Unlike dams, they are mostly renovated on schedule and after every incident, let alone disaster. The designs are re-evaluated to eliminate or reduce probability of faults that could led to similar problems. Just like the Russians did modify all their power plants using the same design as Chernobyl (changed construction of control rods, number of control rods, fuel enrichment, etc.) to reduce likelihood of similar disaster, The French will add few backup generators to all their power plants to further reduce probability of next Fukushima. I call that making reactors safer every year. You wouldn't?
I know they are widely used, but calling them "just a steam turbine" and "low maintenance" when it has capacity of at least few MW is a gross understatement.
Nuclear can easily reach 90% load averaged over a year. Regular maintenance of nuclear reactors is also extremely mature and well understood.
The bottom line is, we have yet to build a solar power plant that outputs rated power for 90% of time averaged over a year (even a single prototype will do). When it does, I will call the technology mature and say we should use it exclusively. In the mean time we should stop building new fossil power plants, build nuclear and develop alternatives: solar and fusion.
Nuclear kills more people than we predict. Fossil and hydro are killing much more people than nuclear. So what we do? Build more fossil and hydro. As long as we have fossil in operation, nuclear won't be the biggest killer. How is that short-sighted?
Marble is also more radioactive than other rocks or building materials, that doesn't stop us from using it in kitchen table tops.
The argument is: just because its coming from a nuclear power plant doesn't make it automatically radically much more radioactive than most stuff we handle daily. Because the fuel used in nuclear power plants is so power dense we can practically dilute it (glassify) to levels not much higher than natural rocks. But then we would be wasting fuel that can be loaded to breeder reactors. One through nuclear fuel economy is stupid, uranium isn't this abundant to make it sustainable.
HAHA, good one. You have absolutely no idea of the level of precision engineering required to make steam turbine of few MW work at all, let alone efficiently.
as all insurers, who assess risks for a living, have cautiously decided already.
It's more related to effects of low doses of radiation. Or rather to the fact we don't really understand where's the threshold at which radioactivity damages cells faster that they can repair themselves. It's very hard to assess the effects of radioactivity given a single case. Does the fact you can insure yourself against anal probing by aliens make it a real possibility?
NP, which can render a large portion of land uninhabitable for a long period of time
Look at radioactivity in polluted areas near Fukushima and then look at radiation levels in Ramsar in Iran. Calling them uninhabitable is going a bit over board (which press loves to do)... Even if we consider the amount of land made unarable by this event, it compares favourably to, for example, hydro, let alone solar. It isn't as bad as you're trying to paint it.
They are profitable because all R&D, waste management and risk insurance are shouldered by the public
Because big Oil has no subsidies? Try 21 billion dollars of "no subsidies". Because air pollution by coal fired plants have no effect on population? Try 10% lung cancer increase in incidence rate in 10 mile radius around power plant. Look at Mercury contamination in USA by the same industry (and see how many rivers and how much land is unusable for food production because of this). Those are not shouldered by the public?
The fact that you're not able to acknowledge that simply shows how blinded and deluded by your fanatism you are.
You belittle yourself by name calling and it won't make me "dense" no matter how you try. I spent considerate amount of time researching the topic of energy safety and conclusion is simple: all energy sources have effects on population (kill people) or environment (make land uninhabitable/unarable, some even do this without accidents). The one with smallest effect on both population and environment is nuclear. It's not the conclusion of "just some random guy on the Internet", read ExternE report: http://www.externe.info/expoltec.pdf
On one hand, to make a safe dam, we would have to overengineer them immensely (if it is at all practically possible). This would certainly make them much more expensive and in effect, hydro energy expensive. I don't know costs of dam renovations, they probably aren't very expensive, but unless they start working fast on the problem, it will be collectively much bigger disaster than Chernobyl. It doesn't help that people don't consider them dangerous (it's just water, after all) and are oblivious to the danger. On the other hand, if you want a safe nuclear reactor, you use one with negative void coefficient (positive void coefficients are illegal to build in most countries) and use one of safe designs (pebble bed, thorium molten salt, etc.) that can be made completely passively safe, or if you want to make them more efficient, just not requiring any external action for at least few days after emergency shutdown. Some of them must be field tested, some are known working (like the pebble bed or thorium). Considering that France has cheapest electricity in Europe, I'd say that closing and opening new nuclear power plants is cheaper in the long run anyway...
Unlike dams, there are many solutions to the safety problem. Many of which 30 or 40 years ago we didn't even consider possible. Chernobyl was inherently unsafe (positive void coefficient, no containment, both of which were known at construction time but ignored), Fukushima was a very old design hit by a disaster bigger than designed for (and still, fallout made less ground unarable than a solar power plant of similar capacity would). Nuclear reactors are getting safer every year, hydro - not so much.
Go after those companies and see which one of them doesn't sell gear with MS soft on it. Just nullifying "rebates" would make most of this gear uncompetitive on the market.
Even after reading the link I don't see how that changes anything.
It could have been a bigger disaster, but it wasn't. Even the workers weren't exposed to high levels of radiation, let alone general population (very much unlike Chernobyl). Even if we had a Chernobyl-sized disaster every 10 years (with the poor problem resolution, lack of food screening for contamination, lack of iodine and late iodine distribution, etc. etc), nuclear would still be killing less people than coal. Nuclear power is running with safety margins that would be insane in any other industry, and they are still profitable. Chance for another Fukushima (already very slim) will only be getting smaller as there are only few reactors this old still in operation.
Governments provide insurance for nuclear industry, governments have the power to make plants this old illegal. But for this, there's need for understanding of the problem in the general population. Just like a single plane crash doesn't suddenly make plane travel deadlier than driving cars, nuclear isn't suddenly more lethal than fossil or hydro just because few hundred square kilometres have been contaminated.
Also, as far as power plants running past their expiry date, you may want to check the data on US dams, over half of them is requiring thorough renovation, something that companies are not doing fast enough.
They may be plentiful but they are not infinite and their mining is very environmentally unfriendly. Just to top the fact that "renewable" energy is unproven.
I don't think we should completely forsake their development, but the energy crisis is starting to happen now. We have the knowledge and resources to move to ~100% nuclear in 40-50 years, there's no chance we can pull something similar with solar and wind. Geothermal isn't even able to produce this much energy.
Considering the standards of safety in nuclear and past track record (one old soviet reactor without containment and one very old design hit by biggest earth-quake on record) I'll take my chances. Just like I'm not insured against meteorites and tornadoes (living in Europe).
I already can see billions of people changing their lives just to be able to use less energy or use energy more smartly... It's a pipe dream to put it lightly.
It was a pro nuclear argument. If you look at the numbers, nuclear is safer by few orders of magnitude than hydro or fossil. But because fossil kills are dispersed (both in space and time) the general population doesn't see this as a problem.
Renewable energy has much bigger subsidies than any other energy source, certainly not sustainable ones.
"potential disaster", "possible life shortening", "future deaths" is that all anti nuclear people can muster? There's a chance you'll be killed by falling satellite, doesn't make us all live in bunkers under 10m of concrete or make sending satellites illegal. Even if Fukushima caused the same number of deaths that Chernobyl did, nuclear would still be less lethal than fossil and hydro.
I don't own a car (if that has anything to do with issue at hand). And studies show localized increase by 10% of lung cancer incidence in a 10 mile radius around coal fired power plants. So they definitely don't help.
As for uranium mining: global deaths in uranium mines and processing account for less than 10 fatalities per year.
The definitely anti nucelar German Green party report estimates it at 40000 up to 60000. I'd also suggest to read more about epidemiology to understand where the 1 million deaths came from.
There was no increase in leukaemia incidence in the affected regions even after 20 years (even Greenpeace couldn't find it). Yet leukaemia has a gestation period of below few years, acute leukaemia is recognizable after few weeks. This would suggest that even the WHO report may be overestimated as most of those 4000 deaths have yet to happen...
The 4000 number is taken from a epidemiology study and not extrapolation taken from widely debated and known to be highly unreliable at low exposure doses, Linear No Threshold estimate.
The fact that the results are all over the place only confirms that the uncertainties in data are greater than the number we're trying to measure!
I don't know if such a thing is anywhere near possible, but until someone comes up with something like that, nuclear will be regarded as riskier than many of its competitors.
No matter how safe nuclear is made, there always will be morons that have no idea about statistics and scientific process and will claim "it's radioactive so it's lethal".
Just look at the people that live near HAARP because of "radio communication exclusion zone". And the "fact that radio emissions are killing me".
Slashdot Mirror
Unlike dams, they are mostly renovated on schedule and after every incident, let alone disaster. The designs are re-evaluated to eliminate or reduce probability of faults that could led to similar problems. Just like the Russians did modify all their power plants using the same design as Chernobyl (changed construction of control rods, number of control rods, fuel enrichment, etc.) to reduce likelihood of similar disaster, The French will add few backup generators to all their power plants to further reduce probability of next Fukushima. I call that making reactors safer every year. You wouldn't?
I know they are widely used, but calling them "just a steam turbine" and "low maintenance" when it has capacity of at least few MW is a gross understatement. Nuclear can easily reach 90% load averaged over a year. Regular maintenance of nuclear reactors is also extremely mature and well understood.
The bottom line is, we have yet to build a solar power plant that outputs rated power for 90% of time averaged over a year (even a single prototype will do). When it does, I will call the technology mature and say we should use it exclusively. In the mean time we should stop building new fossil power plants, build nuclear and develop alternatives: solar and fusion.
Nuclear kills more people than we predict. Fossil and hydro are killing much more people than nuclear. So what we do? Build more fossil and hydro. As long as we have fossil in operation, nuclear won't be the biggest killer. How is that short-sighted?
Marble is also more radioactive than other rocks or building materials, that doesn't stop us from using it in kitchen table tops.
The argument is: just because its coming from a nuclear power plant doesn't make it automatically radically much more radioactive than most stuff we handle daily. Because the fuel used in nuclear power plants is so power dense we can practically dilute it (glassify) to levels not much higher than natural rocks. But then we would be wasting fuel that can be loaded to breeder reactors. One through nuclear fuel economy is stupid, uranium isn't this abundant to make it sustainable.
Just because its cheapest there, not because its unavailable from other places (unlike natural gas).
just a steam turbine and some plumbing.
HAHA, good one. You have absolutely no idea of the level of precision engineering required to make steam turbine of few MW work at all, let alone efficiently.
as all insurers, who assess risks for a living, have cautiously decided already.
It's more related to effects of low doses of radiation. Or rather to the fact we don't really understand where's the threshold at which radioactivity damages cells faster that they can repair themselves. It's very hard to assess the effects of radioactivity given a single case. Does the fact you can insure yourself against anal probing by aliens make it a real possibility?
NP, which can render a large portion of land uninhabitable for a long period of time
Look at radioactivity in polluted areas near Fukushima and then look at radiation levels in Ramsar in Iran. Calling them uninhabitable is going a bit over board (which press loves to do)... Even if we consider the amount of land made unarable by this event, it compares favourably to, for example, hydro, let alone solar. It isn't as bad as you're trying to paint it.
They are profitable because all R&D, waste management and risk insurance are shouldered by the public
Because big Oil has no subsidies? Try 21 billion dollars of "no subsidies". Because air pollution by coal fired plants have no effect on population? Try 10% lung cancer increase in incidence rate in 10 mile radius around power plant. Look at Mercury contamination in USA by the same industry (and see how many rivers and how much land is unusable for food production because of this). Those are not shouldered by the public?
The fact that you're not able to acknowledge that simply shows how blinded and deluded by your fanatism you are.
You belittle yourself by name calling and it won't make me "dense" no matter how you try. I spent considerate amount of time researching the topic of energy safety and conclusion is simple: all energy sources have effects on population (kill people) or environment (make land uninhabitable/unarable, some even do this without accidents). The one with smallest effect on both population and environment is nuclear. It's not the conclusion of "just some random guy on the Internet", read ExternE report: http://www.externe.info/expoltec.pdf
On one hand, to make a safe dam, we would have to overengineer them immensely (if it is at all practically possible). This would certainly make them much more expensive and in effect, hydro energy expensive. I don't know costs of dam renovations, they probably aren't very expensive, but unless they start working fast on the problem, it will be collectively much bigger disaster than Chernobyl. It doesn't help that people don't consider them dangerous (it's just water, after all) and are oblivious to the danger. On the other hand, if you want a safe nuclear reactor, you use one with negative void coefficient (positive void coefficients are illegal to build in most countries) and use one of safe designs (pebble bed, thorium molten salt, etc.) that can be made completely passively safe, or if you want to make them more efficient, just not requiring any external action for at least few days after emergency shutdown. Some of them must be field tested, some are known working (like the pebble bed or thorium). Considering that France has cheapest electricity in Europe, I'd say that closing and opening new nuclear power plants is cheaper in the long run anyway...
Unlike dams, there are many solutions to the safety problem. Many of which 30 or 40 years ago we didn't even consider possible. Chernobyl was inherently unsafe (positive void coefficient, no containment, both of which were known at construction time but ignored), Fukushima was a very old design hit by a disaster bigger than designed for (and still, fallout made less ground unarable than a solar power plant of similar capacity would). Nuclear reactors are getting safer every year, hydro - not so much.
Go after those companies and see which one of them doesn't sell gear with MS soft on it. Just nullifying "rebates" would make most of this gear uncompetitive on the market.
HTC is selling phones with Windows, Samsung is selling computers with Windows, B&N is not selling hardware with MS soft on it. Do the math.
Even after reading the link I don't see how that changes anything.
It could have been a bigger disaster, but it wasn't. Even the workers weren't exposed to high levels of radiation, let alone general population (very much unlike Chernobyl). Even if we had a Chernobyl-sized disaster every 10 years (with the poor problem resolution, lack of food screening for contamination, lack of iodine and late iodine distribution, etc. etc), nuclear would still be killing less people than coal. Nuclear power is running with safety margins that would be insane in any other industry, and they are still profitable. Chance for another Fukushima (already very slim) will only be getting smaller as there are only few reactors this old still in operation.
Governments provide insurance for nuclear industry, governments have the power to make plants this old illegal. But for this, there's need for understanding of the problem in the general population. Just like a single plane crash doesn't suddenly make plane travel deadlier than driving cars, nuclear isn't suddenly more lethal than fossil or hydro just because few hundred square kilometres have been contaminated.
Also, as far as power plants running past their expiry date, you may want to check the data on US dams, over half of them is requiring thorough renovation, something that companies are not doing fast enough.
They may be plentiful but they are not infinite and their mining is very environmentally unfriendly. Just to top the fact that "renewable" energy is unproven.
I don't think we should completely forsake their development, but the energy crisis is starting to happen now. We have the knowledge and resources to move to ~100% nuclear in 40-50 years, there's no chance we can pull something similar with solar and wind. Geothermal isn't even able to produce this much energy.
Considering the standards of safety in nuclear and past track record (one old soviet reactor without containment and one very old design hit by biggest earth-quake on record) I'll take my chances. Just like I'm not insured against meteorites and tornadoes (living in Europe).
I already can see billions of people changing their lives just to be able to use less energy or use energy more smartly... It's a pipe dream to put it lightly.
thermal superconductor would be quite nice...
It was a pro nuclear argument. If you look at the numbers, nuclear is safer by few orders of magnitude than hydro or fossil. But because fossil kills are dispersed (both in space and time) the general population doesn't see this as a problem.
GP:
unless the sun goes out
...and we're back in the 10% efficiency ballpark.
Renewable energy has much bigger subsidies than any other energy source, certainly not sustainable ones.
"potential disaster", "possible life shortening", "future deaths" is that all anti nuclear people can muster? There's a chance you'll be killed by falling satellite, doesn't make us all live in bunkers under 10m of concrete or make sending satellites illegal. Even if Fukushima caused the same number of deaths that Chernobyl did, nuclear would still be less lethal than fossil and hydro.
I don't own a car (if that has anything to do with issue at hand). And studies show localized increase by 10% of lung cancer incidence in a 10 mile radius around coal fired power plants. So they definitely don't help.
As for uranium mining: global deaths in uranium mines and processing account for less than 10 fatalities per year.
Because an estimated 30000 people in USA alone don't die because of fossil fuel fired power plants every year.
The definitely anti nucelar German Green party report estimates it at 40000 up to 60000. I'd also suggest to read more about epidemiology to understand where the 1 million deaths came from.
There was no increase in leukaemia incidence in the affected regions even after 20 years (even Greenpeace couldn't find it). Yet leukaemia has a gestation period of below few years, acute leukaemia is recognizable after few weeks. This would suggest that even the WHO report may be overestimated as most of those 4000 deaths have yet to happen...
The 4000 number is taken from a epidemiology study and not extrapolation taken from widely debated and known to be highly unreliable at low exposure doses, Linear No Threshold estimate.
The fact that the results are all over the place only confirms that the uncertainties in data are greater than the number we're trying to measure!
And they are not running those plants past expiry because general population has no idea about risk management and opposes building new ones?
I don't know if such a thing is anywhere near possible, but until someone comes up with something like that, nuclear will be regarded as riskier than many of its competitors.
No matter how safe nuclear is made, there always will be morons that have no idea about statistics and scientific process and will claim "it's radioactive so it's lethal".
Just look at the people that live near HAARP because of "radio communication exclusion zone". And the "fact that radio emissions are killing me".