Other disasters are not affected anyone outside of the plant, for example Three Mile Island. And that's all! On the other side, hydro plants actually make things much worse to a nature and already killed big rivers in siberia. Fossil-fuel stations (67% of worldwide energy) are even worse.
Nuclear plants are still the safest for environment and the only way to bring electricity to developing world because it can be very cheap. Take a look at B. Gates nuclear reactor: http://terrapower.com/pages/technology
Building some nuclear plants will be able to feed anyone almost forever. Unlike solar energy that you need to keep in batteries for the night. And who say that batteries can't explode? It is looks like fear of flighting: no reason to fear planes and much much more people die in car accidents that in plane one. Same here - much more people die from other sources that from nuclear plant disaster.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
As a physicist, I am certainly not afraid of "nuclear" and "radiation" in the abstract. But seeing the country you live in to be contaminated for so long just because a single operator error is quite sobering. Solar has its challenges on the technical level, as the power output depends on the daytime and weather, but that is not killing anyone. "And who say that batteries can't explode?" - well even if they would, you would have a ruined battery, perhaps a building. That can be rebuild. The damage done by Chernobyl cannot be fixed for centuries.
The good news in all of this is: by now solar has become cheaper than building new, safe and modern nuclear reactors. And as a lot of the grid load in California comes from air conditioning, I fail to see how solar would not be the perfect solution for these kind of loads.
What a bullshit. Please provide an official source for this claims.
Mushrooms in the Central Europe were contaminated, but only for a first few months after the disaster.
The OECD estimates that the probability of an accident at a Gen. II or higher reactor that results in significant casualties is approximately one per one million years.
All of the accidents in the history of nuclear power have caused fewer deaths than the failure of a single hydroelectric dam. Combined these disasters resulted in an estimated 60,000 deaths.
That number pales in comparison to the 288,000 people who die every year from particulate inhalation due to fossil fuels.
The only two Level 7 nuclear events in the world — Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi — have have rendered large swaths of land unusable for a significant amount of time. Whether or not the exclusion zones surrounding these two areas need to be as large as they are can be argued. However, when a hydroelectric dam fails more people die initially, but as the cleanup happens and the reporters fade away, the event fades into the background. With nuclear incidents people are persistently reminded whether through apocalyptic movies or people going into the exclusion zones to photograph the ruins that are left behind.
There is no way to reliably estimate an event that rare. And to publish such an estimate at all is insanely irresponsible.
Iff those two are satisfied, go nuclear. Before, nope.
But even if they are satisfied: nuclear is a stopgap. Solar and wind are solutions. So I emotionally welcome everything which pushes those forward
Climate change aside, it's hard for me to see anti-nuclear activism (to the extent that it results in coal plants continuing to operate) as anything other than mass murder.
[0] https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928053-600-fossil-f...
[1]http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/04/25/chernoby...
If that's the case, sure, go full-tilt renewables. If not, then we have to weigh nuclear waste is a bigger problem than contributing to CO2 levels. I'm inclined to say no -- if only because nuclear waste can be a reasonably localized problem, whereas climate change from CO2 is global.
Technically speaking? Yes, for sure. Politically speaking? Hahahahahahahaha no, nowhere close.
I completely agree that we should be ramping up nuclear generation, but nuclear alone also has a timing issue that requires either batteries or a hybrid approach to generation. Unlike fossil fuels where the plant can be dialed up and down to cope with demand, the output of a nuclear reactor is generally fixed (at least on the timescales relevant to demand fluctuation).
Solar can be a big help here, because demand tends to be higher during the day and lower at night. Some sort of energy storage technology would likely still be needed even with a full nuclear/solar grid, since energy usage in developed nations tends to peak in the early evening.
There is nothing inherent in nuclear power that makes it impossible to throttle and indeed there are currently operating plants designed with load following capabilities:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_following_power_plant#Nuc...
No offense intended for the author of the parent comment, I hope he won't take this the wrong way either!
Regardless of what you think of the industry of nuclear power, this specific reactor, at Diablo Canyon, is precarious and dangerous.
Wind and solar are simply not enough to bridge the gap between fossil fuels and fusion.[0] Shutting down the country's safest, cheapest, and most consistent method of power generation would be disastrous.
[0]http://phys.org/news/2013-11-experts-nuclear-power.html
Four scientists who have played a key role in alerting the public to the dangers of climate change sent letters Sunday to leading environmental groups and politicians around the world. The letter... urges a crucial discussion on the role of nuclear power in fighting climate change.
Environmentalists agree that global warming is a threat to ecosystems and humans, but many oppose nuclear power and believe that new forms of renewable energy will be able to power the world within the next few decades.
That isn't realistic, the letter said.
"Those energy sources cannot scale up fast enough" to deliver the amount of cheap and reliable power the world needs, and "with the planet warming and carbon dioxide emissions rising faster than ever, we cannot afford to turn away from any technology" that has the potential to reduce greenhouse gases. The letter signers are James Hansen, a former top NASA scientist; Ken Caldeira, of the Carnegie Institution; Kerry Emanuel, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Tom Wigley, of the University of Adelaide in Australia.
Then at the NRC, there's been multiple DPOs (deferring opinions) (e.g. http://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1425/ML14252A743.pdf)
The UCSUSA has weighed in on its concerns (http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power/nuclear-power-accidents/...)
When the USGS, NRC, and UCSUSA think something is a bad idea, it's worth listening to them - these aren't anti-nuke people.
There are serious complaints from qualified people about the safety of a specific thing. Please don't inflate this to some generalized "anti-nuclear" movement - it's not about that.
But I'm not making this about nuclear power in general. The State of California and the media have already done a fine job of that.
The grid cannot realistically be more than about 20-30% solar PV without matching storage.
Storage is expensive, like 20-30 cents/kWh expensive.
It's just not competitive with natural gas which is available for ~6 cents/kWh.
Good news for Tesla Energy and their new Solar City division.
EDIT:
Exelon is shutting two nuclear plants in Illinois over the next two years, Clinton and Quad Cities, and Fort Calhoun in Nebraska is set to close by the end of the year.
Slowly but surely, we will retire every coal, natural gas, and (woefully aged) nuclear generator in the country.
When equity startup investors (not utility bondholders) get rich off a nuclear technology, then I'll believe it can solve some real-world problems and not just be showpiece technology.
Once these plants shut down they will never be reopened.
