TheRoadsMustRoll t1_is76ax3 wrote on October 13, 2022 at 8:07 PM

Reply to comment by AduroTri in Ethics of Nuclear Energy in Times of Climate Change: Escaping the Collective Action Problem by CartesianClosedCat

>It's just people being stupid and lazy that cause problems.

but that has been the major problem with fossil fuels. its been known since the industrial revolution that adding CO^(2) to the atmosphere would increase global warming. 100 years later and we're still arguing about it while suffocating. had we taken action early on we could have mitigated a lot of the problems.

i'm all for switching to nuclear with that issue nailed down in advance: Once we identify (publicly and transparently) how the industry should operate any deviation would be a criminal offense.

So that sticky safety valve at 3 mile island that the designer knew about but didn't replace? Prison time for that board of directors. That experimental overheating paradigm they were trying at Chernobyl? Life in prison for anybody signing off on those gymnastics.

in my mind it's not about switching to a new source; it's about operating outside of the stupid-box.

Sovhan t1_is7hn69 wrote on October 13, 2022 at 9:21 PM

Modern reactors are foolproof, and nowhere near resembling the design of the Chernobyl ones. Meaning that even if nothing is done ( as in, "there is no human intervention possible, and/or no control available" ) the reaction will shutdown itself by lack of moderator. And even if a nefarious agent was to still force corium creation, the underbellies of reactor vessels now make the corium deposit thinner, stopping the reaction altogether.

And even if all these passive protections were folded by heavily modifying the powerplant at the cost of billions, you would still endanger "only" a 200km² area (size of the Chernobyl no go zone, and this is a worst case scenario as the Fukushima accident proved by only having a risk zone just around the power plant, and the city having residual radioactivity bellow safety standards.) If you weigh this against risking the destruction of all our support ecosystems; there's no need to be awfully bright to understand the non issue the is nuclear energy.

TheRoadsMustRoll t1_is7ku9y wrote on October 13, 2022 at 9:42 PM

>Modern reactors are foolproof

this is exactly the stupid-box that we need to be out of imo.

i remember that oil rig in the gulf that had a "foolproof" valve that would disengage from the well in case there was a leak. there was a leak and it didn't disengage and it leaked for months and they couldn't figure out how to shut it off (to my knowledge its still leaking today.)

I've studied engineering. nothing is foolproof.

try this: "there's absolutely no risk" -full stop stupidity.

or this: "passive protections" -institutionalized complacency.

try throwing in "modern algorithms" which are "foolproof" and have many "passive protections" in place.

i don't buy any of it and you shouldn't either. this mentality is what stops me from advocating nuclear energy because its the exact same mentality that gave us problems with fossil fuels.

imho.

Sovhan t1_is7nioc wrote on October 13, 2022 at 10:00 PM

So you tell me you don't understand that by design, if the water inside the reactor boils the reaction stops, is foolproof? This means you don't believe in the absoluteness of the laws of physics. Big claim on your part.

When I say that current gen are foolproof, I mean they are humanproof. You would have to literally distort the functional possibilities of physics to have a meaningful accident, or cause a literal cataclysm on the site of the powerplant that would make the underlying nuclear accident a joke in comparison.

The reactors do no rely on valves or other complicated industrial design gor security. They rely on basic geometry and physics. If you don't want to hear that from a lowly internet lurker, i can understand, but refuting an expert on the subject would be much harder; so i invite you to read :

Atomic Accidents: A History of Nuclear Meltdowns and Disasters: From the Ozark Mountains to Fukushima by James Mahaffey, an actual seasoned nuclear energy scientist and PhD.

Xjsar t1_is7nrv9 wrote on October 13, 2022 at 10:02 PM

I honestly don't know what your experience is with nuclear, but seriously look into it. It's not just a single save all fulcrum device like on an oil rig. There are safeties upon safeties upon safeties.

Palo Verde nuclear plant near Phoenix, from what little I know have at a minimum 3, redundancies for any major system on top of redundancies for those systems. Not to mention the insane safety precautions and procedures required for anything to happen.

Thats not to say shit doesn't happen or won't happen. At least in the US, the regulation bodies are beyond anal about keeping things safe. Reactor technology is lightyears ahead of what it was decades ago making it incredibly safe and viable for energy production.

To say anything can fail is why I don't like it is ignorant.

TxAho t1_is8pk93 wrote on October 14, 2022 at 2:46 AM

Please go look up void coefficients in reactor physics. Positive vs. negative makes a big difference.

AduroTri t1_is7xn6t wrote on October 13, 2022 at 11:13 PM

If something is foolproof, the universe will give us a greater fool.

madmanthan21 t1_is8k9r8 wrote on October 14, 2022 at 2:05 AM

If the greater fool can break the laws of physics, that's even better, means our understanding of them was wrong, and now we can improve it.

AduroTri t1_isa8mub wrote on October 14, 2022 at 1:07 PM

And then the universe will refine the fool and give us an even more foolish one.

Never underestimate the power of stupid people, especially when they're in large groups.