Why are people so anti-nuclear power?

[Osmeric]

There is no logical reason to be anti nuclear power.

Massive cost overruns making it noncompetitive with alternatives is not a "logical reason"?

Please.

[Zecora]

Why should they bury it under my house when they can bury it in a desert 200m under the ground? Go ahead and tell me how that's going to "spread" and kill off humans.

In other words, all your hand-waving means nothing. You don't want it anywhere near you.

Colour me surprised.

[chazus]

Massive cost overruns making it noncompetitive with alternatives is not a "logical reason"?

There's a difference between "cost overruns" and "senseless, opinionated budget cuts"

Yeah, it cost more than they expected... But the budget for it is miniscule. It's the same reason our federal space system blows.

[Zmaniac17]

Why should they bury it under my house when they can bury it in a desert 200m under the ground? Go ahead and tell me how that's going to "spread" and kill off humans.

A geology class would be helpful in this situation. Also this video.

[Osmeric]

There's a difference between "cost overruns" and "senseless, opinionated budget cuts"

Yeah, it cost more than they expected... But the budget for it is miniscule. It's the same reason our federal space system blows.

What the hell are you talking about? The cost overruns aren't related to "budget cuts". They're related to nuclear vendors lying about costs and screwing up.

Even with unlimited budgets, it would not make sense to buy nuclear powerplants from these vendors at those prices. The reactors simply aren't competitive.

[Glurak]

because of the waste in need hundreds or thousends of years to be cleaned. And the places where we can put it is not limitless.

[Protean]

Why would you ever want to be reliant on importing electricity? It costs a lot more than producing it yourself.

No, it's not bullshit. Solar powers production falls considerably whenever it's cloudy, rainy or it's snowing. It's not reliable at all when weather conditions turns for the worse.

The act of talking about optimal, on your part, is the bullshit. I'm willing to bet my fortune you have no formal training in the field, and lazy regular google searches isn't going to teach you jackshit about energy management.

Basically you're shitting diarrhea from your mouth and calling it law.

[Halyon]

Because the waste is really fucking problematic to deal with. The half-life on that crap is ridiculous, so short of catapulting out into space soon, we're gonna run out of places to safely put it.

[Osmeric]

Because the waste is really fucking problematic to deal with. The half-life on that crap is ridiculous, so short of catapulting out into space soon, we're gonna run out of places to safely put it.

That's just not true. Sticking it in armored dry casks is eminently practical, fairly cheap, and doesn't take much space at all. We will not run out of space to put it.

EVENTUALLY something will have to be done with it, but every year we wait it gets cooler and easier to deal with.

[Vash The Stampede]

There is no logical reason to be anti nuclear power.

I got a few reasons. With wind and solar power, why support another power industry? With the right setup, I could power my home 80% on renewable energy. Why would I want another power supplier, like nuclear or coal, when I could just go about it alone? They're making laws so you can't get off the grid.

Its also based on misinformation about past nuclear meltdowns, all of which were the result of laziness or natural disasters.

That's not reassuring me of anything. It's human nature to be lazy, so why pretend that won't happen again?

Laziness by the Soviet Union in particular, who didn't care much at all for safety and simply erected nuclear power plants in a couple of months flat and failed to maintain them at all.

Capitalism is also incentive to not maintain things often. It's better to play off any incidents and continue with business as usually than to spend money to maintain facilities.

Australia itself has lots of coal and shouldn't have power issues, but yet it does. They could go full nuclear but why? It's obviously a problem with power companies, and do we really want to rely on these people to not create another Chernobyl?

[Thekri]

People fear what they do not understand. Very few people understand nuclear power. What everyone knows is that mishandling it is extremely bad. Most people don't really trust the government/power companies to not mishandle it. Therefore most people don't trust nuclear power. Simple really.

[Wikiy]

In other words, all your hand-waving means nothing. You don't want it anywhere near you.

Colour me surprised.

No, I want it stored in a place that's as far away from any life, not me. Deserts don't have much life.

But otherwise, why should I want it near me? Did I ever say nuclear waste is safe?

[chazus]

because of the waste in need hundreds or thousends of years to be cleaned. And the places where we can put it is not limitless.

Technically speaking, it almost is limitless. We have lots of places to optimally put it. Nuclear waste isn't like garbage or e-waste. There's not that much of it. (The entire world's nuclear waste, of all time, could fit in 1500 gas trucks, literally the size of like a couple walmart parking lots)

Even with unlimited budgets, it would not make sense to buy nuclear powerplants from these vendors at those prices. The reactors simply aren't competitive.

Part of that is economies of scale. Most of them are expensive because people keep cutting contracts.

Because the waste is really fucking problematic to deal with. The half-life on that crap is ridiculous, so short of catapulting out into space soon, we're gonna run out of places to safely put it.

It's not (promblematic). We won't (run out of places to store it). The half life is largely a non-issue.


It's like telling me that the food in the fridge that I want to eat today will go bad in a few more days if I don't eat it. Is that a problem? Technically, yes. Realistically, no.

[Theodarzna]

Look up Yucca Mountain. It's exactly what you're asking for.

Basically, the project was shut down after the facility was built because it was 'too expensive to maintain' (But not really) and people voted that they didn't want it stored there. Because its 'scary'. No scientific reasons. They just didn't want to.

Yucca Mountain is in no way a structure that will hold out for 10,000 years. They don't want it stored there because one can wisely know that mankind has a poor track record of building structures that last 10,000 years in perfect condition.

[Glurak]

lol you cant put Radioactive Waste somewhere optimal. man i hate people who go over the Nature and just screw over them without thinking of the future here in germany we have 3 Nuclear Waste Graveyards with many km radius where you can get radioactive signald happy living in your dream world.

[Osmeric]

Part of that is economies of scale. Most of them are expensive because people keep cutting contracts.

Nuclear power in most of the world has not shown experience effects that lead to cost reductions. In other words, costs have not declined even with increases in production of reactors.

But anyway, you're just complaining that customers are selfish and not spending money on something that's more expensive than alternatives. That's how markets work. Promising that future units will be cheaper cut no ice. If these promises were so real, they could charge less now and convince investors and banks to carry them over the hump. But they can't, because the financial markets don't believe the experience effects will occur. If anything, historical experience has been that nuclear costs are understated.

I'll add that experience effects have occurred in the competing technologies. Solar, for example, has historically seen a 20% reduction in cost for every doubling of cumulative production. So nuclear vendors are actually competing against the specter of future dirt-cheap renewables, which the financial markets do believe in.

This scenario really sucks for nuclear advocates. You're not being blocked by granola chewing marginal people. You're being blocked by movers and shakers, by the money men with power. Good luck fighting that.

[Radaney]

Because Chernobyl and Fukushima.

When it goes wrong, it goes wrong.

[Zan15]

Congratulations, you found out that people die, that happens in all industries, especially these ones where potential disasters, small or large, occurs. You listed some damage, like in Pennsylvania, but that damage can be fixed. Yes, the town was abandoned, but damage to property can be fixed, with Chernobyl you had...

-4 square miles of forest died, called the Red Forest
-Even now animals being raised or hunted can be so radiated that they can't be used as food
-The entire area won't be safe for in life in another 20,000 years
-They have had to restrict movement of sheep to make sure they didn't come near others, this lifted in 2010
-Reports that around 6,000 people died trying to clean up and basically quarantine the area.
-Upwards of 150,000 abortions were done in fear of the radiation mutating the unborn.
-19 miles in all direction are still closed off for being unsafe.
-Forests that catch on fire that were affected by the event can spread the radiation through the smoke.
-People can only go there once a month for 5 hours and need 15 days to recover from it if they are needed to work there.

I want to make it very clear though that I'm not personally afraid of it, but understanding the huge risks that could come from them is important. Yes, disasters happen with dams, mines, or anything else that is used to get us our energy and supply us with power, but the ramifications of those means the area surrounding it will be usable given a brief amount of time maybe only a few months to a few years, but something like Chernobyl happening again could be far worse.

As I said before, it's all about risk and reward. While the reward of nuclear power plants is great the risk is far greater and many would rather not risk something like Chernobyl happenings again.

The site in PA with the underground fire cannot be fixed by any known means other then blowing it all up with something as big as a nuke :P


Would you like to list the square area of Superfund sites that are uninhabitable vs the nuclear accident area's?


so what is worse 1 major accident, or 1100 small ones with the same result? Oh wait some of these places can be fixed and livable in a few hundred years instead of a few thousand.

- - - Updated - - -

Because Chernobyl and Fukushima.

When it goes wrong, it goes wrong.

it goes wrong a few dozen times a year, in a major way in all other energy producing industries and the chemicals used to produce the energy and the delivery systems.

overall the result is 1 major nuclear accident every 20 years or 1000 other accidents over the same period.

[druenos]

Basically he was saying that your reference to those things isn't really relevant.

Ofcourse its relevant, just because I'm not the first person to mention them does't take away from the relevance of it.

[Orisai]

Well the problem is if you attack a nuclear country there is a possibility of setting off all of their bombs, missiles, or nuclear power plants.

No. You can't set off a nuclear fission/fusion reaction just by exploding stuff around the warhead like if you threw fireworks close to explosive materiel. The whole process must take place within the warhead itself.

What I believe you mean, in a nuclear war scenario there is the capability of the attacked country to retaliate or what's called "second strike capability", which is one of the core principles of nuclear deterrence eventually leading to the mutual assured destruction (MAD) of both parties. It was (and currently is) the reason why nuclear weapons prevented us from entering a third or fourth world war.