Nuclear power - are you for or against?

[eMTe]

Ive just noticed posts in The Inn, but since there are other, happy news, to discuss there, Ive decided to establish new thread. It would be perfectly embarassing to talk about newborn babies and disasters in the same place.

Myself, Im for nuclear power. Im not 100% convinced, because Im aware that accident in nuclear plant can cause much more trouble than accident in old-fashioned plant and the outcome can be far more dangerous and prolonged. But I think the recent events are result of the Japan's geographical position (tectonic plates), not the technology being dangerous itself. Of course, it can be dangerous, if treated recklessly, but with good management it's almost impossible to cause a disaster. Several developed countries rely on nuclear energy (France) and there havent been any serious accidents. I think, for nuclear plants, some nations (like Japan) should revise their policy because of geographical location, not because of the technology. Technology is very safe and quite predictable, nature is not, so it's just the matter of placing such structures in safer places. Playing Dune II, you wouldnt place a structure on rough terrain, not covered with concrete slabs, huh? Same goes for nuclear plants. Japan, as well as Chile, Mexico or California, just should not have such plants.

On the other hand, if I lived in the vicinity of planned nuclear plant Id probably move as far as I can. But that's psychology, it doesnt say anything about safety of technology.

[Pater Alf]

I disagree. The technology isn't safe at all. There's always a rest risk and being a pessimist when it comes to technology and humans, I'm pretty sure that everything that might ever happen with a technology will happen some day. Just a few weeks ago everyone thought that there aren't any safer nuclear power plants as the ones in Japan and that Chernobyl just happened because the Russians didn't care about safety and are drunk from sodka the whole time (that was exaggerated of course). Now we know better. In the past experts told us there is a statistical risk of a major nuclear accident to happen every 420.000 years. When you look at Fukushima, Chernobyl and Harrisburg, it becomes pretty clear that they were wrong and that we can't control this technology.

And even if we could, not a single nation that uses nuclear power has an idea what to do with the nuclear waste. In Germany we have to use billions of Euros right now, because a radioactive waste repository that was supposed to keep the waste for thousands of years has to be emptied, because water is breaking in and there is a risk of polluting the whole environment. Why? Because most humans are greedy and don't care for hundreds of generations as long as they can get fast money.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEO8HTPyQeo (even if you don't speak German, please look at the first two minutes of the video to get an impression)

By the way, nuclear power isn't cheap power as big power companies want to tell us. At least in Germany they got billions of Euros as grants over the years, they don't guerantee for the risks of a nuclear accident (and no insurance company worldwide will assure them), which means that in the end the tax payer will pay. The same for disposal and secure of the nuclear waste (for thousands of years).

And last but not least: Uranium is an rare material as well (and creates heavy damage to the environment while mining). Which means that we need an alternative in some years anyway. So why not get out of this technology as fast as possible?

[eMTe]

Well, there's a wind energy (Danish friends can enlighten us on this subject), but it can be used only in some countries. Apart from that, there's only solar energy, for a long time in the future too inefficient to use on a global scale. So here we are when it comes to "safe and healthy" energy, coal remains the only fully reliable source (considering the efficiency/safety ratio).

[Pater Alf]

Well, you forgot thermal power, hydraulic power (both of them being more efficient and important than wind and solar energy), biomass and gas (which both have few drawbacks as well).

So there are some alternatives (and certainly many more as I'm no expert).

[eMTe]

Maybe there are other sources, but are we prepared to use them on global scale? Nuclear power is a well-established source of energy and relatively safe. You have nuclear plants in Germany, have you ever felt being in danger? It's not that Im for nuclear energy and against other technologies, I just feel that we're far from using the latter ones on global scale. For the time being (probably our generation), we must accept nuclear energy as the only economically reliable source.

We still live in Technopol world, described by Neil Postman, our civilization is not prepared for romantic ideas. We have to face far bigger tragedies than holocaust, nuclear waste leaks and global warming to take serious actions. But that's another subject, as usual.

[Pater Alf]

What means relativly safe if a single accident can make whole areas and countrys uninhabitable for generations and can kill hundredthousands of people? The rest risk is simply too high.

And yes, I don't feel safe with Nuclear power plants around and I'm part of the big majority of Germans who want them to be shut down (and not only since Fukushima).

But another yes, it will take some more years before we can live without completely without nuclear power. But it won't take as long as you might imagine. Even the ruling party in Germany talks about something like 15 years and that is the party that always was the biggest supporter of the atomic industry.

Can we use the new technologies world wide? I don't know, but why not? If an industrial country like Germany can do it, I'm sure nations that don't have that much industry can do it as well. And there are countries that are predistined for such technologies. Take Japan for example: They are a narrow island with lots of mountains and volcanic areas: Best region for thermal power, hydraulic power, wind energy. Why don't they start?

It's not necessity that prevents us from giving up old energy sources. It's a lack of vision and big companies, parties and moneygrubbing lobbyists that tell us we can't.

[Zyx]

I wouldn't say that I'm for nuclear, but I'm not against it and I do believe it is one of the safest, cleanest and most reliable energy sources we have today. I know the general attitude in rest of the Europe varies a lot, but as context, most of the energy in Finland is either nuclear or renewables. The only need for coal is if it gets really cold in the winter (incidentally the same time that both solar and wind are rather useless as well).

I'm not downplaying the risks of nuclear power, but it is safe by any reasonable metric. Yes, the worst case scenarios are really bad, but that is pretty far from being "reasonable" metric. Neither Chernobyl, Three Mile Island or Fukushima rendered areas nor countries uninhabitable for generations and none of them killed even in thousands. It's fear-mongering and not any start for any reasonable discussion.

The end result of Fukushima is that we end up polluting the environment more if we pulled back all nuclear power. True, energy generation is not the main culprit of carbon emissions, like industry and traffic, but there's certain irony in that.

Pater Alf, I think you have some silly exagarrations that really undermine your position. No-one, and I mean, no-one, thought the Japanese nuclear plants were the safest in world. The operating company was repeatedly busted for safety violations but because of the corrupted administration, nothing was done. That's Japanese culture for you.

Uranium isn't a rare element. It's abdundant in the Earth. Also, as an added bonus, it's available in places that are politically stable, unlike oil.

I don't buy the energy company conspiracy either. Nuclear is very, very expensive to build. After that, it's almost free. But, the current political climate makes it totally impossible to build new, safer reactors because the energy companies cannot justify the investment costs for the next 40 years in an erratic energy policy environment. This means that many plants are old, and as a result, makes the nuclear energy "less" safe. Ironical, yes.

I find it strange that Germany doesn't have a superfund, because that's at least what we have here in most of the Nordics. All energy companies need to pay money to a fund, which will cover some of the costs of any accidents. Sure, in the very remote chance of a nuclear accident, the cost of it will be paid by tax payers. No energy or insurance company can bear the costs, it's just so very expensive.

Also, insurance really only works for things that happen at certain statistical certainty and with a predictable price tag. This is why there are many natural events and, in case of nuclear, man-made, that can't be trdaitionally insured against.

But you do raise a good point, in that, for nuclear to be safe, it requires certain political decisions and oversight. It is now quite clear that the latter was seriously lacking in Japan.

It's also a bit misleading that no-one has thought about where to put nuclear waste. The world's first and only final waste repository is soon a reality in a place known for low seismic activity, stable and low corrupted government and reindeer (horns of which were not allowed to be exported to Japan since Chernobyl, incidentally.). The two reasons for the apparent "we're-not-doing-anything-about-it" is that mostly the governments are powerless to make decisions and suffer from NUMBY (not under my backyard)-attitude and secondly because in the end, there's very little point to hide it deep into the Earth's core if there are possibilities of doing something about the waste in the near future. Rememeber, technology rarely gets worse, so unless we hit a new Dark Age, there's a lot of promising technology to solve the problem of nuclear waste.

I do not believe that 100% of electricity should be nuclear power. I want to believe in renewables, but none of them are up to the task at this point - with the notable except of water, but you either have suitable place for it or you don't. (There's also certain fun to be had with green people, who are for biothermal energy, which is just natural nuclear energy.) The cheapest, by far, energy source, remains coal. If the energy companies really were greedy, that's the only thing they would build. And that's exactly what they did. Certainly, this is not the way forward either. This leaves us with natural gas, which comes with its own geopolitical issues. And it's not green. However, and this is where I agree with PA, is that it's the lack of vision, lobbyists etc. that are slowing the migration away from coal. I do not believe the same goes for nuclear.

It is entirely possible for Germany to be domestically nuclear-free in 15 years. However, accomplishing this without signficantly increasing CO2-emissions will be impossible. And this is the whole point where I think the greens are being dishonest. They are willing to trade the uncertainty of nuclear for the certainty of CO2 emissions. Also, PA, you point out that the government in Germany subsidies nuclear, but isn't it the greens who are always calling for subisidies for renewables as well? In fact, they are already well subsidies forms of energy anyway. There are other points you raised that go as well for other forms of energy sources and not just for the nuclear option.

In my opinion, many greens believe that electricity comes from the wall socket. They're, by principle, against nuclear waste and are oblivious to the reality. In my opinion, nuclear power is not the monster the environemntalists make it to be. It is by far not perfect, but it's pretty good compared to other options. Also, in my opinion, it is very hypocritical for the greens to claim that nuclear isn't green. It very well can be, but the greens are one of the most vocal groups making safe, cheap and reliable nuclear power impossible. They should work for safer nuclear power, not be against it by principle.

The enivornment does not benefit from the status quo, but the greens' visions are neither technologically nor economically viable. It would very great if they were. This is why they often have to resort to back such idiotic claims like saying that we should be able to decrease our use of energy. Even decreasing the rate of growth is going to be a problem. Once again, I think it's very hypocritical of greens to deny developing countries the level of western life, but that's effectively what they are arguing for.

Yes, I'm really have it for the greens because I'm still really f*** angry about the green propaganda books I read as a child. I believed that shit they talked about how nuclear was and how wind and solar and stuff is the future. Two... f***... decades ago. Sure, I'm all for the vision but I'm still disgusted how they poisoned by mind by telling me lies about the options the authors of the books didn't like. That intellectual dishonesty... and for kids. They really painted a black and white world, and as everyone slowly learns when they grow up, things very rarely are that.

I used to read those books and be all like, f*** yeah, green technology will come and safe us all from the horrors of Mr. Atom. Sure, in kids' books you always have good and evil, but this was cold war-level good/evil morality. Sure, the books told me that what could be an ideal tomorrow and that's all good and well, because who isn't for renewables and natural food? And, yes, a rich westerner can live a such life today. They authors forgot to tell that there are little limitations to all the stuff. Even outside the worlds political and economical. The little mind wonders why isn't the whole world living happy with a windmill on the backyard eating their self-grown potatoes? And the books are all like, yeah, there's nothing stopping that! It's the future! Support the future! f*** the developing world, and forget if our ideas are even – ironically enough – suistainable, feasible or scalable.

When that little mind finally figured out that intellectual betrayal, it became a cynical economist.

PA, I also think you mean "hydro" as in "water" when you say "hydraulic", unless the latter is some really exciting form of energy.

[Scythe]

Nuclear power is the "best" flexible power source, that we know of, available for an enlightened race... that is to say, not for humans. Humanity is a savage, territorial, predatory species, who cannot be expected to behave in a responsible manner. These traits have helped us become the top dog of the planet, above sea level (disregarding insects, who will, incidentally, be taking over the planet when we're gone), but they also keep us from taking care of ourselves and each other.

Will nuclear power go on to become the major source of energy for us? No doubt. Will it bring a number of tragic consequences with it? Absolutely. We'll see mismanagement among corrupt, bankrupt or greedy governments. We'll see disputes giving rise to accidents, deliberate or otherwise. We'll see radioactive waste exported to third world countries that cannot adequately handle it. As a whole, not specific individuals, humanity has not evolved along a path where we're able to handle nuclear power responsibly.

If anyone is in doubt, I do not hold my fellow man (or myself) in high regard.

[Pater Alf]

@Zyx

Pretty long post and right away I'm too busy to answer it, but expect a reply tomorrow.

[Drasir-Vel]

Something on-topic i saw lately: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/v ... age-chart/

[Zyx]

@Zyx

Pretty long post and right away I'm too busy to answer it, but expect a reply tomorrow.

No problem. Sorry to shoot the rant cannon at you, but I just felt like writing. I also have to admit that I might have a certain bias as I've worked for an energy company in the past.

I'm off to vote in the parliament elections. I'll probably end up voting for the greens - because, like nuclear power, I feel it's not the ideal choice, but the best of the alternatives.

Probably few of you might have read about the situation in Finland (and in Netherlands and Denmark as well, if I've understood correctly) and how the populist right movements are raising their ugly heads.

[eMTe]

Flight from NY to LA, lol. Is it the result of space radiation or Earth radiation?

Edit: as for populists rising in Finland, Denmark and Netherlands I know nothing. Ive always considered these countries (and some others) as politically insipid - places on Earth where welfare and calm lie over the land and like in Talking Heads' song "nothing ever happens". I was wrong then.

[Pater Alf]

@Zyx

Pretty long post and right away I'm too busy to answer it, but expect a reply tomorrow.

No problem. Sorry to shoot the rant cannon at you, but I just felt like writing. I also have to admit that I might have a certain bias as I've worked for an energy company in the past.

No problem for me. I think it is a quite interesting discussion where each position can make good points. I certainly don't feel offendende if someone doesn't share my oppinion. Right now I just don't have the time to answer as I'm expecting visitors and I still have to clean the appartement.

About the election: I fear right populists are getting stronger in many countries of western Europe. Maybe because many gouvernments in the last years acted like they are just another part of the economy and the financial industry (I still think is is a pretty silly term) and forget about the sorrows and needs of their population (especially the needs of the under- and middleclass). But that is theme for another thread...

[Chroelle]

Looking at the linked site-chart. So if I eat 400 bananas it would equal flying from NY to LA? Good stuff. I think I would prefer the flight. (Depending on the in-flight-movie...)

The whole politics theme might be for another thread yes, but the Danish rightist populist parties have peaked now, and being in the current government has not done wonders for them, as the current primeminister Lars Løkke (you haven't heard of him probably) isn't that popular. He is seen as quite the shadow following Anders Fogh Rasmussen - who moved on to be NATO's general secretary. It is hard to follow a big man in politics.

Other parties are getting more appeal at the moment, and the usual voter voting for these rightist populist parties are now more concerned with the welfare problems, senior citizens pension-arrangements and tax-bills to pay, than with the "scary scary immigrants".

On-topic: Wind power (someone mentioned the Danish members knowhow on this) might be a solution to back up larger power-suppliers. Wether they be nuclear or based on hydro-electricity or whatever, I am not sure how I feel. Remember playing Simcity back in the day, and one of the great solutions would be to build a HUGE mountain in the centre of the map, and then building hydro-electric plants all over it. Perhaps that could be some sort of solution.

[Pater Alf]

I'm not downplaying the risks of nuclear power, but it is safe by any reasonable metric. Yes, the worst case scenarios are really bad, but that is pretty far from being "reasonable" metric.

And that's part of the problem. It might be safe if you calculate the risks in a mathemetical or statistical way. As said before, statistically the risk of a major accident to happen is one time in 420.000 years. But yet it happens two times in 25 years. What does that tell us about "reasonable" metric?

Neither Chernobyl, Three Mile Island or Fukushima rendered areas nor countries uninhabitable for generations and none of them killed even in thousands. It's fear-mongering and not any start for any reasonable discussion.

I think that is nonsense and you are not reasonable here yourself. If you are looking for the numbers of dead caused by the Chernobyl accident, the numbers range from 4.000 to 150.000 (including the people who died from cancer or other secondary damages. While the number of 150.000 probably is to high, the number of 4.000 is certainly much to low. It relies on informations given by the communists leaders of the Soviet Union after the incident and the presumption that only 59 workers died while they tried to get the reactor under control. I don't think anyone can take that for real. A Ucraine commission talks about 34.500 victims, the WHO sums up to 50.000 deads (including suicides) till the year 2000, IPPNW thinks there might be 50.000 - 100.000 deads alone among the workers who had to clean up the polluted area, Greenpeace quotes a bulletin of Russian doctors that presumes 240.000 extra cases of cancer (90.000 of the deadly). The truth might be somewhere in the middle, but there are without any doubt several thousand victims.

About uninhabitable areas: 25 years after the incident there is still a 40-kilometres-in-range exclusion zone around the reactor (which means about 4.300 km²). Certain animals can not live in this zone (e.g. spiders are nearly completely gone) and there is a inourmous health risk for humans to live there for a longer time.
Right after the accident about 3.900.000 km² (40 % of whole Europe) were contaminated with Cäsium-137.

The end result of Fukushima is that we end up polluting the environment more if we pulled back all nuclear power. True, energy generation is not the main culprit of carbon emissions, like industry and traffic, but there's certain irony in that.

That would only be the result if we shut down all nuclear power right now with no concept how to replace them with renewable energies. If we doit in a reasonable, well-planned manner, the result may be a complete different.

Pater Alf, I think you have some silly exagarrations that really undermine your position. No-one, and I mean, no-one, thought the Japanese nuclear plants were the safest in world. The operating company was repeatedly busted for safety violations...

Well, I know many people who thought they were (or at least among the safest), Mostly because the Japanese are well known for their great technicians and engineers. And of course there were safty violations of the operating companies. But here in Germany three of the four big power companies were caught doing safty violations as well. And still they (and our politicians) tell us our nuclear power plants are the safest in the world.

Uranium isn't a rare element. It's abdundant in the Earth. Also, as an added bonus, it's available in places that are politically stable, unlike oil.

Politically stable places like Kazakhstan, Namibia, Niger, Uzbekistan and Russia? And of course it isn't abundant. There are estimations that say that it will only last for about 50-75 years if we go on mining the way we do now.

And did you look at the ecological destruction the mining causes? Not to speak about the medical causes for many workers (especially in Africa).

I find it strange that Germany doesn't have a superfund, because that's at least what we have here in most of the Nordics. All energy companies need to pay money to a fund, which will cover some of the costs of any accidents. Sure, in the very remote chance of a nuclear accident, the cost of it will be paid by tax payers. No energy or insurance company can bear the costs, it's just so very expensive.

There is kind of a superfund in Germany as well. But you say it yourself: In the case of a major accident that money won't be enough by far. And so the tax payer will pay. And why should the tax payers bear the risks and the costs if the power companies can't/won't?

Also, insurance really only works for things that happen at certain statistical certainty and with a predictable price tag.

And again you say it yourself: The risks and costs are not predictable. So how can it be reasonable to bear them nonetheless?

It's also a bit misleading that no-one has thought about where to put nuclear waste. The world's first and only final waste repository is soon a reality in a place known for low seismic activity, stable and low corrupted government...

And you are sure it will stay that way for hundreds of years (not to speak about thousands)?

The two reasons for the apparent "we're-not-doing-anything-about-it" is that mostly the governments are powerless to make decisions and suffer from NUMBY (not under my backyard)-attitude...

I agree here.

...and secondly because in the end, there's very little point to hide it deep into the Earth's core if there are possibilities of doing something about the waste in the near future. Rememeber, technology rarely gets worse, so unless we hit a new Dark Age, there's a lot of promising technology to solve the problem of nuclear waste.

I read some things about that in the past as far as I can see these technologies are even more far away than efficient renewable power sources.

I do not believe that 100% of electricity should be nuclear power. I want to believe in renewables, but none of them are up to the task at this point - with the notable except of water, but you either have suitable place for it or you don't.

Rememeber, technology rarely gets worse, so unless we hit a new Dark Age, there's a lot of promising technology to solve the problem... (the sentence might sound familiar to you)

The cheapest, by far, energy source, remains coal. If the energy companies really were greedy, that's the only thing they would build.

Might be true when it you just calculate the costs of building the power plants. But after they are charged off there is nothing better to gain money with than a nuclear power plants. Right now the power companies in Germany earn 1 million euros (we are talking abou profit not business volume) per day for each of their old power plants. You can hardly beat this with coal.

It is entirely possible for Germany to be domestically nuclear-free in 15 years. However, accomplishing this without signficantly increasing CO2-emissions will be impossible. And this is the whole point where I think the greens are being dishonest. They are willing to trade the uncertainty of nuclear for the certainty of CO2 emissions.

Why do you think so? As said in the other thread, we just have to replace about 20% we get from nuclear power plants. Renewable technologies get more and more efficient very fast and if it is certain that we get out of the atomic industry, the huge power companies will spend a lot of money on research, so they can keep their part of the energy cake. I know that the aim is still ambitious, that it won't be cheap and that there is a lot to be done (smart and more powerful power grids, posibilities to store the energy so it can be used when needed etc.) but it can be done. And as "Rage Against the Machine" said: “It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here? What better time than now?"...

Also, PA, you point out that the government in Germany subsidies nuclear, but isn't it the greens who are always calling for subisidies for renewables as well? In fact, they are already well subsidies forms of energy anyway.

I was a bit misleading here as I refered to a special German situation. The nuclear industry here claims that nuclear energy is very cheap while the renewable energies are very expansive because of the subsidies. Subsidies for the renewables are shown on the energy bill so everyone can see it (it's a law), while they keep quiet about the billions of subsidies they got in the past and still get because they don't pay for their nuclear waste.
I'm pretty well aware that both energies got a lot of money from the tax payer, but the power companies let it seem like the renewables are the only ones.

The enivornment does not benefit from the status quo, but the greens' visions are neither technologically nor economically viable. It would very great if they were.

That's why it is called a vision. It isn't possible today, but if everyone has the will to make it true, it will very likely be possible in the future.

PA, I also think you mean "hydro" as in "water" when you say "hydraulic", unless the latter is some really exciting form of energy.

Yep, you are right. "Hydro" is what I meant. I used a wrong translation here...

Phew, I think I never wrote a longer posting in this forum.

[eMTe]

Uranium isn't a rare element. It's abdundant in the Earth. Also, as an added bonus, it's available in places that are politically stable, unlike oil.

Hmm. The only "stable" place I can think of is Australia, because Ive read recently an article about it. Apart from it, there are uranium deposits in countries like Russia or Niger, like Pater said, and it's hard to say that these countries are stable. Russia may appear relatively stable, but it's not the kind of stability we all mean here, Im sure.

[Zyx]

And that's part of the problem. It might be safe if you calculate the risks in a mathemetical or statistical way. As said before, statistically the risk of a major accident to happen is one time in 420.000 years. But yet it happens two times in 25 years. What does that tell us about "reasonable" metric?

I don't think it's possible to calculate a mathematical or insurance actuarial risk for a nuclear plant. As I said, nuclear plants do not blow up on a regular basis, so a statistical risk model is quite difficult to make (for ex. insurance purposes). Note again that there is not just one class of accidents that a nuclear plant can have but they can range from little to f***. I don't know where the 420.000 years is taken and whether the 420.000 is per plant, but such number is in no way accurate. We know that accidents happen and that the long tail happens more often than most statistical models suggest. Also, such numbers probably are based on technology, not the socio-economical environment the plants run in. However, I still argue that nuclear power is safe. Just like taking a flight is. Yes, there are horrible crashes now and then, but overall, it is safe. Of course, one would also need to define "safe" as in safe for whom, but I would define is just as overall.

Neither Chernobyl, Three Mile Island or Fukushima rendered areas nor countries uninhabitable for generations and none of them killed even in thousands. It's fear-mongering and not any start for any reasonable discussion.

I think that is nonsense and you are not reasonable here yourself. If you are looking for the numbers of dead caused by the Chernobyl accident, the numbers range from 4.000 to 150.000 (including the people who died from cancer or other secondary damages.

Sure, we're talking about former Soviet Union block here so I can understand some variation, but really, numbers from 4 000 to 150 000? I could find as low death count attributable to radiation by the accident as 62 (The 2011 UNSCEAR report). I would throw the Greenpace estimates out of the door, because I've yet to see any rational coming out of that bunch (yes, a ad hominem, but those guys are eco-terrorists). But you're right, the total death count attributable to radiation of Chrenobyl will be above thousands. However, most of this was caused by contaminated milk given to children. I couldn't find the 50 000 WHO deaths, but I did find that they estimate 16 000 deadfrom cancer. Another UN/WHO report put the total death count at less than 10 000.

So, yes, I concede that Chernobyl did actually cause thousands of dead, but of course the true amount of human suffering was many magnitudes higher. However, the two other major incidents, Three Mile Island and Fukushima haven't caused anything near that.

About uninhabitable areas: 25 years after the incident there is still a 40-kilometres-in-range exclusion zone around the reactor (which means about 4.300 km²). Certain animals can not live in this zone (e.g. spiders are nearly completely gone) and there is a inourmous health risk for humans to live there for a longer time.
Right after the accident about 3.900.000 km² (40 % of whole Europe) were contaminated with Cäsium-137.

Yes, but you said that there will be areas uninhabitable for generations. There is wildlife in the exclusion zone and the radiation will be within accetable levels in less than a generation. However, I wouldn't move in there even then. So in that sense it will probably be uninhabitable for generations. However, it looks like the ecosystem took the hit quite well - again, considering what happened.

It's also good to keep in mind that we will, in all likelihood, never see anything like Chernobyl ever again. What happened there is no longer possible by physical laws and they willfully caused the accident. It will most likely stay as the worst nuclear accident ever.

The end result of Fukushima is that we end up polluting the environment more if we pulled back all nuclear power. True, energy generation is not the main culprit of carbon emissions, like industry and traffic, but there's certain irony in that.

That would only be the result if we shut down all nuclear power right now with no concept how to replace them with renewable energies. If we doit in a reasonable, well-planned manner, the result may be a complete different.

Of course, but is it possible?

Uranium isn't a rare element. It's abdundant in the Earth. Also, as an added bonus, it's available in places that are politically stable, unlike oil.

Politically stable places like Kazakhstan, Namibia, Niger, Uzbekistan and Russia? And of course it isn't abundant. There are estimations that say that it will only last for about 50-75 years if we go on mining the way we do now.

No, places like Australia and Canada. It is also important to note that any estimation is based on currently known reserves and does not mean that we will run out uranium in 50-100 years. The number is also high compared to many other minerals. By the same fallacy, we should have run out of oil decades ago.

And did you look at the ecological destruction the mining causes? Not to speak about the medical causes for many workers (especially in Africa).

Yes I did, but it is not that different from mining for other minerals, if done responsibly. The way western companies exploit Africa is however a bit off-topic, but definitely is a factor to consider.

There is kind of a superfund in Germany as well. But you say it yourself: In the case of a major accident that money won't be enough by far. And so the tax payer will pay. And why should the tax payers bear the risks and the costs if the power companies can't/won't?

Because the alternative is that we wouldn't have nuclear power, or many other things. In a similar way, the tax payers underwrite many risks that no company could ever take, as witnessed by the financial crisis in 2008 and it's aftermath in Ireland, Portugal and Greece. It's nothing specific with nuclear. At least with banks and nuclear power we have funds to cover some of the costs. Tobacco, coal and other even bigger industries with externalities pay no funds to cover the cost of society they directly or indirectly cause.

Also, insurance really only works for things that happen at certain statistical certainty and with a predictable price tag.

And again you say it yourself: The risks and costs are not predictable. So how can it be reasonable to bear them nonetheless?

Yes, I know exactly what I say, but that's not what I said. You can insure against fires and traffic accidents, because they happen at a predictable pattern and at a price tag that allows for a insurance policy that both parties agree on. This is not possible with incidents that happen very rarely but can have a huge price tag. That nuclear power can't be traditionally insured does not mean that we can't take the risk. There are many things that can't be insured so the options are either to avoid the risk or take it. With nuclear power we have decided to take the risk, because we believe the benefits outweigh the risks.

It's also a bit misleading that no-one has thought about where to put nuclear waste. The world's first and only final waste repository is soon a reality in a place known for low seismic activity, stable and low corrupted government...

And you are sure it will stay that way for hundreds of years (not to speak about thousands)?

Well, the political stability has to endure only as long until the place is ready and the stuff is put in. As for seismic activity, I have no clue but I would expect this thing was looked into when the place was planned. In fact, after Fukushima, further studies into this were asked for.

...and secondly because in the end, there's very little point to hide it deep into the Earth's core if there are possibilities of doing something about the waste in the near future. Rememeber, technology rarely gets worse, so unless we hit a new Dark Age, there's a lot of promising technology to solve the problem of nuclear waste.

I read some things about that in the past as far as I can see these technologies are even more far away than efficient renewable power sources.

Could be. However, we have around a century to come up with a solution for nuclear waste, other than putting it deep into ground.

I do not believe that 100% of electricity should be nuclear power. I want to believe in renewables, but none of them are up to the task at this point - with the notable except of water, but you either have suitable place for it or you don't.

Rememeber, technology rarely gets worse, so unless we hit a new Dark Age, there's a lot of promising technology to solve the problem... (the sentence might sound familiar to you)

Yes, it does. However, the timelines for solving nuclear waste problem and replacing non-nuclear/non-fossil fuel sources of energy are on different scales.

The cheapest, by far, energy source, remains coal. If the energy companies really were greedy, that's the only thing they would build.

Might be true when it you just calculate the costs of building the power plants. But after they are charged off there is nothing better to gain money with than a nuclear power plants. Right now the power companies in Germany earn 1 million euros (we are talking abou profit not business volume) per day for each of their old power plants. You can hardly beat this with coal.

Yes, as I probably mentioned at some point, once the nuclear plant is built, it's essentialy free electricity. However, building of these plants takes a long time and costs a lot. Add to that the risk that the government decides to ban nuclear power at some point during the plant's lifecycle and the investment loses it's appetite really quick. As a new nuclear plant costs billions of euros - even generating 1m a day - it does not count up to a hefty profit margin. Which makes nuclear the costliest per MWh compared to coal and gas.

Why do you think so? As said in the other thread, we just have to replace about 20% we get from nuclear power plants. Renewable technologies get more and more efficient very fast and if it is certain that we get out of the atomic industry, the huge power companies will spend a lot of money on research, so they can keep their part of the energy cake. I know that the aim is still ambitious, that it won't be cheap and that there is a lot to be done (smart and more powerful power grids, posibilities to store the energy so it can be used when needed etc.) but it can be done. And as "Rage Against the Machine" said: “It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here? What better time than now?"...

I base my information on that Economist article I linked back in the other thread. According to it, the only short-term solution for Germany is gas. I do not have the knowledge to assess the situation any better.

There was a new article in a recent one explaining a bit more about the challenges. Basically, one of the big problems is that unlike nuclear, coal and gas, electricity from renewables is not constant. The current energy grid is not designed to handle such fluctuations. The other problem is that the wind farms will be in the north, the solar panels in south and your industry happens to be somewhere in the middle. This requires hundreds of kilometers of new grid to be built, and as no-one wants high power lines going through their backyard, this has been problematic as well. Even the new high power lines do not solve the balancing problem the renewables cause. The ugly truth is that you can't just plug in the renewables to the grid, unless you want to bring it down.

One interesting thing is also that there is a lot to improve in the grid itself. Currently, around 80% of generated energy is lost in distribution. There is room for improvement there as well. However, how much can be improved, is unclear.

Also, the progress of efficiency improvements in solar and wind leave lot to be desired. Yes, there are lot of hopeful stuff coming out of the research labs, but those do not always scale to real-world solutions as quickly. It would be great if they did.

The enivornment does not benefit from the status quo, but the greens' visions are neither technologically nor economically viable. It would very great if they were.

That's why it is called a vision. It isn't possible today, but if everyone has the will to make it true, it will very likely be possible in the future.

Yes, visions are great, but we would really need something concrete pretty soon.

Phew, I think I never wrote a longer posting in this forum.

Just prepare for the next thread...

[Drasir-Vel]

I honestly believe that if we had a record of the longest post on this forum it would in this thread.

[Pater Alf]

I don't think it's possible to calculate a mathematical or insurance actuarial risk for a nuclear plant. As I said, nuclear plants do not blow up on a regular basis, so a statistical risk model is quite difficult to make (for ex. insurance purposes). Note again that there is not just one class of accidents that a nuclear plant can have but they can range from little to holy-f***-the-planet-is-doomed. I don't know where the 420.000 years is taken and whether the 420.000 is per plant, but such number is in no way accurate.

I can't find the link to that specific statistical risk model again, but at least I found a link to a mathematical model that says that the probability for a nuclear meltdown in Germany is 1 in 30.000 years (per each plant). Which is still nonsense I think...

http://www.ippnw-students.org/chernobyl/meltdown.pdf

However, I still argue that nuclear power is safe. Just like taking a flight is. Yes, there are horrible crashes now and then, but overall, it is safe. Of course, one would also need to define "safe" as in safe for whom, but I would define is just as overall.

Let's compare flights and nuclear power plants:

There were two nuclear meltdowns in 25 years, which means 0,08 meltdowns per year. When we take the the 443 nuclear power plants we have today (and it were fewer 25 years ago), it means we have a risk of about 0,00018.

In comparision there are about 2.5 million passenger flights each year and there were about 30 fatal plane crashes (with passenger jets) each year. Which means only a risk of 0,000012.

It seems to me that flying is much safer...

Neither Chernobyl, Three Mile Island or Fukushima rendered areas nor countries uninhabitable for generations and none of them killed even in thousands. It's fear-mongering and not any start for any reasonable discussion.

I think that is nonsense and you are not reasonable here yourself. If you are looking for the numbers of dead caused by the Chernobyl accident, the numbers range from 4.000 to 150.000 (including the people who died from cancer or other secondary damages.

Sure, we're talking about former Soviet Union block here so I can understand some variation, but really, numbers from 4 000 to 150 000? I could find as low death count attributable to radiation by the accident as 62 (The 2011 UNSCEAR report). I would throw the Greenpace estimates out of the door, because I've yet to see any rational coming out of that bunch (yes, a ad hominem, but those guys are eco-terrorists). But you're right, the total death count attributable to radiation of Chrenobyl will be above thousands. However, most of this was caused by contaminated milk given to children. I couldn't find the 50 000 WHO deaths, but I did find that they estimate 16 000 dead from cancer. Another UN/WHO report put the total death count at less than 10 000.

My numbers came from this article (which was taken from Germany's biggest news magazine): http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mens ... 39,00.html

I just didn't give you the link because it is in German and I wasn't in the mood to search for an English source for every single number. And yes, I wouldn't believe Greenpeace as well. I wouldn't consider them as eco-terrorists, but they certainly tend to manipulate statistics if it fits their aims.

So, yes, I concede that Chernobyl did actually cause thousands of dead, but of course the true amount of human suffering was many magnitudes higher. However, the two other major incidents, Three Mile Island and Fukushima haven't caused anything near that.

You are certainly right about Three Mile Island, but I would be careful to prognosticate any numbers for Fukushima yet. The incident isn't over yet and no one knows what still will happen in the future and if Tepco and the Japanese gouvernment told the whole truth about what happened so far. It isn't a good sign that the accident was lately declared to the highest level on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

About uninhabitable areas: 25 years after the incident there is still a 40-kilometres-in-range exclusion zone around the reactor (which means about 4.300 km²). Certain animals can not live in this zone (e.g. spiders are nearly completely gone) and there is a inourmous health risk for humans to live there for a longer time.
Right after the accident about 3.900.000 km² (40 % of whole Europe) were contaminated with Cäsium-137.

Yes, but you said that there will be areas uninhabitable for generations. There is wildlife in the exclusion zone and the radiation will be within accetable levels in less than a generation. However, I wouldn't move in there even then. So in that sense it will probably be uninhabitable for generations. However, it looks like the ecosystem took the hit quite well - again, considering what happened.

A generation normally means a time span of around 25 years. I can't see that the contamined zone around Chernobyl will be inhabitable again very soon, so I guess I wasn't wrong. And when I wrote uninhabitable I meant uninhabitable for humans. Of course there is wildlife even if some of it is mutated or changed. I think ecosystem can in fact take every hit (climate-change won't be a problem for the eco-system for example), but humans can't.

It's also good to keep in mind that we will, in all likelihood, never see anything like Chernobyl ever again. What happened there is no longer possible by physical laws and they willfully caused the accident. It will most likely stay as the worst nuclear accident ever.

I really hope you are right, but I'm a little sceptical. I heard things like that before and if you would've asked some weeks ago, most people would probably have thought that something like Fukushima isn't able to happen.

I will answer the rest of your post as well, but it will have to wait till tomorrow. It's much harder for me to discuss such political topics in English than I thought.

[Pater Alf]

Damned! By accident I edited your post instead of quoting it. Will try to fix it right away...

Edit: I think I was able to restore the whole post including all links.