
Chernobyl: The end of a three-decade experiment - pseudolus
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47227767
======
mimixco
The worldwide nuclear power industry experiences a meltdown event about every
20 years on average. Not counting the _many_ military nuke plant events, we
can see this with the ones that are household names.

Three Mile Island >> 1979

Chernobyl >> 1986

Fukushima >> 2011

Since the fundamental problems of nuclear safety have not changed (they can't;
it's physics) and, despite promises to the contrary, no "safer" form of
nuclear power has emerged, it's reasonable to conclude that, for as long as
BWR and PWR nuke plants exist (today's technologies), we'll continue to see
Maximum Credible Accidents (the industry's term) at the same rate.

Molten salt reactors, for those who propose that technology, actually have a
_worse_ safety record which is why they're not used commercially anywhere.
Fusion, according to the industry's own reports, is "just around the corner."
The problem is that, for 50 years, it's always been just around the corner.

Until today's nuke plants are shuttered, we'll continue to live with not only
the threats but the _reality_ of meltdowns on a predictable, repeating
schedule.

~~~
mhh__
Is nuclear power worse than alternatives at comparable scale?

I'd much rather have a one meltdown - globally - every x years than have coal
power dominate for example

~~~
mimixco
First of all, you already have coal power dominating. Coal and oil energy
together have provided a greater rise in standard of living for more people
than any other discovery in human history. You would definitely not want to go
back to life before coal power.

Secondly, nuclear power at scale is simply not possible. There isn't enough
uranium in the world to provide all the baseload power currently generated by
coal. Nuclear plants take decades to build and are uneconomic to maintain. It
is unlikely that the US will build even one more plant since there is only one
under construction now and it's facing cancellation. All other proposed plants
in the US that were approved or under construction have been cancelled. Even
with the small amount of nuclear we have, the environment still suffers from
the incredibly toxic acts of mining and processing uranium into fuel pellets.

The waste created by nuclear power plants has a 270,000 year half-life. A
single particle of plutonium, if ingested, is enough to cause cancer. There is
no safe level of radiation exposure and it's simply irresponsible to keep
generating this kind of waste when most of it is literally sitting around in
swimming pools (on nuke plant sites) because it has to be kept cool and we
haven't figured out anything better to do with it.

~~~
tropo
This is alarmist and mostly wrong.

There is enough uranium for two reasons. First, we can recover 95% of the
uranium in a fuel rod via reprocessing. Second, supplies change according to
market demand, as happened with oil. Remember, we were to have run out of oil
by now, but that sure didn't happen.

Nuclear plants do not need to take decades or be uneconomic. This is self-
inflicted due to political opposition, largely by an insane regulatory agency
(won't discuss preliminary designs, gives only a yes/no on final plans) and
the very same lawsuits that make every big project a mess in the USA.

Having a long half-life means that the substance is not a problem. The longer
the half-life, the less radioactive something is. An extreme example is
tungsten, an element for which we recently observed radioactive decay and thus
finally proved that it is in fact radioactive.

A single particle of plutonium, if injested, will almost certainly do you no
harm. You face a far greater radioactive risk from the common banana, which is
laced with radioactive phosphorus.

We have figured out what to do. First we reprocess the spent fuel rods,
recovering about 95% of the fuel for making new fuel rods. (Japan does this)
Next we bury the remainder in Nevada, for example in the already-contaminated
underground test sites.

