[paganel]

> It costs billions to get up and running, and isn't modular.

One of my primary concerns with nuclear power is that it's very much dependent on the actual order of things carrying on as usual, meaning stable Governments, skilled technicians available etc. What would have happened if Syria (a secular state until not that long ago) had had civilian nuclear plants? Answer: they would most probably have fallen under the hands of either ISIS or an Al-Qaida offshoot. We had the same issue after the Soviet Union collapsed. Had the political uncertainty and power vacuum continued for much longer into the '90s then nobody knows what could have happened to their civil nuclear plants.

[nebabyte]

WKUK did a skit on this; well, more a commentary on the social/political contract, but still related and amusing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKERC6F7mSM

[ElijahLynn]

That was a fantastic video! Thanks for sharing it.

[boomboomsubban]

How is this more concerning than the raw amount of weapons that a lying around everywhere? Giving them access to cheap power or a potential local weapon doesn't seem like that pressing of an issue.

[mikepurvis]

The concern for me is that a nuclear power plant and its associated spent fuel storage pools are a facility that requires an unwavering commitment to maintenance and upkeep by highly specialized personnel—not just for as long as you want power out of it, but for decades beyond.

Coal isn't like this. If you stop needing power, you stop feeding it coal, and the machinery can sit there idle, doing no further harm.

I'm not a coal-booster, but I absolutely see the concern about regime change and commitment to the safety of a nuclear installation. Between Trump and Brexit, how confident are we that even first world nations are capable of taking on the long term responsibility for such a project?

[Recurecur]

"Between Trump and Brexit, how confident are we that even first world nations are capable of taking on the long term responsibility for such a project?"

Extremely.

[dukeluke]

This post did nothing to advance the conversation. There's nothing thought invoking, no statistics, and no argument. Please provide substance to your posts in the future.

[paganel]

> How is this more concerning than the raw amount of weapons that a lying around everywhere?

Is this a serious question? Conventional weapons are a lot less deadly if captured by the wrong people compared to nuclear-based installations.

[boomboomsubban]

Chernobyl killed 38 people directly, and led to a moderate increase in cancer rates. I'd say 1000 bullets could outkill it.

[lithos]

If someone has the tech to convert nuclear fuel to weapons, they are a short step from converting raw ore to nuclear weapons.

[TeMPOraL]

They're not. The power of nuclear weapons is like 1% the fuel, 99% complex electronics you need to have them actually detonate with meaningful yield.

[justin66]

I'm not quite sure what you're driving at but the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima (the "gun" design, Little Boy) did not rely on complex electronics.

[TeMPOraL]

It also required quite a lot of fissile material and wasn't all that powerful. Dropped on lower Manhattan, it wouldn't even reach midtown Manhattan. See for yourself at http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/. I was actually quite surprised to realize that a "city" in 1940s was something much smaller than what we call a city today.

The point I'm aiming at is that nuclear weapons are (still) something expensive, hard to make, and useful only for nation states with large military budgets. Going for dirty bombs would be a better strategy for terrorists.

The second point I'm aiming at is that nuclear is not as scary as Hollywood seems to have made us believe.

[paganel]

You don't necessarily need to convert the nuclear fuel to weapons, you just need to blow the whole thing up, which ISIS is more than capable of doing, and then see how the winds carry the radio-active clouds 3,000 km away. For example see this map: http://i.imgur.com/zlRGSs3.jpg , more especially Austria.