Should Japan Restart More Nuclear Power Plants? (thebulletin.org)

Lasrick writes: Seth Baum, executive director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, writes in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that Japan should restart more of its nuclear reactors (the Sendai nuclear plant was restarted in August). The reason is simple, writes Baum: "Japan is now building 45 new coal power plants, but if it turned its nuclear power plants back on... it could cut coal consumption in half. And coal poses more health and climate change dangers than nuclear power."

Comments

Honestly, Japan's screwed no matter what.

[Chas]

Basically every option for them and their little fireball of an island chain are Bad Choices.

Still, engineered and maintained properly, with no corner cutting, they'd be better served by nuclear.

Re:Honestly, Japan's screwed no matter what.

[WalksOnDirt]

Actually, they can still use that land. It's unsuitable for living on, growing food, etc

Over 90% of the affected area is suitable for those uses right now. The radiation in those parts is less than that of Colorado. I don't see people leaving Colorado because of the radiation.

Fukushima was WORTH IT

[mrchaotica]

We only get worked up about nuclear disasters because they're so unusual. Coal is a disaster in its normal operation!

Re:Fukushima was WORTH IT

[bloodhawk]

every coal fire plant is a disaster that is occurring every single day and are continuing to affect the human race in ways we still don't fully comprehend long after everyone here is dead.

Re:Fukushima was WORTH IT

[liquid_schwartz]

While it's true that nuclear tends to have longer consequences for mistakes, sometimes coal disasters have long lived consequences too: Citation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

Between direct deaths (ie people who die immediately in accidents) and indirect deaths (ie people who die of cancer or pollution) I think coal has more deaths than nuclear by quite a bit. Interestingly hydroelectric dominates for direct deaths as shown here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents

Re:Fukushima was WORTH IT

[mrchaotica]

First of all, I'll reiterate bloodhawk's point above, that coal has worse long-term impact than nuclear disasters too.

Second, the main long-term impact of Chernobyl and Fukushima (beyond the lifetimes of the humans involved) is that Russia and Japan have ended up with some accidental mandatory wilderness conservation! From the perspective of every species that isn't humanity, they were probably a net positive.

Look, Chernobyl and Fukushima sucked for their victims. I get that, and I'm not trying to minimize it. But abandoning nuclear because of things like that is like abandoning air travel ("the safest form of travel," they say) in favor of playing chicken on the highway because a plane crashes every once in a while. It's an emotional, irrational overreaction that just doesn't make any damn (statistical) sense.

Re:Fukushima was WORTH IT

[thesupraman]

You seem to forget that the US dropped NUCLEAR FUCKING BOMBS on two Japanese cities only 70 odd years ago, and both are thriving cities these days.

What goes on for so long is the bs paranoia that is so deeply ingrained that people refuse to look at the scientific facts that low levels of radiation are not lethal, and in fact are quite common naturally.

Or perhaps you suggest we should require people to block up all basements in bedrock due to the natural radon levels?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radon

Not to mention banning bananas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose

People living in Ramsir, Iran of course must be dead by now, but somehow they have been surviving for centuries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Mazandaran

But dont let actual facts get in the way of your cold war radiation terror..

Re:Fukushima was WORTH IT

[thesupraman]

I beg to differ, no it cannot.

It would, for example, be pretty damn hard to get a nuclear power incident more incompetently managed and 'dirty' as Chernobyl, and I am pretty sure that the human race has not yet been wiped out by it (although the local wildlife population is devastatingly healthy thanks to less people around).

Perhaps you would prefer a mountain of radioactive ash from coal plants?

Re:No.

[Luthair]

Point a geiger counter at your smoke detector sometime, and maybe watch Pandora's Promise to educate yourself on the reality of nuclear power.

Re:No.

[Solandri]

Samples collected from gutters around my office (Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo) already light up the Geiger counter, and the soles of shoes right after make nice images when placed on photographic film.

Ah yes, Nuclear myth #3: All radiation is caused by nuclear power and nuclear bombs.

Fact: Nearly everything in the world is naturally radioactive. You're horrified that that stuff around your office lights up Geiger counters, because you never pointed a Geiger counter at that stuff before the accident. Thus you are incorrectly attributing natural radiation to the accident. Your largest annual radiation dose actually comes from your own body. Potassium has a relatively common naturally occurring isotope (K40) which is radioactive, and your body needs potassium to survive (it's essential to how your nerves function). Your second largest dose comes from cosmic rays. Most of these are filtered out by the atmosphere, so in a twist of irony many of those who fled Japan by plane after the accident unwittingly exposed themselves to more radiation during their flight (planes fly above most of the atmosphere) than if they'd just stayed put in Japan.

This myth is so prevalent and pernicious that we screen our nuclear plant workers with detectors which would be screaming if placed at the exit of a drugstore or supermarket. K40 is common enough that most of the false alarms from the "dirty bomb" detectors at our borders are caused by shipments of food which are high in potassium - bananas, avocados, cocoa, etc.

Perhaps most damning with respect to TFA, burning coal releases radiation. Coal contains trace amounts of uranium. The uranium in coal actually contains more energy than the coal itself, but because people who believe this myth are staunchly opposed to nuclear power, they end up breathing in those minute traces of uranium released by burning coal instead. (Burning coal is also the current major contributor to mercury in our oceans which makes fish like tuna dangerous to consume. Historically the biggest contributor was mining, but that's been regulated enough that the primary mercury source is now coal pollution.)

Re: Climate change vs. Nuclear accident

[Chas]

What? A nuclear powerplant is not a potential teraton explosion waiting to happen...

Since there's nowhere near a teraton of water in the cooling system? No.

Nuclear plant explosions have more in common with a bursting water heater than they do with a nuclear bomb.

Now, don't get me wrong. A high pressure steam explosion is a nasty thing too. But it's NOT a nuclear explosion.

Restart Isn't the Right Choice Either....

[Noble713]

I'm pro-nuclear (generally speaking). I live in Japan.

I don't think turning on a bunch of outdated reactors that sit on one of the most earthquake and tsunami-prone areas of the world is a good idea.

How about replacing the existing reactors with a smaller number of very modern Westinghouse AP1000s? A far better way to spend billions of dollars than the stupid 2020 Tokyo Olympics. I think this is an acceptable medium-range solution until someone demonstrates a commercial 1GW thorium plant.

Re:Fukushima was NOT WORTH IT

[Firethorn]

Nuclear and Coal are as bad as each other and Nuclear is worse in ways we still don't fully comprehend.

I'd argue that Coal is worse, and worse in ways that we still don't fully comprehend. We understand the problems with nuclear power pretty well, including that it kills fewer people per MWh than solar.

Remember, most of the dangerous byproducts from a coal plant don't break down, and aren't all that well contained. Nuclear power waste is at least contained.

Re:Fukushima was NOT WORTH IT

[bloodhawk]

every coal fire plant is a disaster that is occurring every single day and are continuing to affect the human race in ways we still don't fully comprehend long after everyone here is dead.

You are arguing that having two problems is the solution, instead of getting rid of both problems. Nuclear and Coal are as bad as each other and Nuclear is worse in ways we still don't fully comprehend.

No, I am arguing coal is a KNOWN far worse problem right here and now, we don't have to wait for an accident, it doesn't have some "chance" of being an issue. It has far reaching known issues and probably just as many unknown.

Re:Climate change vs. Nuclear accident

[Alypius]

Nope. It is physically impossible for a plant to detonate into a mushroom cloud. Chernobyl was horrific because the engineers deliberately disengaged the safeties and ramped up the power. There have been significant advances in inherently-safe nuclear plants, such as pebble bed and thorium reactors. There are also breeder reactors that effectively "recycle" used fuel. Because of this, I just can't take seriously anyone who doesn't include nuclear as part of a climate-change-related energy policy.

Restoring trust in the system.

[westlake]

The geek's technical and ecological arguments count for nothing if you have lost faith in those who were responsible for the safety of nuclear power both in private industry and in government.

Re:Rubbish....

[Hognoxious]

Japan should take the lead from Germany

I think a cable reaching all the way to France would be very expensive, and I suspect the resistive losses would be prohibitive too.

Re:What's with this headline?

[Coren22]

Even including the two bombs used on Japan, nuclear has killed less people than any power generation technology around. Fear of nuclear is failure of math/science education, not something to proudly proclaim from the rooftops.