Why are so many people opposed to nuclear energy?

[Psycix]

Nuclear is not an alternative to wind or solar. Nuclear plants have to be run at relatively constant output, they can't be turned on or off quickly, so they can't follow demand. They're used for what's called base load generation. Base load is the proportion of electricity demand which is constant. The economics of base load generation are fundamentally different to those that can follow demand, such as wind or solar.

At the plus side, it provides a constant and predictable amount of power, while wind and solar may not provide enough power when you need it (for example, solar does not work at night)

Processing or storing waste is expensive, and there is currently no solution for long-term storage of high level waste anywhere in the world. For the last 50 years everybody has pretty much just stuck their heads in the sand and hoped the problem will go away. Which of course it won't.

Generation 4 nuclear reactors will be able to burn the waste.

Despite having what is objectively quite a good safety record worldwide public perception of nuclear safety is very poor. This is because people are rubbish at assessing risk accurately, but means that politically nuclear can be a tough sell

Yes. This is because everyone gets to hear about it when something bad happens, but when things go well, you don't hear a thing.

France has been running about 50 nuclear reactors for decades with no significant incidents - a major success overall.

When people hear "Nuclear reactor" they think of Chernobyl or Fukushima.

But:

-Chernobyl was a long, long time ago in Russia. Safety standards were nonexistent compared to modern nuclear technology.

-Fukushima first survived a 9.0 earthquake (the fifth most powerful ever measured) and then got hit by a 14m high tsunami, flooding the place.

I think we can assume a modern reactor in a mild environment is extremely safe.

Edited October 30, 2013 by Psycix

[Seret]

it is used as a main source of power in many countries, you guessed it, in the middle east.

True, some countries do have energy systems that are skewed towards one source due to local conditions (such as availability of cheap fuel). However, most use a fairly diversified mix, as it's better for reliability and security of supply. Worldwide though, only about 5% of electricity comes from oil.

Mostly what I was pointing out that our choices in energy system aren't simply oil or something else. People seem to have a perception that overall we get the bulk of our energy from oil, which we don't. Worldwide it's only about a third of primary energy, and far, far less for electricity. So it' often a bit pointless when people start talking about electricity generating systems like nuclear or wind in relation to oil. If we had electrified transport systems it would make sense, but rail is the only transport sector which is significantly electrified.

[Seret]

At the plus side, it provides a constant and predictable amount of power, while wind and solar may not provide enough power when you need it (for example, solar does not work at night)

It's a pointless comparison, they're apples and oranges. All different electricity sources have their pros and cons, some renewables are extremely predicatable, some aren't. You use them for different things, and in different ways. A well-designed grid will have a nice mix of technologies in it. It's not an either/or decision, it's good to have a little of everything.

[magnemoe]

Let's clear up a couple of misconceptions here to start with:

• Nuclear is not an alternative to oil. Oil is mostly used for transport, very little is used for electricity generation. Our transport systems aren't significantly electrified at this point.
  
• Nuclear is not an alternative to wind or solar. Nuclear plants have to be run at relatively constant output, they can't be turned on or off quickly, so they can't follow demand. They're used for what's called base load generation. Base load is the proportion of electricity demand which is constant. The economics of base load generation are fundamentally different to those that can follow demand, such as wind or solar.
  

What nuclear does actually compete with are large thermal base load plants, such as coal. Compared to coal, nuclear is very clean and safe (but then so is everything else). Nuclear is undoubtedly low-carbon, but it does have some major drawbacks:

• Processing or storing waste is expensive, and there is currently no solution for long-term storage of high level waste anywhere in the world. For the last 50 years everybody has pretty much just stuck their heads in the sand and hoped the problem will go away. Which of course it won't.
  
• The plants themselves are expensive to build, operate and decomission. Much of this is due to the extremely strict regulatory environment they operate in. This is necessary for safety, but it means that nuclear is an extremely expensive way to produce base load power (which is the type that sells for the lowest price). Generally the economic case for nuclear only makes sense if the government sets up a very favourable subsidy system and/or guarantees an above-market price. This means construction of nuclear power plants is dependent on the local government being favourably disposed to it, rather than technical or economic reasons. Very little new nuclear has been constructed in the last few decades, due entirely to the political landscape.
  
• Despite having what is objectively quite a good safety record worldwide public perception of nuclear safety is very poor. This is because people are rubbish at assessing risk accurately, but means that politically nuclear can be a tough sell
  

Nuclear and coal is base load, hydro and natural gas is both base and peak load. Wind is random, you save natural gas then the wind is blowing. solar work to some degree for peak load if air condition is an major part of your energy use, if not it also just save gas. Neither sun or wind care if you need to use power.

Nuclear is expensive to build, however pretty cheap to run in $/Mw much like hydro here, yes they cost serious money to run but also give serious output. Coal and natural gas are cheaper if you have it nearby in decent quantities.

The only subsidy system nuclear have is the same accounting rules other high capital cost / long operation time business have.

The reason why nobody has solved the high radioactive wast issue is that the volume is very low and nobody like the solutions, its no problem keeping something safe for thousands of years, millions is a bit more expensive however it has an political cost and it don't cost much to keep it close to the reactors.

[lajoswinkler]

I am all for nuclear but I never thought about this... What happens if war breaks out and one of these things gets bombed? Are they bomb-proof? Would a meltdown happen? I really want to know.

Bunker buster projectiles should be able to pierce through containment domes. Other than that, it would be pretty hard and would require high precision targeting for several times. Those things will survive a megaton blast in the hypocentre because the walls are almost 2m thick reinforced concrete.

But you don't need to destroy the containment in order to destroy the plant. All you need is to ruin its backup systems while it's working. Without energy for cooling, they will experience meltdown. That's what essentially ruined Fukushima. It was working, the quake came while it was working, the systems stopped the reaction and emergency cooling started. It was great until the wave came and destroyed the diesel generators and the power lines.

Compromising the containment just ensures the fission products can leak out in a substantial amount. Fukushima only had one reactor with a small breach of containment. The reason why lots of fission products went into the ocean is because the operators, to prevent even greater disaster, started pumping seawater into the reactors. If you pump in, you've got to pump out, and you don't have infinite storage, so you have to dump something out.

Bombing a nuclear power plant is something that only idiots will do, because in the event of widespread contamination, the idiot is ****ed up, too, and so do the neighbouring countries, and that's a recipe for kickstarting a world war. Israel once did it, so you understand what kind of idiots we're talking about.

I'm not opposed to nuclear power as a temporary solution, but I definitely do understand people who oppose it. Burying the nuclear waste underground simply isn't going to work long-term. Hopefully cold fusion gets invented soon, but until then we should go with wind and solar power as much as possible.

Oh god...

a) Burying depleted waste, after series of reprocessing, is a good thing. Nothing bad can come out of it if you do it properly. Hopefully, we'll start doing what France does and thus heavily reduce the already small amount of waste.

Cold fusion is a crackpots' pipedream. Honestly, if you're seriously considering that, you might as well consider a hamster in a wheel connected to a generator because that actually produces energy, unlike "machines" built by cold fusion nutters.

c) Wind and solar electric are types of power that can not be used as energy foundation. Energy sources can be classified not only by their yields, power and price (which is very low, very low and very high for solar), but by how the power is delivered. Uranium, coal and hydro give plenty of stable energy over a great length of time. Wind turbines gives energy when there's wind, solar panels give energy when there's insolation, meaning a cloud that just appears out of thin air and decides to fu*k up your day will mess your plans.

You can't power a country with wind and solar. You can use it, appropriately, to reduce the load of the heavy base sources a small bit, but you can not power a country with it.

Every MWh of wind and solar requires a MWh of fast acting gas burning power plants, meaning you have to build two power plants. Electricity bills go up, and you haven't really done much about the carbon footprint.

The world is not SimCity. It's reality out there.

Your argument seems to be that Nuclear Power would be totally safe and incident free if the world was free of corruption, insincerity, politics, stupid decisions, and morons.

If anything, the major misconception about Nuclear Safety is that it is a technology issue. It's not, it is a people issue.

No, you always have unexpected events. That's why you need to be prepared all the time.

Every power source has its own set of dangers and a death toll, statistically speaking, but is that a reason to live in darkness using candles? Oh, wait - burning candles produces carcinogenic soot. We better put them out, too.

Combined, hydro and coal have killed millions and millions so far. I don't see hippies prancing around those plants.

No, I've often thought that a lot of people get all their information on nuclear power from watching "The Simpsons" - particularly Greenpeace. They're even against fusion...

Whilst I understand some of the concerns about nuclear power, I think it's often unfairly treated compared to fossil fuels. Sure, nuclear waste is a problem, but at least nuclear power plants do something about it. Most waste from fossil fuels is just vented into the atmosphere. How can carbon capture (burying CO2 under the ground) the answer to our energy problems, yet at the same time burying nuclear waste is seen as irresponsible? Many large cities are incredibly polluted thanks to fossil fuels and hundreds of thousands of people each year die because of it, but no-one seems to care.

People's assesment of risk is also way off; it's heavily biased against new technology. Fukushima's radiation killed nobody. In the same year, 53 people died & nearly 4,000 were made ill as a direct result of the farming practices used in organic food production. Imagine the worldwide protests if that had been contamination due to radiation, or even scarier, GM food!

Similarly, earlier this year a Canadian train carrying oil derailed & the resulting explosion killed 47 people. Imagine the reaction if that was a train carrying nuclear waste that had killed 47 people...

Not an argument to make nuclear more dangerous, but we let fossil fuels away with a hell of a lot. I think the costs of fossil fuel would rocket if we made them play by the same rules as nuclear.

But "nuclear stuff glows green and it's scary", don't you get it?

[Seret]

Every MWh of wind and solar requires a MWh of fast acting gas burning power plants, meaning you have to build two power plants. Electricity bills go up, and you haven't really done much about the carbon footprint.

This is only partly correct. Intermittant sources do require backup, but the grid requires backup anyway to cover failures and maintenance. Most grids are able to integrate substantial amounts of renewables without picking up any significant extra costs. The UK's grid, for example, reckons they can go up to about 20% renewable without any significant effort or major expense.

As for this backup eating into the carbon benefits of renewables, this is also not accurate. The backup isn't running at the same time as the renewables. Some is what's called spinning reserve, where a thermal plant holds back some capacity so that it can be ramped up at short notice, some is rapid-reacting (but inefficient) gas turbines that can spin up fast and bridge the gap until slower-reacting plants like cleanish gas CCGTs can get up.

If deployed in large numbers then the fluctuations in supply get smoothed out anyway. Modern weather forecasting is good enough that grid operators actually have a fairly good idea of what the renewables should generate.

When you look at actual data from the wind sector, you do find that there is a relationship between the amount of wind, and the amount of fossil fuels that get burned:

[source]

Ok, r² of 0.25 isn't impressive, but this is messy real-word data. It sure looks to me like the more the wind turbines generate, the less we have to burn fossil fuels. Which is not really that surprising.

[lajoswinkler]

This is only partly correct. Intermittant sources do require backup, but the grid requires backup anyway to cover failures and maintenance. Most grids are able to integrate substantial amounts of renewables without picking up any significant extra costs. The UK's grid, for example, reckons they can go up to about 20% renewable without any significant effort or major expense.

As for this backup eating into the carbon benefits of renewables, this is also not accurate. The backup isn't running at the same time as the renewables. Some is what's called spinning reserve, where a thermal plant holds back some capacity so that it can be ramped up at short notice, some is rapid-reacting (but inefficient) gas turbines that can spin up fast and bridge the gap until slower-reacting plants like cleanish gas CCGTs can get up.

If deployed in large numbers then the fluctuations in supply get smoothed out anyway. Modern weather forecasting is good enough that grid operators actually have a fairly good idea of what the renewables should generate.

When you look at actual data from the wind sector, you do find that there is a relationship between the amount of wind, and the amount of fossil fuels that get burned:

[source]

Ok, r² of 0.25 isn't impressive, but this is messy real-word data. It sure looks to me like the more the wind turbines generate, the less we have to burn fossil fuels. Which is not really that surprising.

Yes, up to 20% maybe, but remember there are people out there thinking you can go 100% and that's what I'm criticizing.

I agree the wind does reduce the footprint. I meant to say it does not remove it. Again, we're talking about people who have a very simplified, cartoonish view on the whole issue.

I'm all for wind when it's applicable, but sometimes it is not. Remember that those plants are sometimes installed not only because they're needed, but because of public relations, pressure groups, etc.

If it's a private sector, there is corruption, too. Someone gets extra few bucks in the pocket, and etc. I'm sure you understand how this works in the reality. It's not conceptual science, it's commercial technology.

[Wahgineer]

Possibly the best description of a nuclear power plant is a giant pot of water being boiled by an over sized microwave. If we explained this to people, maybe they'd be less afraid of them. If we also explained to them that the reasons that nuclear reactors seem so dangerous is because they're behind the times tech wise, they'd start rallying to have reactors upgraded. Telling them about how spent fuel can be reused in a reactor would move them to have those changes made. And if we explained to them that the reasons reactors are so behind is because of stupid and extreme regulations, they'd start asking who pushed for those regulations. And I would LOVE to see their faces when we explained to them that it was greenpeace who did, and that because of them, we've been stuck with much more dangerous/expensive/inefficient/unreliable forms of power.

Then I'd cheer "Hooray for Logic!"

[Seret]

remember there are people out there thinking you can go 100% and that's what I'm criticizing.

Well, people like that clearly don't actually know the first thing about the subject, so criticising them is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel IMO.

Not that shooting fish in a barrel wouldn't be great fun for the first few times...

[ElJugador]

Three Miles Island, Tchernobyl, Fukushima, and so on...

Enough reasons to be suspicious about nuclear industry.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA no.

[Klingon Admiral]

The greatest problem of fission reactors is the radioactive waste they produce. Half-lifes of a few million to a few billion (lovely Uranium-238) years is terrible, as there is probably no place on Earth which is tectonically stable enough to guarantee safe storage for this timeframe.

[SargeRho]

There is no radioactive waste problem. There is radioactive waste, and we've solved the problem by storing it deeeep under ground where it will not see the surface again, and eventually turn to rock. And radioactive waste is a ressource. The Caesium and Strontium isotopes can be used in radiotherapy, and the Uranium can be purified, and be reused, and you only store the stuff you can't use.

Also natural nuclear reactors are a thing. There's a giant vein of nuclear "waste" in Africa. Nobody seems to give a ****.

[vetrox]

The majority of population are against it because when they hear the word nulear they think

Its been a while since i was in school learning about different sources of electricity but isnt a nuclear power station essentially a big steam turbine? whereas the public probably thinks its lots of nuclear explosions...or some other type of sorcery?

I work in local government and recently there has been a lot of public outrage at a nuclear reaserch and disposal facility (NRDF) to be built near settled areas. Now personally i couldnt give a ****. More jobs is always good and notice its also a disposal facility IE. It is there to safely dispose of waste. During all the various public council meetings there were even diagrams and pictures of how it works. Waste gets stored underground in a lead bunker (or something like that) whils it decays.

However the public dont care and the local press didnt help the matter.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-19656382

But we have a nuclear power station in romney marsh....so...i dont get what the big problem was. The head of the council at teh time was Cllr Bliss. So all the protestors against the facillity were chanting "ignorance is bliss". If ever there was something that was ironic...i think that slogan may have been it

The current power stations are being decomissioned. Once they are gone there is going to be nothing there. Theyre not going to build houses because you know...who wants to live where a nuclear power station once stood? Obviously we would all catch radiation and die. So now the land will just be nothing...would make a good site for a NRDF dont you think?

Edited October 30, 2013 by vetrox

[SargeRho]

Yep. You use the heat generated by nuclear fission to heat water, which evaporates, and is then sent through a steam turbine. A heat exchanger then condenses the water again, the heat is then transfered off by the cooling towers.

[Nuke]

nuclear explosions are awesome. its an example of the energy potential of nuclear. if anything it makes me want more nuclear reactors. and face the fact that anything that humans can use to meet global energy demand would probibly obliterate the surface of the planet and render it uninhabitable if released all at once in an uncontrolled fashon. id rather use the energy to air condition etheopia, but i guess we can continue using it for warfare if i get cool nuke pics.

Edited October 30, 2013 by Nuke

[ZedNova]

nuclear explosions are awesome. its an example of the energy potential of nuclear. if anything it makes me want more nuclear reactors. and face the fact that anything that humans can use to meet global energy demand would probibly obliterate the surface of the planet and render it uninhabitable if released all at once in an uncontrolled fashon. id rather use the energy to air condition etheopia, but i guess we can continue using it for warfare if i get cool nuke pics.

Ethiopia can buy their own nuclear reactors if they think they need A/C that badly.

[Azivegu]

Thorium reactors produce U²³³, which is perfectly usable as bomb material. The nation with the most advanced thorium reactor program (India) has already tested a U²³³ bomb.

U233 isnt usable for nuclear warheads. It gives off too much neutrons (I thought at least it was neutrons) which gives off a strong signal which is easily detectable. You could enrich it, but it would just be easier to get U235 and enrich it into U238. So that isnt a worry. Another thing about LFTR's is that it is very hard to extract the U233 from the salt.

Thorium in a LFTR is the way to go. Only reason why it isnt being used today is because of politics in the 50's. They didnt only want energy, but a nice reserve of bomb making material. Thorium wouldnt provide that but U235 would.

[Azivegu]

One of the big problems with nuclear energy is what people percieve as radioactive. When they say something is "highly radioactive" people think of "its going to be radioactive for millions of years!"

In fact it is the complete opposite. Plutonium is highly radioactive because it has a short half life (something like 83 years) but U235 has a half life of something like 235 million years. People extracting uranium for fuel usually handle it without protective gear. In fact, if you see them with protective gear it is usually to protect the uranium from humans (oils, dust, you name it.)

Its like burning coal to burning gas. They may have the same amount of energy, but gas burns immediatly while coal can talk a long time. But I'm not going around screaming "COAL WILL BLOW UP THE WORLD!!!"

[lajoswinkler]

The greatest problem of fission reactors is the radioactive waste they produce. Half-lifes of a few million to a few billion (lovely Uranium-238) years is terrible, as there is probably no place on Earth which is tectonically stable enough to guarantee safe storage for this timeframe.

Oh god...

OK, let's start.

Uranium-238 is the least dangerous thing in waste. It's a nuisance we try to get rid of from the original fuel to increase the ratio of U-235 because that one is fissionable.

Uranium is a natural part of our environment and is an extremely poor source of radioactivity.

Hint: the longer the halflife is, the less energetic the decays are. That's why I'd have no problems with having a bottle of uranium salt on my desk, but I'd be screaming in terror if someone would put a bottle of cesium-137 (t_1/2=30.17 years) near me.

Uranium is dangerous because it's a heavy metal. It's toxic, so you don't want to spill its solutions in the water just like you wouldn't want that with lead or thallium.

Waste is dangerous because of shorter lived isotopes. Cesium-137, strontium-90, samarium-151, europium-155. I'm ignoring iodine-131 and other extremely radioactive isotopes because they are gone by the time the fuel is in its bundles in the spent fuel pool.

Second, even if you had a point, which you don't, who the hell cares what happens after few million years? The stuff is immobilized in glassy matrix deep underground, encased in concrete. If humanity survives, it will be either dumb as rock and unable to reach it, or it will be so advanced and able to actually recover the stuff and use it.

If the humanity is gone... who the hell cares? Will the monkeys reach it? Wasps? Elephants? Sharks?

Did you even think about what you're proposing, or you're just repeating what stupid Greenpeace says?

nuclear explosions are awesome. its an example of the energy potential of nuclear. if anything it makes me want more nuclear reactors. and face the fact that anything that humans can use to meet global energy demand would probibly obliterate the surface of the planet and render it uninhabitable if released all at once in an uncontrolled fashon. id rather use the energy to air condition etheopia, but i guess we can continue using it for warfare if i get cool nuke pics.

Yeah, they're really awesome. Apart from a crapload of land now gone, lots of dead people and all that funny stuff, they're a great fun.

Thorium in a LFTR is the way to go. Only reason why it isnt being used today is because of politics in the 50's. They didnt only want energy, but a nice reserve of bomb making material. Thorium wouldnt provide that but U235 would.

No, that's not the only reason. It was one of the greater reasons, but not the only one. Don't use Youtube preachers as your source of knowledge on nuclear industry.

[DaveofDefeat]

Fun fact, you can legally buy uranium and other radioactive isotopes.

(In the U.S at least)

[MC.STEEL]

The fact about nuclear technology being feared is just... ...strange. i mean cars are dangerous why dont we stop using them,fire is dangerous why dont we stop using it

SENTIENCE IS DANGEROUS LETS STOP USING IT!!!

Its not the technology thats scary, its the stupid and ignorant people that tag it as such.

[Lohan2008]

Skyler, where do you get the impression the nuclear is safe ???

Uranium-235 has a half-life of 703.8 million years, it takes a microscopic amount to be toxic and can not be eliminated.

It is only useful in atomic reactors because of the amount of energy generated compared to coal.

In the example of Fukushima power plant it will take a minimum, of 30 yrs for clean up to happen, meanwhile it continues to leak coolant into the ocean.

The power company did not even bother to draw up an emergency plan in case of a Tsunami.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster

It is no wonder that people are fearful of nuclear power plants.

[MBobrik]

Why ? because this entire civilization is already in terminal decline. People just stopped trusting it. Dislike, willful ignorance, and fear of (relatively) newer technology is just an symptom of it.

[MBobrik]

Uranium-235 has a half-life of 703.8 million years, it takes a microscopic amount to be toxic and can not be eliminated.

FIY uranium is not created in nuclear reactors. it is found in and mined from rocks. Even rocks that are not uranium ores contain trace amounts of uranium. So if the uranium is to be avoided at any cost, you will have to abandon the entire planet.

In the example of Fukushima power plant it will take a minimum, of 30 yrs for clean up to happen, meanwhile it continues to leak coolant into the ocean.

.

(citation needed)

.

The power company did not even bother to draw up an emergency plan in case of a Tsunami.

.

Wrong. Just a few kilometers away, Fukushima II, a newer, more modern plant, projected to withstand stronger tsunami, survived just fine. And guess who is to blame that new plants can't be built and we are thus forced to keep the old, decrepit ones running ?

.

It is no wonder that people are fearful of nuclear power plants.

.

One meltdown per 25 years worldwide a reason to abandon nuclear power and replace it with orders of magnitude more destructive power sources ? Degeneracy here we come.

[Seret]

There is no radioactive waste problem. There is radioactive waste, and we've solved the problem by storing it deeeep under ground where it will not see the surface again

No, there actually is a problem. There is no long-term facility for storage of high-level nuclear waste anywhere in the world. It just sits around in short-term storage such as cooling ponds waiting for the day when some sucker agrees to take it away. Every year there's a little more, and every year we get less certain about where it all is, how much there is, and what we're going to do with it.

There has been talk of geological storage facilities, but no one has actually bitten the bullet and built one. Nobody really wants the stuff on their patch, which you can't really blame them for. It's a hassle to look after, and doing so brings no benefits.

I'm not anti-nuclear at all, but high-level waste is an unsolved problem at the moment.