[bluedanieru]

Here's where I'm at now on nuclear power, as someone who has lived in Tokyo for the last 7 1/2 years:

'Nuclear scaremongers' are right, that is to say they have a point, but for the wrong reasons. They are wrong that nuclear power is inherently dangerous, or that it's bad for the environment when compared e.g. coal, or basically whatever other anti-scientific bullshit they care to trot out to support their anti-nuclear stance. The science is clear - if you are an environmentalist you should fervently support nuclear power generation because it stands head and shoulders above everything else in terms of safety and environmental friendliness...

... when operated responsibly.

Therein lies the problem. After what's come out over the past couple years about the shit that has gone on at Tepco and the regulatory authorities, it is hard not to take the view that most of these assholes in executive positions should be put in prison. Hell, if Japan is so dedicated to the death penalty, some of them make prime candidates for it. That they could show such casual disregard not just for the safety of the towns near their facilities, but really their entire nation and even region, is profoundly shocking to the point that it starts to make you question your fundamental assumptions of human nature. Fundamental assumptions such as "human beings are generally not, as a rule, criminally incompetent psychopaths".

I'm sure most of the anti-nuclear crowd in Japan truly believes the bunk science that supports their stance. Others might be more cynical. At the governmental level, however, I think (and hope) something a bit more introspective is going on. Namely, that they have come to the realization that they can not be trusted to effectively regulate the nuclear power industry. Not when the consequences of failure are what they are.

[hrktb]

> ...when operated responsibly

I also think this is the main point. And the big hard thing to swallow is that in Japan you have to trust a hell lot of people to operate responsibly, or you can't live there.

You trust house developper to not fake anti-cyclonic and aniti-sismic rules (and then you have the Haneha incidents, but you have to trust them anyway), you trust your locality to warn you when tsunami comes, you trust the government to evacuate you when volcanos blow up (there's a plenty in the south of Japan), you trust the dam makers to have taken enough security margins. And you won't live anywhere safe enough to not have to think about any of these risks.

And you know each of this big big companies must have their load of dirty filthy psychopaths, but you just believe deep in your mind that still most of the people will do The Right Thing. You can put more laws, more controls, more processes, but you'll still have to believe they won't fake the most part, and you won't know it until some more shit happens.

[pheon]

5 years Tokyo here. That is one of the most concise posts on the topic ive yet read, well done.

I see the problem as the time scales of events. If reactors blew up once ever 3-5 years everyone would be watching and monitoring, lobbying, training, drilling, ranting etc.. but they dont.

Humans just are not designed to train and prepare for 1 event in 20 years. Maybe if Buddhist monks were in charge of the reactors we might have some hope... but they are not.

[hga]

It was clear to observers like myself prior to the tsunami that Japan just doesn't do safety culture ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_culture ) for things nuclear.

It's not a universal Japanese thing, if what I've heard much less rigorously about construction scaffolding is correct, or you could look at the safety record of the Shinkansen ( bullet trains; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkansen#Safety_record "During the Shinkansen's 45-year, nearly 7 billion-passenger history, there have been no passenger fatalities due to derailments or collisions, despite frequent earthquakes and typhoons.")....

[danielharan]

In Canada, we only had to look at the track record on construction and maintenance times, as well as budget overruns, to conclude that management was incompetent. So yes, in theory, nuclear is safer. But with those clowns in charge?

As far as environmentalists reading the science, you've missed out on renewables. Most importantly, a large part of our energy problems can be solved by reducing demand. This can be much more cost-effective.

Google the Rocky Mountain Institute and the concept of CO2 wedges; these ideas aren't new. Maybe some environmentalists are a lot more cynical and far-thinking than you gave them credit for?

[AngryParsley]

Most importantly, a large part of our energy problems can be solved by reducing demand.

Has any civilization ever voluntarily reduced energy usage? You might as well ask people to breathe less.

[lispm]

EU does that. It's necessary.

[wapper]

And let's be kind about the result : they may actually survive the crisis ... right ? 50% chance ? What do you think ?

[Dn_Ab]

Right, the only real argument against nuclear is unfortunately a big one. Humans are simply not far-thinking and reliable enough to be trusted to properly manage all stages of a nuclear plant's lifecycle. But rather than give up -

Is there any research being done to automate as much as possible such that the required operators becomes small enough for it to be feasible to confidently vet that they are intelligent and scrupled enough to understand the consequences of cutting corners? And also make it hard to build it the wrong way by removing as many variables as possible?

[bluedanieru]

Research that removes the human element from nuclear power operation? Like, AI and robot armies? Anything short of that and we can still fuck it up. The consequences of disregarding the safety and integrity of a nuclear power facility are well-understood. That is, the physical consequences are, as opposed to the legal consequences. The legal consequences, sadly, do not exist.

In the aftermath of the earthquake while the radiation scare was at a fever pitch, I could be found in various places around the Internet (including here) defending nuclear power. So it's been a long journey to arrive at this opinion. And it's had consequences beyond just what I think of fission.

Like, speaking of AI and robot armies, how are we going to handle that? We'll be able to build both eventually, and probably sooner rather than later. How will we react? I'm not talking about the Skynet scenario or whatever. Rather, when we build something that passes the Turing test easily and is, by all outward appearances, a sapient and sentient being, are we going to respect that creature's basic rights? I suspect not.

I think that nuclear power is merely the first in what will become a long chain of technologies that humans are incapable of wielding responsibly.