Educating the general public about pro nuclear energy?

[HAYAO]

Not so, not from radiation.

UNSCEAR Report, released 2013

http://www.unscear.org/docs/reports/2013/14-06336_Report_2013_Annex_A_Ebook_website.pdf

I'm being pedantic here in following up on an erroneous single claim of radiation poisoning, because there was an avoidable jump in mortality among the old and ill caused by the reaction to the accident, i.e the transfer trauma via the mass evacuation. The mortality increase from those evacuated due to radiation concerns was similar to the increased mortality among "evacuees from tsunami- and earthquake-affected prefectures." Evacuation from, e.g., hospitals for which structures were seriously damaged by the quake/tsunami was likely unavoidable. Evacuation due to fear of radiation was avoidable. Every false claim about radiation deaths adds to the risk that poor choices will be repeated.

Hence the reason why I said precisely "possible" acute radiation syndrome. BTW, I made a mistake because it wasn't acute radiation syndrome but acute leukemia. Due to the sensitive matter at hand, they decided to pay compensation anyway although a this being related to the power plant is unlikely. I believe it's quite unlikely that it is related since radiation don't cause leukemia that fast. BTW, this happened in 2015 so your reference is a bit old.

 

[nikkkom]

Coal is not your main competition.
Solar power reports for 2016 are out.

Total installed generation worldwide: 302 GW
Installed in 2016: 75 GW (13 GW in US)
Fraction of total worldwide electricity production: 1.8% (in US: 1.3%)
Best performing modules are based on mono-crystalline silicon with ~23% efficiency

 

[RogueOne]

Coal is not your main competition.
Solar power reports for 2016 are out.

Total installed generation worldwide: 302 GW
Installed in 2016: 75 GW (13 GW in US)
Fraction of total worldwide electricity production: 1.8% (in US: 1.3%)
Best performing modules are based on mono-crystalline silicon with ~23% efficiency

Installs appear to be high in 2016. How were solar panel sales in 2016? Are these companies expanding and selling more? That market, historically, has been propped up by subsidies. I sense a potential for abrupt correction in that market.

 

[nikkkom]

Federal tax credit of 30%, expired December 31, 2016.
This caused a surge in installations to be finished (or "finished" as far as paperwork is concerned) by that date.

 

[russ_watters]

Coal is not your main competition.
Solar power reports for 2016 are out.

Total installed generation worldwide: 302 GW
Installed in 2016: 75 GW (13 GW in US)
Fraction of total worldwide electricity production: 1.8% (in US: 1.3%)
Best performing modules are based on mono-crystalline silicon with ~23% efficiency

Why do you think those facts support your thesis? They appear to me to be unconnected.

 

[nikkkom]

Most of the new generation in the US in 2016 is solar PV.
Close second is natural gas.
Next place is wind generation.
Nuclear added 1.1 GW (Watts Bar 2).
Coal seems to have added approximately nothing.

 

[mfb]

Most of the new generation in the US in 2016 is solar PV.

And it is still a tiny fraction of the overall electricity production. If we scale the 1.8% to what was installed in 2016, we get 0.45% (this is not exactly true as the generation per installed kW depends on the location where it is installed). If the solar cells last 30 years and the world keeps installing 75 GW per year and just replacing everything else, we would get a long-term contribution of 10-13% solar power, achieved by 2047.

The rate of new photovoltaic installations has to increase massively if they are supposed to replace coal or nuclear power. The storage problem will increase with more solar power.

 

[nikkkom]

And it is still a tiny fraction of the overall electricity production. If we scale the 1.8% to what was installed in 2016, we get 0.45% (this is not exactly true as the generation per installed kW depends on the location where it is installed). If the solar cells last 30 years and the world keeps installing 75 GW per year and just replacing everything else, we would get a long-term contribution of 10-13% solar power, achieved by 2047.

Would you try imagining that world would not keep installing 75 GW per year, but would install more? That is the trend in the past.

 

[russ_watters]

Most of the new generation in the US in 2016 is solar PV.
Close second is natural gas.
Next place is wind generation.
Nuclear added 1.1 GW (Watts Bar 2).
Coal seems to have added approximately nothing.

...ok, but your thesis was:

Coal is not your main competition.
Solar...

So, a couple of things:
1. Looking back a decade and further in the USA, it has been true since the dawn of nuclear power that coal and nuclear were the biggest baseload components of electrical generation, and they were essentially an either-or choice.
2. Looking back 10 years and forward for probably the next 10-20, the situation is different, with coal and natural gas fighting each other for production.

To the point, though: "competition" and "new generation capacity" don't appear to me to be synonomous (even if we set aside the disingenous nature of comparing something with a capacity factor of 20% to something else at 90%!). To me, competition is based on how much each produces because that's how each can actually impact the other (swinging prices by supply and demand). And as mfb said, at least for the US, solar power is still just a minor blip. If you look at graphs of production, you can see how the large sources trade generation back and forth -- but solar doesn't even appear on such graphs because it is too small to see at all.

The facts and claims you provided seem to switch back and forth between capacity and generation, USA and world. And they don't seem to have much to do with each other.

Would you try imagining that world would not keep installing 75 GW per year, but would install more? That is the trend in the past.

One of the signs of irrelevancy is having massive fractional increases in capacity resulting in still not having enough generation to show up on a graph comparing sources by output. It can have massive percentage increases because the actual capacity and output increases are still pretty small. As the actual capacity and output numbers get high enough for solar to become relevant, then the percentage increases will drop. It's already starting to happen, 2016 adds (maybe) notwithstanding.

Another measure of relevance: Solar presents problems for integration into the grid because of its limited availability that depends on mother nature's whims instead of an automatic throttle. Fortunately for solar, though, it is still such a small fraction of our power production that such issues are not relevant yet.

 

[mheslep]

Coal is not your main competition.

Politically, perhaps, as reflected by some of claims in this thread, including that post.

Globally in 2015 108 GW of new coal came online, and 77 GW in 2016 as China slowed. As of January 2017, the combination of all new coal plants either under construction or planned (i.e announced, permitted or pre-permitted) was 842 GW (1597 plants). The statistics indicate about third of these are under-construction, and its typical that many of the plants now in planning will be eventually cancelled. Unsurprisingly China still has the highest total though its slowed, but coal in the next highest half dozen countries (by new coal rank) is expanding rapidly: India, Turkey, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, Egypt, Bangladesh. Of course most of these countries don't have renewable portfolio mandates or tax subsidies for intermittent power. No new traditional coal plants are currently under construction in the United States. Multiple sources listedhttp://endcoal.org/global-coal-plant-tracker/methodology/, and aggregated http://endcoal.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Jan-2017-Proposed-by-country-MW.pdf, and http://endcoal.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Jan-2017-Proposed-by-country-units.pdf.

Solar power reports for 2016 are out.

Total installed generation worldwide: 302 GW
Installed in 2016: 75 GW (13 GW in US)
Fraction of total worldwide electricity production: 1.8% (in US: 1.3%)
Best performing modules are based on mono-crystalline silicon with ~23% efficiency

Assuming an annual average solar PV capacity factor of 16%, global solar generation from the cumulative installed solar base was 1.2 TWh/day when available, where as the new coal installed in the single year 2015 would have generated 1.3 TWh/day (assuming 50% capacity factor).

The evolution of solar power in some countries now has a history. Solar is rapidly installed for awhile up to high single digit share of power when subsidized, ~7% Germany 2016, and then slows to a trickle, as it becomes apparent that though some fossil fuel plants throttle back a bit, few of them close as a result, an expensive proposition (Germany 49 GW of coal in 2002, 49 GW of coal in 2017, and German natural gas capacity increased 47% over the same period). Germany even has a new large (1.1 GW) coal plant under construction at Datteln. German CO2 emissions are increasing the last few years.

 

[mheslep]

A look at the countries that have strongly invested in solar for many years indicates the solar trend is hot for awhile and then trickles out as the value of over supplied intermittent falls.

Germany installed solar as fast as 7 GW/yr in 2010, averaged 3 GW/yr for several years. Now they are down to 1.4 GW/yr, with 0.2 GW/yr required for replacement. Spain similarly slowed. California leads the US in new solar installation, but because of the growing daytime solar spike must now ramp up 13 GW of conventional power in three hours as solar fades in the evening, a scenario which is not practical to scale.

Germany still obtains over half generation from fossil fuel and 60% from all combustion. France by contrast pushed fossil fuels from 100% of non-hydro generation to single digit share in a dozen years via nuclear.

 

[Davy_Crockett]

Some discussion above about judgment and risk: “Somebody uncovered evidence of huge tidal waves within recorded history…”

Indeed. As ol' jim reminds us, stone tablets designed as permanent structures and labeling high water marks, detail the levels of previous floods in Japan. These markers, including the record of the similar June 15, 1896 tsunami which killed 26,975 and wounded 5,390 were ignored. Anecdotally, one of the stone markers was specifically where the most recent tsunami damage topped out.

I like the point that there is “group think” just as there is “group denial.” A number of sober minded people just blanked on proofing the construction against a repeat of the 1896 tsunami. I attribute this to a human inability to grasp intuitively, large numbers or large time scales.

As a society, we will need to leave similar markers for those centuries in the future, who may attempt to uncover deposits of spent nuclear fuel.

 

[Davy_Crockett]

But to answer your question as I see it: "Pardon my ignorance, but why would nuclear energy be a better option, I hear a lot of fears from the general public of why it is not safe?"

You mean a better option than the wood, coal, oil and natural gas burning...?

Primarily, there are scientists who intuit from their calculations that when all the kindergarteners of today fully mature and take the reins of society, life will be miserable and too hard for them because there will be no wild fish to eat and it will be hard to keep a crop from seed to harvest, and difficult to draw water from the ground in some places. Others places will have too much rain and the rivers will overflow and not go down and the waters will come near to the buildings and streets will flood and not empty.

In decades beyond that, the air will be turbulent and seas will be so stormy that trade and commerce will become intermittent. Fires will start over tens of thousands of hectares together and storms will converge over your country for weeks if not months on end. And it just keeps going like that, growing harder to prosper for generation after generation.

Compared with this, the risks of nuclear bomb proliferation, poisonous places that will exist until the end of time, and the massive costs to build all the power stations needed, is less and nuclear power they say is a better choice.

But better than a low-power lifestyle with a distributed "internet" model of non-combusting renewable power generation? No it would not be a better option.

 

[DrDu]

Pardon my ignorance, but why would nuclear energy be better option, I hear a lot of fears from the general public of why it is not safe?
How would someone convince someones fear about the safety of nuclear power, considering what happened in Japan?

cheers,

When Chernobyl happened, I was in German high school. I built my first Geiger counter and also tried to estimate the radiation dose a baby would get from radioactive iodine in contaminated milk powder.
Some people tried to convince us that with modern western reactors such an accident could never happen.
Now some 30 years after Chernobyl, two different reactors ran into desaster in one of the highest industrialized nations of the world.
So no excuse this time.
We saw the reactors spectacularly blowing up though some people here in the forum will hasten to point out that it wasn't a nuclear explosion but only hydrogen.

At that time, I was working in the field of radiation protection. What stuck me most, was how the accident was handled and the disinformation of the public. For example, Japan has a real-time network to control environmental gamma-dose rate which you normally can watch on-line on internet. However, for the relevant districts it was off-line for weeks and nobody is going to tell me that this was due to the Earth quake or tunami. Even years after the accident, treatment of the contaminated water is a big problem, most of it is handled with plastic gardening hoses and lot of it ended up in the sea. There seemed neither to exist a plan A nor a plan B for nuclear accidents.

When HAYAO mentions that the accident has caused only 2-3 deaths among workers, you should also mention that thousands of people were forced to leave their homes permanently and precious ground has been lost in one of the most densely populated areas on earth.
Furthermore, people from Fukushima are being stigmatized in Japanese society.

This is not mainly a question of technical safety, it is a question of how nuclear energy lost all credibility.

 

[russ_watters]

Some people tried to convince us that with modern western reactors such an accident could never happen.

It can't. But don't misunderstand that to mean people are saying no accident can happen.

Where the rubber meets the road for me is that I live 10 miles from a nuclear plant and when evaluating the likelihood that it could kill me (or leave me homeless), I can't use Fukushima and Chernobyl as examples of the type of accident I might see here. Unfortunately(?), there are no examples of a severity of Fukushima and Chernobyl accident of a type I might see here, so it is very difficult to judge the true risk --- and only possible to accept it is very, very - immeasurably - low.

We saw the reactors spectacularly blowing up though some people here in the forum will hasten to point out that it wasn't a nuclear explosion but only hydrogen.

You don't think the difference is important? I think it is important to point it out because some people appear to have the incorrect understanding that a nuclear explosion is possible.

At that time, I was working in the field of radiation protection. What stuck me most, was how the accident was handled and the disinformation of the public. For example, Japan has a real-time network to control environmental gamma-dose rate which you normally can watch on-line on internet. However, for the relevant districts it was off-line for weeks...

Could you post a link to this system please.

When HAYAO mentions that the accident has caused only 2-3 deaths among workers, you should also mention that thousands of people were forced to leave their homes permanently and precious ground has been lost in one of the most densely populated areas on earth.

That is unlikely to be true, and while a common complaint of nuclear power, it is something people choose to live with for other industrial issues (both accidents and normal operation). So my question would be: why is a higher standard demanded of nuclear power?

This is not mainly a question of technical safety, it is a question of how nuclear energy lost all credibility.

This appears to me to be a symptom of the expectations gap I mentioned earlier in the thread. You believe nuclear should be held to a very high standard (perfection?) and believe it has been promised, so when a failure happens, you decided "nuclear energy lost all credibility" instead of fairly evaluating the accident and the industry in general against other industries. If someone over-promised that is unfortunate, but that should not stop you from pointing a fair and critical eye at the issue.

 

[DrDu]

Could you post a link to this system please.

It was the SPEEDI network, however, the web address has changed and I don't know an actual address:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_monitoring_in_Japan#SPEEDI_Network

 

[DrDu]

It can't. But don't misunderstand that to mean people are saying no accident can happen.

You don't think the difference is important? I think it is important to point it out because some people appear to have the incorrect understanding that a nuclear explosion is possible.

Of course the difference is important, but I personally would have expected the outer containments to resist an explosion of hydrogen.

That is unlikely to be true, and while a common complaint of nuclear power, it is something people choose to live with for other industrial issues (both accidents and normal operation). So my question would be: why is a higher standard demanded of nuclear power?

I don't know of any other civil industry which would have made necessary emergency evacuations of the dimensions of Japan or Chernobyl.

If someone over-promised that is unfortunate, but that should not stop you from pointing a fair and critical eye at the issue.

From Dr. Strangelove:
Muffley:

anger rising General Turgidson, when you instituted the human reliability tests, you assured me there was no possibility of such a thing ever occurring.

Turgidson:

Well I don't think it's quite fair to condemn a whole program because of a single slip up sir.

 

[russ_watters]

Of course the difference is important, but I personally would have expected the outer containments to resist an explosion of hydrogen.

Fair enough, but those appear to be completely separate issues to me. Why did you mention nuclear explosions at all?

I don't know of any other civil industry which would have made necessary emergency evacuations of the dimensions of Japan or Chernobyl.

What? Emergency evacuations are a daily occurrence in all manner of civilian (residential) concerns, industry, government, etc. I can't tell if you are purposely trying to constrain the criteria to include only Fukushima and Chernobyl or just haven't put any thought into this, but please try to keep your eye on the ball.

From Dr. Strangelove:

Dr. Strangelove is an intentionally absurd fictional character. Again: it is not reasonable to respond to unreasonable with unreasonable. Two wrongs do not make a right. More pointedly: it is just as wrong for you to apply unreasonable criteria as it would be for someone else to make an unreasonable claim of safety. You cannot use someone else's unreasonablenees as an excuse for your own.

 

[anorlunda]

Indeed. As ol' jim reminds us, stone tablets designed as permanent structures and labeling high water marks, detail the levels of previous floods in Japan. These markers, including the record of the similar June 15, 1896 tsunami which killed 26,975 and wounded 5,390 were ignored. Anecdotally, one of the stone markers was specifically where the most recent tsunami damage topped out.

I have not followed this whole thread. But I think debating risk aversion strictly in terms of nuclear is misleading.

Reaction the the learned tsunami risk in Japan might have included much more than the nuclear risk, one could argue that the entire coastal regions of Japan should not be populated.

Similarly, it seems only a question of time that California will slide into the ocean. Shouldn't responsible authorities act to depopulate it now? (I say that only partially with tongue in cheek.)

My point is that nuclear risks are small compared to the general risks of natural disasters. If we want to argue for precautionary measures against natural disasters, it should include all possible measures up to and including depopulation.

 

[russ_watters]

I have not followed this whole thread. But I think debating risk aversion strictly in terms of nuclear is misleading.

Reaction the the learned tsunami risk in Japan might have included much more than the nuclear risk, one could argue that the entire coastal regions of Japan should not be populated.

Similarly, it seems only a question of time that California will slide into the ocean. Shouldn't responsible authorities act to depopulate it now? (I say that only partially with tongue in cheek.)

My point is that nuclear risks are small compared to the general risks of natural disasters. If we want to argue for precautionary measures against natural disasters, it should include all possible measures up to and including depopulation.

Agreed! We definitely need to keep our eye on the ball here. I was just thinking that in response to the disaster, shouldn't all buildings - existing and new - in Japan be constructed/upgraded to withstand a 9.0 earthquake and all in a tsunami zone be similarly upgraded if possible or abandoned if not? After all, that's the standard we hold the nuclear plant to and the nuclear plant didn't kill anyone (?) whereas normal buildings/homes/cars killed 15,000 people!

In response to the incident, all nuclear plants in Japan were shut off, presumably due to fear that they might also melt down. Why weren't the cities abandoned for fear the buildings might collapse?

[edit]
Minor quibble on that last part that should be evident from my post: if the concern is leaving a populace displaced, we shouldn't be de-populating but rather forcing *all* structures to be built to withstand the natural disasters. Not that that'll help California, though -- they're screwed.

 

[mheslep]

...June 15, 1896 tsunami which killed 26,975 and wounded 5,390 were ignored. Anecdotally, one of the stone markers was specifically where the most recent tsunami damage topped out.

I like the point that there is “group think” just as there is “group denial.” A number of sober minded people just blanked ...

I think group think is avoided by diligent reference of primary source material and by avoiding blanket assertions and anecdotes about what people do or don't do.

 

[mheslep]

When Chernobyl happened, I was in German high school. I built my first Geiger counter and also tried to estimate the radiation dose a baby would get from radioactive iodine in contaminated milk powder.
Some people tried to convince us that with modern western reactors such an accident could never happen.
Now some 30 years after Chernobyl, two different reactors ran into desaster in one of the highest industrialized nations of the world.
So no excuse this time.
We saw the reactors spectacularly blowing up though some people here in the forum will hasten to point out that it wasn't a nuclear explosion but only hydrogen.

At that time, I was working in the field of radiation protection. What stuck me most, was how the accident was handled and the disinformation of the public. For example, Japan has a real-time network to control environmental gamma-dose rate which you normally can watch on-line on internet. Even years after the accident, treatment of the contaminated water is a big problem, most of it is handled with plastic gardening hoses and lot of it ended up in the sea. There seemed neither to exist a plan A nor a plan B for nuclear accidents.

When HAYAO mentions that the accident has caused only 2-3 deaths among workers, you should also mention that thousands of people were forced to leave their homes permanently and precious ground has been lost in one of the most densely populated areas on earth.
Furthermore, people from Fukushima are being stigmatized in Japanese society.

This is not mainly a question of technical safety, it is a question of how nuclear energy lost all credibility.

This post in an engineering forum is in blatant violation of PF rules, willfully indulging in conspiracy theory and false information, comparable to anti-vaccine propaganda.

Conspiracy theory:

However, for the relevant districts it was off-line for weeks and nobody is going to tell me that this was due to the Earth quake or tunami

.False information:

...you should also mention that thousands of people were forced to leave their homes permanently and precious ground has been lost in one of the most densely populated areas on earth

The evacuation was tragic but is not "permanent" any more than the destruction of Hiroshima was permanent. The gradual reduction of exclusion area over time has been widely reported. Per wiki, Japan in general ranks 40th in the world in population density at 336/km^2 and the Fukushima area in 2010 had population density 144/km^2, similar to that of Guatemala.

 

[DrDu]

Conspiracy theory:

I was constantly following the SPEEDI homepage at that time and the closest site for which data were available was Ibaraki, which is half way to Tokyo from Fukushima. When the wind changed after some days you could see how dose rates rised about 100 times, but for Fukushima and neighbouring provinces no data were available, even weeks after the accident.

 

[gmax137]

...I personally would have expected the outer containments to resist an explosion of hydrogen.

As far as I know, the hydrogen was outside containment when it ignited. The "outer containment" is a sheet metal building, normally maintained slightly below atmospheric pressure (to allow filtering of any normal leakage from the auxiliary systems). It is not designed for internal pressure. Maybe @Hiddencamper can chime in here with more specifics. The videos are certainly dramatic, but they do not show containment failure due to hydrogen explosion.

There was a lot of discussion about the SPEEDI system (and its problems) in the Fukushima threads.

 

[russ_watters]

When Chernobyl happened...

Some people tried to convince us that with modern western reactors such an accident could never happen.
Now some 30 years after Chernobyl, two different reactors ran into desaster in one of the highest industrialized nations of the world.
So no excuse this time.
We saw the reactors spectacularly blowing up...

This is not mainly a question of technical safety, it is a question of how nuclear energy lost all credibility.

Something that came up but hasn't been addressed very directly is the relationship between Fukushima and Chernobyl; Comments like the above imply some equivalence between the accidents, when the reality is that they were very different in terms of causes and effects:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Fukushima_and_Chernobyl_nuclear_accidents

https://www.nei.org/Master-Document...heets/Japan-Comparing-Chernobyl-And-Fukushima

Some key facts to consider when comparing them:
Already mentioned is the fact that Fukushima was precipitated by twin natural disasters; the tsunami primarily (9.0 earthquake? yawn - survived without significant issues). Chernobyl was purely human-caused. As a result, the applicability of human error as pertains to Chernobyl should be seen as wider than Fukushima. Yes, human miscalculation led to the design flaw at Fukushima, but even still there just aren't many places where such natural disasters are possible.

The Fukushima disaster involved 4 reactors and ancillary facilities wheres Chernobyl involved one. So was Fukushima four disasters or one? It is generally considered one due to the timing, causes and effects coinciding. But it shouldn't be overlooked that because it was four reactors, Fukushima involved four times as much radioactive material as Chernobyl.

Luck is often cited in pointing out that 80% of the radioactive material released at Fukushima went out to sea instead of contaminating the land. But it wasn't luck that despite involving four times as much nuclear material, Fukushima only released 1/10th as much into the environment as Chernobyl. That was superior design -- related then to the "human-caused" first point for Chernobyl.

Somewhat more indirect is this "credibility" question as pertains to the response. It certainly is not ever binary ("lost all credibility") because in addition to the superior design, the Fukushima accident benefitted from a superior response that almost certainly saved lives.

When estimating nuclear safety it is important to keep these differences in mind. Unfortunately(?) Fukushima is not universally applicable because of its unique natural disaster risk and unfortunately(?) there haven't been any univerally applicable accidents from which to get a direct measure of risk. That is; unless Three Mile Island represents the real worst-case for univerally applicable risk.

 

[nikkkom]

When Chernobyl happened, I was in German high school. I built my first Geiger counter and also tried to estimate the radiation dose a baby would get from radioactive iodine in contaminated milk powder.
Some people tried to convince us that with modern western reactors such an accident could never happen.
Now some 30 years after Chernobyl, two different reactors ran into desaster in one of the highest industrialized nations of the world.
So no excuse this time.
We saw the reactors spectacularly blowing up though some people here in the forum will hasten to point out that it wasn't a nuclear explosion but only hydrogen.

At that time, I was working in the field of radiation protection. What stuck me most, was how the accident was handled and the disinformation of the public. For example, Japan has a real-time network to control environmental gamma-dose rate which you normally can watch on-line on internet. However, for the relevant districts it was off-line for weeks and nobody is going to tell me that this was due to the Earth quake or tunami.

I totally agree with the above.

Even years after the accident, treatment of the contaminated water is a big problem, most of it is handled with plastic gardening hoses and lot of it ended up in the sea.

Well, this part is not really justified.
What pipes did you expect, 10cm thick steel? Not practical, and not necessary.
All the radiation which ended in the sea is the _least_ harmful part of the fallout. We in Chernobyl did not have a luxury of wind blowing most of it into an ocean :(

When HAYAO mentions that the accident has caused only 2-3 deaths among workers, you should also mention that thousands of people were forced to leave their homes permanently and precious ground has been lost in one of the most densely populated areas on earth.

Exactly. Economic losses are enormous, at least $200 billion.

 

[nikkkom]

When estimating nuclear safety it is important to keep these differences in mind. Unfortunately(?) Fukushima is not universally applicable because of its unique natural disaster risk

There is nothing unique in being criminally negligent in assessing risks from natural disasters. Of the top of my head, I know two more reactors, in two other countries, which came much closer to being flooded that they ever should have been. There is absolutely no reason to think that TEPCO are fscking idiots but everybody else is top notch.

 

[russ_watters]

There is nothing unique in being criminally negligent in assessing risks from natural disasters.

The natural disasters themselves were what I said was unique - I think I said that negligence is universal, but negligence alone has not shown to be enough in the West. But that brings up a related point:

Some 16000 people died in the event, presumably mostly when structures failed to protect them from the earthquake or tsunami. I presume that very few of those deaths will be/have been pinned on criminal negligence of the designers/builders. So my question is: why is one criminally negligent and the other not?

And if your answer is: "because a code/law/court says so", I want you to go deeper: why, as compassionate and technically savvy people do we accept such a vast expectations/safety gap?

 

[nikkkom]

The natural disasters themselves were what I said was unique - I think I said that negligence is universal, but negligence alone has not shown to be enough in the West.

On the contrary. Fukushima disaster was caused by negligence in assessing risks from natural disasters. It's a fact.

Or to put it another way: an "experiment" occurred - Nature tested the hypothesis "are Western nuclear power utilities unable to correctly assess risks from natural disasters?" and the experimental answer is - "yes, they are unable to do so".

 

[mfb]

Nature tested the hypothesis "are Western nuclear power utilities unable to correctly assess risks from natural disasters?" and the experimental answer is - "yes, they are unable to do so".

I see a different answer. More than 99% of all nuclear power plants were able to survive all disasters that happened in all their operational history. A single one failed in one instance due to one of the largest natural disasters of recent history - with a small damage compared to the natural disaster itself.

Exactly. Economic losses are enormous, at least $200 billion.

A bit less than 0.2 cent/kWh distributed over the last 50 years of nuclear power.

The earthquake and tsunami caused more than $200 billion damage, the World Bank estimates $235 billion.

 

[nikkkom]

I see a different answer. More than 99% of all nuclear power plants were able to survive all disasters that happened in all their operational history.

This is much worse than nuclear industry was promising in their PRAs. If PRAs were correct, statistically we should not have had even one power reactor meltdown. We had four already.

Nuclear industry never said to us that they will sometimes completely fsck up assessment of risks from natural disasters - but we should not worry, because when that fsck-up causes "local" Cs-137 dust fallout with "only" a thousand square kilometers evacuated, globally it is not as bad as it looks.

 

[ChrisVer]

In general I want to follow this thread, but right now I have to rush for a bus...
So I am just going to say that I believe that nuclear power plants are good for humanity no matter what the media say... afterall the media are not independent from governments, and since governments started funding green energy sources, they are trying to ridicule all the pros of nuclear power.
There are risks in everything... You take a risk when you enter a plane to travel from your London to NY... I haven't heard the media crying for how dangerous everyday flights can be.

 

[mfb]

If PRAs were correct, statistically we should not have had even one power reactor meltdown. We had four already.

We had one Western power plant that released a large amount of radioactive material.
What happens inside the containment is interesting, but ultimatively only what reaches the outside is relevant for the dangers of nuclear power.

 

[russ_watters]

On the contrary. Fukushima disaster was caused by negligence in assessing risks from natural disasters. It's a fact.

Ehem: what you just said was negligence + natural disaster. You're trying reeaaly hard to disagree with me, but not.

And don't think I didn't notice you declined to answer the question I asked you. It's one thing to react badly to emotions, but dodging questions takes a a conscious effort to avoid analysis you don't want to do (or already know leads in a direction you don't want to go).

Economic losses are enormous, at least $200 billion.

And were made worse by some $30 billion per year due to the irrational overreaction/decision to shut-down all the nuclear reactors in the country.

This is much worse than nuclear industry was promising in their PRAs. If PRAs were correct, statistically we should not have had even one power reactor meltdown. We had four already.

So what. If I offer you a thousand dollars and then renege and only give you 100, that's still a gift. A failed promise/prediction does not make nuclear power unsafe it just makes it a little less spectacularly safe than predicted.

Please keep your eye on the ball and make an effort to improve your posting quality.

 

[HAYAO]

In general I want to follow this thread, but right now I have to rush for a bus...
So I am just going to say that I believe that nuclear power plants are good for humanity no matter what the media say... afterall the media are not independent from governments, and since governments started funding green energy sources, they are trying to ridicule all the pros of nuclear power.
There are risks in everything... You take a risk when you enter a plane to travel from your London to NY... I haven't heard the media crying for how dangerous everyday flights can be.

This is an interesting point because at that time of the Fukushima disaster, the government was actually pro-nuclear and the media was strongly against it. In Japan, media and the government always go the opposite ways. One of the things I hate about media in Japan is that they are given too much freedom. While I agree that they should be separated from the government and that they should have the freedom of speech, media in Japan is WWWAAAYYYY too biased, so much that people still believe that nuclear disaster cause cancer in like two days, and everyone in Japan is affected by it and they are going to get cancer one way or another. Some people believed in country wide nuclear fallout.

 

[DrDu]

It is not designed for internal pressure.

Another one for the list.

 

[DrDu]

Coming back to the title of the thread "
Educating the general public about pro nuclear energy?"

Let's go back to the 1950ies. Everybody was excited about nuclear energy, its possibilities, especially politicians and the general public, nuclear energy was supported by immense public investments. People were much more interested in science than nowadays.
So you had already all you asked for at the very beginning.

 

[DrDu]

One of the things I hate about media in Japan is that they are given too much freedom.

The point is that people see life pictures of exploding reactors, scattered fuel rods and the like in real time while Japanese politicians seemed to act headless and either not to possesses sufficient information or, even worse, keep it secret.
Press and television want information, and immediately. They go for the one who cries loudest and offers most rapidly.
This was very similar in Germany after the accident in Chernobyl when Germany also received part of the fallout. There, as a reaction the federal radiation protection agency (BfS) was founded. They take great care (bad tongues may say even more than about their employees scientific qualification) that their employees are able to present their assessments of the situation in television and be able to communicate with the press within half an hour, if necessary. They have experts for risk communication.

Nevertheless nuclear energy has turned such a hot potato, if not to say scorched Earth for politicians that e.g. the German government lead by christian democratic union, once the party of the biggest proponents of nuclear energy, declared to exit nuclear energy completely.
I fear this process is world wide irreversible.
I also don't think it is fair to blame the press. Nuclear energy had an excellent start in the 1950ies where it was promoted by governments and enormous public investments where made. Public was enthusiastic and people where much more interested in science.
The list of possible causes for this failiure could be very long, but I think the main problem was the hybris and arrogance of nuclear energies proponents.

 

[HAYAO]

The point is that people see life pictures of exploding reactors, scattered fuel rods and the like in real time while Japanese politicians seemed to act headless and either not to possesses sufficient information or, even worse, keep it secret.
Press and television want information, and immediately. They go for the one who cries loudest and offers most rapidly.
This was very similar in Germany after the accident in Chernobyl when Germany also received part of the fallout. There, as a reaction the federal radiation protection agency (BfS) was founded. They take great care (bad tongues may say even more than about their employees scientific qualification) that their employees are able to present their assessments of the situation in television and be able to communicate with the press within half an hour, if necessary. They have experts for risk communication.

Nevertheless nuclear energy has turned such a hot potato, if not to say scorched Earth for politicians that e.g. the German government lead by christian democratic union, once the party of the biggest proponents of nuclear energy, declared to exit nuclear energy completely.
I fear this process is world wide irreversible.
I also don't think it is fair to blame the press. Nuclear energy had an excellent start in the 1950ies where it was promoted by governments and enormous public investments where made. Public was enthusiastic and people where much more interested in science.
The list of possible causes for this failiure could be very long, but I think the main problem was the hybris and arrogance of nuclear energies proponents.

I think it's quite fair to blame the press as much as the politicians and executives. They caused more panic than anything else with wrong information. The government was indeed hiding tons of things and making wrong judgements, which I heavily criticized of in several of the posts before this. Under this standard, the media is even worse. They are giving wrong information, biased information, and leaving out everything else that is more important (especially how it will affect our health). This has been mentioned in the first post from me on this thread. I find it extremely strange that the media is criticizing nuclear power plants itself instead of politicians and executives that clung so hard to the political side of it more than safeties.

 

[DrDu]

I think it's quite fair to blame the press as much as the politicians and executives. They caused more panic than anything else with wrong information. The government was indeed hiding tons of things and making wrong judgements, which I heavily criticized of in several of the posts before this. Under this standard, the media is even worse. They are giving wrong information, biased information, and leaving out everything else that is more important (especially how it will affect our health). This has been mentioned in the first post from me on this thread. I find it extremely strange that the media is criticizing nuclear power plants itself instead of politicians and executives that clung so hard to the political side of it more than safeties.

Another parallel between Japan and Germany. Both lost the war - in Japan also due to nuclear power - and got CNN.
Well, better CNN than politicians that claim to be Gods.

 

[Davy_Crockett]

I think group think is avoided by diligent reference of primary source material and by avoiding blanket assertions and anecdotes about what people do or don't do.

I do not need to reference the minutes of some obscure meetings, if that’s what you mean.

1) Team knew about the high water markers 2) Team did not know about the high water markers: Both indicate negligence Prima Facie.
OR/ Team considered the evidence of high water markers and miscalculated the risk of future events. Okay then, people do make mistakes.

So how did the design, planning, and approval process result in a failure to be adequately prepared?

It is not worthy of derision when terms such as "group think," "group denial," "herd mentality" and "Inability to intuitively grasp large time scales" are bandied about.

A repeat of the tsunami in 1896 was apparently not anticipated, even though...in relation to the anticipated custody chain of a spent fuel dump…the last tsunami event happened, "Yesterday."

Why is this worth defending? There is a lengthy build time, a lengthy operating time, and a lengthy decommissioning time for power plants. Flood risk analysis is critical.

Problem: If local sea level rise is 3.4mm/year and the rate doubles every 5 years, how soon will EXCO have to begin decommissioning the plant in order to assure completion of the task?

 

[HAYAO]

Another parallel between Japan and Germany. Both lost the war - in Japan also due to nuclear power - and got CNN.

Well I used to watch CNN when I lived in the States. But CNN isn't very popular in Japan. I barely watch them and they only air at specific time of the day unlike in the States where they have designated channel for themselves.

Well, better CNN than politicians that claim to be Gods.

Both (I mean the media in Japan, not CNN) are equally bad to me.

 

[UsableThought]

I've been lurking w/ interest; and have just now gone back through this lengthy thread to revisit where it's been & where it's going.

I liked very much some of the earlier discussion of, for example, the risks and costs of coal vs. nuclear; and also solar was briefly discussed. However at the moment it's focused only on nuclear in isolation. It seems to me that the earlier comments pointed to what might be more useful - namely, looking at risks, economic/logistic constraints, and benefits for all feasible electric power sources in future; and not just nuclear's risks in isolation. In particular I'd be interested in hearing if anyone has good sources for such an analysis? I am putting books that touch on risk, including technological & environmental risks, onto my reading list; but that's a long-term project for me.

(This post heavily edited to make it more relevant - UT.)

 

[nikkkom]

Some 16000 people died in the event, presumably mostly when structures failed to protect them from the earthquake or tsunami. I presume that very few of those deaths will be/have been pinned on criminal negligence of the designers/builders. So my question is: why is one criminally negligent and the other not?

How about researching it. No one in Japan raised any questions about tsunami deaths? There were no lawsuits? You are sure?

 

[nikkkom]

So what. If I offer you a thousand dollars and then renege and only give you 100, that's still a gift.

It wasn't a gift. It was a promise based on which general public agreed that this technology can be allowed. Nuclear industry failed to keep it.

It is not a gift also in a sense that nuclear power is not even competitive on cost.

A failed promise/prediction does not make nuclear power unsafe it just makes it a little less spectacularly safe than predicted.

Your definition of "spectacularly safe" is... er... "interesting".

 

[UsableThought]

Your definition of "spectacularly safe" is... er... "interesting".

To reiterate the point I made in comment #93, how safe are fossil fuel power plants given whatever their contribution is to global warming? Wouldn't that need to be part of the discussion? If options exist, the safety of any give option is relative to the others, not absolute.

 

[nikkkom]

To reiterate the point I made in comment #93, how safe are fossil fuel power plants given whatever their contribution is to global warming? Isn't safety relative rather than absolute?

Where do you see me promoting replacing nuclear with fossil fuel power plants?

 

[UsableThought]

Where do you see me promoting replacing nuclear with fossil fuel power plants?

Sorry, I think I asked my question poorly. Let me try again. The question of "fossil risk vs. nuclear risk" is merely a single example - admittedly crude - to illustrate that at the moment, the thread seems to have narrowed down to nuclear power risk in isolation. Which seems unlikely to be all that fruitful.

However, maybe the larger perspective that I would like to see has already been brought up, and those comments have run their course? I see that earlier, @mfb, @HAYAO, and @russ_watters brought up & discussed costs & risks associated with coal vs. nuclear; e.g. see russ_watters's post #15 and his comment #21 and various of HAYAO's responses; and mfb's comment #27 and Jim Hardy's #28. And I see that you in various comments, e.g. #52 and #56, brought up facts about solar & started a good side discussion about that.

I guess what I would really like to see, if anyone has it handy, is links to studies or analysis from outside sources that attempt to develop & quantify power alternatives for the future more rigorously. As I mentioned (in my edited comment above) I have a couple of primers coming to me in the mail that deal w/ risk and probability analysis; these may help me with my question, but not immediately.

 

[nikkkom]

Sorry, I think I asked my question poorly. Let me try again. The question of "fossil risk vs. nuclear risk" is merely a single example - admittedly crude - to illustrate that at the moment, the thread seems to have narrowed down to nuclear power risk in isolation. Which seems unlikely to be all that fruitful.

Correct. Risks should be compared for different energy sources, and it's unlikely that we will ever have a power source which is completely safe (no one ever dies or is harmed by it).

There are plenty of studies out there; a pity that many of them are biased one way or another.

 

[Thermo]

It's like traveling by plane. Better than traveling by car or bus but once it crashes survival rates are quite low. However, the possibility of the accidents is actually lower than that of cars. Planes are also faster and cleaner in terms of air pollution of cities.