HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Will you be factoring in the healthcare costs associated with burning more diesel and natural gas? (Not even getting into the externalities of climate change.)

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I thought Kurzgesagt did a pretty good job of breaking this down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM. Basically, no matter how you look at it, nuclear is among the safest forms of energy we have, behind only solar, wind, and hydropower. Admittedly, deaths ≠ costs, but I imagine the numbers would be similar.

⬐ cupofpython

nuclear is also incredibly hard to build an accurate model for because the concern tends to revolve around the risk of human stupidity causing major issues.

on top of that, i feel like there is a lot of hand waving involved with the waste. if we really industrialized nuclear fuel worldwide - we would be creating a lot of nuclear waste. theoretically, this isnt a problem.

what id like to see, and may do one day if i run out of projects, is at what risk factor does nuclear equal fossil fuels. not, look how much better it is, but "this is about how dumb we would need to be in our handling of nuclear plants to cause about the same damage as our current system does"

making it apples to apples like that would make it much clearer.. % risk of this or that is tough to internalize for a lot of people. but is active sabotage of 1 out of every 10 plants necessary to be as bad as current energy? or is just 1 plant failing enough to make nuclear worse and we are just saying the likelihood of just 1 plant failing is astronomically small

⬐ pfdietz

Fossil fuels have enormous global risk, so that's not bad for nuclear.

The problem is that nuclear is competing against renewables, not fossil fuels. So, new nuclear needs an argument for why it's better than renewables, not why it's better than something that's on its way out anyway. The usual arguments, intermittency of renewables and land use, don't work well when examined closely, at least when justifying new nuclear power plants.

⬐ cupofpython

i am equally interested in seeing it compared it to alternative fuels in the same manner. the point is more about putting nuclear into perspective with human error. and what kinds of human error are necessary to make nuclear dangerous.

I feel there is an assumption that there will always be enough people at every plant who are fully competent, which i do not think is the reality we would see if we replace most energy needs with nuclear

⬐ Wowfunhappy

First of all, we’re currently closing nuclear plants that would could otherwise have a lot of life left, so this isn’t merely about whether to build new plants. But putting that aside for a moment:

> The problem is that nuclear is competing against renewables, not fossil fuels. So, new nuclear needs an argument for why it's better than renewables, not why it's better than something that's on its way out anyway.

Is it, though?

From where I’m standing—wind and solar just can’t seem to produce enough energy. I mean, look at the top link. Solar doesn’t even get its own category. So we fall back on fossil fuels.

Nuclear seems to be the only non-carbon source of power we have today that is actually capable of generating electricity in the amounts our society needs. Build a few more nuclear plants, and boom, New York’s electricity could be CO2 free, in a few years!

⬐ pfdietz

> wind and solar just can’t seem to produce enough energy

"They are not producing enough energy, therefore they can't produce enough energy." This is an obviously wrong argument, since there is nothing preventing vast expansion of renewable capacity. The world is constantly hit by 100,000 terawatts of sunlight; total world primary energy consumption is 18 TW.

> Nuclear seems to be the only non-carbon source of power we have today that is actually capable of generating electricity in the amounts our society needs.

This is simply false.

Nuclear is one of the least deadly energy sources (taking all deaths, including by nuclear disaster, into account).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM

⬐ e0a74c

Does that take into account the millions of people who'll suffer from birth defects, low fertility, physical deformities and cancers for millennia to come?

⬐ throwawaylinux

From the nuclear and chemical pollution from burning coal and other fossil fuels? Probably not. Nor the impacts of climate change for millennia to come.

⬐ bayesian_horse

It is also not a widely used energy source. Nor is direct fatality, especially just looking into the past, the only issue.

Proponents of nuclear power often don't want you to think about what happens when nuclear power has to be doubled, quadrupled, and so on. Nor are the risks really computable at all, with really small chances of extremely bad things happening. And the potential for bad actors at any time.

⬐ Tade0

Personally I'm not really worried about the technical side - just the way it's handled. Here's a lesser known minor incident:

https://www.edf.fr/en/the-edf-group/dedicated-sections/journ...

Which wouldn't be newsworthy if it wasn't for how it was handled - the local authorities outright refused to even entertain the idea of even temporarily shutting the plant down to check if everything is okay.

This incident isn't serious, but I'm afraid that should a serious incident happen, we won't know until it gets out of control.

> The potential for loss is much higher with nuclear power.

This isn't true. Fossil fuels kill much, much more people per Kwh than nuclear [1]. But much like airplanes vs car accidents, fossil fuels kill constantly and widespread in small amounts, while nuclear kills very rarely in high amounts.

[1] https://youtu.be/Jzfpyo-q-RM?t=376

Here are some stats on fossil fuel deaths in general

https://youtu.be/Jzfpyo-q-RM?t=355

On average in the US, the CO2 output required to power an electric vehicle is 1/3 of an ICE vehicle. So theoretically this would translate to less deaths as bb123 suggests, but hard to compare to direct pedestrian deaths. (Yes there are some logical gaps as ICE C02 output is a very low percentage of total fossil fuel output).

⬐ andys627

Remember the emissions to manufacture the vehicle... they're higher for EVs. Lifecycle emissions for EVs therefore aren't much lower than ICE.

⬐ soperj

if you're adding those, you need to add the emissions when actually processing crude oil into gasoline.

⬐ andys627

They are maybe 40-50% lower. Does this move the needle for climate change? No

Source: https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1129478_lifetime-carbon...

⬐ bryanlarsen

The lifetime emissions for EVs are massively lower than ICE's, unless the EV gets totalled in its first year of operation.

⬐ andys627

They are maybe 40-50% lower. Does this move the needle for climate change? No. And it’s not just lifetime car emissions. It’s the car dependent life that cars require

Source: https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1129478_lifetime-carbon...

⬐ bryanlarsen

It's only 50% lower because most electricity grids emit a lot of carbon. Once the grid switches to 100% carbon-free, the number becomes a lot lower. And most of the embodied carbon in the car comes from industrial electricity or transport, so as the grid & transport goes green the embodied carbon goes down, eventually to zero.

Electricity only accounts for about 25% of greenhouse gas emissions, but it also enables industry (20%) and transportation (15%) to decarbonize too, by allowing them to replace their fuel with electricity.

A 50% reduction is already massive, but electrification of both vehicles and the industrial processes creating the vehicle will eventually let that number go to zero which should be our goal.

Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM

For your benefit, and the benefit of those around you, please watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM.

I really find it gross the extent to which fear mongering over nuclear happens. Countries decommissioning nuclear plants to switch to coal, which kill far more people, even scaling by use.

Instead of using a source of power that's overall incredibly safe, and which produces relatively small amounts of highly manageable waste, people have pushed to switch to these incredibly environmentally harmful power sources. This is especially surprising from countries like Germany that, as someone who doesn't live anywhere near them, see them as technically adept.

My province in Canada got 60% of our power in 2018 from nuclear (plus 1/4 from hydro), and a different province got 95% of theirs from hydro, but then that's offset by other provinces that get 90% of theirs from natural gas and coal. Sure not every place is ideally suited for a lot of nuclear (though hopefully SMRs will help), but 90% is too high.

We need less fossil fuels and more nuclear to bridge the gap to more renewables.

For an interesting comparison of the deaths from nuclear energy, compared to other sources, I highly recommend "How Many People Did Nuclear Energy Kill? Nuclear Death Toll" [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM

⬐ zabzonk

> Countries decommissioning nuclear plants to switch to coal,

That won't happen in the UK for political reasons - the miner's strike and Thatcherism (and vast amounts of suffering) would be seen to be for nothing. The UK has put a lot of effort into renewables, and is currently building a new nuclear station.

Mining and shipping is required for all forms of energy. Of course it's gonna be per twh because that is the only way to measure that makes any sense.

Kurzgesagt has a great video explaining everything here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM

⬐ JoeAltmaier

Mining and shipping are very, very different by source - every watt of coal is shipped. Only the machinery for solar is shipped. Nuclear fuel is shipped in pounds not megatons, but they are fantastically dangerous pounds. Etc. Utterly different in effect on risk.

The linked chart seemed to list totals. Did it have per TWHr? I missed that.

⬐ Mrdarknezz

If you want to talkt about emissions instead here is a great summary from the Swedish Life cycle analysis by energy source: Nuclear: 6g CO2/kwh Hydro: 9g CO2/kwh Wind: 13g CO2/kwh Solar: 24g CO2/kwh

This includes everything from construction to mining. The data comes from Swedens state run energy company Vattenfall LCA report https://www.vattenfall.se/foretag/miljo/epd/ and here is a an article that summarizes it https://blog.karnfull.se/blog/kaernkraftslogik-1-klimatsmart

Did a control-F for "kurzgesagt" and saw that it had not been mentioned yet.

I really recommend watching this short video which gives a really excellent overview of the dangers of nuclear power in the context of the alternatives.

The TLDW is even if a very pessimistic estimate of the dangers of nuclear power is still much better than a very optimistic take on the dangers of fossil fuels once you combine the effects of air pollution and climate change. That includes both Chernobyl and Fukushima.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM

Relevant Kurzgesagt video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM

Yes, there were a lot of deaths from these nuclear disasters, they were horrible, we should have avoided them. But nuclear energy is still much less deadly than fossil fuels. Air pollution-caused diseases are lung cancer and stroke for example. I think nuclear plants have become much safer and there is more international regulation to maintain their safety. I recommend this excellent video on this topic from Kurzgesagt: https://youtu.be/Jzfpyo-q-RM

⬐ amarant

Not only is nuclear safer than coal, it's safer than solar! (in terms of deaths per Gwh produced)

https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...

⬐ Hammershaft

That depends on the estimate, but from what I know yeah most estimates place it lower than solar.

⬐ ketzu

One of the points of the toplevel comment is exactly

> This article also again equates safety with lack of deaths.

So adding a statistic that only focuses on that seems not helpful to me. Are there some available that give a broader analysis (that might not be as catchy for social media)?

⬐ amarant

What other metric would you use though? It seems to me the top-level comment is arguing "I think nuclear is scary so therefore statistical risk analysis is invalid"

I disagree.

⬐ ketzu

Impact on eco systems and economy, injuries, and maybe other effects that are not easily compressed into a single number. I don't disagree that Deaths/GWh is one of the most important statistics on the safety of energy production. But while we often quantify safety of roads/vehicles by deaths/billion length units driven, one assumption is it is highly correlated to other safety indicators such as injuries. Coal will probably be even worse considering these statistics and nuclear will probably still fare well.

One example I am aware of: Germany still monitors contamination of mushrooms and other wildlife in bavarian soil [1]

[1] http://doris.bfs.de/jspui/bitstream/urn:nbn:de:0221-20191007...

It's worth noting that, even taking second-order effects into account, the total number of deaths from nuclear accidents is actually quite low compared to other methods of generating electricity. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM

Nuclear seems more dangerous for the same reason planes seem more dangerous than cars—when something goes wrong, it's a big news event.

⬐ subaquamille

The main problem with nuclear is that when something goes wrong, it last for way longuer than any other form of catastrof.

⬐ drran

Data is cherry-picked. For example, if 60 000 people die because of Chornobyl radiation to 2005 (estimation from video) doesn't mean that they will stop dying after 2005. How many people will die after 2005? Video gives no answer.

Also, the video indirectly suggests that we can replace flood protection with nuclear energy. :-/ Dams are built mainly to protect population from floods, so they SAVE millions of lives every year, while also generating electrical energy, which is used to upkeep dams.

Banqiao incident is pictured like Chornobyl`, but, in reality, a bunch of people lives was SAVED by lower dam. The flood broke 62 dams. Just imagine what may happen when 10 nuclear reactors and/or nuclear waste sites will be flooded instead.

⬐ nicoburns

One of the other comments was talking about the land-use impact of renewables. Nuclear exclusion zones are pretty bad from this perspective.

⬐ vlovich123

Aside from Chernobyl (which happened some 35 years ago), nuclear exclusion zones are pretty small & don't have a significant impact (Deepwater Horizon well was arguably larger in terms of the area impacted).

https://youtu.be/Jzfpyo-q-RM

Edit: Further reading if you prefer it to videos. https://sites.google.com/view/sources-nuclear-death-toll/

If you'd like it in animated form the latest Kurzgesagt video covers this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM

This reminds me of a video I watched, just 6 days ago[0].

The video goes into detail about how deadly each of our energy gathering methods are. It also goes into detail about how many are killed per kWh.

I had no idea hydro was as deadly as it is before this video, I highly recommend anyone with 10 minutes to spare give it a watch. The channel is incredibly great in general.

[0]: https://youtu.be/Jzfpyo-q-RM

⬐ mam2

Less than coal, oil and even hydropower per KW.h.

https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

⬐ bsanr2

But does that scale? Planes kill fewer people than cars do per mile traveled. What happens when everyone has a flying car?

⬐ lm28469

That's a bad analogy. France gets 70% of its electricity from nuclear and it scales perfectly fine. It's not like everyone will have his own personal nuclear reactor in their living room

⬐ enkid

Yes...? We would still be talking about highly regulated centralized power generation. We're not talking about everyone having a nuclear reactor in their backyard.

⬐ floxy

I thought small modular reactors were the new hotness in this space.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_small_modular_reactor_...

⬐ jleahy

Even after making absolute worst case assumptions (linear no threshold), which are still widely debated (see the book ‘Radiation and reason’ by Wade Allison, my old professor, if you are sufficiently interested).

⬐ bryanlarsen

The argument against nuclear is no longer environmental, it's cost. For the price of a kWh of nuclear (20cents), you can get 3 kWh of solar (3x1.5), 2 kWh of wind (2x3) and 1 kWh of geothermal (7.5cents), with a few cents left over to upgrade your power lines. And you can get it in a year, rather than in a couple of decades.

⬐ belorn

The video goes through this in great details. When we close down nuclear energy plants we know from history what those replacement power plants are. They are fossil fueled energy plants, mostly coal and oil.

If a country can shutdown nuclear plants without adding more coal, oil and natural gas power plants to the grid then more credit to that country. If they can use that cheap solar and wind without a fossil fuel plants then that is what the market should do, but until that is the practical result of dismantling nuclear power plants then we should not continue the practice of replacing nuclear power plants with coal and oil. If that cost more money then it will have to cost more.

The single simplest solutions to all this debate over renewable costs is to simply impose a law which say nothing about nuclear or renewables. A simple law that forbids the construction of new fossil fuel power plants or the expansion of new capacity by existing fossil fuel power plants. What about the cost of nuclear? What about the cheaper price of renewable? We don't need the law to mention either. That should be up to the market to decide, because if we forbid the construction of fossil fuel power plants then the ever increasing demand for more energy will trigger market forces to build something, either nuclear or renewable.

I am not a nuclear advocate. I simply do not want more coal, oil and natural gas being burned when in the past my country (Sweden) has been pretty good at avoiding burning fossil fuels. When they recently turned of a reaction, a backup oil power plants suddenly found itself commercial viable to run all year round rather than just during the cold winters. I do not want oil in my air, I do not care if oil is cheaper, and I do not want Sweden to go down the path that Germany has with its replacement of nuclear in favor of more fossil fuel plants. There need to be a law, preferable internationally, which say that you can not replace non-nuclear energy capacity with fossil fueled energy capacity.

⬐ throw0101a

Possible counter argument: nuclear runs 24/7.

In the US, data over several years has shown wind available only one-third of the time, and solar available one-quarter:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor#Capacity_facto...

Nuclear is 90% of the time.

⬐ bryanlarsen

From your article "geothermal resources are generally available all the time"

My costs were quoted in kWh, not kW. So that already adjusts for capacity factor. So my comment has 7x the number of kWh of a nuclear solution, but it has 19x (!) the nominal generating capacity.

Also remember that part of the reason for the low capacity factor of renewables is over-production, not just under-production. During high wind events, some turbines are feathered because there isn't enough load on the grid to use the energy.

Battery storage is cheap. Casey Handmer calculated that it's cheaper to use batteries to store energy locally than it is to build high voltage lines: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/12/27/the-future-of-...

⬐ undefined1

so let's figure out how to reduce the cost. no doubt it's far more expensive than necessary.

solar and wind are great, but they don't run 24/7, need a battery storage solution, and take up a huge amount of land compared to nuclear.

⬐ mam2

It's cost, BECAUSE environmentalists have slowed down innovation through fear-mongering.. If it was any other industries it would be cheaper.

⬐ bryanlarsen

You're probably right, but so what? You can rail against past injustice but nothing you can do will make nuclear power a rational choice in 2021 or beyond. Solar power is cheaper than just the steam turbine in a nuclear plant.

⬐ mam2

Investing in it now would make it cheaper on the long term

⬐ pvaldes

Not to mention that nuclear was used for doing a few very obscene and terrible things that will rank easily among the worst crimes against humanity.

If investors suddenly don't want to be linked with your product in any way... well, maybe your product sucks. Burning thousands of people alive isn't good for your brand image and PR.

Keep blaming other people for your own bad decisions instead to face the consequences of your acts is what children do. Lets behave as adults.

⬐ projct

this is like saying gasoline is bad because napalm.

⬐ pvaldes

> this is like saying gasoline is bad because napalm.

A closer metaphor could be trying to build a new market selling napalm as toy cleaner, and blaming housewives for blocking the development of the product.

A product that was proven difficult to store, prone to catch fire, staining the wood for three generations and more expensive than the other brands.

⬐ manfredo

Measuring intermittent sources by raw price per watt hour is misleading. How much does solar cost at night? Or wind energy on windless days? A lot more because it needs to be stored and retrieved.

Shaving 10-20% off fossil fuels with intermittent sources is easy. Actually decarbonizing the energy sector with intermittent sources is much more difficult, since demand and supply do not match up.

Contrast Germany and France. The champions of intermittent sources and nuclear energy respectively, and take a look at the CO2 per KWh: https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/daviz/co2-emission-i...

⬐ canadianfella

Is geothermal intermittent?

⬐ fasteddie31003

I think most environmentalist are just very anti-growth and just want to solve environmental issues by reducing any resource consumption. By saying no to nuclear they are fulfilling their anti-growth strategy, but leaving a large resource gap that gets filled by more polluting, less dramatic energy sources.

⬐ etripe

I think the real reason goes farther back. The environmentalist movement grew out of the peace movement, which was anti-nuclear because all they saw were the military applications. A few decades down the line, they've forgotten why they don't like it, but they still don't like it.

⬐ wtfiswiththis

A lot of the core criticism of civilian nuclear power was correct in retrospect.

As it stands it is an extension of the military production line for nuclear arms and removing itself from that has been very costly & timely with no end in sight. Things like solar power simply do not come with that baggage.

Then on the other side of the equation, much of the points of criticism for power sources like solar or wind have been done away with or mitigated. Their efficiency has gone up along with the grid's ability to handle such sources.

Many of the choices now we have were sub-optimal decades ago but environmentalists invested when investment meant losing money. I'm still a fan of nuclear power but credit has to be given here.

⬐ kangnkodos

So close. The only acceptable solution to them is less consumption. They don't really think through the consequences.

For example, they have cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline, but simply do not think about the additional fossil fuel that will be burned transporting that oil via train instead. They dream of less consumption and ignore the actual real world consequences.

⬐ Analemma_

No, the point is that shipping by train is more expensive. The point is to drive up the price of oil and hasten the time when it becomes uncompetitive with renewables.

⬐ kangnkodos

That's a good point. But is it better to raise taxes on fossil fuel, or decide to ship oil via train instead of pipeline? I'm not sure what the exact tradeoff would be if train delivered oil was a little more expensive. A little more expensive would lead to a little less usage while the delilvery would pump more pollution into the air. The math might work out out your way or my way.

If I could snap my fingers, I would raise the tax on oil dramatically, and ship oil via pipeline until renewables actually take over and the demand for fossil fuel actually goes down. It seems to me that it would be better for the environment than other alternatives.

⬐ keynan

I agree this is optimal, however politics is a thing and you went and used the word tax.

⬐ belorn

If I could snap my fingers I would just copy the strategy by the anti-nuclear movement. As an strategy, theirs were both a great success, market friendly, easy for politicians to support and economical.

First step is to forbid creating new fossil fueled power plants for increased capacity. This has zero impact right now on the grid, but sets the road for the industry. Projects created before this date is not impacted.

Second step is to set a deadline where existing plants need to be demolished. The date get set around the time of existing plans for investments to be recovered. This makes current investors happy, while we also get a definitive date where the plants will be gone.

At this point we are done. New investors will look at the market and see an opportunity for increase demand for energy down the road, and at the same time see old capacity that will need to be replaced. There is no tax nor tax politics involved. No decisions regarding pipelines, trains or ships. Just two political decisions that has zero impact on anyone right now.