Comments with "bullshit" in all caps aren't a very good fit for HN. In the first two paragraphs you insinuate that they deliberately skip wind and solar (when wind and solar can't generate the kind of power that nuclear can), that this is a submarine article from the nuclear industry, that you didn't read it, and that nobody else should read it either. These elements combined are toxic to HN's culture of intellectual gratification.
Wind and solar are interesting sources of energy, but in the grand scheme of things, they still represent a tiny fraction of power production, and the article noted that on the onset.
BUT should you account for them, nuclear is still the safest, as according to this list†, solar, wind and hydro still carry higher deaths per quantity of energy produced.
What were the epic consequences of Fukushima? No one died of radiation poisoning, and the actuarial deaths from cancer in the future are going to be minuscule compared to the natural disaster the precipitated it, and in any case much smaller than from fossil fuels. Under any cost-benefit analysis, the primary negative impact of Fukushima was the absurd amount of money being spent on decommissioning, but this is an argument for more pragmatism, not historical evidence for the danger of nuclear power.
Lawsuits from people who don't want to lose their government housing subsidies because they have an irrational fear of negligible radiation are the epic consequences?
You can't have a informed conclusion without reading the entire article. That said, it clearly states in the 2nd paragraph that the assessment is for energy types with the lowest negative health impact, with comparison limited to currently dominant sources including nuclear and not renewable types like wind or solar.
I only read the first 3 paragraphs because when you deliberately leave out a significant portion of the energy industry and make a statement that "Nuclear is safest compared to everything else" and then you don't include everything then you are lying. This article has already established up front it is trying to manipulate people.
No, you are projecting your irrational beliefs on the article.
It clearly states the parameters of discussion and titled the report according to the conclusion. They found that nuclear is safest major energy source They never blankly stated that "Nuclear is safest compared to everything else" and to claim that, especially without even reading the entire thing is ludicrous.
They're playing games with "major" in the title. Hydro and wind are ~5% of the US generation pool each, which I guess can be argued make them "minor". But then "biomass" appears in the chart too, and it's much smaller still, so no idea.
Biomass, according to IEA [1], is 10% of global primary energy production. It might not contribute lot in the US, but for example here in Finland, wood biomass accounts for one quarter of all the primary energy production.
They are TOTALLY playing games. Solar and Wind are relatively young, but power generated by Water based dams have been around for decades, yet only biomass is mentioned. The omission is deliberate.
Those are all valid points. But why were they skipped over? Why was solar and wind skipped over? It barely mentions them, pretends that they don't exist.
Solar, wind and hydro are energy sources that depend on weather and cannot be regulated except by throwing the generated energy away, thus with today's energy grids cannot be used as majority of the generating capacity. On the other hand biomass can be stored and used according to demand.
Pumped storage is in the grand scheme of things horrendously inefficient in essentially any metric one cares about (energy efficiency, capacity per size, capacity for cost...).
> This is the year 2017 - This article deliberately skips over any consideration to Wind, Solar, etc. What kind of BULLSHIT excuse for journalism and scientific study is this? Who in the nuclear industry paid for this?
Wind is hanging rapidly rotating turbines on thin shafts 100-200 meter off the ground. Are you seriously going to claim installing and maintaining those things is a safe occupation ? They are referred to as grinders, which relates to what happens to a technician who trips while inside the machine room (which is tiny and suspended 100m off of the ground, the gears are exposed, so you can imagine exactly what happened to get the name grinders).
Likewise, most solar is rooftop solar. Rooftop solar ? That is essentially placing large and heavy glass slabs high up in the air on sloping surfaces. Likewise, if I had that job, I might neglect to mention it to my life insurance, as this is not a particularly safe occupation either.
> "While the negative health impacts of modern renewable energy technologies are so far thought to be small, they have been less fully explored."
Installations for both power sources are demanding a steady stream of human life, as is extracting the materials needed for construction of either wind or solar power. Construction of them is powered by coal (in the case of wind turbines by necessity, as coking is still how we produce steel). Also: China's mines are deathtraps, this is a LOT of human lives.
> Maybe in the short term nuclear does kill fewer people, in the short term compared to recent history. If nuclear plants are maintained safely - thats a pretty big if - and no other disasters befall a plant, maybe there current status is true.
As can be seen, even if you count Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear is still safer than most other forms of power. But that's a bit like chalking kills by a soldier that takes a nightlight powered by solar battery up to solar power.
For obvious reasons, any power source can easily be turned into a weapon.
Not to detract from your larger point, but rooftop solar is not most of the solar market. Utility scale solar panels (the fields of solar panels on 10' poles) is a lot bigger, and has lower risk.
Another thing to think about is that with solar roofs becoming a thing (there are more companies in this market than just Tesla), the additional risk associated with rooftop solar could be seen as "zero", since houses need to install a roof anyway.
But yes, your larger point that renewables aren't risk free is valid and correct.
Taleb would say all this statistics are bullshit, cause they ignore the long tails. I doubt a gas or coal power station can destroy a nation. A nuclear plant has the potential to do so.
I believe wind and solar are the best solutions for our future. But many concerns mentioned in this thread are becoming irrelevant in the face of emerging nuclear storage technology.
For example, the pebble bed reactor system eliminates the risk of a meltdown by no longer storing spent fuel in rods; it also makes the process for extracting fuel significantly more efficient. Presently we can only extract about 4% of energy contained in nuclear materials, with a PBR system the "pebbles" stay in circulation for longer, meaning we can extract more energy and pursue new designs that could ingratiate these systems into our cities without the catastrophic risks we face today.
The more people focus on this technology, the better it will get. But we can't improve if we don't try.
Are you seriously being that callous about Chernobyl? Several dozen people died from it. Many more statistically died from radiation exposure over the ensuing decades. Three hundred thousand people were forced to abandon their homes and relocate.
Chernobyl was a huge fucking disaster that killed people and had a huge negative impact on many people's lives. You don't get to minimize that just because a nearby reactor kept running.
Even if we ignore the black swan events (which each time they happen we hear how it could never happen again, etc), nuclear has a long, sordid history of massive schedule, cost and operational expense overruns. Energy companies stopped building nuclear not because of those damn eco warriors, but because they had been jaded by project after project that cost multiples (or magnitudes) of estimates. It just isn't cost effective.
There are some places where nuclear makes more sense -- on a spacecraft, for instance -- but in most worldly cases it is no longer a competitive option.
