Nuclear Power: Viable energy or not after the Japanese disaster?

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
181

Little OT but related.

My mother just had solar panels installed on her house in Australia at a cost of AU$1850. She lives on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland but because her place faces the wrong way, they told her that 95% of electricity from solar was the best she could hope for. The weather where she lives is pretty similar to Kenting, meaning lots and lots of sunny days.

As much as I’d love to see solar everywhere in Taiwan (I am a tree-hugging hippie after all), based on what they told my mum, I can’t see how it’d work for northern towns and cities that have less sun, or large apartment buildings with limited space and lots of people.

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Well whatever about it’s problems supplying power to apartments there is no doubt solar is an ideal micropower source for homeowners in sunny areas. Even if it takes energy to make the silicon and process it and ship it it cranks out far more electricity over it’s lifetime than put into making it (according to below link anyway).
mnn.com/green-tech/research- … nel-create

Solar should be promoted big time in Taiwan, it will reduce electricity bills and could even allow farmers in poor counties with marginal land to earn income. Last year I drove through parts of Tainan , Yunlin and Taichung county (for my sins). The land is degraded and lacking water. It will also boost the local economy and provide plenty of jobs in manufacturing and installation and support the export industry to grow. THe government here has been very backward to see the light on this. The point of solar is that it increases self sufficiency and reduces power demand from the grid, I think it’s great that it generates electricity when it tends to be hottest helping to power air conditioning units.

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I just viewed a Reuters vid about a guy who resigned from GE in 1976 over the design of the plants, the same design that was used at Fukushima. It’s a short vid, and quite short on technical stuff, but I ain’t a tech-head, so I thought it was interesting. The vid begins:

The engineer, who I guess is in his late 70s now (by the way, I hope I make it that far and if I do, I hope I look that spry and on top of things) displays scrapbook pages that contain a clipping from the Olympia, Washington, Daily Olympian (it’s a Los Angeles Times article) dated February 3, 1976, with the headline “Too Dangerous, They Say . . . GE Nuclear Engineers Walk Out.”

Two other engineers resigned at the same time. Click here for the original article (appearing here in the Ottawa Citizen), from Google News Archives; here’s a quote from it:

Here’s the link to the Reuters vid:
reuters.com/news/video/story … =197802178

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From the news:
“Japan defends radioactive water disposal, vows to fully inform world”
english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/83322.html

(Italics mine)

“High level of iodine-131 detected in Fukushima”
www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/05_25.html

Background information:
There are other elements besides Iodine-131 and Cesium-134/137 in the water that exits the power plant and runs into the ocean, and some of them have a much longer half life than the aforementioned three elements and are therefore very much of interest to anybody wishing to assess the long-term effects of this discharge on the environment and the food chain.

From another forum:
We can see near the bottom of the page at physicsforums.com/showthread … 0&page=182 (in post #2911)
an image that someone copied from a government source at meti.go.jp/press/2011/04/201 … 5007-4.pdf
The poster added this comment:

Comment:
Some might argue that omitting data about the more long-lived radioactive elements in the discharged water is of little consequence, since such data will eventually become available through other channels, such as, for example, reports issued by the IEAE, but the general public will not normally find such data (especially if nobody knows yet when and where the information will become available). The consequence? Temporarily blissful ignorance on part of a large part of the population and concerned ignorance on part of those who know enough to care. But this blissful ignorance is shattered sooner or later and chances are that much of it turns into mistrust in, and opposition to, nuclear energy. Are proponents of nuclear energy unaware of, or for other reason not concerned about, how such a culture of secrecy puts them with their backs against the wall?

185

I suspect that the position of some pro-nuclear people is that there’s no need to be concerned, because in their view the people don’t have much choice but to accept nuclear power if they want to have any hope of a secure life furnished with the comforts and amenities to which they’ve become accustomed (or in the case of developing or emerging societies, to which they’d like to become accustomed). And for all I know they may turn out to be right; there may be no need for them to be concerned.

186

Actually I would go one further, and highlight that to date, the balance is that nuclear has provided far more energy with less lives lost and less environmental destruction relative to fossil fuel. As the technology advances, this balance will improve further, as greater amounts of the global grid are (inevitably) turned onto nukes. The MAJOR stumbling block with nuke power previously was concerns over nuclear (weapon) proliferation. Given the number of global nutjobs with nukes these days, it’s almost a moot point. The other was scare-mongering by anarcho-syndicalist, “the Tao’s so cool, dude!” Luddites.

[quote]Fear of nuclear power is out of all proportion to the actual risks
Pollution from coal-fired power plants is responsible for more than 100,000 deaths per year, whereas the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant is unlikely to kill a single person[/quote]
The irony of Fukushima, and obviously I’m somewhat confidant this will be the case, is that the alarmists (Luddites) screeching like frightened school girls at a flasher will be proven completely wrong in the wash up, which will, ironically, leave the general public more comfortable with the facts of nuclear power and the relative risks.

Edit: Whoa! I’m sensing a nasty backlash is about to descend on the scaremongers! The Anti-Nuclear Lobby & International Media Coverage of Fukushima

Caveat. I am a glass half full sort of dude.

HG
Edit - Added some links.

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I suspect that the position of some pro-nuclear people is that there’s no need to be concerned, because in their view the people don’t have much choice but to accept nuclear power if they want to have any hope of a secure life furnished with the comforts and amenities to which they’ve become accustomed (or in the case of developing or emerging societies, to which they’d like to become accustomed). And for all I know they may turn out to be right; there may be no need for them to be concerned.[/quote]

Well I’m sure there is need to be concerned but the FACT is that electricity is needed to improve billions of peoples living standards, you can do that by coal or nuclear, I know which one I’ll back if done with the most modern designs and international oversight. What would happen for example if nuclear was shut down in Taiwan? They are almost certainly going to replace it with coal as that is the cheapest source of power. Coal is a filthy and extremely polluting way to produce electricity. I have soot particles settling in my house everyday (some of those particles are from vehicle rubber and diesel exhaust, I know from reading a whole book on dust once!) and very rarely see a clear blue sky here in Taichung although the weather is excellent for the most part. Not only soot but coal contains large amounts of heavy metals which are also released into the environment. The same goes for many cities worldwide.
I remember clearly when I was a kid in the 80s and the city I lived in banned ‘dirty’ coal from being burned in fireplaces for heating, overnight the air cleaned up and it is pretty pristine to this day for a capital city (it helps that the major coal power station is located far away on the West coast of course), deaths of old folks in Winter and ashmatics plummeted.

188

A or (“the”) need for electricity is not a FACT - it’s an assessment or, to use a better term, an AXIOM.
Here is another axiom, from a different reality: “a pawn cannot move backward or sideward, only forward or, under certain conditions, diagonally forward”.
:slight_smile:

In other words, your argument (the one you base on the axiom you have chosen) may be sound, but for people who don’t accept your axiom it is irrelevant.
That’s what we need to keep in mind if we want to go beyond simply throwing arguments at each other without going anywhere. The only person who has so far responded to my offering of a different axiom seems to be HGC who, however, also seems to imply that there is something sneaky or bizarre about it (or about me, for suggesting it) - he is entitled to his opinion, but it does not lead to a useful discussion. :wink:

PS:
“Outside logic and mathematics, the term “axiom” is used loosely for any established principle of some field.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom

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Well we can play with words all we like but the reality is that without access to electricity, then people cannot raise their living standards, pump the sewerage and water, light and heat their homes, get access to the internet and phones and join in with the modern world. I fail to see how we can go back not forward. Energy conservation is good and should be applied rigorously but will not give the rise in living standards that people strive for the world over. No amount of wishing it away will change the desire of people in India and China to improve their living standards now rather than a 100 years later. So facing reality (again) we only have a few choices as to how we can increase energy supply unfortunately. We must responsbily choose the one that does less overall damage to the overall environment and that is not coal and oil (not to mention oil is running out!). If the world stopped producing more humans it would be easier but that has yet to level out.

190

[quote=“yuli”]That’s what we need to keep in mind if we want to go beyond simply throwing arguments at each other without going anywhere. The only person who has so far responded to my offering of a different axiom seems to be HGC who, however, also seems to imply that there is something sneaky or bizarre about it (or about me, for suggesting it) - he is entitled to his opinion, but it does not lead to a useful discussion. :wink:
[/quote]
Not at all! I welcome what you’re suggesting, but I just think you are going to have a very hard time selling it to Japanese consumers, no less, let alone people here on this forum! See headhonchoII’s immediate response, for example.

You could do yourself a a favour by further expanding what it is you have in mind, by the way, which might at the very least release some of my reserved concerns for your suggestions - which at this point seem merely about re-thinking the necessity of our current perceptions of “growth” and that the nuke industry is too filthily corrupt to trust.

Apologies, my suspicions arise because to my jaded brain, you seem to be hopping around all over the place. I don’t have a problem with that, as people often accuse me of doing much the same, and in fairness, I would excuse myself by saying yes, I hold lots of different ideas in my poor old head, and I express them differently depending on the context. Some are well considered, others mere brain farts. Truth is I don’t have time to write my treatise while work keeps me tangled up for 14 hours a day and I nip in and out of here with a hastily scrawled reply or post.

But I see you on one level almost sensationalising the disaster at Fukushima to highlight why the model is broken, and why there is an urgency for some new paradigm, but not actually spelling it out what that cure is. I like new paradigms, and I’d sincerely love to hear more about it. Dare I say kick off another thread, or if it really relates here, please do expand when you can.

Japanese power demand, or rather it’s current shortfall is merely an axiom? I don’t get it. That “axiom” is going to suck big time when summer hits, and Japan wants aircons. And I will too, no doubt, be desperate to suck some power from the Niigata nuke plant as I cool down to sleep from a day partying at Fuji Rock in July. That’s no logical misconstruction, that’s reality. I want cold beer, loud music and an aircon! I am a simple man, with simple needs.

Cheers.
HG

191

[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”] I want cold beer, loud music and an aircon!
HG[/quote]

New axiom? You don’t get them.

I could live with that. I’d guess future generations might think it a price worth paying too.

But I know it isn’t going to happen.

192

In the news in Japan today:

“Shimane gov. won’t OK operations of 2 nuke reactors without safety steps”
english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/04/84666.html

This report highlights once more that the issue is primarily not one of finding answers through technology but one of overcoming human nature - and that undertaking, i am afraid, is destined to fail.

Nuclear power is not a viable option for humankind because in order to be safe it requires humans that don’t exist.

193

viable, just dont build it near earthquake zone

not viable because of radioactive waste materials

194

Inevitable.

HG

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[quote=“Ducked”][quote=“Huang Guang Chen”] I want cold beer, loud music and an aircon!
HG[/quote]

New axiom? You don’t get them.

I could live with that. I’d guess future generations might think it a price worth paying too.

But I know it isn’t going to happen.[/quote]
More seriously, edithgow, apologies with all the noise and distractors, I hadn’t perhaps given credit where it’s due, and I do like the way you are thinking through all of this.

But I am curious why you think we need to give up the aircons (and Lord help me, my cold beer!) for the next generation? I suspect it’s because you’re opposed to nukes, fullstop. Would that be fair? Or are you referring to the possibility of a shortfall in summer power supply in Japan? Alternatively, just a simple case that this generation is sucking the future in environmental terms from the next?

Just trying to get a handle on your position.

HG

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Inevitable:
huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/0 … 46875.html

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Yep, inevitable. And inevitably, there will be even more emphasis on safety after this incident, just like there was after Three Mile island, and likewise Chernobyl.

Choose your poison, because it’s fossil fuels or nukes, as the alternatives just simply aren’t going to give the world what it wants for many years to come. Yes I said wants, not needs, obviously, because we could all live in caves, but that would also end up rather awful for humanity, as the shit piled up, the water became undrinkable . . . I think you get the picture.

[quote]Compared with nuclear power, coal is responsible for five times as many worker deaths from accidents, 470 times as many deaths due to air pollution among members of the public, and more than 1,000 times as many cases of serious illness, according to a study of the health effects of electricity generation in Europe.

“The costs of fossil fuels come out quite high, while the costs for nuclear generally come out low,” said Anil Markandya, an economist at the University of Bath in England and scientific director of the Basque Centre for Climate Change in Spain, who co-authored the study published in the Lancet in 2007.

Even in the wake of the Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster, Markandya and many others who have done similar work can’t imagine a situation — a realistic one, that is — in which the health cost of nuclear power would equal that of coal. Or even come close.[/quote]
Oh, and all these posts of yours must be drawing some power from some grid, unless you’ve got some anabolic steroid powered rat on a wheel generating your power? Since you seem to be still posting from Taiwan, then ironically enough, the views of anti-nuke Yuli are powered by . . . nukes, baby. Oh yeah! :laughing:

HG

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Very creative (not)! :slight_smile: Why don’t you come up with something smarter?

Computers and the internet can exist and function well even if electricity generation and use as only at 10% of what it is today.
I don’t need any of the 9% (or so) of the power that is generated by nukes in Taiwan…

You still haven’t addressed any criticism of that worn out assertion that implies you know the future. :wink:

199

So you’re off the grid? Good for you. But I doubt that big fan, solar cell or that by now surely exhausted rat’s going to meet even your life’s needs. Take into consideration how much power is used to facilitate so much of your everyday life, and then reconsider, if you will.

HG
Edit: In response to your edit, BTW.
Future? I’ve seen the future, brother, and it’s murder!

‘Wait, wait, wait! It’s a farkin’ joke, right?" :laughing:

200

I don’t know if anyone posted this before or it is especially relevant to this thread, but in terms of danger to human health oil and coal as a source of energy have produced far more death and destruction than nuclear power.

I looked it up for an article the other day. There have been 3 major nuclear events in the past 50 years, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and now Fukushima. Nuclear power produces between 6 to 15% of the world’s electrical power ( different studies ?). Three Mile Island resulted in no recognized deaths or statistical change in cancer in the general population. Chernobyl was a different story. 68 deaths occurred directly as a result of work at the site and according to the WHO approx 4000 people died as a result of radiation related cancer. Many people dispute this figure, but it is the official one. The most relevant figure in my opinion is that 340,000 people were permanently displaced. That’s a big dislocation. We are yet to know the extent of deaths related to Fukushima or the level of dislocation. It doesn’t look like it’s going to be equivalent to Chernobyl at this stage.

On the other hand, in the US alone, oil and gas resulted in 598 deaths between 2002 and 2007 just from industrial accidents. Pollution from coal and oil fired power generation is estimated to shorten the lives of 25000 people a year in America, including 2600 from lung cancer (Clean Air Task Force – not sure of model used). The same figure as the flu. It is a much greater figure per tera-watt of energy produced.

I thought it makes for an interesting comparison. In relative terms, nuclear power is not as dangerous as what we have as common place today. The sun knocks off more people. However, for whatever reason nuclear power is widely feared. I think it is the half-life of uranium that is the major issue and storage of waste (same reason). However, the bad press that nuclear energy has means that there has been little research on advancing nuclear technology for 50 years.