That is to say, an island with extensive scope for offshore wind.
The real question for a well-populated island nation is how much area do you have to write off if a nuclear reactor suffers from a major accident (or attack)?
For reference, the Fukushima exclusion zone was 311.5 square miles, and Chernobyl's was 1,600 square miles.
> The real question for a well-populated island nation is how much area do you have to write off if a nuclear reactor suffers from a major accident (or attack)?
I always roll my eyes at this line of reasoning. First, the number of nuclear incidents of that scope can be counted on one hand, and at least the Fukushima one was a result of poor planning. Second, that analysis never accounts for the externalities incurred by continuing to use fossil fuel Peaker plants, the externalities of etching solar panels and creating batteries, etc. Yes, nuclear power accidents can be very bad if we do a bad job of engineering the plan, and our other forms of energy production have major externalities even if we do a very good job.
> the number of nuclear incidents of that scope can be counted on one hand,
Yes, and people are proposing greatly increasing the number of reactors.
> and at least the Fukushima one was a result of poor planning.
So you're saying we just need to make sure that no one makes any mistakes in the design, planning, and operation of the plants? Or is Japanese society exceptionally bad at organising things and understanding technology?
> Yes, nuclear power accidents can be very bad if we do a bad job of engineering the plan, and our other forms of energy production have major externalities even if we do a very good job.
On the contrary: renewable power stations can fail catastrophically and almost no one would notice (except for the blackout), whereas a nuclear power station can "succeed" and still take 100 years and hundreds of billions of dollars to clean up.
I don't see it as an either/or. I'm fully onboard with deploying solar and wind, but I don't think renewables are sufficient to meet our energy demands today, nor will it come close to meeting the needs of a civilization with spacefaring ambitions. I don't quite get the rest of your points - any human organization can ignore risks out of ego or greed, as TEPCO did with Fukushima. It's definitely on those with power to set up a system that rewards good behavior. There are plenty of examples in the mining, gas, and chemistry industries of malfeasance as well as functional regulation. It's not reasonable to compare a first generation, 60 year old nuclear power station to recently deployed renewables. Renewables aren't the totally-green panacea that the ads make them out to be, there is plenty of waste involved, and I'm certain there will be a few environmental disasters related to solar that come to light in the future.
> I don't think renewables are sufficient to meet our energy demands today, nor will it come close to meeting the needs of a civilization with spacefaring ambitions.
Nuclear isn't sufficient to meet our energy demands today either (although I accept that if we had invested billions into building such power stations 20 years ago, we could now be in a much better position in terms of the climate). In fact, nuclear's share of global electricity production has been decreasing since 1996, and is now down to about 10 percent.[0]
As for spacefaring, I think it will be a long time before the limits of renewables become relevant there, by which point we might have solved fusion anyway. Bear in mind that developed countries reached peak energy usage (per person) years ago, so we might be able to power new industries just by keeping production constant.
> It's definitely on those with power to set up a system that rewards good behavior. There are plenty of examples in the mining, gas, and chemistry industries of malfeasance as well as functional regulation. ... I'm certain there will be a few environmental disasters related to solar that come to light in the future.
It still seems like you're saying "Nuclear is fine as long as nothing goes wrong" and "Solar is bad, because I can imagine that unspecified disasters have happened which the Illuminati have hidden all the evidence for". Sorry if that's an unfair exaggeration; I'm just trying to make clear that you can't hope away the very real problems of nuclear, and you can't hope into existence any non-real problems of solar.
Nevertheless, I accept your point that in some countries it could be more prudent to keep investing in new nuclear power stations rather than grid-level storage and over-provisioning of wind turbines, for example. To weigh up the risks of nuclear against uncertain future energy storage systems, though, we need real numbers. We have the numbers for how much land was evacuated because of Fukushima, and how many centuries and hundreds of billions of dollars it will take to clean up Sellafield, which may not give a complete picture of those risks, but they are more helpful than assertions about "plenty of waste" and "I'm certain there will be a few".
> Bear in mind that developed countries reached peak energy usage (per person) years ago, so we might be able to power new industries just by keeping production constant.
Ok, so that covers 10-20% of the population or so. Seems like we're going to need more power for the other 80% as they modernize.
> It still seems like you're saying "Nuclear is fine as long as nothing goes wrong" and "Solar is bad, because I can imagine that unspecified disasters have happened which the Illuminati have hidden all the evidence for". Sorry if that's an unfair exaggeration; I'm just trying to make clear that you can't hope away the very real problems of nuclear, and you can't hope into existence any non-real problems of solar.
No, what I said is that Nuclear is fine as long as nothing goes wrong, exactly the same as every other power source, including Solar. We shouldn't just Nuclear to a stricter standard than any of the others, so what's the issue with being realistic about the downsides of solar?
> To weigh up the risks of nuclear against uncertain future energy storage systems, though, we need real numbers. We have the numbers for how much land was evacuated because of Fukushima, and how many centuries and hundreds of billions of dollars it will take to clean up Sellafield, which may not give a complete picture of those risks, but they are more helpful than assertions about "plenty of waste" and "I'm certain there will be a few".
I get it, you are terrified of a handful of radioactive sites, meanwhile...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites. It's pretty funny for you to say we need real numbers in the same space where you speculate that "we might have solved fusion anyways" as a primary reason to ignore nuclear power. You could certainly run more high energy experiments if you had large, consistent sources of energy :)
I'll close by pointing out that half or more of the costs you are referring to are driven by hysterical faux-environmentalists and oil lobbyists (the other half is more or less related to poor logistics, which is also fixable, but a different problem). If subjected to the same level of scrutiny and regulation as fossil fuels and renewables, then the costs would come down significantly. That would likely lead to more productions, scale and thus even lower costs.
Nuclear energy was going to be too cheap to meter until the Merchants of Fear got their hands on it.
If nuclear were subject to the same level of scrutiny as ordinary industries we'd have a long stream of nuclear accidents. But these accidents are extremely expensive. Your argument there boils down to a whine that nuclear isn't being allowed to learn via large numbers of meltdowns.
You will also always have regulation and oversight due to proliferation concerns. And without regulations, you're also not going to get a liability cap. Is anyone going to build a reactor if an accident costs more than their company is worth? Fukushima is estimated to cost $700 B. Maybe you're also advocating people not be allowed to sue for damage from nuclear accidents?
It is fair to say that externalities exist for renewables that people don't like - I recall reading that the real reason China dominates rare earth minerals is because refining them has such toxic byproducts no other country wants to do it. See:
I kind of wonder if Putin's rationale for starting a fire at that Ukraine plant was "let's show them nuclear power can be risky... if some bad guy starts firing at it".
