Forward our Bright and Atomic Future!

[GePap]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


That was my point. When you can't pin the potential damage within even several orders of magnitude, it's difficult to do any sort of reasoning about the costs.

Of course you can try to estimate potential damage. You can look at the cost of past nuclear accidents, and the frequency and likelyhood of those accidents given the track record of nuclear power over the last 40 years.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by GePap
Of course you can try to estimate potential damage. You can look at the cost of past nuclear accidents, and the frequency and likelyhood of those accidents given the track record of nuclear power over the last 40 years.

For someone who complains about people not reading his posts correctly, that was a pretty big error.

Hint: I was talking about damage from potential GW scenarios

Hint 2: Ramo agrees with me that it's difficult/impossible to estimate damages (with precision)

[Kuciwalker]

btw, Ramo, I meant "precision" when I said "accuracy" earlier. Yes I know the difference, it was a brain fart, sorry.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Try extraordinary human error.

Human error can be mitigated, the damage from human error can be mitigated.

A failsafe design is helpful here.

(With possible exceptions for "error which is indistinguishable from sabotage")

It's not questionable, just unknown. Unless you, like Blake, think that the possibility is currently 0%.

The risk is not 0%, but the insurable risk should be 0%.

Of course it does depend on what kind of meltdown you're talking about:

1) A meltdown which causes noticeable damage to the environment.
To date, one has occurred. Zero have occurred in western countries. Zero have occurred within the past 20 years.

2) A meltdown which only damages the reactor.
This has happened a few times, the majority over 40 years ago. Zero have occurred in the past 20 years.

Mistakes were made. Insufficient safeguards. Evidence is that those mistakes have been learned from and there are now sufficient safeguards to eliminate the risk of meltdown.

I really don't see why failsafe designs can't reduce the risk of accidental catastrophic meltdown to zero.
Partial meltdowns may be trickier to eliminate entirely but the damage can be greatly mitigated and it's not an externality.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by GePap


You talking about intellectual integrity is like a hoar talking about chastity

5 results for: hoar


hoar /hɔr, hoʊr/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[hawr, hohr] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun 1. hoarfrost; rime.
2. a hoary coating or appearance.
–adjective 3. hoary.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Origin: bef. 900; ME hor, OE hār; c. ON hārr gray with age, OFris hér gray, OHG hér old (G hehr august, sublime)]
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source hoar (hôr, hōr) Pronunciation Key
adj. Hoary.

n. Hoarfrost.


[Middle English hor, from Old English hār.]


hoar
O.E. har "gray, venerable, old," the connecting notion being gray hair, from P.Gmc. *khairaz, from PIE *koi- "to shine." Ger. retains the word as a title of respect, in Herr. Of frost, it is recorded in O.E. (hoar-frost is c.1290), expressing the resemblance of the white feathers of frost to an old man's beard. Used as an attribute of boundary stones in O.E. (probably in ref. to being gray with lichens), hence common in place names.

adjective
1. showing characteristics of age, especially having grey or white hair; "whose beard with age is hoar"-Coleridge; "nodded his hoary head"

noun
1. ice crystals forming a white deposit (especially on objects outside) [syn: frost]



You are going to have to explain this one a bit further.

[Ramo]

That was my point. When you can't pin the potential damage within even several orders of magnitude, it's difficult to do any sort of reasoning about the costs.

Wasn't mine. There are certainly huge uncertainties involved, but it seems reasonable to me that they're dwarfed by the gulf between the expected costs of meltdowns and climate change. Not that I can substantiate that atm...

As for letting the private market handle it, it's not like there are insurance firms all over the place that have the cash to do so. This is a particularly well-suited role for the government.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Have there been any nuclear meltdowns of well regulated plants? I include the outdated plants of 30+ years ago. From what I read current plants are much much safer.

JM

The biggest most spectacular meltdown(and the only one that was really dangerous) was Chernobyl, and they had to disengage their own safety protocols and not even build a containment structure around the reactor in question.


So in other words, even if a well regulated plant had turned off their safeties, the damage to the surrounding area would have been minimal because well regulated reactors have containment structures.

[_BuRjaCi_]

Didn't someone say this will all boil down to the fear factor? So much for the economy argument.

[darrelljs]

Before investing more money and resources into new fission plants, I'd rather accelerate fusion to fruition.

Darrell

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by _BuRjaCi_
Didn't someone say this will all boil down to the fear factor? So much for the economy argument.

If you'll notice there's no fear factor in my argument

[Patroklos]

Before investing more money and resources into new fission plants, I'd rather accelerate fusion to fruition.

I have heard some rather depressing estimates as to when that will happen

[Kuciwalker]

ZPE FTW

[DanS]

As for public support, I think the biggest mistake of the nuclear industry was putting the plants in heavily-populated areas. F.e., Three Mile Island is smack dab in the middle of Harrisburg. Doh!

My secretary lives in Calvert County (a rural area), the place where this plant will be built. As far as I can tell from talking with her, there is very little opposition to nuclear power in Calvert County. It seems to be viewed favorably across-the-board.

As for the economics, I think along the same lines as Kuci -- if nuclear makes such good sense economically, why does it need to be subsidized? I might be willing to talk super-catastrophic insurance provided by the gov't for a fee or something small like that. But my bias would always be toward no or very little subsidy for nuke power.

[darrelljs]

Originally posted by Patroklos


I have heard some rather depressing estimates as to when that will happen

Here's the "official" timeline, but most people seem to think commercial Fusion plants won't come online before 2075. I'll be dead (or wishing I was dead) by then .



Darrell

P.S. Apologies for the large image size, although it looks great on my new 24" widescreen monitor .

[DanS]

Err... no apologies are necessary, because you're going to resize the image or it will be deleted by the mods.