[eric-hu]

I long believed that nuclear power was the only energy source cleaner than fossil fuels and scalable enough to meet the energy demands of the world. While that might still be true in some sense, I now believe that humanity isn't ready for nuclear power.

Besides the Fukushima and Chernobyl type issues with organizations skimping on design, there's still an outstanding problem of nuclear waste storage. The current nuclear power statistics haven't factored in a major waste storage incident because one hasn't happened yet. Until we've witnessed multiple lifecycles of nuclear fuel consumption to full waste breakdown, the safety stats could still swing against nuclear power. Maybe all it'd take is a terrorist incident involving nuclear waste. From what I understand, breeder reactors can vastly reduce the quantity of a power plant's waste and produce waste with a much shorter half life. This isn't widely implemented or shared because that technology can also be used to produce weapons grade material. I think humanity will be ready if/when we can sort out our differences without violence and greed/corruption are no longer problems for most large orgs.

Additionally, renewables seem to have better scalability today than they did in the 90's when I formed my initial opinions. Right now, the worst case situation with a renewable power source is probably a large dam bursting. That's certainly possible due to corruption or terrorism too. If the three gorges dam suddenly burst, that could take out most of Shanghai. For most other renewables, the potential worst case is much milder though.

[littlestymaar]

> Maybe all it'd take is a terrorist incident involving nuclear waste.

There are so many radiologic sources out there, used for many purposes (medicine, gammagraphy), very dangerous[1] but taken with much less care than nuclear wastes from the nuclear power industry. Stuff like this [2] happen all the time …

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident [2] (in French) https://www.asn.fr/Controler/Actualites-du-controle/Avis-d-i...

[wahern]

Or whatever happened in Russia within the past few weeks: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/10/nuclear-accide...

I kinda agree with your point: terrorists already have considerable access, theoretically, to radioactive materials. In fact, the materials used for medicine and science are in many ways much more dangerous from a public health perspective given their short, energetic half-lives.

The only substantial, long-term danger from terrorists is to the financial viability of nuclear power. Nobody cares about incidents like the above. But if it were tied to terrorism somehow it would be all over the news and nuclear stocks would plummet. Similarly, for a terrorist incident involving medical use even anti-nuclear activists would have more nuanced reactions, whereas if it involved nuclear power such an incident would herald the end of the world.

[bonesss]

Nuclear facilities aren't really dependent on market perception to keep their stock prices high - they sell power.

The terrorists won't do a better job of slandering fission than the oil & gas companies have done, and nuclear facilities and fuel storage make horrible terrorist targets. The facilities are explosion hardened by design, and spent fuel is essentially rocks. It would take a lot of work and explosives to make a weak, uninteresting, highly traceable, not too dangerous "dirty bomb". That requires supplies generally unavailable to terrorist cells, much less cells inside a nuclear nation. It also requires hazardous materials training and technical skills generally unavailable to terrorist organizations, much less embedded in a target area.

As has been the case for decades: the largest genuine threat from an action like that would be panic, and overreaction, from a riled up and ignorant population.

[gizmo]

I agree that renewables are a very good alternative to nuclear power, but in practice moving away from nuclear means doubling down on coal. The problems with nuclear are political, but the alternatives to nuclear power are mired in political conflict as well.

As for your dam bursting scenario, something like that actually happened in the 70s when the Banqiao Dam burst. Nearly 200.000 people died. Fukushima had 0 radiation deaths.

[RobAley]

You can't really say 0 deaths, because no one knows. We don't have good epidemiological models for wide-spread low-level dispersal such as was seen at Fukushima, we already know incidences of cancer and gene mutation don't scale linearly with exposure at low levels. There are also associated deaths from psychological factors of those who were evacuated, lost land / business etc. which will only become apparent in years to come.

Dams do have the potential for massive loss of life as you say, and they also suffer from the problem of massive centralisation of capacity (unlike e.g. solar or wind). On the smaller upside, the models related to fatalities are pretty well understood.

Perhaps an instant move away from nuclear may need coal, although here in the UK it's gas that has been taking up the slack while the government dilly-dally on whether to build out new nuclear or invest in renewables research (successfully doing neither).

I see over the longer term renewables coming up as nuclear is naturally retired at the end of the current plant's lifespan. Solar is now cheaper than coal to built-out in many places, there are other impediments but (generally) lack of public support isn't one of them (compared to coal/nuclear).

[gizmo]

Deaths resulting from psychological factors involving those who were evacuated count when it comes to nuclear energy but not when it comes to dam failures? I don't think this kind of double standard is reasonable.

Besides, I'm pretty sure you just copied the argument about low level exposure from the Fukushima disaster wikipedia page, but you conveniently left out the next sentence: "given the uncertain health effects of low-dose radiation, cancer deaths cannot be ruled out.[11] However, no discernible increase in the rate of cancer deaths is expected."

Scare-mongering about nuclear radiation doesn't help anybody but the coal and gas industry.

[RobAley]

I never said that such deaths form dam failures didn't count. The only reference I made to dams is that the model (physically traumatic & psych-related death) is well understood. Deaths due to low-level, widely dispersed radiation is not.

I'm afraid you were wrong to be "pretty sure" that I copied the argument from Wikipedia, I haven't read that page (until you pointed it out now). My comment comes from what I've picked up working for 10 years in epidemiology at Oxford. I didn't "conveniently" leave out the next sentence, and I wouldn't have quoted it anyway as its effectively tosh. There is no discernible increase expected on current models, but the current models are accepted (by most experts) not be useful predictors, as described in my initial post.

It's not "scare-mongering", it's being open to scientific discussion and exploration. Blind-adherence to your view-point doesn't help anyone but the nuclear industry.

Let's have open and honest debate. Even when that means we say "we don't know".

[cptskippy]

> Fukushima had 0 radiation deaths.

I think making that statement or even the comparison to other types of disasters is a little disingenuous. With most disasters they happen and then they're over in very short order. A nuclear disaster is very slow to unfold and the deaths from radiation related illnesses are not yet fully realized for quite some time.

The Chernobyl disaster is still unfolding and even with the latest containment, NSC, having been installed. It will take hundreds of years before we're done with it.

[rtpg]

> in practice moving away from nuclear means doubling down on coal

Is it not possible for us to build out renewable energy on a large scale? My impression was that we're reaching points where it's very cost effective to do so.

[Cthulhu_]

An accident with spent fuel rods / nuclear waste will happen in our lifetimes, and probably in the US; the US does not have proper nuclear waste disposal because nobody wants to host it. Earlier they'd just dump it in the ocean, but now, it's stashed in the nuclear plants' spent fuel rod basins, waiting (for decades now) for the country to build a proper disposal facility. IIRC the last one was a huge project inside a mountain somewhere.

[cel1ne]

Isn't there also the issue of fuel-reserves (uranium etc.) actually not lasting more than about 50-100 years?

[eric-hu]

Yeah, that's an issue too, though again, breeder reactors could extend that number significantly. But the countries that possess that tech don't want to use it widely or share it. Not sure if the former is due to cost or lack of expertise. The latter is definitely due to distrust in humanity.

[specialist]

The ongoing failure to cleanup, mitigate the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is proof enough that we are not (yet?) mature enough to manage nuclear energy.

When the contaminates reach the Columbia River, every where downstream becomes uninhabitable. eg Portland OR.