one person. Maybe. (We are not even sure they died from the accident).

The point is nuclear can be built such that even when everything goes wrong it can be safely contained, although new reactors are not going to fail the same ways either, they have inherent safety features.

Humans might be stupid, but humans cannot counteract the laws of physics.

And regardless, what is your alternative? Relying solely on less reliable, more environmentally harmful sources that kill more people than nuclear?

[Novus America]

I am an environmentalist in favour of Nuclear but there are pretty obvious reasons why it isn't more popular.

• The cost. It's pretty obviously the biggest reason. If you can actually somehow get the government to fork out a little capital, would you have a better chance getting it for wind energy which costs $1.7 billion for a 1000 MW plant or for solar energy which costs just 0.6 billion for a 1000 MW farm or for nuclear energy which costs anywhere from 7 to 10 billion for 1000 MW? That kind of capital is very hard to get so we just don't bother to ask for it.

• The risks. Now, nuclear is nowhere as volatile as the general public thinks but it's a kind of risk completely different from other forms of energy. Without cooling, the components of the core of the reactors can literally melt from all the energy released from these reactions. There are also the added risks of human incompetence, natural disasters, just sheer bad luck, bureaucratic interferences etc. These might be rare but the risk they can cause is too high for comfort. A nuclear disaster in the best case scenario might just cause fatal damage to living beings and make a region uninhabitable for centuries. In the worst case scenario, it could explode. Doesn't look good on a government's report card. There is an estimated 44% chance of a nuclear meltdown in the next decade.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10 ... 16.1145910


• Not the immediate solution we need. This is the one reason I most agree with. We need an alternative to fossil fuels and we needed it yesterday. It's already late, we need inmediate, actionable changes. Nuclear power requires highly skilled workers, immense capital, jumping through a multitude of bureaucratic hoops, transportation, storing, administration facilities setup. It's just too long a time to wait. Even in the most ideal of situations it would be decades before we can transition from fossil to nuclear. The average time to setup a nuclear plant is more than a decade. Planning for the Hinkley Point plant began in late 2007 and it's expected to be completed in 2025. It's not an uncommon case. Olkiluoto 3 was proposed in 2000 and is expected to begin production in 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto ... ower_Plant

In conclusion, I am pretty sure that Harold Feiveson can explain the criticisms much better than me.
https://easyupload.io/cfi32v

Costs: $7 billion is doable, in government money. If private enterprise doesn't like it, they can compete.

Risks: Nuclear fission is very safe, averaged over plants and years of operation ... even including Chernobyl and Fukushima. Fission power is a victim of its own success: nobody pays attention to the hundreds of plants providing them power with zero pollution, until once a decade there's a major accident and it's big news for a year ... even if hardly anyone dies. Meanwhile coal plants kill people gradually and less obviously, at a far greater rate. The biggest disaster (Chernobyl) being bad design and a stupid decision by the manager, is also overlooked: neither would apply at a US or German plant. Even at a Chinese plant I suspect.

Delay: Ten years isn't terrible. Solar isn't going to be that much better in ten years. But the problem is cumulative with 1:Costs. A fleet of reactors sufficient to replace all coal and gas plants, also account for future demand from electric cars and more aircon, is maybe fifty? Half a trillion is admittedly serious money. Furthermore it's cheapest and best to build reactors in tranches: construction problems in the first tranche can be fixed in the second, also specialists can keep working the same stage in successive tranches.

I think the biggest obstacle is government willpower, and perhaps the technology to build plants away from cities without too much power loss in transmission.

The amount of solar or wind you have to build to generate as much as one nuclear plant is simply massive.
Especially when you account for capacity factors.

According to one study it would take a wind farm stretching the entire length of California to produce as much as one nuclear plant.

Rooftop solar limits habitat destruction (while aside from the mining and waste involved) but wind has a huge habitat destruction issue.

[Cannot think of a name]

What you're saying is the specific events of Chernobyl can't happen again.

But you can't say the cause won't happen again. You can't say human error won't happen again. You can't say that corner cutting or bureaucracy or complacency won't happen again. You can't say that not following protocols won't happen again. Unless you can somehow build not just a reactor but several reactors that are immune to Murphy's Law, then while the specifics of Chernnobyl might not happen again, or Fukashima, or etc, the contributing factors will always be present.

Passive safety means you cannot really cause them to catastrophically fail, even if you tried. Passive safety does basically deal with Murphy’s law.

Fukushima killed one person. Maybe. (We are not even sure they died from the accident).

The point is nuclear can be built such that even when everything goes wrong it can be safely contained, although new reactors are not going to fail the same ways either, they have inherent safety features.

Humans might be stupid, but humans cannot counteract the laws of physics.

And regardless, what is your alternative? Relying solely on less reliable, more environmentally harmful sources that kill more people than nuclear?

And the Titanic was unsinkable.

[Greed and Death]

What you're saying is the specific events of Chernobyl can't happen again.

But you can't say the cause won't happen again. You can't say human error won't happen again. You can't say that corner cutting or bureaucracy or complacency won't happen again. You can't say that not following protocols won't happen again. Unless you can somehow build not just a reactor but several reactors that are immune to Murphy's Law, then while the specifics of Chernnobyl might not happen again, or Fukashima, or etc, the contributing factors will always be present.

Passive safety means you cannot really cause them to catastrophically fail, even if you tried. Passive safety does basically deal with Murphy’s law.

Fukushima killed one person. Maybe. (We are not even sure they died from the accident).

The point is nuclear can be built such that even when everything goes wrong it can be safely contained, although new reactors are not going to fail the same ways either, they have inherent safety features.

Humans might be stupid, but humans cannot counteract the laws of physics.

And regardless, what is your alternative? Relying solely on less reliable, more environmentally harmful sources that kill more people than nuclear?

Chernobyl took a political system where engineers and a physicists who pointed out the dangers of the design were disappeared to gulags.

[Novus America]

Passive safety means you cannot really cause them to catastrophically fail, even if you tried. Passive safety does basically deal with Murphy’s law.

Fukushima killed one person. Maybe. (We are not even sure they died from the accident).

The point is nuclear can be built such that even when everything goes wrong it can be safely contained, although new reactors are not going to fail the same ways either, they have inherent safety features.

Humans might be stupid, but humans cannot counteract the laws of physics. That was propaganda, not engineering or physics.

And regardless, what is your alternative? Relying solely on less reliable, more environmentally harmful sources that kill more people than nuclear?

And the Titanic was unsinkable.

Quite different. The Titanic was not unsinkable according to physics.

It still was denser than the water with the air removed.

You can make designs where such failures like Chernobyl or even the far less dangerous Fukushima (again maybe one person kills) cannot happen because physics prevents it.

This is like if I say “my cat cannot fly into space under his own power” saying “how do you know?”.

And again answer the last part. What is your alternative? Relying solely on things that kill more people, are less reliable and damage the environment more?
You have to prove your alternative is actually better.

[Kowani]

Passive safety means you cannot really cause them to catastrophically fail, even if you tried. Passive safety does basically deal with Murphy’s law.

Fukushima killed one person. Maybe. (We are not even sure they died from the accident).

The point is nuclear can be built such that even when everything goes wrong it can be safely contained, although new reactors are not going to fail the same ways either, they have inherent safety features.

Humans might be stupid, but humans cannot counteract the laws of physics.

And regardless, what is your alternative? Relying solely on less reliable, more environmentally harmful sources that kill more people than nuclear?

And the Titanic was unsinkable.

That one was more a marketing scheme than actual engineering.

[Cannot think of a name]

And the Titanic was unsinkable.

Quite different. The Titanic was not unsinkable according to physics.

It still was denser than the water with the air removed.

You can make designs where such failures like Chernobyl or even the far less dangerous Fukushima (again maybe one person kills) cannot happen because physics prevents it.

You keep saying it killed 'maybe' on person like that was the only affect of Fukashima, which makes me feel like you're not approaching this honestly. Also, regardless of how you cut the fatality rate, having things like petitioners volunteer to deal with it because they had less to lose isn't really a good look when you're trying to undersell the scope of what happened.

This is like if I say “my cat cannot fly into space under his own power” saying “how do you know?”.

Did you design, build, and maintain your cat? No? Then what the hell is this nonsense?

And again answer the last part. What is your alternative? Relying solely on things that kill more people, are less reliable and damage the environment more?
You have to prove your alternative is actually better.

Not relying on thirty year old arguments against renewables, mostly. Solar is now the cheapest form of energy. Energy storage, smart grids, variation in methods that include wind, tidal, geothermal, existing hydroelectricity are all not pie in the sky problems but solutions that we could spend the massive subsidies required to make nuclear feasable building towards a future that doesn't require us believing that this time for sure, the Titanic isn't sinkable.

Thing is, I grew up next to both a hydro-electric dam and a nuclear power plant. That nuclear plant was unreliable as hell, finicky, and ultimately decommissioned while the hydro-electric dam built before the atom was split is still powering everyone's home. It seems like a wasted effort to go backwards to another energy source that requires mining fuel and managing waste when we can just push forward with methods that don't do either of those things.

You can't present me with a nuclear power plant that is your cat. It has to be built by people in a bureaucracy. Instead of trying to find a way for people to not find a way to screw up nuclear power-which...no. The best move is to move forward. Leave the ones we've already built while we transition, but building more just doesn't add up financially or riskwise.

[Cannot think of a name]

And the Titanic was unsinkable.

That one was more a marketing scheme than actual engineering.

And people pushing safe nuclear aren't marketing their product?

[Alternamerica]

That one was more a marketing scheme than actual engineering.

And people pushing safe nuclear aren't marketing their product?

"Safe Nuclear" is still more safe than ripping the global south barren, leaving only the 1st world with "sustainable" energy

[Novus America]

Quite different. The Titanic was not unsinkable according to physics.

It still was denser than the water with the air removed.

You can make designs where such failures like Chernobyl or even the far less dangerous Fukushima (again maybe one person kills) cannot happen because physics prevents it.

You keep saying it killed 'maybe' on person like that was the only affect of Fukashima, which makes me feel like you're not approaching this honestly. Also, regardless of how you cut the fatality rate, having things like petitioners volunteer to deal with it because they had less to lose isn't really a good look when you're trying to undersell the scope of what happened.

This is like if I say “my cat cannot fly into space under his own power” saying “how do you know?”.

Did you design, build, and maintain your cat? No? Then what the hell is this nonsense?

And again answer the last part. What is your alternative? Relying solely on things that kill more people, are less reliable and damage the environment more?
You have to prove your alternative is actually better.

Not relying on thirty year old arguments against renewables, mostly. Solar is now the cheapest form of energy. Energy storage, smart grids, variation in methods that include wind, tidal, geothermal, existing hydroelectricity are all not pie in the sky problems but solutions that we could spend the massive subsidies required to make nuclear feasable building towards a future that doesn't require us believing that this time for sure, the Titanic isn't sinkable.

Thing is, I grew up next to both a hydro-electric dam and a nuclear power plant. That nuclear plant was unreliable as hell, finicky, and ultimately decommissioned while the hydro-electric dam built before the atom was split is still powering everyone's home. It seems like a wasted effort to go backwards to another energy source that requires mining fuel and managing waste when we can just push forward with methods that don't do either of those things.

You can't present me with a nuclear power plant that is your cat. It has to be built by people in a bureaucracy. Instead of trying to find a way for people to not find a way to screw up nuclear power-which...no. The best move is to move forward. Leave the ones we've already built while we transition, but building more just doesn't add up financially or riskwise.

Well it is disputed if he died from the accident or not.
And I already addressed that earlier. Japan over reacted, the amount of radiation in most parts of Fukushima is although higher than the normal background radiation it is not actually dangerous or higher than the background radiation in Colorado. Yes the Japanese were terrified, but not based on science. But on popular culture.

And seriously? You think hydroelectric is immune to human errors?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

Your argued is we should not use nuclear because someone might screw it up, yet you are okay with Hydroelectric dams which have had far more failures, and killed many times more people?

Yes you can build a very safe, very reliable hydroelectric plant.
With proper engineering, proper safeguards and proper passive safety measures.
But if you screw it up, it will go disastrously bad.
Hydroelectric is NOT safer than nuclear! That is a completely stupid argument. I mean it contradicts itself.
The argument you make against nuclear completely invalidates hydroelectric.

To make an argument for hydroelectric (that it can be made safe with proper engineering) means your argument against nuclear is killed.

Hydroelectric has to be built by people in a bureaucracy you know.

And we do not have the storage capacity to rely completely on solar (which actually kills more people than nuclear).
And how much land, resources would be consumed, and waste produced?

Hydro dams require massive mining, and completely alter the surrounding environment to a greater degree.
Solar, wind and battery production require more mining and produce more waste than nuclear per power produced.

https://environmentalprogress.org/why-c ... in-crisis/

All those sources are up far more resources and use up more land. Dams have a massive environmental impact you know.
Covering millions of square miles using dams, massively altering huge natural habitats, strip mining Bolivia and such for lithium. And transitioning to that will require massive subsidies

Besides killing more people, what you propose would do more environmental harm. And require massive subsidies.

Whereas adding more nuclear to the mix increases overall safety, reduces the environmental harm, increases reliability.

[Kowani]

That one was more a marketing scheme than actual engineering.

And people pushing safe nuclear aren't marketing their product?

I'm sorry, I didn't realize the nuclear industry was a participant in this thread.

[Novus America]

That one was more a marketing scheme than actual engineering.

And people pushing safe nuclear aren't marketing their product?

They are, but they have the science to back it up. And again quite hypocritical for you to stan hydro, while making the same arguments that if true (thankfully they are not) would invalidate hydroelectric.

[Cannot think of a name]

You keep saying it killed 'maybe' on person like that was the only affect of Fukashima, which makes me feel like you're not approaching this honestly. Also, regardless of how you cut the fatality rate, having things like petitioners volunteer to deal with it because they had less to lose isn't really a good look when you're trying to undersell the scope of what happened.

Did you design, build, and maintain your cat? No? Then what the hell is this nonsense?

Not relying on thirty year old arguments against renewables, mostly. Solar is now the cheapest form of energy. Energy storage, smart grids, variation in methods that include wind, tidal, geothermal, existing hydroelectricity are all not pie in the sky problems but solutions that we could spend the massive subsidies required to make nuclear feasable building towards a future that doesn't require us believing that this time for sure, the Titanic isn't sinkable.

Thing is, I grew up next to both a hydro-electric dam and a nuclear power plant. That nuclear plant was unreliable as hell, finicky, and ultimately decommissioned while the hydro-electric dam built before the atom was split is still powering everyone's home. It seems like a wasted effort to go backwards to another energy source that requires mining fuel and managing waste when we can just push forward with methods that don't do either of those things.

You can't present me with a nuclear power plant that is your cat. It has to be built by people in a bureaucracy. Instead of trying to find a way for people to not find a way to screw up nuclear power-which...no. The best move is to move forward. Leave the ones we've already built while we transition, but building more just doesn't add up financially or riskwise.

Well it is disputed if he died from the accident or not.
And I already addressed that earlier. Japan over reacted, the amount of radiation in most parts of Fukushima is although higher than the normal background radiation it is not actually dangerous or higher than the background radiation in Colorado. Yes the Japanese were terrified, but not based on science. But on popular culture.

And seriously? You think hydroelectric is immune to human errors?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

Your argued is we should not use nuclear because someone might screw it up, yet you are okay with Hydroelectric dams which have had far more failures, and killed many times more people?

Yes you can build a very safe, very reliable hydroelectric plant.
With proper engineering, proper safeguards and proper passive safety measures.
But if you screw it up, it will go disastrously bad.
Hydroelectric is NOT safer than nuclear! That is a completely stupid argument. I mean it contradicts itself.
The argument you make against nuclear completely invalidates hydroelectric.

To make an argument for hydroelectric (that it can be made safe with proper engineering) means your argument against nuclear is killed.

Hydroelectric has to be built by people in a bureaucracy you know.

And we do not have the storage capacity to rely completely on solar (which actually kills more people than nuclear).
And how much land, resources would be consumed, and waste produced?

Hydro dams require massive mining, and completely alter the surrounding environment to a greater degree.
Solar, wind and battery production require more mining and produce more waste than nuclear per power produced.

https://environmentalprogress.org/why-c ... in-crisis/

All those sources are up far more resources and use up more land. Dams have a massive environmental impact you know.
Covering millions of square miles using dams, massively altering huge natural habitats, strip mining Bolivia and such for lithium. And transitioning to that will require massive subsidies

Besides killing more people, what you propose would do more environmental harm. And require massive subsidies.

Whereas adding more nuclear to the mix increases overall safety, reduces the environmental harm, increases reliability.

Well, that would certainly be...daming if the bulk of my argument was hydro electricity. It was more of a passing mention, however, since I lived near a dam that held fast after two upstream dam failures and a nuclear powerplant that couldn't go a week without having to shut down. But any time you want to get to the actual substance of my post, let me know.

[Cannot think of a name]

And people pushing safe nuclear aren't marketing their product?

I'm sorry, I didn't realize the nuclear industry was a participant in this thread.

C'mon, man. You gotta feel a little bad for that post.

[Cannot think of a name]

And people pushing safe nuclear aren't marketing their product?

They are, but they have the science to back it up. And again quite hypocritical for you to stan hydro, while making the same arguments that if true (thankfully they are not) would invalidate hydroelectric.

Wow, like a dog with a bone on that one, aren't you? It kind of comes off as a bit desperate, not gonna lie.

[Novus America]

Well it is disputed if he died from the accident or not.
And I already addressed that earlier. Japan over reacted, the amount of radiation in most parts of Fukushima is although higher than the normal background radiation it is not actually dangerous or higher than the background radiation in Colorado. Yes the Japanese were terrified, but not based on science. But on popular culture.

And seriously? You think hydroelectric is immune to human errors?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

Your argued is we should not use nuclear because someone might screw it up, yet you are okay with Hydroelectric dams which have had far more failures, and killed many times more people?

Yes you can build a very safe, very reliable hydroelectric plant.
With proper engineering, proper safeguards and proper passive safety measures.
But if you screw it up, it will go disastrously bad.
Hydroelectric is NOT safer than nuclear! That is a completely stupid argument. I mean it contradicts itself.
The argument you make against nuclear completely invalidates hydroelectric.

To make an argument for hydroelectric (that it can be made safe with proper engineering) means your argument against nuclear is killed.

Hydroelectric has to be built by people in a bureaucracy you know.

And we do not have the storage capacity to rely completely on solar (which actually kills more people than nuclear).
And how much land, resources would be consumed, and waste produced?

Hydro dams require massive mining, and completely alter the surrounding environment to a greater degree.
Solar, wind and battery production require more mining and produce more waste than nuclear per power produced.

https://environmentalprogress.org/why-c ... in-crisis/

All those sources are up far more resources and use up more land. Dams have a massive environmental impact you know.
Covering millions of square miles using dams, massively altering huge natural habitats, strip mining Bolivia and such for lithium. And transitioning to that will require massive subsidies

Besides killing more people, what you propose would do more environmental harm. And require massive subsidies.

Whereas adding more nuclear to the mix increases overall safety, reduces the environmental harm, increases reliability.

Well, that would certainly be...daming if the bulk of my argument was hydro electricity. It was more of a passing mention, however, since I lived near a dam that held fast after two upstream dam failures and a nuclear powerplant that couldn't go a week without having to shut down. But any time you want to get to the actual substance of my post, let me know.

I did get to the substance of it. By the way anecdotes are not substance.
The point is you said nuclear is bad because it cannot be made perfectly free from human error.
But given hydroelectric dams are on average, world wide, less reliable and more dangerous https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fool.c ... -fear.aspx
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacit ... 1-2013.png
saying “but near me” is a bad argument

You have an anecdote, I have statistics.

[Novus America]

They are, but they have the science to back it up. And again quite hypocritical for you to stan hydro, while making the same arguments that if true (thankfully they are not) would invalidate hydroelectric.

Wow, like a dog with a bone on that one, aren't you? It kind of comes off as a bit desperate, not gonna lie.

Are you even trying to argue in good faith here?

No it was a legitimate critique.
You claimed nuclear is bad because human error can happen (despite passive safety largely negating most human error, that is the point of it).
But this would invalidate other power sources (which kill more people and cause more environmental damage due to human error) but also cars, bridges, trains, airplanes.

Basically anything.

Because nuclear is the safest, most reliable and the least environmentally damaging (using up less land, resources and producing less waste per energy produced) saying that human error still exists does not invalidate it.

Or it would invalidate everything. Why is only nuclear subject to your human error complaint, but nothing else is?
Human error is more problematic with many of the other things you said we should use. Especially hydroelectric.

[Cannot think of a name]

Well, that would certainly be...daming if the bulk of my argument was hydro electricity. It was more of a passing mention, however, since I lived near a dam that held fast after two upstream dam failures and a nuclear powerplant that couldn't go a week without having to shut down. But any time you want to get to the actual substance of my post, let me know.

I did get to the substance of it. By the way anecdotes are not substance.
The point is you said nuclear is bad because it cannot be made perfectly free from human error.
But given hydroelectric dams are on average, world wide, less reliable and more dangerous https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fool.c ... -fear.aspx
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacit ... 1-2013.png
saying “but near me” is a bad argument

You have an anecdote, I have statistics.

Just because you stopped reading at the dam part doesn't mean that was the substance of it. For fuck's sake, there was even an actual link to a source that had fuckall to do with dams. But here you are, given a second chance and you're all "dams dams dams" without really even getting at how I feel about dams.

1. My hometown dam, a champ. Also the first hydroelectric powerplant in the west. That seems like a pointless distinction, but my town is built around pointless distinctions. They also think they are the home of Smokey the Bear. Spoiler alert, they're not. But it held when others didn't. So go that dam.

2. I don't actually like dams for several reasons. One is safety. The other is they tend to fucker both water and land when built indiscriminately. Our dam, the champ, is also a water reserve for the state and controls water flow for farming and irrigation, so it would be there with or without the generators, so might as well have the generators.

3. I did include an anecdotal bit about living next to a nuclear powerplant, but that was an aside to the argument I had already made and you have twice now refused to engage with with your dam crusade. You're not really approaching this in good faith with your dam obsession and some silliness about your cat that somehow invalidates human error. So...I'm kinda done. I'm not so interested in a fight that's already been lost on the world stage that I need to drag you back around to the points being made. I'd say this has been fun, but...

[Novus America]

I did get to the substance of it. By the way anecdotes are not substance.
The point is you said nuclear is bad because it cannot be made perfectly free from human error.
But given hydroelectric dams are on average, world wide, less reliable and more dangerous https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fool.c ... -fear.aspx
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacit ... 1-2013.png
saying “but near me” is a bad argument

You have an anecdote, I have statistics.

Just because you stopped reading at the dam part doesn't mean that was the substance of it. For fuck's sake, there was even an actual link to a source that had fuckall to do with dams. But here you are, given a second chance and you're all "dams dams dams" without really even getting at how I feel about dams.

1. My hometown dam, a champ. Also the first hydroelectric powerplant in the west. That seems like a pointless distinction, but my town is built around pointless distinctions. They also think they are the home of Smokey the Bear. Spoiler alert, they're not. But it held when others didn't. So go that dam.

2. I don't actually like dams for several reasons. One is safety. The other is they tend to fucker both water and land when built indiscriminately. Our dam, the champ, is also a water reserve for the state and controls water flow for farming and irrigation, so it would be there with or without the generators, so might as well have the generators.

3. I did include an anecdotal bit about living next to a nuclear powerplant, but that was an aside to the argument I had already made and you have twice now refused to engage with with your dam crusade. You're not really approaching this in good faith with your dam obsession and some silliness about your cat that somehow invalidates human error. So...I'm kinda done. I'm not so interested in a fight that's already been lost on the world stage that I need to drag you back around to the points being made. I'd say this has been fun, but...

Okay, you admit dams are more dangerous, less reliable. More prone to human errors. But you still advocate using them.
But such problems also can apply to wind and solar which do more environmental damage and kills more people than nuclear.
That is the problem.

Human error simply existing is not a good argument, nor does it make nuclear more dangerous than the alternatives.

Anyways the battle being largely lost might have caused irreparable damage.
So it is hardly something to celebrate.
But it is not completely over yet. We are seeing some shift, environmentalists once opposed seeing it nuclear as a necessary part of a workable clean energy mix.

So maybe not all hope is lost.
And hopefully it is not, because continuing down the current path is not a good idea.

[Cannot think of a name]

Just because you stopped reading at the dam part doesn't mean that was the substance of it. For fuck's sake, there was even an actual link to a source that had fuckall to do with dams. But here you are, given a second chance and you're all "dams dams dams" without really even getting at how I feel about dams.

1. My hometown dam, a champ. Also the first hydroelectric powerplant in the west. That seems like a pointless distinction, but my town is built around pointless distinctions. They also think they are the home of Smokey the Bear. Spoiler alert, they're not. But it held when others didn't. So go that dam.

2. I don't actually like dams for several reasons. One is safety. The other is they tend to fucker both water and land when built indiscriminately. Our dam, the champ, is also a water reserve for the state and controls water flow for farming and irrigation, so it would be there with or without the generators, so might as well have the generators.

3. I did include an anecdotal bit about living next to a nuclear powerplant, but that was an aside to the argument I had already made and you have twice now refused to engage with with your dam crusade. You're not really approaching this in good faith with your dam obsession and some silliness about your cat that somehow invalidates human error. So...I'm kinda done. I'm not so interested in a fight that's already been lost on the world stage that I need to drag you back around to the points being made. I'd say this has been fun, but...

Okay, you admit dams are more dangerous, less reliable. More prone to human errors. But you still advocate using them.

Wow, okay. We're super done here. Jesus christ.

[Devionsa]

Costs: $7 billion is doable, in government money. If private enterprise doesn't like it, they can compete.

Risks: Nuclear fission is very safe, averaged over plants and years of operation ... even including Chernobyl and Fukushima. Fission power is a victim of its own success: nobody pays attention to the hundreds of plants providing them power with zero pollution, until once a decade there's a major accident and it's big news for a year ... even if hardly anyone dies. Meanwhile coal plants kill people gradually and less obviously, at a far greater rate. The biggest disaster (Chernobyl) being bad design and a stupid decision by the manager, is also overlooked: neither would apply at a US or German plant. Even at a Chinese plant I suspect.

Delay: Ten years isn't terrible. Solar isn't going to be that much better in ten years. But the problem is cumulative with 1:Costs. A fleet of reactors sufficient to replace all coal and gas plants, also account for future demand from electric cars and more aircon, is maybe fifty? Half a trillion is admittedly serious money. Furthermore it's cheapest and best to build reactors in tranches: construction problems in the first tranche can be fixed in the second, also specialists can keep working the same stage in successive tranches.

I think the biggest obstacle is government willpower, and perhaps the technology to build plants away from cities without too much power loss in transmission.

I am gonna be honest with you, the way you dismissed the issues I raised is a bit patronising. Anyways, onto your rebuttals:

• $7-10 billion for ONE plant of 1000 MW capacity. The energy consumption for the US alone was more than 1.22 million Megawatts. By some basic calculations that means that we would need about $8.6 trillion to 12.2 trillion dollars to fully transition to nuclear. Even just using nuclear for half the power would cost 4 to 6 trillion dollars. The total expenditure on energy by the US was 1.2 trillion dollars. You're asking the US government (and others) to spend, at the least, more than 4 times the present amount on a department that isn't the military. Good luck with that.

As for private enterprise, unless Amazon or Google are planning on changing into nuclear, I would put that scenario in the "far-future" category.

Sources: https://www.statista.com/topics/4127/el ... generation

/http://css.umich.edu/sites/default/files/US%20Energy%20System_CSS03-11_e2020.pdf


• It's much safer now, I know that. However, there are still risks. Multiple and unexpected failures are built into society's complex and tightly-coupled nuclear reactor systems. Such accidents are unavoidable and cannot be designed around.

There have been 99 nuclear incidents in the world and there are only 440 nuclear plants. That doesn't seem a comfortable ratio to me. 1 accident for every 4 plants. Also, this constant rebuttal that "Soviet incompetence was the reason for nuclear disasters and it won't ever happen in the civilised world" is a annoying and misleading idea. More than two-thirds of nuclear accidents have happened in the US.

Fukushima raised doubts that even a highly developed country like Japan could fully manage the safety of nuclear power. And don't say that they had an earthquake. They have them all the time. The reactor had backups that were supposed to stabilise the reactor after the earthquake. But they failed. Obviously they should have put backups for the backups and then backups for the backups for the backups and so on. I am not saying it's not safe, but there certainly are risks. Just trying to clarify the position of some people.

Moreover, many statisticians and safety specialists believe that there's a 50% chance of another Chernobyl before 2050 and another Three Mile Island accident within the next decade.

Furthermore, this constant proclamation that nuclear is a zero-emissions fuel is just verifiably false. Nuclear produces 80-180 g CO2 per KWH. It's not high but it's not zero either. For comparison, a standard coal-powered thermal power plant produces 0.9 kg CO2 per KWH.

Sources: https://web.archive.org/web/20130606023005/

http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/ ... -fukushima

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-0 ... -says.html

http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/pdf/nuc ... r-full.pdf

https://www.technologyreview.com/2015/0 ... ecialists/

https://web.archive.org/web/20130116084833/

http://spp.nus.edu.sg/docs/policy-brief ... vacool.pdf

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/04/18/ ... wer-plant/

https://www3.epa.gov/ttnchie1/conferenc ... mittal.pdf

•Delay? Solar is making progress in leaps and bounds. Now you are just being disingenuous. Just in the year 2017, photovoltaic capacity increased by 95 Gigawatts, with a 34% growth per year of new installations. Total installed capacity exceeded 401 GW by the end of the year, sufficient to supply 2.1 percent of the world's total electricity consumption. In the last decade (2008–18), the globally installed capacity of off-grid solar PV has grown more than tenfold. I could just keep going on singing the praises of solar . It's the future. Get with it.

Sources: http://www.iea-pvps.org/fileadmin/dam/p ... 16__1_.pdf

https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRE ... V_2019.pdf

[Eukaryotic Cells]

The big reason why solar and wind are being added to the grid right now is because they're highly cost-competitive, even with natural gas. Most new capacity being added in the US is wind and solar. It's actually caused huge issues at the gas/steam turbine business units of companies like General Electric and Siemens.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42495