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Comment by alphonsegaston | Hacker News Reader

I've never seen addressed how one factors in long-term societal problems into the use of nuclear energy. There's not a country in world that hasn't experienced a civil war, invasion, or other massively destabilizing event within the span of time needed to safely manage nuclear energy and its byproducts.

After Chernobyl, I always wondered how a less authoritarian regime would respond to a similar nuclear disaster. Now that we have Fukushima, we can see the Japanese government doing something like a combination of climate change denial and media manipulation (Japanese television frequently runs pieces conflating opposition to nuclear energy with a lack of empathy for those who suffered in 3/11). It would probably work the same in the states.

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So would you rather they burn coal, which they don't have and has to be imported and intoxicate everyone with mercury and arsenic biproducts from coal burning? These two heavy metals also contaminte seafood, which the Japanese are quite fond of.

Coal burning also produces significant radiation, enough to have an actual nuclear plant shut down on safety grounds. All sorts of nasty stuff is trapped in coal and it all come out when the carbon is burnt away.

I havent seen anyone do the math, but given the amounts of coal involved i would expect more radiation comes from coal plants each year than a yearly fukashima-type event.

Don't have a reference handy, but I've seen estimates that the amount of radioactive material emitted into the atmosphere each year by coal burning is about equivalent to one Chernobyl (which was substantially worse, emission-wise, than Fukushima).

On a per-plant basis, the level is all-but immaterial.

Even Fukushima levels of radiation, spread over the globe, aren't too horrible.

There are all kinds of reasons to reject coal-fired power. Radiation isn't one of them.

See the xkcd radiation chart for relative measures.

https://xkcd.com/radiation

It isnt a logical reason, but it is good to remind the "clean coal" crowd of such facts when they scream about radiation from nuke plants.

A coal plant's regular radiation emissions are as bad as they get, and are orders of magnitude below the least possible clinically significant levels.

A nuclear power plants regular radiations are below the level of a coal plant. But a worst-case scenario, of which we have multiple extant examples are unbelievably worse: 9 trillion times more radiation, using the xkcd reference I posted (adjusting the intervals for equivalence -- 1 year rather than 10 minutes as the Chernobyl core instance is given). And it's been non-engineering factors, for the most part (management and oversight) which are the failure modes driving these. Which is to say, the problems cannot be fixed by engineering around them.

The fundamental error, though, is that this is a false dichotomy. There are alternatives to both coal and nuclear. And they bypass this problem entirely.

>> Coal burning also produces significant radiation, enough to have an actual nuclear plant shut down on safety grounds.

That's so cute. A nuclear plant would ideally emit zero radiation if everything is designed and working correctly. A leak is a warning sign and the potential danger is an event like the two that have happened so far. In other words, that level of radiation leak from a nuclear plant isn't actually a problem. They shut it down to make sure something really bad doesn't happen. With coal you get the leak without the catastrophe.

No, because I don't subscribe to fallacious false binaries about fossil fuels vs nuclear energy.

Japan should invest heavily in renewable energy. Despite it's many shortcomings, the Japanese government is quite good at building out and maintaining modern infrastructure. If they developed expertise in this domain, it could also serve as a great export to other markets.

> No, because I don't subscribe to fallacious false binaries about fossil fuels vs nuclear energy.

In real terms, it currently is a binary problem.

> Japan should invest heavily in renewable infrastructure.

Proposing a hand-wavy solution like "just invest heavily" is only a solution if you ignore the political, financial, social, and technical aspects of providing almost a trillion kWh annually to 120 million people.

Japan transformed its entire country from nearly complete devastation during WWII into a tech leader in various manufacturing and industrial technologies, including automation and robotics. They also possess some of the world's best research and technology institutions (e.g. Tokyo University). So if it's "hand-wavy" to believe in their capability to build better future, based on a quite miraculous track record, you can call me "hand-wavy."

It is handwavy. Name the source of that energy that will allow providing that much electricity. Back of the envelope calculations. Even that is somewhat handwavy.

For example, with solar power in Japan, you could get maybe 100% (EDIT: fixed the estimates! They're better but not better enough.) more than is currently grabbed - with massive subsidies and research already there! And it is one of the countries relying on a lot of it! Comparable with Germany in fact, but with better insolation. It is not enough. Nowhere near. That expansion will provide about 25-30% of current power use in solar, total.

With hydro and tide power, just 10-15% more is available unless you want to destroy all the coastline (then maybe 25%), which you cannot if you want to feed people. Again not enough. Japan already uses a lot of available hydro capacity.

Wind is not really feasible either... About 10% more is available of mostly offshore wind. Everywhere feasible is already installed.

Biomass, maybe 25% more for total conversion - and it is not a clean fuel.

Fusion is too far away for now extrapolating the linear improvements in this technology.

Additionally, everything in Japan (production, services etc.) is already tweaked to be energy efficient...

As it is now, Japan is burning a lot of oil and coal. On the order of ~50% electricity is fueled by those sources. It has increased additionally since the disaster because no other source can cover it.

Serious solutions involve:

1) Clean and safe nuclear fission power. Again. I'm sure Japanese are able to figure that one out, even in their special circumstances which complicate matters.

2) Massive breakthrough in fusion. Good luck with that. There is already much increased investment. Given current trends, even if the linear factor on the development of fusion improves, we're looking at 50 years or so of development time for that to be viable.

3) Solving huge political issues to expand out-of-country solar capacity, import even more green electricity from other countries. We're talking world government scale here.

4) Another undisclosed physics discovery worth a few Nobel prizes.

Not the OP but I don't believe you are very familiar with modern Japanese history.

First, your point that they had a "miraculous track record" in the past means it's reasonable to be "hand-wavy" about the future is absurd. Are you familiar with the phrase "Past performance is no guarantee of future performance?" Would you say Germany or South Korea can implement any nationwide policy easily because they share a similar historical background as you've described?

Second, Japan's miraculous growth had a lot to do with direct US intervention and the Korean War. The US created a Supreme Command of Allied Powers program directed by MacArthur that made a wide set of economic and political reforms. [0] And the Korean War essentially made Japan the de facto supply depot for the UN, driving a lot of US investment money there. [0]

Third, Japan in the past had plenty of human capital and cheap labor. This is certainly not the case anymore. I'm not saying they're doomed, but their population pyramid is quiet different from post-WWII Japan. [1]

[0] https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/japan-reconst... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan

I don't have to speculate about Germany because it's already happening there:

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2016-05-16/germa...

I'm quite familiar with the history of modern Japan and the US' role in establishing its prominence. It's what I studied as an undergrad, actually. And yes, the strength of their economies and technical standing, derived from this historical support, are precisely what put them in a good position to achieve this aim. It has allowed them to advance manufacturing technology to a far greater degree than the US, who let all of their expertise wither with offshoring (in part to assure alliances with client states). As such, Japan has a large, skilled manufacturing sector base that can tackle this undertaking. In addition, their resource constraints have created similar expertise in advancing energy efficiency and maintaining modern grid infrastructure, both key to making renewables successful.

Japan was largely shunted down the path of nuclear energy because of US intervention in their energy sector. Now that enthusiasm for nuclear energy has largely cooled in the US, both because of its expense and a renewed emphasis on fossil fuels, Japan has greater freedom than ever to transition to renewables. They don't have fossil fuels and nuclear energy is more widely unpopular than it has ever been in the wake of Fukushima.

As for the labor market, there a large issues with structural unemployment among young people which this transition could help address. And regardless, the Japanese government is more directly interventionist in their economy, such that were this change affected, big businesses would follow suit. The line between TEPCO and the Japanese government is already as blurry as blurry can be.

What do you think of China's heavy strategic investment and policy for renewables?

I think it's great. I'm absolutely pro-renewables.

That doesn't change the fact that there are enormous political, financial, social, and technical problems to address before renewables can become a viable alternative to nuclear and coal.

I think there are enormous political, financial, social, and technical problems to address with the current nuclear and coal solutions

China has already licensed every available nuclear tech from the French, Russians, Canadians and last but not least the US and has trained a generation of nuclear scientists overseas.

http://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profile...

They also heavily invest in renewables.

Invest heavily for developed nations is usually meant as an umbrella term for a combination of subsidies, tax credits, grants in specific research area and also sometimes direct investment by the Federal and State Governments.

What we see here (in the parent comment) is someone parroting standard nuclear industry propaganda: coal is bad too.

While those line at least made a bit of sense 15 years ago, it is totally pointless in 2017.

No new coal plants are being built now. It is in phase out mode. All new generation is wind, solar, and to a lesser degree methane. Coal is going away; like nuclear, it can't compete.

> No new coal plants are being built now. It is in phase out mode. All new generation is wind, solar, and to a lesser degree methane. Coal is going away; like nuclear, it can't compete.

In the United States, at least, natural gas is the largest component of new generating capacity. Wind and solar are both independently fairly close to natural gas recently, but natural gas is still the #1 increase and has been for most of the last 10 or so years.

So yes, the rate of increase in coal capacity is very low (but still net positive), but it is not true that all new generation is wind and solar. New generation is roughly 1/3rd each natural gas, wind, and solar, ranked in that order. Again - in the United States. This varies from country to country, e.g. I believe China is still seeing substantial net increases in coal, whereas I believe Western Europe is seeing a lot more wind/solar.

You can get these numbers for the US from EIA reports: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/

The US also has vast geothermal potential and about 3.4 MWh installed capacity. Geothermal power is a suitable replacement for nuclear and coal/gas as one can build base load power stations.

Wrong on all points, data helpful:

http://www.ecowatch.com/ferc-renewable-energy-capacity-22330...

I did refer to the data, and that article gives about the same numbers. FERC and EIA are 'sibling' components of the Department of Energy, I suspect EIA's information on new generation comes directly from FERC.

The article you link shows that wind and solar combined add up to a bit less than twice natural gas. This is because, as I said, the three dominant forms of new production (natural gas, wind, solar) added up to about one third each, with natural gas being the largest portion.

1. It is not true that no new coal plants are being built. It is not even true in developed countries.

https://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2017/01/13/southeast-asia-...

2. Usefulness of renewable energy sources is still not universally comparable to fossil/nuclear.

http://www.ecowatch.com/ferc-renewable-energy-capacity-22330...

Can you name a coal plant that went online last year in the USA? Then list all the coal plants that are shutting down. Phase out in progress, USA led.

> Japanese television frequently runs pieces conflating opposition to nuclear energy with a lack of empathy for those who suffered in 3/11

Can you elaborate? I don't get it.

I think they meant 'support' not opposition.

Sure. It's kind of hard to understand without being a regular consumer of Japanese television like the NHK. But essentially, they run a lot of segments and short documentary pieces focused on the plight of residents evacuated from the area, focused on how they just want to go back home/return to normalcy(entirely understandable). This is then framed against the backdrop of people concerned with the safety of returning to the region or "exaggerating" scientists blocking their return or creating the social context in which they're being mistreated.

Only rarely is it addressed that this situation was created by a mixture of government corruption and willfull negligence. Or that the problem is still entirely unresolved and many other Japanese reactors are at risk for similar catastrophic events.

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