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Comment by neilpointer | Hacker News Reader

"Yes, if the tsunami had not occurred, the Fukushima reactor would not have a problem. But that’s facile. If a wind or solar farm had been where the reactor is, it would have been destroyed and the loss would have been trivial in comparison."

Also facile: stating that a wind or solar farm the size of Fukushima could have stood in for a nuclear power plant and generate anywhere close to the amount of electricity needed to meet the demands of a small island home to one of the most populous cities in the world.

Also facile: "They should have known better because tsunamis were frequent near Fukushima." It was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded to hit Japan. Tsunami walls across the entire country were completely overwhelmed.

This article is insulting.

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You appear to be ignoring a few things here: First is that the downside risk from nuclear power plants is so great as to make them uninsurable. Second is that when a trillion dollar uninsurable event comes up, ignoring that the public is saddled with the cost. Lastly, you ignore that had public funds been used in the amounts needed to clean up after this private sector power plant on renewables instead, we would have renewable energy that is in fact comparable or larger than the scale of nuclear power plants, plus coal, plus gas, etc. Nuclear power even when it works costs too much. When it fails, it costs almost incomprehensible amounts.

Maybe some different type of nuclear power plant wouldn't have these risks and waste disposal problems. But none yet have been built to demonstrate that's true in practice.

I'm simply pointing out that nuclear power has by far the best land-use:power-generation ratio available to us. Japan is geographically constrained. It insults the intelligence of his readers for the author claim that had Fukushima been populated with renewables instead of nuclear, everything would have been fine. Sure, there'd have been no meltdown, there also wouldn't be enough electricity either, so it's a silly argument.

I think a better argument (which you're alluding to) is that for $1T, Japan could have purchased the electricity it needed from its neighbors and avoided the catastrophe altogether.

Not counting the unusable land, right?

Not sure what you mean. I'm saying if Fukushima Nuclear Plant had never been built as the author is advocating, and instead the entire site had been used for renewable energy production, it wouldn't have contributed nearly as much electricity to Japan's grid to serve as a suitable replacement, so it's not a very strong argument. It's annoying to have the author say "if x had never happened, y would not be a problem is a facile argument" and then make the same facile argument with a different x and y.

The Fuk exclusion zone is about 150km^2. If it were covered in solar cells, that would be about 22,000 MW. Fuk, with all reactors producing at capacity, is about 4,500 MW.

"X" did happen. And it made that much land unusable.

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