The real reason to fight nuclear power has nothing to do with health risks | Hacker News Reader

The real reason to fight nuclear power has nothing to do with health risks

qz.com

30 pointsrosser60 comments

Okay. Tax coal to compensate for its externalities and then we'll see how the economics work out.

this.

Disclaimer: I'm pro-nuclear. I'd happily pay twice as much for my electricity as I do now if it meant less poisonous hydrocarbons being pumped into the atmosphere. I'm not in favour of Nuclear because it's sudddenly going to eliminate energy costs, I'm pro-Nuclear because it means we can have cleaner air again, and less people dying from coal and gas related pollution.

Factor in human life and the economics make a lot of sense.

RTFA. PV and Wind are cheaper than nuclear. So you can have what you want (no more people dying from coal pollution) without the immense risks of nuclear (The article makes very weak point about these being irrelevant. They are not.)

If you're talking about PV/wind vs. nuclear, you're not really "fighting" nuclear. Everyone thinks this even after being reminded about energy storage, the wild fluctuation in capacity factor, etc., and I don't understand why.

I wonder if another kind of costs of wind and solar (and hydro!) is included? In Germany, we have to spend billions to build additional transmission lines. Since wind/solar/hydro energy is a lot more unstable in its output, a lot more energy has to be moved around the country. Also it cannot be produced near the heavy consumers (e.g. hydro energy from the north sea to heavy industry the Ruhr area). The instability of output also leads to more activity for coal-fired power plants, because they can bridge short solar energy lows (nuclear plants are too slow).

I found that article encouraging that wind/solar/hydro energy might hit break even, but I am not convinced that we are already at that point.

Polluting nice landscape with windmills is another downside. Although that is probably not that big of a problem in the US, since you have a lot more uninhabited space there compared to Germany.

FTA: "Yes, the utility industry will need to update the century-old hub-and-spoke architecture of the grid to accommodate high levels of variable and distributed renewable power, but that needed to be done anyway. Yes, there are important questions to be addressed about dispatchability—the degree to which the power generator can be fired up at will, as needed—voltage regulation, service level guarantees, and the evolution of utility business models and regulatory environment, which I have written a series of articles about"

> but that needed to be done anyway

Why? Hub and spoke is a pretty well-proved model. And I don't see industrial process plants getting smaller.

I think it's impossible to really estimate how much an energy costs, because you could argue that you need to include the cost of potential accidents or the incertity of raw materials costs or the cost of not being able to produce energy when you need it, etc.

For solar, you need sun, for wind, you need wind. The real issue to solve is being able to store electricity. Once you have that, a lot of issues disapear, because you can procude when you can, consume when you need.

In the long term I really think nuclear is optimal, after all that's what the universe chose... In a way, solar energy is fusion based. ;)

You think the universe is optimal? :p

Well, for now we didn't do any better. :D

If we could figure out economical nuclear fusion, we wouldn't be arguing right now. We are always 20 years from figuring it out also.

Once we have fusion, producing hydrogen liquid fuel should be cake.

Or about 80bn EUR away from figuring it out.. would be a more useful scale imho (that's at least the number that the local plasma physics institute estimated iirc), as the ETA will keep changing if you change the yearly budget.

The problem with fusion is that in the form accessible to us here on Earth (deuterium-tritium), it still creates radioactive waste. It is not the sort of long lived waste you would see from Uranium based nuclear fission, it is more comparable to Thorium based fission reactors. In other words we already have a pretty decent alternative.

The real holy grail would be Hellium 3 fusion, but first we have to figure out how to import the fuel back to Earth from places like the surface of the Moon or from Jupiter.

Interesting. The moon has Helium 3, but the Earth doesn't?

It does, but only in rather small quantities. In fact it seems that most He-3 that's used is produced in Tritium decay reactions rather than extracted.

> first we have to figure out how to import the fuel back to Earth from places like the surface of the Moon

All we need is a psycho korean holding company and Sam Rockwell and we should be good.

(See "Moon" if you haven't. It's amazingly excellent.)

There are no working reactors (not even tested designs) that harness the potential of thorium. Experimental plants have had serious problems (edit:)and low power generation from thorium (see for example THTR-300 in germany; beware of the english wikipedia page, it is incomplete). So... come up with a safe design for a thorium reactor? (Edit2:) Until then, you might as well say fusion. Anyway, none of this is a reason to keep classic LWRs going.

What about the liquid fluoride thorium reactors? There's been some hype about these recently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbyr7jZOllI

This is just molten salt reactors all over again. They have disastrous security problems. Basically the salt eats away metal parts of the reactor, the graphite moderators are flammable and large parts of the reactor become radioactive because they catch neutrons which makes repair, maintenance and deconstruction almost impossible.

(edit:) I forgot about loss of fuel solubility events and the unsolved problem of tritium retention.

(edit:) It's interesting how the english wikipedia pages miss all the details on the failed projects in this field.

Strange, Kirk Sorensen (the guy in the video) seems very sure that these are much safer then any other alternatives. They don't have to be pressurised and water-cooled. Instead there's passive security with a frozen plug and a drain tank. Here's a longer documentary with lots of details (about 2 hours) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31HEijtqF5I

> In the long term I really think nuclear is optimal, after all that's what the universe chose... In a way, solar energy is fusion based. ;)

But fusion != fission

I find energy generation a really difficult topic.

I really want to remain unbiased and reach my own conclusions based on solid data but there seem to be so many reports and cost estimates that come to opposing views it makes it very difficult to do that without spending a long time in research. Hence I worry that even analytical people seem to give up and choose what 'feels right' to them.

Its like the global warming debate all over again.

Normally, if you face a really complicated economic optimisation problem, you can cheat a "good enough" answer by seeing what the market has come to favour.

But the energy market is a very political market. So there's really no way to get a good feel for it any more. As I said elsewhere, for the medium term I see gas winning. It's "greener" than coal and it's cheaper and more compatible with existing systems than solar/wind.

In this case it's really easy. Nuclear fission is 1) not a solution. Uranium is finite and breeders don't work reliably due to fundamental design problems. 2) outrageously dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years 3) more expensive than solar and wind (see article)

Reads like propaganda. If it's true that nuclear is just too expensive (and how would I know?), then all he needs to do is to advocate that operators post bonds (or pay pretend interest on a state-funded equivalent) for decommissioning costs.

Actually, I'm pretty sure he's spot on.

And on your second point, fine: let's make operators post bonds, and watch as they scramble not to build new nuclear plants even faster than before.

The general run of things in the UK as I understand it seems to be:

0. Many billions are invested in public nuclear R&D. Electricity market is then privatised.

1. Nobody builds new nuclear (and nobody wants it on their doorstep either, especially in a country this small).

2. Government skews market in favour of nuclear by taking on liabilities for decommissioning (and de facto also disasters, which although rare are catastrophically expensive).

3. Operators/investors still aren't sure they can make a profit.

4. Government skews market further by offering a floor price for nuclear-generated electricity (additional public subsidy).

5. Operators/investors are still somewhat uncomfortable regarding risks and public opinion, so government gets into protracted negotiations to give them whatever the hell they want.

So nuclear here is essentially being subsidised three ways, and is still struggling to secure an investor.

Don't forget decades after nuclear power started a long term waste storage site has not been decided so still needs to be designed, planned, built etc. before it can be used.

How would you post a bond covering decommissioning in a fair way? I assume that some degree of maintenance is going to be required for the waste dump for the next few millennia. Has anyone calculated the full end cost of nuclear power per unit energy? I've searched before, but I assume the answer isn't simple as keeping the waste is a long term problem.

I see a lot of arguments there going against nuclear plants but very little about alternatives. Of course I'd rather we all use solar panels, but until that becomes viable on a large scale, we need to move off the coal burning plants that currently produces almost all our grid's energy.

Natural gas is a pretty good option in much of the US (particularly for peaking), combined with existing nuclear, plus hydro (largely maxed out in the US), and expanding solar and wind.

Replacing coal with natural gas is a win overall, particularly for pollution other than CO2.

> Of course I'd rather we all use solar panels, but until that becomes viable on a large scale

Nuclear plants take tens of years to build, and it looks like solar will become viable on a large scale faster than that.

Even if nuclear power is to expensive (something I don't agree with. Wind is still only producing ~1/7 of nuclear power in USA, and is only producing ~1/7 of wind... 2011, numbers but I doubt there have been any miracles since then.

http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/pdf/sec1_7.pdf

Until we figure out how to make large scale energy storage economical, we are still going to be stuck with the problem of providing a base-load for the grid. As far as environmental impact, nuclear fission still seems like the best option to me to fill that need. If his analysis is correct it certainly does indicate there's a place for both renewable and nuclear to coëxist in the short term.

> there's a place for both renewable and nuclear to coëxist in the short term.

Except that there is absolutely nothing short therm about nuclear. If you build it, you're stuck with it for decades or have to swallow huge write-offs. And of course the waste stays with you for centuries or millenia.

I think we're talking about different periods of time when referring to the "short term". My short term is probably your medium term.

While there are some technologies to dispose of the waste, such as breeder reactors, even burying the highly stabilised waste in a small area surely seems favourable to dumping it over large geographic areas as traditional fossil fuels do.

It's not like there's a dearth of radioactives in the Earth's crust already.

The radioactive elements in fossil fuels is less of a problem than you think, because a) coal plants, etc. have to filter these out (at least in germany they do) b) they have short half-times.

And storing the radioactive waste for a few thousand years is by no means an easy/cheap task.. just look at the two experimental radioactive waste sites in germany.. both turned out to be a huge disaster in less than 100 years. Also I am not convinced that breeder reactors help you that much to get rid of thousands of tons of radioactive reactor assembly.

To me this article feels so wrong. I couldn't care less if nuclear power is a bit more expensive than its alternatives if it offered advantages over them. But there is a single point that makes nuclear power so unattractive - if something goes seriously wrong, you are really screwed.

That depends on the design. Molten salt and pebble bed reactors for example cannot fail catastrophically - it's physically impossible for either of those designs to do so.

But I agree with you on the economics. The alternative to not going nuclear energy is running out of oil or not being able to afford it. The initial expense is irrelevant in that light.

You might want to read up on the AVR reactor (an pebble bed reactor). The reactor assembly is so radioactive that it will be stored for 60 years first, before they can safely dismantle it. And as for pebble bed reactors cannot fail catastrophically.. AVR almost did (water leaked into the He primary cooling cycle).

Damn - that's depressing. Thanks for the heads up. The safety report that I've now just read on the AVR says:

"A safe operation at hot gas temperatures near to those suitable for process heat applications can currently not be guaranteed by pebble bed reactors, even if a gas tight containment is present."

> But there is a single point that makes nuclear power so unattractive - if something goes seriously wrong, you are really screwed.

No, that's exactly what the author tells you is not true:

"And they [pro-nuclear crowd] are probably right that the risks of radiation have been historically overblown as “junk science” wormed its way into popular culture."

Nuclear power is the safest power generation tech we have so far [0]. It's actually hydro that can screw you really hard when it fails (and your design sucked) [1].

[0] - http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-so...

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam#Casualties

Or if a coal spoil tip slips and wipes out a school lookup the aberfan disaster on wikipedia.

And thats just one of many mining disasters (hundreds die every year in china for example) - which puts even Chernobyl into perspective.

The problem is that the overhyped risks of nuclear power have driven the costs way up. For decades almost all effort has gone into increasing safety not reducing costs which utilities have little incentive to control because they are passed on to customers.

They're working with current electricity prices, but prices are already slated to go higher in the next few years in some parts of the US. PJM International electricity auction prices for parts of the Midwest and Northeast US are shown here: http://www.pjm.com/~/media/about-pjm/newsroom/2013-releases/...

some good points, and while i haven't read his other articles, i don't think he grasps the gravity of what "baseline supply" means on the power grid. these are powerplants that are on 24/7 -reliably- always supplying ~40% of energy on the grid. coal, hydro, and natural-gas based facilities do "baseline load" well, although in many places, natural-gas facilities are used for spinning reserve, since generation costs (in $/kw) are higher than the coal and nuclear.

renewables are cool, zero carbon, etc., but NONE of them can generate reliable, 24/7 power. what we really need is energy storage tech to move renewable energy generation from when it's available to when it's needed.

i wish we could see more research in alternative nuclear technologies. why is India the only country trying out thorium reactors? our entire nuclear infrastructure is based on tech that could use waste fuel to make bombs. time to move on to a more practical strategy.

Nuclear is very capital intensive. Historically very much so, since a large amount of the current fleet are all individual designs.

The economics might change when China start stamping them out like a print factory.

As for wind and solar: once you factor in the costs of transmission, storage and duplication, they suck too.

Duplication is particularly wasteful. To provide baseload-ish power, you need multiple installations to cover that different areas receive power at different times in a stochastic fashion and you need backup plants just in case your multiple solar farms are shady or the wind stops in multiple places. Plus, as climate change rolls on, you will need to keep moving the solar farms and wind farms as distributions of clouds and wind changes.

You know which dog is winning this fight? Natural gas. It's flexible, relatively quick to build, relatively low risk and gas prices have dropped like a stone in the past few years thanks to shale and fracking.

Personally I'd like to have lived in the future where the 1970s energy crisis caused a bootstrapped orbital solar power station industry. Oh well.

There's still the issue with emissions with methane though. Better than coal though.

Coal's emission profile depends a lot on the coal. Anthracite burns very hot and produces almost pure CO2 (instead of more noxious byproducts), but few deposits are anthracite.

For example: here in Australia, the New South Welsh are burning high grade anthracite coal in the Hunter Valley [1]. Meanwhile in Victoria they burn lignite [2]; it's basically ambitious peat moss.

The NSW plants produce more CO2 per ton of coal burnt, but their environmental impact is lower -- they produce more KWh per ton of CO emitted.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayswater_Power_Station

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazelwood_Power_Station,_Victor...

Coal quality is strongly correlated with depth - easily-mined surface coal is invariably of poorer quality than more costly deep-seam coal. The economic viability of coal power generation is largely contingent on the use of the cheapest, most easily extracted coal. Britain has enormous coal reserves, but those reserves are nearly all deep and hard to reach. We import huge quantities of brown coal from Germany and Eastern Europe, because it's around half the cost per unit of energy, even after transport costs.

Australia is an edge case, because of the huge reserves of coal relative to a tiny population.

And all the issues with fracking.

> To provide baseload-ish power, you need multiple installations to cover that different areas receive power at different times in a stochastic fashion and you need backup plants just in case your multiple solar farms are shady or the wind stops in multiple places.

Absolutely, and the different areas you need to cover have to be very far apart, most likely distributed over multiple countries. This is covered in the excellent Without Hot Air:

http://www.withouthotair.com/c26/page_187.shtml

"Between October 2006 and February 2007 there were 17 days when the output from Britain’s 1632 windmills was less than 10% of their capacity. During that period there were five days when output was less than 5% and one day when it was only 2%."

So if you build half your capacity in solar and half in wind, you'll find edge cases where it's night and the wind isn't blowing, and you're suddenly generating 1% of capacity overnight.

This is aggregated over the UK, which is a very small country, but it still highlights the magnitude of the problem.

There are quite a few potential solutions, none of them good; country scale storage (a Tesla can power an average American home for more than a day). Solar thermal, where if you store enough molten salt you can generate at night. Triaging all power usage with a smart grid, so most stuff just turns off. A damn near worldwide grid with HVDC. Keep an entire grid worth of fossil fuel plants in reserve.

But in any case, it's not nearly as simple as matching wind MW for MW with coal, something which seems to get missed a lot, especially when discussing Germany.

(I feel like a broken record recommending this book all the time, but it really is fantastic for hackers interested in energy).

You are correct that this is a complex problem. Nobody suggests 1) moving to 50/50 PV/Wind 2) immeadiately.

It needs to be a very diverse Mix that slowly and steadily grows, making it unlikely to hit your 1% case and giving us time to adjust to fluctuating power generation. And it leaves a lot of room for clever engineering ideas and distribution. It also presents the opportunity for the people to gain back control over power generation and storage. Huge electrical companies might be unecessary :)

What will cycling the tesla's battery(or any electric car) do to its life expectancy? Also how much will a tv , fridge , pc , etc shave off my range in the morning.

Convert energy to hydrogen, store and distribute via natural gas storage infrastructure, burn in gas plant when needed. Problem solved.

It's been thought of before.

Hydrogen doesn't have the same characteristics as natural gas. It embrittles most metals, leaks like buggery and is not very dense (ie, it needs to be heavily compressed).

What does this mean? It means that the existing infrastructure isn't suitable for hydrogen, it would need to be replaced. Problem not solved.

You can add 5% hydrogen to the natural gas in the german grid at the moment without changing much infrastructure, up to 15% in the medium term.

Here is a pilot project:

http://www.eon.com/en/media/news/press-releases/2013/6/13/po...

How much could the cost of building nuclear plants be reduced if we were building them on a larger scale.

It seems to me that the high cost of nuclear plants is largely because no one is building nuclear plants.

Regulatory requirements and safety overkill probably play a large role too.

It can't be allowed to do to the scrolling ~UX~ what this page does...

So, decades-long smear campaigns against nuclear successfully drive up costs, and lo-and-behold the author complains about the cost. The author also then goes on to ignore the externalities of solar, happily paid by the Chinese people on behalf of everyone else. The costs of refitting distribution infrastructure and whatnot are similarly handwaived.

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