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Seriously, everyone should read up on how Chernobyl actually happened - the (very) short version is the actual design of the reactor itself wasincrediblydumb (it would failunsafeand go into what was essentially a positive feedback loop), they were "testing" it to see what would happen if they pushed it to the verge of meltdown with half the safety systems off/in standby and then theydelayedtheir experiments so the half-trained & inexperienced third shift ended up running it rather that the (relatively) prepared and organised first shift.

And it turns out that what happens when you do all of that at once is the reactor explodes and showers fallout all over western Europe.

He forgot about the Hydrogen build up!

BrutulTM_sl said:

Chernobyl could never have happened without the Soviet Union being colossal fuckups. Modern reactors are 1000 times safer than Chernobyl and even that reactor could not have blown like it did without stunning levels of incompetence. Fukushima was a 1 in a million combination of earthquake and flood that they didn't plan for, and as of now it has a death toll of zero? Compare this with the amount of deaths involved with fossil fuel extraction and power generation and it's not even close. Spent fuel is not dangerous unless you are sleeping within a few feet of it andwe did come up with an extremely safe plan for disposal of itif not for the NIMBYs in Nevada.

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Yeah, but that's the problem with nuclear power plants or any other complicated system: humans. Given enough time and opportunity, shit will eventually go sideways. Yes, Chernobyl was a chain of events of staggering incompetence, but the fact is that it happened, and to this day there is an exclusion zone of 1,000 square miles around it. Fukushima was NOT a "1 in a million combination of earthquake and flood". Japan is an extremely tectonically active country, and they all knew that. They knew there were massive risks with any coastal power plant in that country. And despite that, TEPCO and the nuclear regulatory agency completely failed to address the risks properly. A nuclear power station being flooded and losing grid power was a virtual certainty in Japan at some point, and even in one of the best run, most developed countries on the planet their regulatory system abjectly failed to ensure that the risks were properly addressed and bam, there's now 4,500 square miles of Japan where radioactivity levels exceed the government's allowable exposure rate. When it's all said and done, the economic consequences and the total cost to clean that shit up is probably going to be a couple hundred billion dollars.

So what happens when developing, middle income countries with far worse regulatory structures like China, or various Eastern European countries, or god forbid African ones start cranking out more reactors? People will find a new way to fuck up, of that you can be guaranteed. And when the number of reactors is double or triple or quadruple, that just means there's that much more opportunity for shit to go sideways.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that nuclear power is inherently unsafe. I'm saying that getting the right mix of regulatory and cultural factors in place to ensure their safe operation is very, very difficult. And when the consequences are as dire as they are with nuclear reactors, it really can be a scary proposition to consider that China is building dozens of them, and other countries like Vietnam, Iran, the UAE, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, and others also have plans to build more. If Japan can fuck it up, any of those countries certainly can.

If Canada, the US, UK, France, or Germany were to announce "hay guys, we're building a dozen reactors to completely eliminate fossil fuel fired power generation" I'd applaud them, so long as the costs made sense and there wasn't any sort of relaxation of regulatory requirements. It's the countriesactually building themthat worry me.

Big Phoenix_sl said:

The opposition to nuke power shows that many of the "environmentalists" are just deranged dumbass retards championing a stupid political cause based on their heart. Saying things like Chernobyl or Fukushima are the reasons why we shouldnt invest in nuke tech and build nukes is like saying we shouldnt be flying because of incidents like MH370.

Im sure redtape is a big reason why as well. Also the government doesnt promote it and subsidize it like it does with stupid shit like solar.

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Nuclear power is the only thing that can compete with burning fossil fuels for providing massive amounts of base load power. I think a lot of the so called super anti-nuke pro solar/wind environmentalist groups are pretty much bought and paid by the fossil fuel industry. The intermittent nature of wind/solar means that they need to be backed up by gas generators and the scalability means you'll never be able to sufficiently power an industrial nation with it.

Just look at what's happening in Germany they have gone full retard and decided to phase out all their nuclear power in order to replace it with solar/wind but the reality is that massive amounts of new lignite coal power plants which is the dirtiest types of coal has had to be used. You just aren't going to power German heavy industry on solar/wind so coal is stepping in on their nuclear phase out. Just insanity.

There are downsides to nuclear but the pros far outweight them. With nuclear power you're looking at an extremely dense, high power source of electricity that is running at near peak capacity 24/7.

A Nuclear Option for Energy - Bloomberg View

Nuclear is green because it has such a small footprint. Inside the core of an average reactor, the power density is about 338 megawatts per square meter. This explains how just two reactors at the Indian Point Energy Center in Westchester County, New York, can provide as much as 30 percent of New York City's electricity.

To equal the generation capacity at Indian Point with wind energy, which has a paltry power density of 1 watt per square meter, you'd need about 772 square miles of wind turbines, an area three-quarters the size of Rhode Island.

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Eomer_sl said:

So what happens when developing, middle income countries with far worse regulatory structures like China, or various Eastern European countries, or god forbid African ones start cranking out more reactors? People will find a new way to fuck up, of that you can be guaranteed. And when the number of reactors is double or triple or quadruple, that just means there's that much more opportunity for shit to go sideways.

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China is currently undergoing the largest built out of nuclear power the world has ever seen because they realize their nation is litteraly going to choke to death without incorporating massive amounts of new reactors as a base-load power source. Its not even a question that they're going to forge ahead and will probably have over 100 + reactors within the next two decades. China sees the clean air in places like the U.S, France, Canada and they realize this can't be accomplished without nuclear power.

I'm pretty sure things will be fine with China's build out and the reduced carbon and toxic particulate matter that is spewed from China as a result of replacing burning fossil fuels with nuclear will be a great benefit to humanity. The U.S and France for example underwent these massive nuclear build outs 30-40 years ago and this is with FAR inferior reactor technologies. You simply can't compare the safety features of the third generation AP-1000/CPR-1000 reactors that China is building with the first generation BWR's built in the U.S four decades ago. Things have come a loooong way.

Lets look at Germany again which is ignoring science and pandering to public fear and currently phasing out nuclear power.

Two carbon-reduction paths diverge in the European policy wood: United Kingdom takes less traveled, more interesting one | Canadian Energy Issues

The reality is in the link above. France uses nuclear power for a whopping ~65% of their total electricity generation and they have amongst the cleanest and cheapest power across all of Europe.

Germany is expanding its use of CO2-emitting coal-fired electricity generation because it needs to replace the output of the nuclear generating plants it is shutting down. Sadly, the wind turbines for which Germany is famous simply cannot do that job. They cannot do it today, have never been able to, and never will be able to. That is why Germany is in Quadrant II of the Carbon-Price Matrix.

Meanwhile, across the English Channel, the British are gearing up to build a fleet of new nuclear plants. This is because the UK does not just profess to be concerned about climate change and anthropogenic CO2 emissions. It is because the UK clearly is concerned about cutting CO2.

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Big Phoenix_sl said:

I just wanna slap people who bring up fukushima as reasons not to build nukes. Its like saying we shouldnt build sky scrapers because of 9/11 might happen.

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Yes it makes me rage too, but you gotta realize the general public's knowledge on nuclear power amounts to the Homer Simpson picture linked above.

Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant was the closest nuclear power plant to the epicenter of the 11 March 2011 Tohoku earthquake, less than half the distance of the stricken Fukushima I power plant. The town of Onagawa to the northeast of the plant was largely destroyed by the tsunami which followed the earthquake, but the plant's 14 meter (46-foot) high seawall was tall and robust enough to prevent the power plant from flooding. All safety systems functioned as designed, the reactors automatically shut down without damage, and no reactor damage occurred.

Following the tsunami two to three hundred homeless residents of the town who lost their homes to the tsunami took refuge in the Onagawa nuclear plant's gymnasium, as the reactor complex was the only safe area in the vicinity to evacuate to, with the reactor operators supplying food and blankets to the needy.

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The big argument should be that govt should own the nuclear power and not private companies, Fukushima happened because the govt got captured by tepco and let them do whatever they wanted. If that was a state run plant that shit prolly doesn't happen because there is no profit motive to hide problems. The argument is made stronger by the fact that pretty much every nuke plant is paid for by the government anyway and then given to someone through our wonderful crony capitalist system.

It's supposed to hit over 80 everyday this week. That's unheard of for San Francisco in May. It's a bit far out, but the forecast for Wednesday is 90! I enjoy the heat, but not that hot. We don't have A/C 'round these parts.

Strifen_sl said:

China is currently undergoing the largest built out of nuclear power the world has ever seen because they realize their nation is litteraly going to choke to death without incorporating massive amounts of new reactors as a base-load power source. Its not even a question that they're going to forge ahead and will probably have over 100 + reactors within the next two decades. China sees the clean air in places like the U.S, France, Canada and they realize this can't be accomplished without nuclear power.

I'm pretty sure things will be fine with China's build out and the reduced carbon and toxic particulate matter that is spewed from China as a result of replacing burning fossil fuels with nuclear will be a great benefit to humanity. The U.S and France for example underwent these massive nuclear build outs 30-40 years ago and this is with FAR inferior reactor technologies. You simply can't compare the safety features of the third generation AP-1000/CPR-1000 reactors that China is building with the first generation BWR's built in the U.S four decades ago. Things have come a loooong way.

Lets look at Germany again which is ignoring science and pandering to public fear and currently phasing out nuclear power.

Two carbon-reduction paths diverge in the European policy wood: United Kingdom takes less traveled, more interesting one | Canadian Energy Issues

The reality is in the link above. France uses nuclear power for a whopping ~65% of their total electricity generation and they have amongst the cleanest and cheapest power across all of Europe.

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In my opinion, the pro-nuclear advocates are the biggest problem with nuclear power. When virtually all of them are basically chanting, "ABSOLUTELY NOTHING CAN GO WRONG IT'S PERFECTLY SAFE NOTHING BAD WILL EVER HAPPEN LALALALALALA I AM NOT LISTENING EVERYONE WHO DISAGREES IS AN IDIOT" it makes the entire movement look profoundly retarded when something does happen. When you actually claim that it's impossible for there to be accidents that release radioactivity, anyone with two brain cells is going to dismiss you as a nutjob. Instead of accepting that some accidents will occur and pointing out that even in that situation it's better than fossil fuels, we get this shit.

Instead, try pointing out to people that even if we just boiled all the currently existing nuclear waste and vented it directly into the air, that would still release less radioactivity/power generated than our fossil fuel plants are currently releasing.

I agree there's no sense in reasonably disputing the fact shit can go wrong with nuclear, and when it goes wrong it can go wrong in a big way.

However, every single source of power has its downsides to it and nuclear has the lowest amounts of fatalities per kilowat generated out of all power sources.

How Deadly Is Your Kilowatt? We Rank The Killer Energy Sources - Forbes

Nasa recently did a study;

Nuclear power may have saved 1.8 million lives otherwise lost to fossil fuels, may save up to 7 million more. | The Curious Wavefunction, Scientific American Blog Network

The conclusions of the study are quite unambiguous. Even assuming uncertainties, nuclear power has saved at least hundreds of thousands of lives in the past forty years, and possibly millions. This is in stark contrast to the small number of lives lost in only one catastrophic nuclear accident. There are many more millions that would be lost if countries were to embark on a nuclear-free future replaced by fossil fuels.

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Big Phoenix_sl said:

Uh when's the last time you heard of a accident or fuck up at a nuke plant aside from fukushima?

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The point you don't seem to be getting is that even if the accidents are exceedingly rare, the consequences are incredibly severe. It only takes one really bad one to really, really fuck up a large land area and/or population. Which is why caution needs to be taken. Again, I'm not arguing that we should't use ANY nuclear power. I'm arguing that it isn't the magic cure to fossil fuel consumption that some like to believe it is, for it's own set of reasons.

Strifen_sl said:

However, every single source of power has its downsides to it and nuclear has the lowest amounts of fatalities per kilowat generated out of all power sources.

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Yeah, New Scientist had an article about that as well. Nuclear is WAY the fuck down the list, below even hydro, but I think that was dependent on whether or not you included a couple hundred thousand deaths in China from dam failures or something.

But again, those statistics are based upon only 50-60 years of commercial nuclear power in the most developed and well regulated countries. It's entirely possible when middle-income countries start building them by the dozen that those statistics may need to be revised upwards when the shit hits the fan.

Nuclear power may have the fewest fatalities, but what of the byproduct that comes of it? We have to store it safely for about 10,000 years, yes? That's pretty bloody costly energy.

lurkingdirk_sl said:

Nuclear power may have the fewest fatalities, but what of the byproduct that comes of it? We have to store it safely for about 10,000 years, yes? That's pretty bloody costly energy.

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Nuclear waste is a problem but it's not as big of a deal as most people think it is. Right now all the nuclear waste from U.S reactors resides on the reactor site in dry casks, not harming anyone or releasing any radiation. In terms of the amount of volume of waste produced it's actually quite small. The entirety of the spent nuclear fuel from all Frances nuclear power stations just sits under the floor in one specifically designed secure room. There's also that whole thing where we can use spent nuclear fuel in fourth generation reactors sometime in the future.

I was reading this recently:

Why The French Like Nuclear Energy | Nuclear Reaction | FRONTLINE | PBS

Part of their popularity comes from the fact that scientists and engineers have a much higher status in France than in America. Many high ranking civil servants and government officials trained as scientists and engineers (rather than lawyers, as in the United States), and, unlike in the U.S. where federal administrators are often looked down upon, these technocrats form a special elite. Many have graduated from a few elite schools such as the Ecole Polytechnic. According to Mandil, respect and trust in technocrats is widespread. "For a long time, in families, the good thing for a child to become was an engineer or a scientist, not a lawyer. We like our engineers and our scientists and we are confident in them."

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Compare that to the US where much of our population are technophobic fucktards who'd rather believe some conspiracy theorist links on Facebook than consider actual science.

Also:

French technocrats had never thought that the waste issue would be much of a problem. From the beginning the French had been recycling their nuclear waste, reclaiming the plutonium and unused uranium and fabricating new fuel elements. This not only gave energy, it reduced the volume and longevity of French radioactive waste. The volume of the ultimate high-level waste was indeed very small: the contribution of a family of four using electricity for 20 years is a glass cylinder the size of a cigarette lighter. It was assumed that this high-level waste would be buried in underground geological storage and in the 80s French engineers began digging exploratory holes in France's rural regions.

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But even there in France, the "oh no nuclear waste will destroy us all!" was a prevalent public relations issue and took some creative thinking to get around. They are now at a crossroads in terms of the decision to carry on or go more like Germany's route. I've been wondering if the Ukrainian instability and Russian actions might keep the public positive about the energy independence that nuclear has afforded them.