Comment by ggreer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ggreer | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

You're worried about three meltdowns, but not the 2,000 nuclear weapons that have been detonated since the start of the atomic age? Compared to bomb tests, the fallout from nuclear power is a rounding error.

But let's review those three meltdowns. Three Mile Island didn't cause a single case of cancer. Chernobyl was a ridiculously unsafe design run with incredible incompetence. The WHO estimates it caused 40,000 cases of cancer and 4,000 deaths from those cancers. That may sound bad, but pollution from coal kills around 30,000 people each year just in the US. Finally, there's Fukushima. It's expected to cause 100-200 premature deaths from cancers. Remember, the cause of that meltdown was an earthquake-tsunami combo that killed almost 20,000 people.

If anything, shutting down nuclear power worsens public health. Demand for electricity isn't going to go down, so we end up burning coal, and coal plants are much worse than nuclear. From http://squid314.livejournal.com/292620.html:

According to the Clean Air Task Force, coal plants kill about thirty thousand people per year in the US through pollution (which causes respiratory disease). There are six hundred coal plants, so that's about 50 deaths per plant. These numbers are much higher - maybe even by an order of magnitude - in Chinese and third-world coal plants, which lack the US' stringent environmental restrictions.

Even in the worst-case scenario, nuclear power still does better than coal:

When you hit a nuclear plant with the fifth largest earthquake ever recorded, then immediately follow that with a twenty foot high tsunami, and then it explodes, it still kills fewer people than an average coal plant does every single year when everything goes perfectly.

There are lots of things that cause long-term harm to the environment: toxic chemicals, heavy metals, and yes, radioisotopes. If we want to enjoy a first-world quality of life, we have to accept some pollution. The least harmful energy source today is nuclear power.

Yes, this.

I'd actually argue that the RMBK-1000 reactor is not horrifically unsafe, so long as it's operated within its design envelope - which is to say, for example, not overriding the automated safety systems. Had it been built with a containment vessel, I'd even argue it was within the safety margins of western reactors. Chernobyl was incompetent crew largely, taking a design well outside of its normal safety margins by shutting down nearly every safety system the reactor had - these choices compounded the design limitations of the reactor. Under no circumstances should the control rods have been removed all the way from the reactor - this single action caused the meltdown (combined with the graphite tips on the control rods).

We know the risks of nuclear power, if you do it wrong it does kill people, and salts the earth in the vicinity of the unit for generations. This is better in my opinion than killing people who live in the vicinity of a power plant as a course of normal operation.

Uh, math.

A reactor complex like Fukushima has ~100 tons of reactor fuel per reactor, not counting spent fuel rods. Say 1000 tons total.

A bomb has a few kg of fissionable material, maybe 100,000 times less than a reactor complex. Do the math, if a reactor fails containment, the contaminants dwarf that of a bomb.

I think Fukushima contaminants have tripled the radioactive cesium in the Pacific still left over from the 2000 bombs you mention.

Nuclear is an outdated cold-war technology that won't compete with solar economically. They are slowly being phased out, down from 17% electric worldwide a few years ago to 10% now.

I don't think you addressed most of my points, but I feel I need to respond to what you've thrown out here.

Only 1-3% of a fuel rod's mass is fissile, and containment failure doesn't aerosolize a kiloton of fuel rods. Almost all the material stays at the site. While the smallest possible bomb is about 20kg of fissile material, actual bombs are an order of magnitude bigger. In addition, bombs cause neutron activation in the environment and create a mushroom cloud that lifts fallout into the stratosphere. The immediate effects are much worse and much more widespread.

You can say scary things like, "tripled the radioactive cesium in the Pacific", but Fukushima leaked around 9kg of cesium radioisotopes. Outside of the immediate area, there's no risk to marine or human life. From http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3341070/:

We address risks to public health and marine biota by showing that though Cs isotopes are elevated 10–1,000× over prior levels in waters off Japan, radiation risks due to these radionuclides are below those generally considered harmful to marine animals and human consumers, and even below those from naturally occurring radionuclides.

Instead of spreading FUD, look at the statistics. Again, from http://squid314.livejournal.com/292620.html:

A useful measure of power plant capacity is the "terawatt", equal to one trillion watts. Coal kills 2500 times as many people per terawatt as nuclear. In fact, nuclear power has the lowest fatality per terawatt of any form of power in existence. Rooftop solar power has a per terawatt death rate ten times worse than nuclear power because of - I kid you not - people falling off roofs when installing the panel. Hydroelectric power has a worse fatality rate because of dams bursting and flooding people. Even wind power has a worse fatality per terawatt rate - seventy three people have died in windmill related accidents.

You responded with the economics of solar power instead of addressing my points about safety, but as far as I can tell, you're incorrect on that. By every measure I could find, solar was over twice the cost of nuclear. It would break the chart if it was shown on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cost_of_energy_sources. While nuclear power has decreased recently, the reason is political ass-covering, not economics. And it's not solar that's picking up the slack. Fossil fuels are the winners: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_energy_consumption.s...

There are two reasons for this: 1. Fossil fuels are cheap, mostly because their cost to the environment and public health aren't priced in. 2. They are reliable base-band sources of power. Coal works no matter how cloudy it gets or how calm the wind is. Without reliable, predictable generation, wind and solar require expensive (and sometimes dangerous) energy storage systems. At best, they can only supplement base-band sources.

Well, this is certainly relevant to Feynman's essay.

You argue that nuclear power is safer than other forms because there haven't been any accidents that have killed a lot of people, yet. I would guess you would put the odds of a future accident at a probability similar to the NASA managers mentioned by Feynman. Feynman would respond that past avoidance of accidents doesn't mean you can say the probably of future accidents is negligible.

If nuclear is so "safe", why does the industry need liability limits where the taxpayers pay any damages above some minimal amount? Reactor operators should just buy insurance for the maximum possible damage an accident would cause. Of course they'd shut down if they had to do that.

You originally claimed that the fallout from bomb testing was "a rounding error" compared to the fallout from a nuclear accident. Now you accept that the radioactive cesium from Fukushima has tripled the cesium in the Pacific from all 2000 bomb tests? Not exactly a "rounding error". (although I agree, outside the immediate vicinity of the accident, the cesium isn't especially dangerous)

Regarding economics, simply look at the trends. Solar panels are getting cheaper at an insane rate. Nuclear plant construction costs have doubled over the past ten years. Even completely amortized plants are shutting down in the US because they can't compete, about five in the last year or two. Any taxpayers or ratepayers funding a new plant will never get their money back, as solar will be so cheap by the time the plant is ready to start up it will be instantly mothballed.

> By every measure I could find, solar was over twice the cost of nuclear.

So, please by patient with me, i'm not trying to make you look dumb or anything. It's just the from what I've researched, solar power pays for itself in 5-10 years depending on location. Meanwhile nuclear power has many externalities which are taxpayer-subsidized. It seems to me the reasons we haven't "gone solar" are not to do directly with cost, but of waiting until the technology is mature before investing gangbusters.

As for the dangers of storing electricity generated through solar energy, if a nuclear power plant can be run safely, couldn't an electrical storage plant also be run safely?

> Meanwhile nuclear power has many externalities which are taxpayer-subsidized.

And how many of those are taxpayer-imposed? Illogical and uninformed anti-nuclear activists prevent new reactors from being built, leaving us with increasingly dangerous old reactors or even more harmful coal plants. Political bullshit prevents breeder/burner reactors from making nuclear waste a manageable problem. Thorium gets no research money because it's useless for weapons.

We know how to make nuclear power safe and cheap.

I'm curious how you formed your opinions on the safety of nuclear power:

What publications and which experts did you find authoritative?

Have you reviewed any academic research on the subject?

Do you understand the arguments of the pro-nuclear viewpoint?

> Nuclear is an outdated cold-war technology that won't compete with solar economically.

Source? Or did I not catch the sarcasm?

Or am I reading this wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

Or do I just lack faith?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com