And (before you answer), make sure to read Scott Alexander's Livejournal post (linked by ggreer above) in its entirety. Make sure to pay especially careful attention to the last five paragraphs. :)
The Germany situation is mentioned in Scott Alexander's Livejournal post, linked above. Keep in mind that that post was written a little while after the tsunami came in and wrecked stuff, so it's pretty old.
Nuclear plants are really good base-load plants. I guess that you can design a national power grid that's supplied largely by renewables, but I suspect that it's very hard and not cheap.
1) Infrastructure projects always appear expensive to the layman. The correct way to price power generation projects is to look at the expected actual cost per MW over the lifetime of the generation facility, and to factor in -as best you can- actual externalities related to the operation of the facility.
2) As I understand it, the hard part of nuclear power isn't the engineering and construction; that's a solved problem. The hard part is fighting pervasive, irrational anti-nuclear-power sentiment.
I think the engineering and construction is not a solved problem (+nuclear waste). All new plants have construction delays and cost overruns.
Of course, one could argue that overly strict regulations (which may only exist because of public concerns) are the reason for these problems. But the reason for the safety of the existing reactors are these strict regulations, so I think loosening these rules is not a good idea.
The US already has many-decades-old well-understood, field-tested fission reactor designs. The construction of those is a solved problem. As I understand it, France and several other countries have substantially newer, field-tested fission reactor designs. I've heard that there exist still-newer fission reactor designs that have not been constructed at large power-plant scale.
So, the engineering and construction of the power plant is a solved problem. The political problem of what to do with the fission products is -sadly- not a solved problem in the US.
> All new plants have construction delays and cost overruns.
Cost overruns are -sadly- a symptom of our not-infrequently-nuts-as-shit federal bidding process. Construction delays are a symptom of our failure to enact a system similar to some other countries where -after a lengthy plan-scrutinization and public comment period- approved public works projects become law and are immune to construction delays due to public outrage, outcry, legal challenge, or general meddling.
None of that is unique to fission power plan construction. :)
> delays due to public outrage, outcry, legal challenge, or general meddling
I think you're confused. He means delays due to engineering/construction issues, not political issues. If you are claiming these do not exist, then you are out to lunch and not talking seriously.
Furthermore, politics is a factor in nuclear safety. Consider that the Fukushima plant life was extended beyond its advisable lifespan. This was almost certainly because the idea looked like the cheaper one at the time, since shutting down a nuclear plant is a lengthy and expensive process. Keeping it running is politically a very tempting option, and such human factors will dominate safety considerations long after anything has been "solved".
I'm not. ju-st is implying either that we don't know how to build power plant sized fission reactors, that we've never built and operated one successfully and safely for decades, or both.
All projects in the US have delays and cost overruns. I addressed this in my reply to his comment. That doesn't mean that the design and construction of the thing being constructed isn't a solved problem.
> Consider that the Fukushima plant life was extended beyond its ["advisable"] lifespan.
And yet:
> When you hit a nuclear plant with the fifth largest earthquake ever recorded, then immediately follow that with a twenty foot high tsunami, and then it explodes, it still kills fewer people than an average coal plant does every single year when everything goes perfectly. [0]
Nuclear power is less dangerous than even solar power, hydroelectric power, or wind power!
> Rooftop solar power has a per terawatt death rate ten times worse than nuclear power because of - I kid you not - people falling off roofs when installing the panel. Hydroelectric power has a worse fatality rate because of dams bursting and flooding people. Even wind power has a worse fatality per terawatt rate - seventy three people have died in windmill related accidents. [0]
Why is stuff being "solved" part of the discussion at all?
Are you accounting for very-low-probability catastrophic scenarios? People are notoriously bad at that.
Is this the study that took all roof-related deaths as solar-panel-related?
Can you seriously not tell the difference between the danger of centuries-long contamination and waste that is dangerous for thousands of years, vs the very regular, understandable, and limited liability of everyday accidents?
> Why is stuff being "solved" part of the discussion at all?
Because ju-st stated "I think the engineering and construction [of fission reactors] is not a solved problem" [0]. This is untrue. We have well-tested fission reactor designs and know how to put them together. This is a solved problem.
> Is this the study that took all roof-related deaths as solar-panel-related?
I can't parse this. Would you be so kind as to restate the question? :)
I'm not sure why the fact that a nuclear plant (that's been -as you say- running past its optimal design life) that
* Got hit with the fifth largest earthquake ever recorded
* Then got hit immediately after by a twenty foot high tsunami
* Then exploded
* Then melted down
kills fewer people than a single average coal-fired power plant [1] kills every year as a part of normal operation, fails to significantly increase the cancer risk of the majority of on-site containment workers, and fails to create centuries-long contamination [2] fails to make you question your assumptions about the failure modes of these power generation devices.
Designing reactors is not the problem. Running them safely and building and decommissioning them efficiently is.
Is this the study that took all roof-related deaths as solar-panel-related = Is this the study that assumed that all roof falls were due to installation of solar panels
> Then exploded Then melted down
Um, am I supposed to exclude nuclear explosions from the list of risks of a nuclear reactor?
Not sure why you keep talking about coal. You think I want coal?
> Is this the study that assumed that all roof falls were due to installation of solar panels
I don't know what study that is but it doesn't appear to be this one. Scott Alexander's blog post links to [0], which takes a completely reasonable approach to calculating the number of deaths due to solar panel installation. Search for "Falls are the leading cause of fatalities in the construction industry." and read on from there.
> Designing reactors is not the problem. Running them safely and building and decommissioning them efficiently is.
There have been two accidents that caused serious damage of any kind in nuclear power generation's 61 year history, [1] Fukushima and Chernobyl. As I mentioned before, Fukushima was hit by the fifth-largest earthquake ever recorded, and a twenty-foot tsunami, and has managed to only maybe kill two people (those guys died of blood loss, rather than radiation poisoning), and might contribute to ~150 cancer deaths as the years go by. This puts Fukushima's worst-case death rate at ~3.75 deaths per year.
What's more, -as I linked upthread- the area is now producing food that's 100% safe to eat. We're a substantial way down the road to recovering from the second largest disaster in nuclear power's history and it only took four years.
An absurdly pessimistic estimate of all deaths and potential deaths due to increased cancer risk related to fission power plant operation over the past 61 years puts the number at ~4,500. Even though this is a silly and inappropriate metric, that's ~73 deaths per year. If we look at deaths in just the US, choking on one's own food is an order of magnitude more hazardous than that.
> ...am I supposed to exclude nuclear explosions from the list of risks of a nuclear reactor?
Yes.
No power generation reactor has ever undergone a nuclear explosion. No currently operating power generation reactor, nor any such reactor that would be approved for construction can undergo a nuclear explosion. What's more, modern reactor designs (that is, reactor designs a fair bit newer than those at Fukushima) fail-safe in any conditions, short of deliberate sabotage by super-strong, radiation-proof superheroes that are able to enter the reactor vessel while it's in operation and intelligently tamper with the fuel rods contained within.
Not even Chernobyl underwent a nuclear explosion. [2] The explosion at Chernobyl was its steam piping exploding due to overpressure. The Chernobyl reactor was housed in an unhardened structure [4] that was more suited to storing goods and foodstuffs than containing fires and explosions. The steam explosion wrecked the containment structure, allowing the smoke from the flaming irradiated carbon control rods to escape into the surrounding countryside.
> You think I want coal?
I -charitably- think that you want safe power generation. I don't see why you're spending so much time and effort on combating something that has -worst case- over 61 years killed 15% of the the people power generation with coal-fired plants kills just in the US every single year.
Fight the big fights first: Decommission fossil-fuel-powered power plants. Dramatically increase the standards for hydroelectric dam design, construction, and maintenance. Institute programs that ensure that all workers who work at dangerously high elevations are properly secured against falls. Design and deploy helper bots to recognize and deliver aid to those who are choking on their own food.
Once all that's done, move on to shutting down something that's less hazardous than crossing the road or eating one's dinner.
[2] Even though a undergraduate-level physics student can design a bomb capable of undergoing a nuclear explosion, it requires deliberate effort to design and precise engineering to make such a thing. [3] You cannot turn a fission reactor into a nuclear bomb, unless you remove its fuel rods and use those to make a bomb. But then, we're talking about fission reactor safety, not the general safety of fissile materials.
[3] Note that a bomb that undergoes a nuclear explosion is very different from a "dirty bomb". A dirty bomb is made by wrapping conventional explosives with radioactive material. The explosives are used to spread the material around as far as is possible. No nuclear explosion takes place.
[4] This was widely regarded as a bad idea at the time. No power generation reactor in operation today is housed in an unhardened structure.
