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Maybe one day we will produce a civilization capable of using technology as it comes out instead of one that decided to call it quits decades ago. Oh sure we got cellphones but we are still burning coal. Because nuclear is scary.
I think nuclear energy is a great idea in theory, but I have absolutely zero trust in companies handling nuclear waste responsibly. It's not like they have a great track record.
That being said, pretty excited about this if it's as safe as they say.
So nationalize them. Problem solved.
Do you trust our current governmental structures to manage something with that much potential for harm when it goes wrong? I sure don't. Sure, it might go great for a long while, but then you get one far-right administration that wants to cut regulations.
How many nukes does the US have?
That's the dream!
You have every right to not trust companies, I don't either. Good thing we have multiple government regulators and multiple non-profit engineering/standards boards also involved.
Sure, I just want to feel confident that said regulations actually have teeth and the punishment can't just be factored into the cost of doing business.
So, yes, I'm scared. Maybe that's not rational, but I don't want to look back in 40 years and find out we were wrong about the longevity of nuclear waste storage, or that the many minor infractions over the years have slowly built up into a real problem. I don't want to discover that we've been outsourcing the most dangerous work to developing countries with less employee and environmental protections than our own. If there's a viable method that's inherently safer, I'd feel a little better about it.
That's why there were no incidents in Japan a decade ago. Especially not after multiple reports of potential danger 🤷♂️.
I have the same reserves as the person you commented on. "We" may have great agencies working to prevent issues, but it's not the case everywhere in the world. And if you want to use fission as a solution for climate change, you need to have every developing country to use it too, whatever the stability of the region.
Just look at Ukraine where the safety of one their reactor is on the line because of the war, and the mines Russia put all over. Chernobyl 2.0 if things go wrong :(
From what I recall of Three Mile Island, I don't know that I'd put a lot of trust in the NRC.
I see. So because of an incident five decades ago out of hundreds of plants running since the 1950s that resulted in no deaths the entire NRC for all time forever is untrustworthy.
Hey everyone go shut civilization down. The bar has been raised. Did an organization make a mistake that had no victim 51 years ago? This means it is destroyed forever. Only perfect people who act perfectly forever and into the past as far as you can look get to do anything.
Got to love this new world. Where the only thing that is real is our outrage. Can you tell me anything about the NRC? Can you describe their emblem without looking it up? Can you tell me who is running it now? Can you tell me about its organization structure? How about the license renewal process? How about how inspections are even performed? Betting no. But you don't need to, you have outrage and that replaces data. It is the master play that can never be defeated. As long as you can be upset about something you don't need to know anything.
There are people who are grandparents who weren't alive during that incident.
With respect, you are the one that seems outraged. I'm not outraged, just pointing out that government can be just as untrustworthy as corporations and in the case of the NRC, there is some history to justify that.
Government agencies generally should be looked at with critical eyes, as should anyone claiming power over your life.
Also, you claimed there were no victims. The fact that no one died in the immediate aftermath of TMI does not mean there were no victims. The surrounding communities were victimized by poor business decisions and poor oversight.
Well, that's why you put well funded, independent organizations in charge of setting and enforcing the rules around this kind of stuff
And you don't just give them the power to fine the companies exploiting the reactors, you give them the power to unilaterally decide to shut down the reactors if they deem it necessary
With a rigorous set of ethics and standards so the industry doesn't end up being overseen by a bunch of retired executives or getting kick-backs.
here's a video about how most nuclear waste is handled
Nuclear isn't scary. It's waste, on the other hand, is.
But you know, it's not like we've not had multiple examples of nuclear power plants failing catastrophically and destroying things around them for miles, and for decades/centuries.
Having said that, if they did come out with new technology version of a nuclear power plant that is safe and that with a catastrophic failure does not harm the environment around itself then I would be all for it. I just don't think the technology is there for that. I hear they're working on it though.
In other words you want special pleading. All other energy techs are allowed to have problems and produce waste except for one.
The other ones don't fail catastrophically like nuclear does.
The other ones don't produce waste that is the worst kind of toxicity for Humanity that lasts for hundred of years.
Solve those problems, and I'll get on board that train.
Comparing (some) other forms of energy's deaths to nuclear is like comparing mosquito bites to shark bites. A sharks kill a lot less people than mosquitoes, but a mosquito bite won't make the news.
Those problems literally HAVE been solved. You're talking about a disaster from 50 years ago. Nuclear is quite literally one of the safest forms of energy production we have. And the waste is really not much of an issue. Not only is most of it recycled into new fuel, the entire United States hasn't even made enough fuel to fill a football field since we started using nuclear power.
And are those designs in production today, or still on the drawing board?
What percentage of reactors today have this new design that you speak of?
Citation required, because I remember them having to dig out a huge underground storage mine somewhere in the Southwest (nearby Vegas if my recollection is accurate) to handle all the waste that would be generated between all the power station reactors and all the hospitals that use radioactive devices and everything else.
The coal industry emits magnitudes more unvetted radiation than any nuclear power plant will in it's whole lifetime; as in, radiation is undetectable around a modern nuclear plant.
Plus coal and oil extraction has it's own problems with radiation. Nuclear produces stable, storable waste that if handled and buried correctly will never become an ecological issue.
They're built to a modern standard where it's practically foolproof. Fukushima held up to an enormous earthquake followed by several tsunamis; that's despite the poor operation of the plant.
The damage we would have to cause to compromise and get rid of any nuclear reliance is far more immediate and concerning.
Nuclear isn't actually as complicated nor unpredictable as you'd think. They've solved ways to avoid melt downs such as the fuels being improved, the amount they process at one time, their cooling and the redundancies. The physical design of a modern station takes into account the worst situations that any given amount of fuel can give in a meltdown such as deep wells that are situated under a reactor to melt into. You won't likely ever see in our lifetimes a station reaching critical meltdown and it not be because a government or private company cut corners.
Scientists are doing this work, they know what they know and they know what they're doing, it's not really for everyone to politically involve ourselves with when no one ever does any valid research or basic knowledge of science without fear mongering.
So that's a wall of text, with all the same standard counter points that is always made, some of which I disagree with, so I'll just say I'm not anti-nuclear, I'm just anti-nuclear in its current design form.
You give me a design that can protect the environment from catastrophic effects and with a waste product that can be safely handled, and I'll get on board.
I had read there is some salt based designs kicking around that seem to start going in that direction, but I don't know if they've been moved forward or not.
Actually it wasn't so much the poor operation of the plant, but the failure of the design of the plant to not take into account that after a major earthquake the elevation of the land that the plant sits on would go down, which makes the wall they put up the protect the plant from the ocean (especially after a tsunami) shorter than it should have been.
I'm actually quite informed on the subject.
Someone disagreeing with you is not fear-mongering.
BP gulf oil spill.
Fracking, contaminated ground water
I would still argue those are less catastrophic than Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island, etc. Their destructive effects disappear a lot quicker than a nuclear catastrophe negative effect would.
Having said that, oil is second worse after nuclear. I'm not advocating for oil.
My hopes are on fusion and solar/battery.
No form of energy generation is 100% perfect.
My hopes are that goalposts don't keep moving in this thread.
take a look some excerpts:
as /u/afraid_of_zombies said:
here's a video about how most nuclear waste is handled
I love Kyle Hill/subbed. It's fair to say though that he's very pro-nuclear. Not discrediting what he says, just saying he definitely has a certain perspective on it.
And my primary criticism is on the catastrophic failure problem, and while I think the storage problem is a negative as well, I think it's less so than the catastrophic problem.
That's the weaker argument in your original post. Modern designs are nowhere near as bad as older ones designs (aka soviet, we all know you mean Chernobyl) and even the older non soviet ones aren't bad at all
Fukushima is nowhere near Chernobyl levels of damage (didn't destroy things for miles for centuries), and no other major plant failures that I can think of would match "catastrophic failure"
Nuclear fusion does make this prospect potentially real. The only thing they emit is neutron radiation, and a mean lifetime of free neutron is 14 minutes 47 seconds.
As per current fission technology, while nuclear waste is real issue, nuclear power is historically one of the most ecological ways to produce power. Catastrophes are now less and less likely, with many lessons learned from Chernobyl and Fukushima - lessons that are now implemented in all reactors around the world.
I live in a city powered by a reactor of the same model there was in Chernobyl, but modified following the incident. I fully trust it.
I swear I do not mean this as a disrespect on you, as your comment was well written/said, but I've been hearing that kind of phrasing from companies that run power plants that catastrophically fail for many decades now. I'm definitely in a once-bitten twice shy mode at this point.
I'll leave it at this, I hope you're right, but I can believe you, or my lying eyes (to quote a comedically philosophical man).
I live nearby a nuclear plant (not Chernobyl design) as well, though now all three of its reactors has been decommissioned because of age.
You're not trusting that Chernobyl style design (that's flawed) you're trusting it's operators do not f up and trigger the flaw like they did last time with Chernobyl, and humans are never 100% perfect 24/7. Also, Mother Nature tends to have some input as well.
By "lessons learned" I don't mean just operators acting differently. The very reactors are built another way, as to physically not allow what happened on either station. It's not that my city is powered by unaltered Chernobyl reactor - it was modified as to not allow the graphite rods to be dropped so late, and made automatic on a mechanical level.
Fukushima-style disaster is simply not possible in my area, but then again, for reactors that are endangered, measures were taken.
Funnily enough, coal plants waste is infinitely more harmful than nuclear waste because the general public doesn't see it as scary, so it's barely regulated.
Well part of it comes down to The China Syndrome versus the toad in a slowly boiling pot syndrome.
But most would agree coal dust is less harmful to a human body then radioactive dust. Yes, they're both unhealthy, but one will kill you a lot faster than the other one will. People triage potential danger/harm to themselves on a daily basis.
And just to repeat myself...
I don't think companies can do that actually. It is very regulated area. Also I think there is a lot of nuclear scare going on. Nuclear is not at all dangerous as it most people think, it just sounds scary.
At present we have oil and coal companies that are responsible for a lot of deaths and burning the planet. Nuclear is in no way near ammount of damage coal and oil are making right now. So even with nuclear accidents(sounds scary yea) it's better than coal and oil.