Skeptics and nuclear power

[Belz...]

I can fully agree with that.
In my assessment, we shall be able eventually to produce and intermediately store enough energy absorbed from the sun through whatever pathways to make both fossil fuels and nuclear obsolete. I do not say that nuclear should be phased out first, I am saying it probably won't need to be vamped up, given the advances in solar and battery technology.

I hope so. I fear that going mostly solar would deplete our mineral ressources quite a bit, however.

 

[Oystein]

Oystein


You provide an exact example of the kind of nonsensical fear mongering prevalent in the anti-nuke crowd.

You know exactly nothing about radiation or nuclear risks.

We live in sleeting radiation, trillions of neutrinos in a moment, we developed in a radiation universe....there are cities with higher background radiation than allowed in a nuclear plant, I'VE had radation levels that could kill if not targetted.....every time you get on a plane you are irradiated, go to a dentist, get a chest x-ray .....

Don't spout fearmongering nonsense....

Several strawmen, no time to point them out all.

When a nuclear plant explodes, some area WILL 100% certain become uninhabitable, and people in that and nearby areas will receive doses FAR beyond all the things you needlessly drop there.

It is a matter of pure chance where that will happen and who will be affected. The risk of this happening to "millions" is tiny, but non-zero, and completely uninsurable.
If Tihange knocks out Aachen, Düsseldorf and parts of the Ruhr area, Belgium is broke, the entire European insurance industry is broke, and nuclear power done with.

 

[Oystein]

What you're missing is that it's not a chain reaction, its radioactive decay.

No, I am not missing that AT ALL. Strawman.

Which as noted, happens all the time all around us, its just a little more concentrated in Chernobyl.

"Little more".
Priceless

It is important to distinguish between a chain reaction and radioactive decay due to the widespread misunderstanding of the subject.

In this case and context: No. Just no.

 

[Belz...]

When a nuclear plant explodes

Let me stop you there. Again, nuclear plants don't explode except if a number of mess-ups happen at a reactor without a containment.

Assuming nukes were used for all of the world's energy consumption, how many do you really expect to see explode?

"Little more".
Priceless

How much more do you think it is?

In this case and context: No. Just no.

It's a fundamental difference, Oystein. How can it be unimportant to make the distinction? Unless you just don't give a **** about accuracy and factual statements, that is.

 

[Oystein]

I think it's presumptuous of anyone to guess where technology can be taken.

Same goes with presumptions in this thread where nuclear power can be taken.
We don't need new physics to achieve what I described. So we will get there, step by step.
What would be presumptuous is if I had claimed that the investment dollars I mentioned are best spent there. I didn't say that, and that is an arena where regulations and other government interventions set in - and I am out.

Governments have, for a long time, put vastly more money into nuclear energy than into renewables.
If private companies were made to develop and fully insure all on their own dollars, arguably there wouldn't be much nulear power today.

 

[Belz...]

Same goes with presumptions in this thread where nuclear power can be taken.

Is that directed at me? Aside from the possibility of thorium reactors I don't think we need new tech to meet our energy needs, so why did you mention that?

 

[Oystein]

Well, that follows from us only knowing of those 50 for sure, doesn't it? But I'm sure you're well aware that using that fact to argue that more "surely" have died is an appeal to ignorance.

You are, again, wrong. We do know for sure that more have died from these incidents than those we can directly point to, because it is known with certainty that higher doses increase death rates. We cannot name the additional victims, but we know with absolute certainty that they exist. It's a statistical thing.

The problem is that you are falling into the media trap of sensationalism. Sure, Chernobyl (a power plant almost designed to fail catastrophically) and Fukushima (a design 10 year older but much more sturdy, but hit by a thousand-year tsunami) are flashy, newsworthy events. But how many people died in those events? We know of at least fifty for the first and two for the second. How many people died from coal-related incidents you never heard about?

That's why looking at deaths per MW is a better indicator, and nuclear is _by far_ the safest of the energy generation alternatives on that measure.

It was I who brought up this sort of statistics.

The "sensationalism" of the few incidents with high risk of spreading internationally is, however, not to be dismissed so easily. A nuclear incident does not merely kill people involved in nuclear power production, it disrupts regions. Fukishima had the distinction of happening on an island nation. But generally, we must expect nuclear incidents to be or become international, and that adds a quality to them that other desasters rarely have.

You find excuses to dismiss these two incidents, but they proved, once and for all, that nuclear power plants DO bust from time to time.

Safer still than solar, actually.

I granted this already, on the basis strictly of a count of deaths.

And yet they killed more people. You're letting yourself be swayed by the emotional impact of these events.

Each such incident is limited and thus insurable. Peolpe can choose not work in mining or not to live down-stream from power dams. But people cannot choose to live somewhere where they are safe from nuclear incidents.

You're just lashing out now because your ignorance of this topic has been revealed by some of your comments, particularily your "bloody nonsense" quip, which showed that you don't know the first thing about the technology.

My bloody nonsense quip was right on target, for of course there are radiactive reactions going on at a dangerous level now, and for thousand years to come.

 

[Oystein]

It shouldn't strike any fear at all. Lead and mercury aren't radioactive but they sure are damned toxic, and it's a lot easier to get them into your system. The problem is largely the media and entertainment industries, in addition to anti-nuke groups, that have made sure that the word "radiation" itself is toxic.

You're getting hung up by a minor part of my post. The "radioactive, incidently" part was just incidental. The main part of the post, which you've failed to address, was that coal waste is extremely toxic, will always remain toxic, contrary to nuclear waste, and exists in far larger quantities for the same amount of power produced. Isn't that a much bigger problem? And yet we just churn out the stuff without a care in the world.

Coal ash is so damned toxic, they are putting it into concrete en masse to build roads and houses and kindergardens and hospitals.
[/sarcasm]

Please remember that I have from the beginning, and then several times since, never claimed or implied that coal plants are better or preferable to nuclear.
But to pretend that coal ashes are as much a problem as nuclear waste, that's a stretch. Almost all of it is retained at the plant, and then stored safely without major engineering problems. If something goes wrong: You can release plenty of coal waste into the environment without causing all that serious damage - its toxicity is higher than background levels, but far lower than that of nuclear waste.

Now who's engaging in doublespeak? You are simply unable to admit to being wrong. The point I was trying to make, and which I've made now more than once, is that there is no sustained chain reaction in the reactor. It's just decaying naturally.

To characterize the situation and danger of the content of the Chernobyl coffin, it doesn't matter much if the reaction is "chain" or "spontaneous" - what matters is the actual release rate of heat and radioactivity.

You can call that a reaction, but it's misleaing because it implies that the chain reaction is still ongoing, which is just not true.

I cannot call it anything else, because radioactive decay IS a reaction. So it cannot possibly isleading. And no, I did not imply a chain reaction.

Do you want to be accurate, or do you want to just win the internet?

I am accurate, and am trying to help you to be accurate as well.

 

[Oystein]

I hope so. I fear that going mostly solar would deplete our mineral ressources quite a bit, however.

My impression - my hope - is that "solar" will branch out to an ever larger number of rather different solutions which will be pursued concurrently, such that none, or few will dominate the market, limiting the potential of overusing natural ressources. These solution will take into account the very varying local conditions of climate, geology, economical development, regional resources, political stability and what not.

 

[Oystein]

Let me stop you there. Again, nuclear plants don't explode except if a number of mess-ups happen at a reactor without a containment.

Numbers of mess-ups will continue to happen, and containments will be compromised.

Assuming nukes were used for all of the world's energy consumption, how many do you really expect to see explode?

How much more do you think it is?

Irrelevant. One, with a ******** of bad luck, that takes out a major center of population and productivity will be far too much.

It's a fundamental difference, Oystein. How can it be unimportant to make the distinction? Unless you just don't give a **** about accuracy and factual statements, that is.

It's a fundamental difference in other contexts. It's a strawman in this.
The point is still: There IS a radioactive reaction going on inside the Chernobyl coffin, and will continue to go on on a dangerous level for millennia to come (unless someone thinks of a away to get the radioactive mess out and disperse it, shoot it on the moon, or whatever; but there are currently no plans for this. The plan is to contain this dangerous radioactive reaction inside a coffin for 10,000+ years).

 

[Oystein]

Is that directed at me? Aside from the possibility of thorium reactors I don't think we need new tech to meet our energy needs, so why did you mention that?

No, not specifically at you. Several posters who are in favour of continuing nuclear energy for a long time or forever talked about the need to build safer reactors, and mentioned several technologies that apparently are in the pipeline (CA... - uhm I forgot; molten salts; thorium; fusion...). These posters apparently disagreee with you and think that new tech IS needed.

 

[MikeG]

I seem to be the only one declining to answer.....

No, you're not.

 

[Belz...]

You are, again, wrong. We do know for sure that more have died from these incidents than those we can directly point to, because it is known with certainty that higher doses increase death rates.

Well no, we don't know that actually.

Low-level radiation has not been studied extensively, and the people around Chernobyl were exposed to, in relative terms, low levels of radiation. We simply do not know that you can extrapolate the higher exposures into the lower ones and calculate expected deaths. In fact, there seems to be growing evidence that low-level radiation is actually helpful.

You find excuses to dismiss these two incidents, but they proved, once and for all, that nuclear power plants DO bust from time to time.

Those are not excuses. Those are facts. That you call facts excuses shows that you have some sort of anti-nuclear bias here.

My bloody nonsense quip was right on target, for of course there are radiactive reactions going on at a dangerous level now, and for thousand years to come.

Please stop using your ignorance as some sort of badge of honour. It's embarrassing.

Several people including myself have made an honest effort to educate you and to get you to educate yourself on this issue but you refuse to do so, and so I'm forced to conclude that you are being wilfully ignorant.

But to pretend that coal ashes are as much a problem as nuclear waste, that's a stretch.

It really isn't. Again, it's a fact.

To characterize the situation and danger of the content of the Chernobyl coffin, it doesn't matter much if the reaction is "chain" or "spontaneous" - what matters is the actual release rate of heat and radioactivity.

Once again: it is a fundamental difference. If there was still a chain reaction going on, the "actual release" would be far, far worse.

Irrelevant. One, with a ******** of bad luck, that takes out a major center of population and productivity will be far too much.

No. At this point all I can do is ask you to educate you on the topic. You're just being a poster boy for Dunning-Kruger, and I can't do more at this point until you decide that you _want_ to learn.

 

[Oystein]

A thought experiment - to get you thinking about the concepts of "deaths per TWh" and "sensationalism":

Traffic collisions kill about 1.4 million people world-wide - a death toll, that is generally accepted (or else there would be widespread calls to give up road traffic), given the benefits of motorized road travel.

Suppose a new technology was invented to move people and cargo that could replace traditional motor vehicle traffic. This technology would be concentrated, highly complex, and could only be run by a few large corporations. Not all countries could actually afford this system.
But it comes with a risk that about once per decade, a huge accident occurs, over a large geographical area, with a potential to wipe out a city like San Francisco, Naples, Perth or Almaty - with a risk that an incident in one country severely affects regions in other countries. It would also kill people who are not transported by the system.

This would actually decrease the death toll significantly, on an average-per-year basis, or on a per-1-million-km basis.

Would it be acceptable, even preferable?

 

[lomiller]

Aside from the possibility of thorium reactors I don't think we need new tech to meet our energy needs,

If we built the 50 000 or so reactors required to replace the energy currently supplied by fossil fuels they would consume the worlds uranium reserves in a little over a decade. If you want to replace fossil with nuclear commercial ready Fast Reactors and/or Thorium burning reactors are going to be required.

 

[Belz...]

A thought experiment - to get you thinking about the concepts of "deaths per TWh" and "sensationalism":

Traffic collisions kill about 1.4 million people world-wide - a death toll, that is generally accepted (or else there would be widespread calls to give up road traffic), given the benefits of motorized road travel.

Suppose a new technology was invented to move people and cargo that could replace traditional motor vehicle traffic. This technology would be concentrated, highly complex, and could only be run by a few large corporations. Not all countries could actually afford this system.
But it comes with a risk that about once per decade, a huge accident occurs, over a large geographical area, with a potential to wipe out a city like San Francisco, Naples, Perth or Almaty - with a risk that an incident in one country severely affects regions in other countries. It would also kill people who are not transported by the system.

This would actually decrease the death toll significantly, on an average-per-year basis, or on a per-1-million-km basis.

Would it be acceptable, even preferable?

Hey, why go for hypotheticals when we have an actual example just lying there: planes. When a plane crashes it kills potentially hundreds, and has the potential to crash in city centers and kill many more. In fact, two planes were used to kill 3000 Americans a few years back. Did we stop using planes because the deaths are more spectacular?

 

[Belz...]

If we built the 50 000 or so reactors required to replace the energy currently supplied by fossil fuels they would consume the worlds uranium reserves in a little over a decade. If you want to replace fossil with nuclear commercial ready Fast Reactors and/or Thorium burning reactors are going to be required.

Yes, that is one obvious problem of going all-nuclear.

Somehow, good ol' Sol is going to have to pull us through this.

My point was about the actual technology, though, not the fuel.

 

[lomiller]

My bloody nonsense quip was right on target, for of course there are radiactive reactions going on at a dangerous level now, and for thousand years to come.

The radiation near Chernobyl is insignificant compared to the damage CO2 can do. This isn’t downplaying the problems with nuclear, it’s a function of rapid CO2 release being almost unimaginably bad. Whatever questions I have about nuclear there is zero possibility it’s worse than any fossil source and Coal is the worst of the fossil fuels.

 

[Oystein]

Well no, we don't know that actually.

Low-level radiation has not been studied extensively, and the people around Chernobyl were exposed to, in relative terms, low levels of radiation. We simply do not know that you can extrapolate the higher exposures into the lower ones and calculate expected deaths.

I did not imply we can "calculate" expected deaths.
It is certain that there ARE more deaths.
There is a continuum of radiation dosis from "we know that killed 50" to "so low it doesn't hurt". Slightly below the "we know this killed Mr. Popovich" are high doses that people have been exposed to by the Chernobyl incident such that they died from them, e.g. by developing cancer, but we are not able to say who died of cancer by backgriund chance and who died because of Chernobyl.
I am not making any claims about what the number might be beyond your "50", but we do know for certain that it is >0.

In fact, there seems to be growing evidence that low-level radiation is actually helpful.

This betrays an enormous bias in favor of nuclear power.

Those are not excuses. Those are facts. That you call facts excuses shows that you have some sort of anti-nuclear bias here.

Of course I do - and you make excuses to deny, or belittle, the high risk that more nuclear plants WILL go bust in the future.

Please stop using your ignorance as some sort of badge of honour. It's embarrassing.

Several people including myself have made an honest effort to educate you and to get you to educate yourself on this issue but you refuse to do so, and so I'm forced to conclude that you are being wilfully ignorant.

Ignorance, huh? I wrote, and you quoted:
"Of course there are radiactive reactions going on at a dangerous level now, and for thousand years to come."
Please explain my ignorance by pointing out exactly what is wrong, or missing, with that statement?

Of course there is nothing wrong, and nothing missing, with that statement. It is prefectly correct and complete.

Please acknowledge when you have understood I am not ignorant of anything relevant to that part of the discussion.

Once again: it is a fundamental difference. If there was still a chain reaction going on, the "actual release" would be far, far worse.

Still irrelevant, a strawman.
No one debated what WOULD be the case in some Hypothetical.
At the beginning of all of this, there was a description of the problem burried beneath the coffin in Chernobyl:

There are radiactive reactions going on at a dangerous level now, and for thousand years to come.

And this radioactivity will require constant supervision and attention and often renewed confinement for hundreds of generations to come.​

This is the status quo, the problem.
Regardless of what the nature of that radioactivity is.

No. At this point all I can do is ask you to educate you on the topic. You're just being a poster boy for Dunning-Kruger, and I can't do more at this point until you decide that you _want_ to learn.

Strip your rant of the strawmen, remove the eye patch from your skeptic eye, and try not to doublespeak, and you shall learn to avoid D-K yourself.
(See? I can do that personal attacking, too )

 

[Oystein]

Hey, why go for hypotheticals when we have an actual example just lying there: planes. When a plane crashes it kills potentially hundreds, and has the potential to crash in city centers and kill many more. In fact, two planes were used to kill 3000 Americans a few years back. Did we stop using planes because the deaths are more spectacular?

Good example.

It is an extremely rare occurrence that a plane accident kills people on the ground. Part of the reason is that vast precautions are in place, through regulations, to separate air traffic from population centers as much as possible.

Planes were used as a weapon? Great. We haven't disucces using nuclear plants or plant-grade nuclear fuels used for terrorism. Dirty bomb in NYC next - could be avoided if there is no nuclear industry to start with.

These almost 3000 Americans were only a small fraction of the number of terror victims worldwide - but precisely because the attack was so spectacular, the USA plunged itself into endless wars and incredible costs. this illustrates nicely how the mere spectacularity of an event lends it a whole 'nuther quality.


Nice way to avoid my philospophical question, though.