
Why Fukushima made me pro nukes - daniel02216
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/why-fukushima-made-me-pro-nukes-20110322-1c4qk.html
======
corin_
Anyone who doesn't know that "nukes" refers to weapons not power sources
should perhaps steer clear of offering opinions on the subject.

I stopped reading after this line:

    
    
      Some greens have wildly exaggerated the dangers of radioactive pollution.
    

Firstly, "some greens"? A surprisingly snide remark from someone who _only
just_ become pro-nuclear.

Secondly, that's not even the point he then goes on to make? His argument is
that what happened in Japan is below the safety guidelines. The worry of
people who are anti-nuclear is that there is a possibility that something
could happen to put the radiation levels _above_ what is safe.

I'm not anti-nuclear personally, but the worry I have isn't that, if a small
amount of radiation leaks for some reason that it will have worse effects than
believed by scientists. My worry is that the accident/whatever could cause the
leaks to be far higher, if that happens it _will_ be a very real problem.

~~~
light3
I don't see what's so snide about 'some greens', the Greens are a political
party in Australia, they have a strong anti-nuclear stance as I recall(might
be wrong).

~~~
corin_
We have a Green Party in the UK too, but "some greens" would generally be said
in a negative way, and referring to people with environmental concerns rather
that just Green Party supported.

Even about a political party - if someone who until just now was a tory MP
said "some tories think..." and then went on to dismiss their views I'd make
the same point.

Maybe I took it the wrong way, but that's how it read to me. Either way seems
like a fairly nonsense article.

~~~
sliverstorm
You can't argue that because 'some greens' is offensive in the UK, an article
written in Australia saying 'some greens' is offensive.

You are free to feel offended, but that doesn't mean the author is at fault.

~~~
hirenj
To nitpick, the article was written for a British audience, by George Monbiot
who is a columnist for the Guardian.

The SMH (and the whole Fairfax group) don't really write articles any more.

~~~
waqf
Yes, until I realised it was a British piece I was really confused by his
expression "high latitudes like ours" (par. 9).

Guardian original here:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-
nucl...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuclear-
japan-fukushima)

------
feral
This article is bad.

There will always be unknown unknowns. One such happened in Fukushima - an
earthquake and tsunami exceeding design specifications; the earthquake
logarithmically so.

 _This resulted in near total defeat of the safety protocols._ Layers of
containment designed never to be breached, were breached. Rods in the nearby
cooling pools even got hot. Fundamentally, the plant operators lost control of
the situation.

Yes, its probable the final number of lives lost will be low. But, _almost all
the safety mechanisms were breached_. With slightly more misfortune (perhaps
another hydrogen explosion), much radiation could have been released, and many
could have died.

Anyone (like Monbiot, the author) who argues that this incident increases
faith in the safety of the nuclear power plant needs to read Feynman's
minority report on the shuttle disaster.

When the safety systems, designed never to be breached at all, are 50%
breached, you do _not_ have a 50% margin of error. _You have an extremely
serious problem._

Is nuclear fisson probably going to be our medium term energy source? Yes;
there are few better alternatives. But we are going to have to be very careful
about how we build them.

Finally, while I am not attacking nuclear power here, it is erroneous to
reason about the relative safeties of technologies based purely on the
historical track record.

What we should be thinking about is what the risk is in future; not what it
has been in the past. If I told you I had an energy source that had a known
0.01% of ending the world, each year, but a clean 50 year track record, would
you allow me to continue with it? Of course not!

We must not make inferences about possible risks based purely on the track
record, with no regard for improbable, but perhaps catastrophic, scenarios.

Thankfully, nuclear power is not the doomsday energy source some people make
out; and I'm not arguing against it - just against the specious reasoning.

~~~
InclinedPlane
So.... your argument is that we should stop building nuclear plants using 50
year old designs? I think that problem is already well solved.

New nuclear plants would actually fare far better against these unprecedented
natural disasters.

Edit: the problem is this, nuclear power is being put up to a far higher
standard than any other power source because of irrational fears. There is
risk in any activity, especially providing electrical power. People die from
dams failing, from refinery explosions, etc. The question should be whether we
can build nuclear plants that are at least as safe as competing power sources,
and the answer, even in the wake of Fukushima, seems to be a resounding yes.

~~~
chris_j
"the problem is this, nuclear power is being put up to a far higher standard
than any other power source because of irrational fears"

That's probably correct. The question is, why? Perhaps it's because it is so
much more difficult to understand. When a dam breaks or when parts of an oil
refinery explode, the result may be catastrophic but at least we can
understand what is happening, on an intuitive level. When something goes wrong
with a nuclear reactor, it is so far removed from anything in our everyday
world that it's difficult to understand on that same intuitive level. If
something is on fire then we can see and hear it and we can use our
experiences of other things being on fire to understand it. If something is
radioactive then neither of the above apply.

So perhaps there is something about nuclear that makes it uniquely frightening
(even if those fears are irrational). Unless everyone studies nuclear physics,
those fears aren't likely to go away any time soon.

~~~
InclinedPlane
The basic reason is unfamiliarity. Unfamiliarity breeds fear and fear breeds
irrationality.

Is it worse to die of radiation poisoning than, say, in an automobile fire?
Both can be horrific ways to die, but most people today are likely to be more
afraid of the former.

------
FirstHopSystems
I always thought that the reactors survived a tsunami and a earthquake at the
same time was pretty good. Damaged but still intact, I do think it will take
awhile for the whole picture to emerge on what took place. It seems most of
the news about the nuclear hazards are an echo chamber so there might be some
real danger. Most of the safety systems were wiped out and it's still
standing? I had imaged the reactor turning into a roman candle launching fuel
rods all over the place. The entire picture has yet to emerge and yet people
are talking about it like the show is over.

But then again most people commenting about the situation are pretty far away
from Japan. Myself: I'm sitting in California. I'm sure if the San Onfre Plant
started venting a small amount of radiation I would get a little edgy
including a shift in perspective

An out of control/damaged nuclear plant is still a out of control/damaged
nuclear plant. Radiation leakage or no radiation leakage. I would be mad if
any radiation came my way due to someone cutting corners or just not caring,
no matter the dosage.

~~~
jacques_chester
> An out of control/damaged nuclear plant is still a out of control/damaged
> nuclear plant.

Indeed. To borrow a meme from elsewhere, TRWTF is that the design requires
active cooling for safe operation. Fukushima has proved that any safety system
requiring active operation will inevitably fail.

The worst failure mode is meltdown, which the containment vessel would catch
as the final line of defence (a la Three Mile Island), but it shouldn't have
gotten this far in the first place.

That said, Fukushima is a 40-year-old design. Hopefully it'll be replaced with
something with more passive safety.

~~~
wiredfool
It's a 40 year old plant with a 50 year old design that was done before Plate
Tectonics and subduction zones were accepted theories. (ca late 60's for those
theories)

And, despite fudged safety records, losing all cooling power, and having a 9.0
quake and a 12 m tsunami hit it, it still hasn't killed anyone. That's pretty
good. It's bad that it's going to cost billions of dollars to secure, but in
the scope of the overall disaster, it's a small percentage.

In 20 years, there's a good chance that people will be saying "I can't believe
that they kept building gas and coal plants, look at what it's done to the
environment."

~~~
orblivion
I hate to be pedantic, didn't it at least kill a couple workers?

~~~
wiredfool
A crane fell. Not radiation. (unless there's been a recent change)

------
hartror
I heartily agree with the main premise that Fukushima should be held up as a
success story of the nuclear energy sector. However I found the whole local
production vs grid section is a bit weak, certainly there are merits to both
and each solution alone is not the answer.

~~~
jacques_chester
There's a relatively simple way to settle the right mix of local or
centralised generation. Let people pay for whichever they prefer.

~~~
tb
It's not that simple, because you have to factor in all the negative
externalities. That's what got us into this mess in the first place, people
aren't paying the full cost of the planetary resources they are using.

~~~
jacques_chester
I actually considered mentioning a carbon tax, but figured it would derail the
discussion.

------
afterburner
By buying nuclear plants now, we lock into today's nuclear technology for the
next 50 years (nuclear plants have 40-50 year life cycles). By investing
heavily in renewables and a new power grid, we can continually improve
renewable generation and incrementally add to and improve existing facilities.

Also, when a disaster happens, we can go "uh oh, 100 windmills fell over; man,
we better wait until it's safe to go fix/replace them" instead "holy shit this
could turn into a disaster right now unless we frantically try to control the
situation and in doing so put several workers' lives in immediate and horrible
risk!"

Every dollar wasted on nuclear power is a lost opportunity. Renewables can be
vastly improved, several advances have already been made just not fully
capitalized on. Nuclear power doesn't show the same promise. Maybe in 50 years
it will, but now it looks like same old same old. In the meantime I keep
reading how advances in solar cell technology and long distance power grids
can tap into more energy than perhaps most expect.

~~~
light3
'Renewables can be vastly improved, several advances have already been made
just not fully capitalized on' such as?

I think the major advantage of nuclear is its cost efficiency and low
pollution.

~~~
afterburner
If you insist on a cited post, lead by example.

~~~
light3
Firstly I didn't ask for citation, I asked for examples.

Secondly, I gave my opinion which I think is based on accepted facts, if you
insist on citations you can find them on Wikipedia. You just gave a statement,
wrote your proposition on that statement, with nothing to back it up.

~~~
afterburner
Yeah, same as you. I'd debate your unsupported statement about cost
efficiency. See my post below about the bids for Ontario nuclear expansion two
years ago.

~~~
light3
This chart is on wikipedia:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nuke,_coal,_gas_generating...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nuke,_coal,_gas_generating_costs.png)

But that's sidetracking, instead of ridiculous citation wars, what I was
really asking for was some examples of:

'Renewables can be vastly improved, several advances have already been made
just not fully capitalized on'

~~~
afterburner
Google: advances in solar cell technology

------
Derbasti
Any technology that makes awful natural disasters _worse_ , is not a
technology I want to have around.

Also, a technology that makes it impossible for humans to be close to it in
event of failure, is a bad idea.

------
molecule
currently in or traveling to tokyo or fukushima soon, submitter or author?

------
lispm
Is that satire?

------
michaelochurch
Nuclear power is necessary to provide "bridge" energy until we can go fully
green. We don't have the resources yet to meet all our needs using green
energy sources, and nuclear is far better than fossil fuels. Also, modern
nuclear plant designs don't have any of the dangers that reactors like TMI and
Fukushima had. Those relied on active safety-- that is, there is something
that must be done to stop the reaction, and if the safety devices fail or if
some input, such as electric power, becomes unavailable, it becomes difficult
to stop. Modern designs (pebble bed, thorium) have passive safety (i.e. the
reaction stops if not continually supported).

~~~
noelchurchill
_Nuclear power is necessary to provide "bridge" energy until we can go fully
green._

Not exactly so.

Wind or solar are dependent on it being windy or daytime, therefore will never
provide base load power and can only provide incremental power on top of base
load power sources such as coal, oil, gas, nuclear, or... geothermal.
Geothermal is one of the best _green_ energy sources that can provide baseload
power.

After 100 years a geothermal power plant will still produce 35% of it's
original first year production, so it's a pretty long lived asset.

I don't understand why geothermal is always overlooked.

~~~
Detrus
Geothermal increases earthquake risk/frequency, so it's not all roses either.

There are plenty of problems for large scale power plants, like limited
locations, custom fit for each spot, etc.. But there are some pretty large
ones, I wouldn't say it's overlooked by the industry, maybe by the media.

~~~
dhughes
> Geothermal increases earthquake risk/frequency, so it's not all roses
> either.

What do you mean?

~~~
Detrus
[http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-03/does-
geotherma...](http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-03/does-geothermal-
power-cause-earthquakes)

Just google "geothermal" and "earthquakes"

------
vacri
1) The story is not complete yet.

2) Things other than a simple count of short-term fatalies matter.

How about we do a deal: stop deciding whether Fukishima is a good or bad thing
at least until it's completely under control. We've already had the darkly
amusing round where the pro-nuclear have said "See, perfectly safe, no nuclear
explosion" and then there was one.

Wait for the chapter to be finished before claiming win or loss.

~~~
skybrian
They were hydrogen explosions, not nuclear explosions.

~~~
jacques_chester
And indeed there couldn't be such an explosion, the fuel is not rich enough in
U235.

