I'm opposed to the construction of new nuclear plants (still open to possibility of new fusion plants at some in the future) but from an environmental standpoint it makes far more sense to maintain the existing nuclear plants - at least for now.
The biggest drawbacks of nuclear power (expensive and slow plant construction) are off the table with existing plants! Hardening existing plants against possible future catastrophe is probably far cheaper in both economic and human terms than new coal plan construction.
Japan already does pretty good job (relatively speaking) with solar power, but it could do much better with the money it will spend on new coal plants if it built more wind power and fixed up existing nuclear plants.
This argument causes some of the problems this argument tries to avoid.
> I'm opposed to the construction of new nuclear plants
The technology involved in nuclear plants has evolved tremendously, both in terms of efficiency and in terms of safety, but the technology of the new generation is fundamentally different.
> The biggest drawbacks of nuclear power (expensive and slow plant construction) are off the table with existing plants!
Old plants use outdated designs. Nobody would tolerate the 1972 Internet infrastructure nowadays, and yet Chernobyl was created that year, and is still in use.
The main reason old plants stick around instead of being replaced is that Greenpeace and Green parties influence each other into lobbying against building correct reactors.
Take Superphénix: a French Gen IV reactor started construction twelve years before the Chernobyl accident. Its design is still considered next-gen and highly favorable today.
Activists literally fired rocket-propelled grenades at it while it was being built. It got so bad that they had to shut it down.
They tried building a similar Gen IV reactor recently, ASTRID, that improved tremendously even compared to the advanced Superphénix, and it got cancelled six months ago because of lobbies.
So all that remains are old plants… designs that were essentially initial drafts meant to be replaced by better technology, but that never gets shut down because every replacement gets lobbied against.
Those old designs have awful properties, so yeah, we get Chernobyl and Fukushima. We would have had neither if people had let replace the oldest generation. But because of Greenpeace, people died, and fear rose, when all this was unnecessary.
Japan pretty much imports all of its energy. Its an Island nation with limited flat-land that is densely populated - the Solar production is limited and cannot significantly contribute to its energy needs. Off-shore wind may help, but Japan going forward will assemble one of the most diverse energy portfolios.
Sigh... we really need more functional nuclear plants that aren't built to use technology from the 70s. I suspect that one reason Bernie is against new nuclear plant creation is the absolute debacle that was Vermont Yankee[1]. Even a lot of pro and pro-ish nuclear folks in Vermont got pretty disheartened by the whole affair.
These plants cost insane capital to get running and mismanagement can cause serious problems, so economic pressures tightening belts (or just greed for higher profits) is a constant force fighting against safety... Newer reactor designs contain much safer critical failure outcomes that could allow them to safely operate - even within the constant profit pressure of modern culture.
Same thing happened in Germany. This is a really hard problem. I consider myself pretty pro-nuclear but it can never be 100% safe. I can't blame Japan for wanting out after Fukushima, but at the same time there has to be some kind of approach that balances short-term safety against the long-term consequences of carbonization.
No energy source is 100% safe. People die when working on windmills and hydroelectric disasters are way more deadly than nuclear disasters. I think 100% safe is an unreasonable requirement.
Safety is not necessarily the concern, though clearly important. It's also the huge task of decommissioning afterwards. Even "safe" nuclear power stations require the disposal of all sorts of irradiated mundane things like PPE. Contrary to popular belief its not all spent fuel rods. When you dismantle it's even more difficult because you have to use specialised equipment to take buildings apart room by room. We're still not good at decommissioning, it's an active research area (lots of funding though) and it's going to be like this for decades.
Japan has been increasing its year over year coal consumption since like, the 70's, and while I'm sure "more coal" isn't a good thing, ~20 Mt a year jumping up to ~21 Mt a year isn't exactly dramatic.
If you happen to take a peek at the coal consumption metrics from around the world, you'll notice a small country a few miles to the west of Japan which currently has the distinct honor of being the only country in the world to measure its annual coal usage in billions of tons instead of millions of tons (although to be fair, India is pretty close to breaking into their first Bt). Thats probably what I'd look into first.
There are aiment where leach treatment is suitable, generaly related to restoring blood flow. So mostly frostbite, transplantation and reconnecting of severed tissue (eq. an accidentally cut off ear, etc.)
Is there a way of designing safe nuclear plants in safe places in the world and efficiently exporting that energy to other parts within that same region?
Thank you for your answers. I know v little on the subject but am a big believer in the inherent power that nuclear generates and its’ cost effectiveness.
Once you're past the distance where transmitting electrical power is feasible, you would probably have to store the energy chemically. In principle you could charge gigantic banks of lithium batteries and then ship the batteries, but that would require infeasible (probably ludicrous) amounts of lithium, and lithium batteries are a pretty inefficient way to chemically store energy.
Alternatively, it probably isn't cost-effective with current technology, but on a fundamental level, you could use a nuclear reactor to power a system that chemically recombined atmospheric CO2 and water back into hydrocarbon fuels. Unlike fossil-derived hydrocarbons, these hydrocarbons would be carbon-neutral since you'd be sourcing all the carbon from the same atmosphere that it would eventually be dumped back into. This is probably going to make sense for things like vehicles, aircraft, rockets, etc. long before it makes sense for power generation, but there are definite benefits. We already have all the necessary technology to burn hydrocarbons, meaning that any improvements in synthesizing hydrocarbon fuels can potentially eliminate the need to switch these things over to batteries or whatnot. Which may be extremely helpful if we run into serious resource constraints over lithium, or if we grow increasingly concerned with the environmental byproducts of lithium battery production.
Sort of, but not really. Asimov worried about us losing the knowledge of nuclear power, and whilst there's a little of that what's really lead to its demise is that as we've learnt more about what's needed to build and operate it over the years it's become less and less viable.
Nuclear seems like the best hope for humanity, really a shame people are so afraid of it. Although, I guess the fear is justified given how many disasters there have been.
https://phys.org/news/2011-05-nuclear-power-world-energy.htm... casts doubt on the future of Nuclear growing anywhere near enough to be a best-hope; scaling it up to world energy production of 15TW seems infeasible - burning through the available Uranium supplies in ~5 years - even scaling it up to 1TW would stretch many resources used in nuclear reactor construction such as rare elements.
As of [Dec 9, 2019], there are nine reactors officially in operation.
Another six reactors have made improvements to meet the new, post-3/11 quake safety standards and have received NRA approval to restart.
What about the future for nuclear power in Japan?
The government’s long-term energy policy for 2030 calls for nuclear power to make up around 20 to 22 percent of the nation’s energy mix, and it is pushing hard for the restart of as many idled reactors as possible.
Why would Japan, who is facing a declining population and hardly has a growing manufacturing industry require twenty new coal plants?
Seems like there might be a conspiracy involved here if this is true. Maybe someone in the Government has a vested interest in pushing this ?
Right now Japan runs on very little Nuclear, I can't imagine it would take 20 new plants to replace a few older dying reactors, they seem to be coping now just fine.
Once the Tokyo Olympics is a disaster from the extreme heat waves and one strong typhoon after another, people won't be happy about this policy. People in Japan are really starting to get concerned about climate change after the lack of snow this season which has seriously affected tourism and is an obvious wake up call for many people in the country side.
One thing this article doesn't cover which was a big part of this decision was nuclear waste. Nobody wants nuclear waste sites in their prefectures. There was a plan to use breeder reactors, but that hasn't gone anywhere, and the waste is just piling up at the reactor sites with absolutely no place to dispose it. When the mayor of Osaka even hinted at making an underwater waste site the backlash was huge. I doubt any other politicians will step up after that (nor will their parties allow it). So with waste being in this deadlock state for decades, there's just no way forward for nuclear here.
Environmentalists just can’t get out of their own way. Solar and wind were never viable alternatives to replace nuclear in Japan. It was always going to be coal.
But when good is the enemy of perfect this is what you get. So let’s raise our glasses to the next decade of coal energy in Japan. Congratulations environmentalists, you won! You killed nuclear!
Nonsense. "Environmentalists" (a crude & politically inactive umbrella term) can't even get nations to do the minimum necessary for long-term survival (stop catastrophic rates of wetland & forest destruction even in wealthy nations, reduce CO2 emissions, etc, etc, etc). Greens (for example) hardly get elected anywhere outside of a couple of European nations.
It is true there is public resistance to nuclear power, almost everywhere. And the very same citizenries which don't want nuclear power also vote against action on climate change, for the corporatacracy, & for the generalised sacrifice of the biosphere for fake 'economic growth'.
People don't want nuclear power because they are scared of it being near them (rightly or wrongly). This has zip to do with environmentalism.
That’s just a label, and you’re using it to group an unknown mass of people together, assume they have identical views, and criticize them. Let me guess - everything that’s gone wrong in the world is also the fault of “the liberals?”
In reality, Japan had an unfortunate nuclear catastrophe and it scared people, rightfully. The public put pressure on the government to ensure the catastrophe didn’t happen again.
Meltdown scare is the major downside of nuclear outside of waste management. I think a lot of people aware of the science of energy generation consider nuclear a very reliable, green solution compared to the alternatives.
But asking the general public to ignore the big scary elephant in the room is like asking people to stop freaking out about flying on planes (while they have no fear of the objectively less safe alternative of driving).
I have to wonder if this is a deal with China, since it makes Japan less energy independent and the leading political party is known for nonstop corruption scandals and some ties to China. China will likely be a big seller of that coal and profit off this big time, same as they will with the recent bizarre casino legalization plan.
The world production of coal is dominated by the People’s Republic of China with 47.4% of global production. China also dominates the global consumption of coal with 51.6% of the world demand in 2017.
China has no coal to spare to sell to Japan, they need it all. As the world's fastest growing major economy their electricity and thus coal demand will go up, not down.
I'm generally in favor of nuclear power but the overruns and delays for constructing units 3 and 4 of the Vogtle nuclear plant is frustrating, especially since rate payers rather than investors are footing most of the extra cost. Shamefully the exact same thing happened during construction of units 1 and 2.
There's another solution to the problem of the environmental cost of energy production: reduce consumption. Is there anyone who would not agree that we, humans, are over-consuming?
Reducing consumption on a meaningful scale is completely impractical, particularly when you include emerging economies, who need to increase their energy consumption in order to attain a reasonable standard of living.
[+] [-] ozborn|6 years ago|reply
I'm opposed to the construction of new nuclear plants (still open to possibility of new fusion plants at some in the future) but from an environmental standpoint it makes far more sense to maintain the existing nuclear plants - at least for now.
The biggest drawbacks of nuclear power (expensive and slow plant construction) are off the table with existing plants! Hardening existing plants against possible future catastrophe is probably far cheaper in both economic and human terms than new coal plan construction.
Japan already does pretty good job (relatively speaking) with solar power, but it could do much better with the money it will spend on new coal plants if it built more wind power and fixed up existing nuclear plants.
[+] [-] espadrine|6 years ago|reply
> I'm opposed to the construction of new nuclear plants
The technology involved in nuclear plants has evolved tremendously, both in terms of efficiency and in terms of safety, but the technology of the new generation is fundamentally different.
> The biggest drawbacks of nuclear power (expensive and slow plant construction) are off the table with existing plants!
Old plants use outdated designs. Nobody would tolerate the 1972 Internet infrastructure nowadays, and yet Chernobyl was created that year, and is still in use.
The main reason old plants stick around instead of being replaced is that Greenpeace and Green parties influence each other into lobbying against building correct reactors.
Take Superphénix: a French Gen IV reactor started construction twelve years before the Chernobyl accident. Its design is still considered next-gen and highly favorable today.
Activists literally fired rocket-propelled grenades at it while it was being built. It got so bad that they had to shut it down.
They tried building a similar Gen IV reactor recently, ASTRID, that improved tremendously even compared to the advanced Superphénix, and it got cancelled six months ago because of lobbies.
So all that remains are old plants… designs that were essentially initial drafts meant to be replaced by better technology, but that never gets shut down because every replacement gets lobbied against.
Those old designs have awful properties, so yeah, we get Chernobyl and Fukushima. We would have had neither if people had let replace the oldest generation. But because of Greenpeace, people died, and fear rose, when all this was unnecessary.
[+] [-] sremani|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theredbox|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] lispm|6 years ago|reply
In Japan and wait for the next major earthquakes?
> Hardening existing plants against possible future catastrophe is probably far cheaper
Probably not. That's the case in Japan where several reactors will never be restarted again.
[+] [-] munk-a|6 years ago|reply
These plants cost insane capital to get running and mismanagement can cause serious problems, so economic pressures tightening belts (or just greed for higher profits) is a constant force fighting against safety... Newer reactor designs contain much safer critical failure outcomes that could allow them to safely operate - even within the constant profit pressure of modern culture.
1. General information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_Yankee_Nuclear_Power_P...
List of articles from VTDigger on the topic: https://vtdigger.org/tag/decommission-vermont-yankee/
[+] [-] jgwil2|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeltz|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshvm|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xxgreg|6 years ago|reply
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/g...
Also interesting, between 2000 and 2010, before Fukushima, Japan had a large increase in coal use.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] lispm|6 years ago|reply
Germany turned to coal? It didn't happen. Germany actually turned to renewables.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany#...
[+] [-] AcerbicZero|6 years ago|reply
If you happen to take a peek at the coal consumption metrics from around the world, you'll notice a small country a few miles to the west of Japan which currently has the distinct honor of being the only country in the world to measure its annual coal usage in billions of tons instead of millions of tons (although to be fair, India is pretty close to breaking into their first Bt). Thats probably what I'd look into first.
[+] [-] neutronman|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m4rtink|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leto_ii|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] d33|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adaisadais|6 years ago|reply
Is there a way of designing safe nuclear plants in safe places in the world and efficiently exporting that energy to other parts within that same region?
Thank you for your answers. I know v little on the subject but am a big believer in the inherent power that nuclear generates and its’ cost effectiveness.
[+] [-] philwelch|6 years ago|reply
Alternatively, it probably isn't cost-effective with current technology, but on a fundamental level, you could use a nuclear reactor to power a system that chemically recombined atmospheric CO2 and water back into hydrocarbon fuels. Unlike fossil-derived hydrocarbons, these hydrocarbons would be carbon-neutral since you'd be sourcing all the carbon from the same atmosphere that it would eventually be dumped back into. This is probably going to make sense for things like vehicles, aircraft, rockets, etc. long before it makes sense for power generation, but there are definite benefits. We already have all the necessary technology to burn hydrocarbons, meaning that any improvements in synthesizing hydrocarbon fuels can potentially eliminate the need to switch these things over to batteries or whatnot. Which may be extremely helpful if we run into serious resource constraints over lithium, or if we grow increasingly concerned with the environmental byproducts of lithium battery production.
[+] [-] saboot|6 years ago|reply
In general, build a not-fancy light water reactor away from the ocean and major fault lines.
We have the most experience with LWRs, and they are pretty safe except for the impact of major natural disasters.
There are other reactor designs, but we really need more experience with them.
[+] [-] MikeAmelung|6 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current#Ad...
[+] [-] xxgreg|6 years ago|reply
There are significant energy losses if all you want on the other end is electricity. But not so bad if you're burning it for heat.
In theory a nuclear reactor could produce both electricity and heat to produce synthetic fuels, making it more cost effective than renewables.
For electricity only it looks like renewables are significantly cheaper however.
[+] [-] throaway1990|6 years ago|reply
How wrong I was! This is the exact example he uses in his books.
[+] [-] makomk|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kingpiss|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jodrellblank|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] keanzu|6 years ago|reply
Another six reactors have made improvements to meet the new, post-3/11 quake safety standards and have received NRA approval to restart.
What about the future for nuclear power in Japan?
The government’s long-term energy policy for 2030 calls for nuclear power to make up around 20 to 22 percent of the nation’s energy mix, and it is pushing hard for the restart of as many idled reactors as possible.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/12/09/reference/japan...
Has there been a new development where the Japanese government "abandoned nuclear energy" sometime in the last two months?
[+] [-] bamboozled|6 years ago|reply
Why would Japan, who is facing a declining population and hardly has a growing manufacturing industry require twenty new coal plants?
Seems like there might be a conspiracy involved here if this is true. Maybe someone in the Government has a vested interest in pushing this ?
Right now Japan runs on very little Nuclear, I can't imagine it would take 20 new plants to replace a few older dying reactors, they seem to be coping now just fine.
Once the Tokyo Olympics is a disaster from the extreme heat waves and one strong typhoon after another, people won't be happy about this policy. People in Japan are really starting to get concerned about climate change after the lack of snow this season which has seriously affected tourism and is an obvious wake up call for many people in the country side.
How backwards and disappointing this new is.
[+] [-] wmeddie|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] keanzu|6 years ago|reply
What decision? This appears to be a Bloomberg opinion piece, I see not a single reference or statement from the Japanese government.
"Another six reactors have made improvements to meet the new, post-3/11 quake safety standards and have received NRA approval to restart."
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/12/09/reference/japan...
As recently as December last year reactors had restart approval.
[+] [-] gatherhunterer|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hurricanetc|6 years ago|reply
But when good is the enemy of perfect this is what you get. So let’s raise our glasses to the next decade of coal energy in Japan. Congratulations environmentalists, you won! You killed nuclear!
[+] [-] crispinb|6 years ago|reply
It is true there is public resistance to nuclear power, almost everywhere. And the very same citizenries which don't want nuclear power also vote against action on climate change, for the corporatacracy, & for the generalised sacrifice of the biosphere for fake 'economic growth'.
People don't want nuclear power because they are scared of it being near them (rightly or wrongly). This has zip to do with environmentalism.
[+] [-] FooHentai|6 years ago|reply
Offshore wind potential alone is 1600Gw, with 600Gw of that in easy reach.
Tidal is progressing well with some ideal straights locations with consistent, high flow.
[+] [-] dangus|6 years ago|reply
That’s just a label, and you’re using it to group an unknown mass of people together, assume they have identical views, and criticize them. Let me guess - everything that’s gone wrong in the world is also the fault of “the liberals?”
In reality, Japan had an unfortunate nuclear catastrophe and it scared people, rightfully. The public put pressure on the government to ensure the catastrophe didn’t happen again.
Meltdown scare is the major downside of nuclear outside of waste management. I think a lot of people aware of the science of energy generation consider nuclear a very reliable, green solution compared to the alternatives.
But asking the general public to ignore the big scary elephant in the room is like asking people to stop freaking out about flying on planes (while they have no fear of the objectively less safe alternative of driving).
[+] [-] fiblye|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] keanzu|6 years ago|reply
http://energyatlas.iea.org/#!/tellmap/2020991907
China has no coal to spare to sell to Japan, they need it all. As the world's fastest growing major economy their electricity and thus coal demand will go up, not down.
[+] [-] xxgreg|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mountain_Skies|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ciconia|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] p1mrx|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spullara|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Eleopteryx|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bamboozled|6 years ago|reply
A meltdown is terrible, burning coal which intensifies climate change is spelling the end of civilization.
I don’t really think it’s optional anymore. Shut the coal down, move with other technologies.