How can a warmist object to nuclear power

[unbeliever]

If you really believe in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming can you really object to nuclear power?

 

Nuclear power is a genuine means of generating electricity at reasonable cost without producing carbon dioxide. It works. The safety record of modern reactor designs is excellent, in fact better than any other means of generating electricity including renewables.

 

I know that it is not risk free, but nothing is. And I do mean nothing. Yes the waste is nasty, but that's a manageable problem.

The environmentalists keep telling me that the world is on the brink of catastrophe because of carbon dioxide. If they really believed that they would pursue any means available to cut production of this gas.

I genuinely don't get it. Nuclear waste is an issue. Nuclear accidents are an issue. But they're not going to bring about the end of civilisation.

 

I can only assume that the climatologists and environmentalists don't really want the solution, they want the issue. They want an excuse to tell us all what to do.

 

Nuclear power could have us generating 100% of our electricity without producing carbon dioxide in 20-30 years. Nothing else can do that. This must be blindingly obvious to the environmentalists. If they really believe what they're telling us, this is the biggest no-brainer I've ever heard of.

 

Before anybody asks. There is no way that I or anybody I know personally could benefit from investment in nuclear power. Except for the benefit that everybody else would get which is solving the global warming issue in a single stroke.

 

Perhaps I'm missing something. Could there be a reasonable explanation for this? Thoughts?

[medusa]

The answer to your question takes only a few words:

 

Fukushima, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.

 

They're safe right up to the point where something unpredictable happens and then they are quite predictably unsafe.

 

I'm not a full scale objector, but I do think that we should explore all other power sourcing options first, along with less dangerous sources like thorium.

 

I do actually believe that humans will cause some sort of catastrophic extinction event for our species at some point BTW, whether that's through war, global warming or just running out of resources for an ever growing population. There are some days I think the sooner we get on with it and leave the planet for the animals whose populations are kept under control by other animals in an equilibrium the better.

[El Cid]

If you really believe in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming can you really object to nuclear power?

 

 

I believe that producing our power by what ever means will have little impact on reducing our co2.

 

It would be easier to reduce the population, that way people can burn whatever they want. It may me the lack of diversity no bees and insects to polanate the plants, or no fish in the sea due to higher temperatures that will lead to food shortages and war. Nuclear power and war dont mix that well.

[unbeliever]

The answer to your question takes only a few words:

 

Fukushima, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.

 

They're safe right up to the point where something unpredictable happens and then they are quite predictably unsafe.

 

I'm not a full scale objector, but I do think that we should explore all other power sourcing options first, along with less dangerous sources like thorium.

 

I do actually believe that humans will cause some sort of catastrophic extinction event for our species at some point BTW, whether that's through war, global warming or just running out of resources for an ever growing population. There are some days I think the sooner we get on with it and leave the planet for the animals whose populations are kept under control by other animals in an equilibrium the better.

 

The total number of deaths due to nuclear reactor accidents is in the region of 100 depending on how you measure it.

Measured by deaths per unit of electricity produced, it's actually the safest.

I can understand the whole "we're doomed" thing, but people have been saying that the end is nigh for millennia and we're still here and stronger than ever.

 

Thorium would be great, but the technology is not ready yet. Solar is theoretically limited unless you plan to turn up the Sun. Tidal is rubbish as are all the other "renewables". Wind might just work wind at an astronomical cost, if somebody happens to invent a battery that works 10 times better than the ones we have now in the next few years. Don't hold your breath as the only even slightly better battery on the horizon is made of Silver.

 

I'm glad you mention Thorium though as the nuclear waste from current reactor technology which is supposed to be such a problem would actually make excellent fuel for Thorium reactor technology.

 

It has been looked into. The maths is all done. Only nuclear can promptly cut carbon dioxide production. If you read the maths and come to some other conclusion, please explain it to me because I'm at a loss.

 

---------- Post added 19-06-2014 at 20:48 ----------

 

I believe that producing our power by what ever means will have little impact on reducing our co2.

 

It would be easier to reduce the population, that way people can burn whatever they want. It may me the lack of diversity no bees and insects to polanate the plants, or no fish in the sea due to higher temperatures that will lead to food shortages and war. Nuclear power and war dont mix that well.

 

How exactly would you go about reducing the population?

If you reduce the birth rate, you get a demographic crisis, so are you suggesting a cull .

[Fogey]

For the billions that will need to be invested in Nuclear over a program measured in decades I suspect you could erect enough wind turbines, hydro electric, solar P.V., ground source generation and methods such as hydro electric kinetic storage to mostly wipe out our energy needs for the foreseeable future.

 

In addition I would rather see the money invested in something like Hydrogen generation.

 

Nuclear is just a way of replacing one finite resource with another finite resource over which wars can be fought. That is without the safety concerns.

 

When London or Washington builds a nuclear reactor in the city centre, or starts storing nuclear waste under the various principal political establishments I will listen to all the claims about how safe it is, until then I am not interested.

[unbeliever]

For the billions that will need to be invested in Nuclear over a program measured in decades I suspect you could erect enough wind turbines, hydro electric, solar P.V., ground source generation and methods such as hydro electric kinetic storage to mostly wipe out our energy needs for the foreseeable future.

 

In addition I would rather see the money invested in something like Hydrogen generation.

 

Nuclear is just a way of replacing one finite resource with another finite resource over which wars can be fought. That is without the safety concerns.

 

When London or Washington builds a nuclear reactor in the city centre, or starts storing nuclear waste under the various principal political establishments I will listen to all the claims about how safe it is, until then I am not interested.

 

I understand the sentiment, but you're wrong. Wind, PV, and all the other alternatives are vastly more expensive and mostly impractical. There can never be enough pumped storage to balance the system, which is why wind installations are always built with fossil fuel backup to fill in the frequent gaps.

 

People worry about lives being lost through temperature rises and/or nuclear accidents. Consider the lives that have already been lost and the many more that stand to be lost if electricity becomes unaffordable for the poor and elderly. These are certainties. Risks from global warming are hypothetical and risks from nuclear accidents are manageable.

 

There are nuclear reactors close to many major US cities all of them housing powerful politicians.

 

There is precedent in the world for reliably and safely generating almost all of your electricity from nuclear. France.

There is no similar precedent for alternatives. Because it can't be done. And when and if the time comes that it can be done, it will cost an absolute fortune. By then the environmentalists tell us that we'll all have melted already.

France's system is working so well and so reliably and at such good value that they've been selling us their surplus for decades.

 

Nuclear is technically finite, but it's so vast that it's profoundly unlikely we'll run low before the technology becomes obsolete and we've moved on to something we haven't even thought of yet. Technically solar and thereby wind are also finite. There's a limited amount of hydrogen in the sun and won't keep burning for ever. Geothermal is technically nuclear anyway.

[Cyclone]

The answer to your question takes only a few words:

 

Fukushima, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.

 

They're safe right up to the point where something unpredictable happens and then they are quite predictably unsafe.

Nuclear power is, in terms of people injured per mega watt produced, safer than coal.

The fact is that when it does go wrong, it can be quite spectacular.

You'll note that the most recent of those has injured very few people though.

 

I'm not a full scale objector, but I do think that we should explore all other power sourcing options first, along with less dangerous sources like thorium.

Thorium salt reactors should definitely be an important goal.

 

---------- Post added 20-06-2014 at 09:38 ----------

 

For the billions that will need to be invested in Nuclear over a program measured in decades I suspect you could erect enough wind turbines, hydro electric, solar P.V., ground source generation and methods such as hydro electric kinetic storage to mostly wipe out our energy needs for the foreseeable future.

No, you could not.

 

In addition I would rather see the money invested in something like Hydrogen generation.

This isn't a power generation technology, it's a power storage solution.

 

Nuclear is just a way of replacing one finite resource with another finite resource over which wars can be fought. That is without the safety concerns.

 

When London or Washington builds a nuclear reactor in the city centre, or starts storing nuclear waste under the various principal political establishments I will listen to all the claims about how safe it is, until then I am not interested.

 

Whether you listen or not, it's still the safest way of generating power. Refusing to listen doesn't actually alter that.

[geared]

Nuclear power is, in terms of people injured per mega watt produced, safer than coal.

The fact is that when it does go wrong, it can be quite spectacular.

 

Coal equally has pretty bad accidents tho, not with the actual generation as that bit is fairly straightforward.

 

but how many times in recent memories have you heard of a coal mine collapsing and trapping many miners inside??

and how many ex-mine sites are now environmental wasteland due to contamination of the groundwater with horrible chemicals.

 

Personally I'm all for Hydro power, and I can't for the life of me figure out why our country doesn't produce more of it???

[unbeliever]

Coal equally has pretty bad accidents tho, not with the actual generation as that bit is fairly straightforward.

 

but how many times in recent memories have you heard of a coal mine collapsing and trapping many miners inside??

and how many ex-mine sites are now environmental wasteland due to contamination of the groundwater with horrible chemicals.

 

Personally I'm all for Hydro power, and I can't for the life of me figure out why our country doesn't produce more of it???

 

The legacy of coal is of course much worse than that of nuclear, but we're living in different times now and standards are higher. I accept this. Nuclear easily meets modern safety standards. Coal doesn't. Gas probably does. Solar does. Wind probably doesn't.

 

Can you honestly see people being happy with covering the landscape with massive spinning propellors if they didn't have a green stamp on them? Have you seen what happened when the blades sheer off?

 

The numbers for hydro power are not impressive. You need a convenient mountain which you have to undertake very serious earthworks on. Then unless you're talking about pumped storage, you're again dependent on the weather.

 

Don't forget that the geographical distribution of power generation facilities needs to be well correlated with the geographical distribution of power usage. Otherwise you have to generate a lot extra to make up for transmission losses.

 

There are any number of ways to generate some electricity. What we need is to generate enough for the whole country without a break 24/7, for the next hundred years or so. You have 3 reasonable options for this:

1. coal

2. shale gas

3. nuclear

 

Only nuclear avoids CO2 production.

 

Attempting to pluck electricity out of the air with wind or waiting for it to fall out of the sky with solar or hydro is extremely expensive and completely futile.

[Cyclone]

Coal equally has pretty bad accidents tho, not with the actual generation as that bit is fairly straightforward.

 

but how many times in recent memories have you heard of a coal mine collapsing and trapping many miners inside??

Several times in the last few years.

Unless you've decided to ignore that our coal comes from abroad or you don't count accidents involving non-British people?

and how many ex-mine sites are now environmental wasteland due to contamination of the groundwater with horrible chemicals.

Not so many, the spoil heaps have, 20 to 30 years on, mostly been landscaped and hidden.

 

Personally I'm all for Hydro power, and I can't for the life of me figure out why our country doesn't produce more of it???

 

We don't have the right geography.