Comment by m101
5 months ago
It is expensive because of the regulatory burdens associated with making it unreasonably safe. By unreasonably safe I mean that harms predicted by radiation models are unscientific, and death rate expectations are far lower than alternative power generation technologies.
Nuclear fuel storage is relatively straightforward, and volumes have potential to be reduced 30x through recycling.
Nuclear power plants require international laws and international cooperation for insurance, because one serious incident, such as Chornobyl, can wipe a continent.
In Ukraine, profits from all nuclear plants will cover damages, caused by Chornobyl, in 1000-5000 years IF nothing more will happen to Chornobyl or other an other nuclear power plant in those years, which is unlikely.
Still, though, if nuclear continued growing at the same pace it was until the 80s we'd be in a massively better spot climate change wise.
Sure, these days its too expensive in relative terms but switching back to fossil fuels due to all the Chornobyl/Three Mile panic (but mainly likely because of the cost) might end up being one of the bigger mistakes in human history.
We can make nuclear safe (enough) but after one big incident nobody wanted the political career suicide to push for this. So we are stuck with criticizing stone-age level nuclear power because we never took it further. The West never stopped doing something just because the USSR didn’t do it properly.
If we did the same with commercial air travel after the first disasters we’d still cross the oceans in boats. Car accidents kill 10-15 times more people every year worldwide than Chernobyl did but we don’t give up on cars either. Heck, smoking kills 7-8 times more people than cars every year (that’s 80-100 Chernobyls worth every year) and we still allow it.
The reasons are political not technically or financially insurmountable obstacles. We didn’t shut down nuclear in Europe for “green” reasons or because we can’t improve it, or because it kills too many people, but because enough Russian money went into politicians’ pockets to do this.
You arguments boils down to «it's OK to wipe a continent once in a while, because nuclear energy is the safest energy option per megawatt produced».
18 replies →
> Car accidents kill 10-15 times more people every year worldwide than Chernobyl did but we don’t give up on cars either. Heck, smoking
Avoiding car accident and not smoking is way, way easier than avoiding most effects of a major nuclear accident (fine dangerous and very durable dust disseminated on a vast geographical zone, thanks to wind and rain).
The total amount of victims of the Chernobyl accident is a matter of debate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the...
No, we can't. I worked in the industry when there was strong, independent regulation and private engineering consultancies. These don't exist anymore. The NRC is stacked politically and it and EPRI lack the gray beards it once had and the engineering industry is a shadow of its former self. Dunning-Kruger ignorant proponents advocate for it without understanding the issues or the complications in this current situation that is a far different situation than 30 years ago that might've been reasonable when Duke Energy wanted a revival. Its time has passed because the economics of conventional alternatives make it moot.
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What kind assumptions is this based on?
> can wipe a continent
Sorry, but no.
Chernobyl exclusion zone is less than a single area of the Agent Orange usage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chernobyl_radiation_map_1...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aerial-herbicide-spray-mi...
Again, Chernobyl was not the worst case scenario. Everyone knows the story, some heroes sacrified their lives to prevent it.
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> harms predicted by radiation models are unscientific,
Where are your scientific alternative models?