Comment by dredmorbius | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dredmorbius | Hacker News Reader

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James Conca is a pro-nuclear advocate. His claims and methodology are rather suspect.

The IPCC's SRREN -- a review of carbon-neutral energy alternatives -- notes that nuclear has a good safety record, but is not safer than solar or wind, or hydro in the US and Europe (a couple of absolutely massive dam failures, including China's Banqiao Dam failure in 1975 killing ~175,000 taint the picture elsewhere).

Starting at p. 993: http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/IPCC_SRREN_Annex_II.pdf

And p. 745: http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/IPCC_SRREN_Ch10.pdf

But, and this is the big but: the most pressing concerns for nuclear power are where it goes wrong from human factors. Including mismanagement, mafia influence (as occurred at Fukushima), unforseen consequences, poor design, terrorism, war, and weapons proliferation. The worst case failure modes for nuclear power are unspeakably bad. For solar and wind, not so much. Global experience to date has been about 400 production reactors, plus construction, supply, waste reprocessing and storage (still not a politically viably solved problem), and decommissioning. Full replacement of present electrical generation only would require some 15,000 plants globally, with ~40 year lifetimes. That's one plant per day being commissioned and decommissioned. Around the world, war and peace, boom-times and recessions. Until doomsday.

And nothing will go wrong?

And the scene of the 1975 Banqiao disaster isn't some barb-wired glowing hole in the ground, but home to some 7 million plus inhabitants. Dam breaks are bad, but the consequences are fairly short-lived.

Personally I'd say the consequences of Banqiao are at least as long-lived as the previously-expected remaining lifespans of its 175,000 victims.

Look up Banqiao at Wikipedia. The failure was only peripherally a consequence of the dam and far more one of poor system planning, poor engineering, poor management, poor communication, a thousand-year storm (1,000+ mm rain in 24 hours), resulting comms failures, and the inevitable dam failure.

A relatively small proportion of the deaths were directly due to flooding. Most occurred from disease and starvation -- far more infrastructure and response failures than the catastrophe itself.

Even given massive flooding, access to a solidly-constructed building 2-3 stories tall would suffice to provide protection from immediate risks, as would comms, evacuation and response plans, emergency and relief supplies, etc.

China is a country which in the past century has seen tens of millions of deaths from starvation alone, most recently about 20 years before Banqiao. On the scale of Chinese tragedies, of which there've been many, this was relatively modest.

And, as noted, the region is more than fully recovered.

Contrast Chernobyl and Fukushima. 30 years after Chernobyl (the anniversary will be this April), primary containment still isn't achieved. Radiation risk was presented across an entire continen, including the 450 million inhabitants of Europe. Eating of wild foods in Germany is still restricted (particularly mushrooms and boar). Fukushima likewise still hasn't stabilised five years on, and remains uncontained.

Nuclear accidents have very long risk tails.

And all of the management, engineering, communications, and response failures of Banqiao apply equally to nuclear power.

The industry is quite fond of downplaying risks. Has done so since the first experiments. Wanting a thing doesn't make it so.

25,000 people were killed by flooding.

The U.N. estimates that Chernobyl caused cancer in 4,000 people. It's an estimate because it's not statistically detectable. Chernobyl was a horrible design that didn't even have a containment dome.

The level of radioactivity around Fukushima is lower than naturally-occurring radioactivity in some parts of the world. Few if any deaths are expected.

The Fukushima plant was built in the 1970's. Another plant nearby was built in the 1980's with improved safety features, and got through the same events without difficulty. Nobody advocates building more 1970's-era reactors.

To whatever extent you excuse Banqiao for its "thousand-year storm," you should also excuse Fukushima for its thousand-year tsunami: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-12740649

Meanwhile, engineers are saying a dam in Mosul, Iraq in on the verge of failing and killing at least 500,000 people by drowning, and possibly up to 1.5 million. Google "Mosul dam" for a slew of articles. Here's one: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/1-5-million-may-die-if-mos...

Our other baseload energy sources have safety issues too. The American Lung Association estimates that coal emissions kill 13,000 Americans every year.

Rooftop solar is an order of magnitude more dangerous than nuclear:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-ener...

Risk avoidance from rooftop solar is rather trivial. Particularly over the long tail.

Not so much nuclear.

Nuclear risk has been reduced. Can be reduced further. Including the holy grail of Thorium, which has a negligible future risk (almost entirely consumed and made harmless in the reactor).

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