
Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights - bpodgursky
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-environment-pediatrics-idUSKBN1762ZK
======
xroche
Closing nuclear power plants and replacing them with coal power plants is
simply criminal. In Europe, coal pollution kills ~20,000 people each year (
_), nuclear never killed a single person, and no study could ever provide any
mortality increase due to nuclear energy (outside the Tchernobyl accident,
which killed between 200 and 4000 people depending on estimations, after 20
years of study)

To be clear: nuclear is not the perfect solution, is not a renewable energy,
and will have to be replaced by something else in the future. But this is the
least deadly energy, even safer than wind or solar power (_)

(
_)[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/12/european...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/12/european-
coal-pollution-premature-deaths) (_)
[http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/06/update-of-death-per-
ter...](http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/06/update-of-death-per-terawatt-
hour-by.html)

~~~
tonyedgecombe
In other words nuclear never killed anybody apart from the ones it killed:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll#Chernobyl_disaster)

~~~
blowski
I'm no expert on Chernobyl or power generation. But I think Chernobyl was the
result of under-investment and poor management, whereas many of the deaths
from coal are an unavoidable consequence of burning coal. Hence, you can say
nuclear is safer as long as it's managed well.

~~~
lostlogin
Where is it managed well?

~~~
blowski
I have no idea. I don't even know if it is practically possible to manage well
enough to guarantee zero disasters.

But there are many nuclear plants around the world that have operated with no
problems. As I said, I'm no expert.

~~~
LoSboccacc
new design exist that in case of disaster self contains under most conditions,
trouble is it's very hard to obtain certifications needed for operation today
as opposed to decades ago, so we're mostly stuck with old designs.

------
lyschoening
This is research from the 1980s. It is undoubtedly correct, but it does not
not apply to today.

Today, renewables are competing favorably against coal and nuclear power on
price, and they are improving rapidly still. It takes easily 15 years to plan
and build a nuclear power plant, while a solar plant can be planned and built
in months.

The issue of what happens when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine
can be addressed through larger HVDC grids with a good energy mix and through
storage technology, which is also improving rapidly. Meanwhile, nuclear has
its own issues with the elements nowadays. Nuclear relies on huge amounts of
freshwater. I've heard of nuclear plants that need to shut down in the summers
now because of drought. It will become harder and harder to find locations
where they can be built.

Finally, new fossil fuel plants built today are mostly gas, not coal. Gas also
has its problems, but it has been a reasonable transition technology that is
also losing ground now as energy storage technology is improving.

~~~
awjr
Is the sun not shining just a transmission problem? Have we been able to
create ultra high voltage long range DC transmission systems?

~~~
lyschoening
Usually the sun not shining means higher wind speeds, not necessarily at the
same location. In general a larger grid means less overhead is required. HVDC
is tested and proven, UHVDC links are also being constructed now
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
voltage_direct_current](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
voltage_direct_current)

------
legulere
A very weird way to study the outcome of coal air pollution. It seems like
this is not really about air pollution but trying to push nuclear energy.
Luckily shutting down nuclear plants does not necessarily mean turning on coal
power (e.g. in Germany they were replaced by renewables).

Some questions arise though: Which coal power air pollutant is to blame for
the birth weight decrease. Which coal pollution mitigation techniques[1]
(which are probably now more common) were used by the coal plants?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_pollution_mitigation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_pollution_mitigation)

~~~
lemming
_in Germany they were replaced by renewables_

Do you have a reference for this? Germany has a very aggressive (and highly
commendable) plan to move to renewables, but my understanding was that the
closing of nuclear plants post-Fukushima was covered by coal. Wikipedia seems
to agree
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany)):

 _At the same time, Germany continues to rely heavily on coal power, with
usage increasing to offset the phase-out of nuclear energy._

~~~
hannob
> but my understanding was that the closing of nuclear plants post-Fukushima
> was covered by coal.

There was a minor uptick in coal usage for a few years, however even that
wasn't necessary, but due to bad policy (gas plants were standing still at the
same time). By now coal usage is going down again.

There were a couple of new constructions of coal plants, but all of them were
started before the nuclear phaseout. And by now most of their operators
recognize that their investments were failures and will probably never pay
out.

It isn't all ideal in Germany, but overall it's going into the right direction
(and the success of solar in many countries these days wouldn't have been
possible without the early investments in Germany that brought the prices
down).

~~~
vidarh
And without the decommissioning, vast amounts of money spent on the
decommissioning could have been spent on renewables to replace coal instead,
and far less coal would have still been necessary in order to compensate for
the decommissioned capacity.

It also meant less capacity available for export to countries whose fallback
is fossil fuels from elsewhere.

The German decommissioning alone is likely to have been a far greater public
health disaster than all nuclear incidents in human history combined many
times over.

------
terminado

      ...the difference in birth weights between the two time 
      periods is roughly the difference in birth weights between 
      a baby born to a mother with a disadvantaged background 
      who received supplemental nutrition during pregnancy and a 
      baby born to a similar mother who didn't get that help.
    

I think a map correlating power plant pollution plume estimates with the
reporting hospitals or physicians that provided infant data, and their areas
served would be helpful in representing the relationship between these two
events.

Here seems to be an older version of the source, with power plant maps:

[http://conference.iza.org/conference_files/environ_2015/seve...](http://conference.iza.org/conference_files/environ_2015/severnini_e8895.pdf)

Paywalled version:

[http://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy201751](http://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy201751)

Infant vital statistics are drawn from county-level sources.

~~~
johan_larson
I suspect the drop in infant birth weights is caused by the economic
disruption of closing a major local employer, rather than by the increased
pollution from the coal-fired power plants.

------
Aloha
While I don't doubt that coal pollution is harmful, I do have to wonder how
much the study controlled for other conditions that could cause these changes
(like economic factors).

I can't help but wonder if this is confusing correlation with causation even
if just a little.

------
mcone
You don't need to convince me of the dangers of coal pollution. I grew up in
Farmington, New Mexico with two massive coal-fired power plants right outside
of town.

But this article ignores the consequences, and apparently the very existence,
of nuclear waste. This is a problem we'll be dealing with for tens of
thousands of years.

It's unlikely that today's pollution from coal-fired power plants will
endanger the lives of people thousands of years from now, but you can bet your
bacon that the pollution from nuclear power plants will.

~~~
Neliquat
So where does coal pollution go in your mind that renders it inert and
nonradioactive? Please re read your statement and look how dumb it is.

------
novalis78
Can't wait for the results of Thorcon Power's first plant in Indonesia [1].
Too bad that they could not get past the regulatory innovation kill that's
preventing the US from taking a lead on next generation nuclear power plants.

[1][http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/12/first-walk-away-safe-
mo...](http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/12/first-walk-away-safe-molten-
salt.html)

------
ZeroGravitas
An irony I've noticed recently is fans of nuclear saying: "Coal is killing
people, if you say anything bad about Nuclear then you are killing people" and
then turning round and attacking other, non-coal alternatives like wind, solar
or even natural gas.

Initially I assumed these were actually coal supporters doing some devious
concern trolling to delay the roll out of alternatives that are viable in the
short term but I've come to accept that it's just another weird nerd-war like
Emacs Vs Vi, except with deadlier real life consequences.

~~~
opo
The world will need base load power for a long time. Yes, there is a lot of
research into grid storage, but except for pumped hydro we are a long way away
from that being a major component of the power system. (For example, Gates is
investing in startups that are working on innovative nuclear plant designs and
startups that are working on storage - maybe they all succeed, maybe none of
them will.)

NASA has estimated that using nuclear power has saved an estimated 1.8 million
lives that would have been lost if the power has been replaced by fossil
fuels: [https://climate.nasa.gov/news/903/coal-and-gas-are-far-
more-...](https://climate.nasa.gov/news/903/coal-and-gas-are-far-more-harmful-
than-nuclear-power)

We are going to need a predictable, reliable form of base load power for a
long time. When you compare nuclear, coal and natural gas, one of these three
ways of generating electricity has much fewer health consequences than the
others. Lives depend on having reliable, affordable electricity and as we
transition the vehicle fleet to electric, we will need more electricity, not
less.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
That paper basically says "coal is bad" but again, kind of throws natural gas
under the bus in a sneaky way.

 _" almost certainly would have been supplied by fossil fuels instead
(overwhelmingly coal)"_

So they've established, coal is really bad. That would be a really powerful
argument for nuclear if people didn't already know that. How about running the
numbers for nuclear plus as much natural gas as necessary to follow load, vs
renewables plus natural gas? That seems like the real question. (Numbers here
being cost, time, C02, health impacts, deaths etc. because deaths are
acceptable if we could have saved enough money to save many more lives
elsewhere).

~~~
opo
>...That would be a really powerful argument for nuclear if people didn't
already know that.

Yes some people know that, but obviously many people don't or politicians
wouldn't shut down all their nuclear power plants while continuing to run
coal. Burning coal when there are alternatives is a danger not just to the
thousands who will die that year, but to future generations who have to deal
with the CO2.

>...How about running the numbers for nuclear plus as much natural gas as
necessary to follow load, vs renewables plus natural gas? That seems like the
real question. (Numbers here being cost, time, C02, health impacts, deaths
etc. because deaths are acceptable if we could have saved enough money to save
many more lives elsewhere).

Solar/wind have such low capacity factors that without grid storage at best
they can be used as a supplement to a load following base load power source.
The people who are afraid of nuclear power suggest to use natural gas as the
base load. The CO2 from burning natural gas is less than coal and it doesn't
emit mercury or the other particulates and doesn't have a waste issue like
coal does. Unfortunately for those who care about climate change, there are
inevitable methane releases from fracking and from distribution of natural gas
and those are now known to be worse than previously thought:

>...Back in August, a NOAA-led study measured a stunning 6% to 12% methane
leakage over one of the country’s largest gas fields — which would gut the
climate benefits of switching from coal to gas. We’ve known for a long time
that methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (CO2),
which is released when any hydrocarbon, like natural gas, is burned. But the
IPCC’s latest report, released Monday (big PDF here), reports that methane is
34 times stronger a heat-trapping gas than CO2 over a 100-year time scale, so
its global-warming potential (GWP) is 34. That is a nearly 40% increase from
the IPCC’s previous estimate of 25.

[https://thinkprogress.org/more-bad-news-for-fracking-ipcc-
wa...](https://thinkprogress.org/more-bad-news-for-fracking-ipcc-warns-
methane-traps-much-more-heat-than-we-thought-9c2badf392df)

The death rate from natural gas accidents is also much higher than from
nuclear energy. There is no defense in depth or a slow progression of accident
- one unexpected spark and natural gas is an explosive.

In the San Bruno natural gas explosion 8 members of the general public died
and eyewitnesses reported the initial blast "had a wall of fire more than
1,000 feet high". Can you imagine the media coverage if this had been a
nuclear accident?? Just because the media finds such stories uninteresting,
doesn't mean we should ignore these deaths - that was 8 more people that died
in Fukushima. No one can claim that natural gas is safer than nuclear power
and unfortunately using natural gas may be as bad for the climate as burning
coal.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion)

From a previous comment someone made, here are the death totals for generating
power:

Energy Source Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr)

Coal – U.S. 10,000 (32% U.S. electricity)

Natural Gas 4,000 (22% global electricity)

Solar (rooftop) 440 (< 1% global electricity)

Wind 150 (2% global electricity)

Nuclear – U.S. 0.1 (19% U.S. electricity)

While the death rate for solar farms should be much less than rooftop and the
price of solar cells continues to drop, the costs for land do not:

>...To build the equivalent of a 1,000-Mw nuclear plant, a solar park would
require 11,000 acres of PV solar panels and a wind farm would need 50,000
acres of wind turbines. By contrast, Diablo Canyon is able to produce twice as
much power (2300 Mw) in a footprint of approximately 545 acres.

[https://www.pge.com/includes/docs/pdfs/shared/edusafety/syst...](https://www.pge.com/includes/docs/pdfs/shared/edusafety/systemworks/dcpp/PGE_Economic_Impact_Report_Final.pdf)

The usual response I have heard is to say that we should put all the solar
farms in the southwest and rebuild our grid system to handle have the power
source thousands of miles away. Unclear how many billions of dollars this
would cost (and how feasible this could ever be and the terrorist potential of
having so many people dependent on such long distance power lines) but this
cost should be added to the cost of solar if this is what people think should
be done.

And as far as using natural gas to be the base load for solar/wind, nuclear in
France is load following, there isn't a reason it can't be in other places.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
What is it with "capacity factors" that seems to confuse people? It's a
relatively simple concept, but all over the net I see people turn it into big
mystical numerological nonsense.

It's not the capacity factors of solar and wind that make them not able to
follow flexible demand. Just like it's not the capacity factor of nuclear that
also makes it unable to follow flexible demand.

Is it really just because it's a lower number than the alternatives, people
just latch onto that and won't let go?

Some nuclear plants have some level of load following capability (though the
cost are fixed so this can be less economic than a nuclear plant that runs
100%) but still not enough to precisely match demand, so what are you going to
fill the rest in with? You've just explained how natural gas is horrible and
causes explosions so I guess it won't be that.

"Base load" is another weird chimera, but that's not what I was suggesting
natural gas be used for except in the short term to help phase out coal as
quickly as possible. It has a medium term role in rapidly responding to demand
to fill the gaps and has a similar potential role in a nuclear dominated grid.
France appears to use natural gas and hydro in this role, both of which are
regularly demonised by nuclear fans, which seems a bit self-contradictory to
me.

~~~
opo
>"What is it with "capacity factors" that seems to confuse people? It's a
relatively simple concept, but all over the net I see people turn it into big
mystical numerological nonsense."

Of course people are interested in the capacity factor of any power source - a
utility planner would be crazy not to take that into consideration. In an
interview, Bill Gates pointed out a real world implications of this: "..It’s
kind of ironic: Germany, by installing so much rooftop solar, has it that both
their coal plants and their rooftop solar are available in the summer, and the
price of power during the day actually goes negative—they pay people to take
it. Then at night the only source is the coal, and because the energy
companies have to recover their capital costs, they either raise the price
because they’re not getting any return for the day, or they slowly go
bankrupt." He adds that clean energy advocates: "…They have this statement
that the cost of solar photovoltaic is the same as hydrocarbon’s. And that’s
one of those misleadingly meaningless statements. What they mean is that at
noon in Arizona, the cost of that kilowatt-hour is the same as a hydrocarbon
kilowatt-hour. But it doesn’t come at night, it doesn’t come after the sun
hasn’t shone, so the fact that in that one moment you reach parity, so what?
The reading public, when they see things like that, they underestimate how
hard this thing is. So false solutions like divestment or “Oh, it’s easy to
do” hurt our ability to fix the problems. Distinguishing a real solution from
a false solution is actually very complicated."

>…You've just explained how natural gas is horrible and causes explosions so I
guess it won't be that.

That comes off as a rather flippant comment. Are you saying that you think
natural gas is safer and has less effects on the climate than nuclear power or
are you trying to say that the safety and the effects on climate change by
using natural gas don't matter?

>…France appears to use natural gas and hydro in this role, both of which are
regularly demonised by nuclear fans, which seems a bit self-contradictory to
me.

I haven't noticed anyone here "demonizing" hydro or natural gas - please give
an example of someone spreading false information.

------
ASlave2Gravity
An aside from the article: What are the best ways to get access to journals?
Is there some sort of subscription program like Spotify / Netflix but for
journals?

~~~
istjohn
Free: [http://libgen.io](http://libgen.io)

------
mirimir
TVA nuclear vs TVA coal wasn't a binary choice. TVA coal was likely the least-
expensive offset, but TVA could have purchased hydro or gas-turbine power.
Also, I suspect that the coal plants used were among the oldest and most-
polluting.

------
basicplus2
Electrostatic precipitators fix the particulate problem very effectivly

~~~
ageofwant
I worked at a massive coal plant years back as a student. Once spent a
afternoon crawling through a ESP during maintenance. The dust made my hair
feel like sand, weird gritty sticky eyeballs.

Now this was before health and safety became fashionable. I recall tales of
the poor bastard that they forgot about when they tested the plate voltage.
The test failed: 64kv was 40kv for some reason, and kept arching, they were
still tracing the issue when his wife phoned to ask where John was, he was a
few hours late picking up his kid at kindergarten...

