Hacker News Reader

Comment by anonporridge | Hacker News Reader

Anti nuclear environmentalists will go down in history as useful idiots who ultimately served the fossil fuel industry.

They are worse than the fossil fuel industry. At least the fossil fuel industry helped billions of people, making the green revolution possible and lifting billions out of poverty.

The anti-nuclear environmentalists have no good to balance out their harm.

It's not environmentalists who are anti-nuclear; it's everyday people. Many don't want to live near a nuclear power station. [1]

Perhaps making multiple cities uninhabitable was bad publicity for nuclear power?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/18/austr...

Nearby coal plants are not only worse for you than nuclear plants, they're also more radioactive.

Chernobyl alone released around the same order of magnitude of radionuclides as all coal use worldwide.

Chernobyl is a special case, with a uniquely terrible design and uniquely terrible management by a uniquely evil regime. No operating civilian reactor has any possibility of failure that catastrophic. But even taking Chernobyl into account, nuclear remains by far one of the safest forms of energy, rivaled only by solar: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

Do you consider Fukushima also not a modern design? Do you then also follow that old reactors should be shut down? (8 reactors of the same type as Chernobyl are still running for instance)

Fukushima power plant started construction in 1967, no one would consider that a modern design.

If it was actually possible to build a new nuclear power plant I'm sure the old ones would be replaced. If it wasn't for chernobyl plus three mile island (which released a comically low amount of radiation) maybe the west would have completed its conversion to nuclear instead of essentially pausing all construction for 30 years. But right now the options are essentially shut it down and replace with fossil fuels (wind and solar are not great providers of base loads for obvious reasons) or extend the license.

Why should the safety of old reactors depend on new reactors being built?

Base load plus peak load is just one way to run electricity production. There is also load following for instance.

Germany replaced nuclear with renewables while also reducing both coal and fossil fuel use in general: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Energiemix_Deutsch...

Well you're clearly pretty anti nuclear, would you allow the construction of a new reactor to replace the old?

The answer unfortunately is no, the fear mongering largely won out.

And you also seem to have forgotten the thread your in with your last statement.

Are you trying to sound uninformed and unworthy of respect? Those 8 reactors were retrofitted to prevent another Chernobyl. Yes not at first due to the corrupt nature of the Soviet Union, but it did occur.

Also right now there is exactly 1 confirmed death from exposure to radiation from Fukushima, and a few dozen cases of cancer, radiation burns and injury. Pretty sure coal kills more directly and indirectly in any given month.

2,202 deaths from evacuation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...

And how many of those people would have been evacuated anyway for well the tsunami damage?

Please read the article and its sources: those deaths are attributed to the sole part of the evacuation related to the nuclear accident. The tsunami caused ~20000 deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_an...

>As of 27 February 2017, the Fukushima prefecture government counted 2,129 "disaster-related deaths" in the prefecture.[21][19][22][23] This value exceeds the number that have died in Fukushima prefecture directly from the earthquake and tsunami.[24] "Disaster-related deaths" are deaths attributed to disasters and are not caused by direct physical trauma, but does not distinguish between people displaced by the nuclear disaster compared to the earthquake / tsunami. As of year 2016, among those deaths, 1,368 have been listed as "related to the nuclear power plant" according to media analysis

Looks like that 2xxx number is disaster-related deaths? And the related to the nuclear power plant is 1368.

It is a bit confusing what that exactly entails. It seems to include people who committed suicide due to the evacuation, but surely their can't have been 1300 suicides. Is it people who are assumed to have died only because they weren't at home? How do you die due to an evacuation anyways?

None of this really seems explained, unless it really is 1300 suicides.

> the related to the nuclear power plant

"As of year 2016" (obsolete), and "according to media analysis" (vague source).

The official number of "Disaster-related deaths" is directly tied to a "disaster condolence fund system" (families have to apply). This is discussed in: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266676572...

The state of the art has improved since Fukushima was built. But it's not even in the same universe as Chernobyl, and reactors of that age shouldn't all be shut down, no.

Only one person died from radiation from the Fukushima accident, a tiny fraction of the total deaths from the tsunami. It's an insignificant risk compared to other forms of energy.

You are really unfair here. The management wasn't terrible at all! That's an insult to actual terrible managements!

It was the most bizarre, horrifyingly dump, idiotic, horrible management I can imagine.

The safety systems were rising warnings, the person that decided to ignore them and ordered continuation of the test wasn't even on site!

https://nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/resources/health/health-effe...

How many people died? How many people did annually from people burning coal?How many people develop long term health effects from coal?

How many catastrophic failures of nuclear reactors have there been? What about catastrophic failures of other energy sources?

Think critically mate.

Is safety only about death? Why are deaths in uranium mining always ignored? How much preventative measures have been and are still being taken throughout Europe because of Chernobyl and how much damage did that do? Why do nuclear proponents only compare with coal, never with renewables?

> deaths in uranium mining

Uranium is very energy-dense (https://xkcd.com/1162/), you don't need to mine a lot of it to get a lot of energy out. So to produce the same amount of energy, there will be far fewer deaths from uranium mining compared to coal mining, or oil drilling, or even (IIRC) rare earth mining to make solar panels.

> How much preventative measures have been and are still being taken throughout Europe because of Chernobyl and how much damage did that do?

Many preventative measures are reasonable and necessary! This isn't incompatible with nuclear being safe. For example, flying is the safest form of travel, in part because there is strong safety regulation around airplanes. (That being said, a lot of the regulation around nuclear is excessive and counterproductive)

> Why do nuclear proponents only compare with coal, never with renewables?

The biggest problem with solar and wind is that they are intermittent, so alone they can't support a reliable grid. There are some other issues too (solar takes up a lot of land area, wind turbines kill millions of birds). But all technologies have their tradeoffs; I will support renewables where they make sense, as a component of a reliable grid alongside nuclear.

Geothermal is something that doesn't gen enough attention IMO. Currently, it is only viable in a few locations, but potentially with some more R&D it could become a lot more important.

And no one is suggesting we build Soviet RBMK reactors. Would you point to the Ford Pinto to claim that we should go back to the horse and buggy?

but coal created a lot of jobs for normal people in the area. Dislocated people are paid a lot.

Correct, but that doesn't let the nuclear power industry off the hook. Statistically, they have an adequate record. But there are way too many examples of people denying or covering up nuclear failures only to be subsequently embarrassed by facts. I'm pro-nuclear but reflexive endorsement of the industry is just as embarrassing as reflexive opposition.

The difference is in the risk profile.

The risks of coal power are dominated by the typical case. People have been living near coal plants for generations, they know what the risks mean in the real life, and they have generally found the risks acceptable.

Nuclear risks are dominated by rare disasters. Because most people have not experienced nuclear disasters near home, they don't know what it would mean in the real life. As the risks are unfamiliar, many people find them scary.

> People have been living near coal plants for generations, they know what the risks mean in the real life, and they have generally found the risks acceptable.

…honestly I'm like 100% sure they don't know what the risks are.

Every time anyone does a study on air pollution it turns out the effects are even more horrible than we already thought it was. Like it gives you dementia and cancer.

That's why I mentioned "real life". People may not know the specific risks associated with specific causes, but they think they understand the overall risks of living with coal power. After all, they have already lived their lives with coal power, and they have seen many other people do so. If the quality of life has been acceptable, the risks must be acceptable as well, if there are no alternatives that are obviously better.

On the other hand, people tend to overestimate unfamiliar risks. If you only hear about nuclear disasters (or earthquakes or hurricanes) in the news, it's easy to assume that the risks are more significant than they actually are.

I would be fine with living right next to a nuclear power station. I have lived near a uranium enrichment factory. Far preferable to living next to a lignite coal plant, that's for sure!

Can you cite any evidence for what you just said because that may be the most outrageous thing I've ever read of my life.

Living in the same city where of nuclear power plant is considered not inhabitable?

Or were you making a terrible joke about a nuclear accident?

Here's a source from a recent Australian survey:

"...asked whether respondents agreed or disagreed with the statement "I would be comfortable living close to a nuclear power plant", only 28% agreed and 60% disagreed." [1]

The part about it being due to uninhabitable cities (referring to Chernobyl, Pripyat and Fukushima) was conjecture - I don't know people's reasons for it.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jun/18/austr...

28% of the total population can provide full occupancy of all the areas near nuclear plants. Those ignorant or willing to live in discomfort will ease the capitalist equalizing that will naturally encourage that 28% to fill those houses.

Fair enough, but the housing prices in the area will take a huge hit while the non-supporters move out. It would be political suicide for a local government to support it.

What happens if you ask, say, the French, who have been living next to their nuclear power plants for decades.

When you say "many" you cited people in Australia. Does that speak or is that representative, for the entire world?

Also, my opinion of Australians is slightly shifted after reading that information, but who knows how they crafted that survey. Did they compare it to living next to a coal-fired plant? I am not able to easily find the survey methodology.

Anyhow,the science is abundantly clear that there is no reason to fear living near a nuclear power plant.

"In our study, living near an NPP was not associated with any significant risk of hematologic malignancies, except for CLL/SLL, for which risk was significantly reduced."(https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ijc.31116)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26638017/

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-risks...

How so? They are proposing renewables as an alternative, not fossil fuels.

Renewables can be constructed faster and cheaper than nuclear and are the clear winner of the future.

Renewables (wind and solar) are intermittent. The storage technology to make them reliable without a backup source of power generation, does not yet exist at the scale that would be needed. For now, any viable plan for full decarbonization must include nuclear.

Yes, wind and solar are highly volatile; coal, nuclear and natural gas are not. When they decided to disable nuclear power, they wanted to replace it with natural gas from Russia (that's why they promoted Nord Stream 2), since it produces less CO2 than coal, but those gas deliveries were largely cut off because of the Ukraine war. So now only coal is left as a stable energy source.

Before making claims, please look up numbers. In the same period nuclear was shut off in Germany coal-use also went down.

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Energiemix_Deutsch...

So what? Coal went down much less than it would have if nuclear wasn't disabled.

The storage technology to make nuclear cost-effective also does not yet exist, as demand is also not constant. Nuclear is a pretty bad complement to renewables on a grid: it loses terribly to renewables in a free market, relying on subsidies to get built and operate, and also does not actually make up for the intemittency of renewables. People keep saying that we need both but frankly it's one or the other.

You have the same issue with nuclear as it cannot load-follow and technical issues can lead to massive shutdowns like in France last year.

There exist several answers that have to be combined:

Using biogas to load-follow. Currently biogas produces around 8% of electricity but mostly as base-load.

Directing the use of electricity. This was already done to deal with nuclear‘s similar issue by offering cheaper prices in the night. With smart meters we can offer hourly based billing.

Batteries for intra-day storage is already getting deployed as it’s already economical and we will see much more in the future.

For seasonal low-points we will probably first continue to use gas but in a much smaller quantity if the other points also get deployed. At some point hydrogen will make sense.

You don't have to load-follow when you can use the power to mine bitcoins. /s

In all seriousness, nuclear power plants are also very controllable within a certain bound, you just can't turn them completely off or else they take a long time to turn back on. Control of power output is what reactor control rods are for. Coal power is similar - you can control the temperature of the boiler but you can't stop the turbine completely if you want to turn it back on any time soon.

Nuclear costs are predominantly fixed costs though. Reducing output makes electricity from nuclear even more expensive. On top of that it leads to faster deterioration.

You're busy looking for a perfect solution where there is none. The same arguments about upfront costs and usage-based depreciation apply to batteries, too, for example. They would apply to coal and natural gas plants too except that their fuel is really expensive per kWh.

I'm sorry this is incredibly misleading. " Load following" ?

Nuclear power is the most reliable and consistent energy source in the world. It's not even close! If you are going to spew garage, please cite it. This isn't reddit.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the average capacity factor (which measures the actual electricity output of a power plant compared to its maximum potential output) for nuclear power plants around the world was 81% in 2019.

This is higher than most other types of power plants, including coal-fired power plants (which had an average capacity factor of 53% in 2019) and natural gas-fired power plants (which had an average capacity factor of 46% in 2019).

The reason why there were "massive shutdowns" was because they didn't do maintenance during COVID as well as noticed abnormal corrosion.

Regarding uptime, heres some data.

Nuclear Reactor Up Time.

User What is the average up time of a nuclear reactor in France?

ChatGPT As of my knowledge cutoff date of September 2021, the average up time of a nuclear reactor in France was about 75%, according to data from the French electricity company EDF. This means that, on average, the reactors were operational and producing electricity for about 75% of the time. However, it's important to note that this figure can vary from year to year and from reactor to reactor, depending on factors such as maintenance schedules, unexpected shutdowns, and other issues

User Can you cite your sources for uptime of nuclear power in France? chatGPT Sure, here are some sources for the uptime of nuclear power in France:

According to the French electricity company EDF, the average availability rate for its nuclear fleet in 2020 was 75.9%. Source: https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/edf-in-france/the-nuclea...

The World Nuclear Association also reports an average capacity factor (uptime) for nuclear power plants in France of 73.3% in 2019. Source: https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pr...

The French government's Ministry of Ecological Transition provides a quarterly report on the performance of the country's electricity generation sources, including nuclear power. The latest report, covering Q4 2020, states that the availability rate for the nuclear fleet during that period was 71.2%. Source: https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/Performance...

Sources for other statements. https://www.france24.com/en/france/20220825-france-prolongs-...

https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/10/13/frances-nuclear-...

Electricity use isn’t constant throughout the day or the week, so you also have to produce less. This is called load following and a good thing.

Nuclear reactors are pretty bad at it, but if you have a lot of nuclear reactors like France does you have to do it anyway, which is why France has a lower capacity factor for nuclear than other countries.

For fossil-fuel- and biogas-driven plants a low capacity factor usually isn’t a big problem as fuel costs dominate. For nuclear fixed costs mostly dominate which means that a low capacity factor also means much higher costs.

Nuclear plants can load follow just fine. They just prefer not to as the capital costs and not fuel is biggest factor. So might as well keep producing power if the grid stability accepts it.

> biogas

If your objective is to eliminate carbon emissions, this won't do that. I'm not a purist though, if a small amount of natural gas or biogas needs to be burned at peak load that's not a huge deal.

> Batteries for intra-day storage

What do you do when cloudy + no wind lasts for much more than a day (as can happen in winter)?

No, they decided to actively disable nuclear power before coal power. Renewable energy has nothing to do with that.

The Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz for building out renewables was decided for together with the nuclear phase—out as part of the Energiewende under Schröder. Of course they are strongly linked.

That's not a justification.

Let’s not pretend it was antinuclear environmentalists who passed the bill with the votes of a grand coalition under a CDU chancellor following and SPD chancellor who turned out to be a Russian asset.

The narrative that somehow environmentalist managed to pass this bill against the will of conservatives and social democrats is a nice Dolchstosslegende

I think more so 'renewables are the only answer' will go down in history as the useful idiots.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com