[LINK] Should Australia consider nuclear electricity?

[Karl Auer]

On Fri, 2021-11-26 at 16:01 +1100, Kim Holburn wrote:
> https://phys.org/news/2011-05-nuclear-power-world-energy.html
> > Why nuclear power will never supply the world's energy needs

I rest my case.

I do take issue with this bit though:

> > Accident rate: To date, there have been 11 nuclear accidents at the
> > level of a full or partial core-melt. These accidents are not the
> > minor accidents that can be avoided with improved safety
> > technology; they are rare events that are not even possible to
> > model in a system as complex as a nuclear station, and arise from
> > unforeseen pathways and unpredictable circumstances (such as the
> > Fukushima accident).

Fukushima was not unforeseen or unpredictable, it was an absolutely
foregone conclusion that the site would sooner or later and probably
sooner suffer the direct and/or indirect effects of seismic activity.
For which there is no known upper limit on force or destructiveness.
The designers failed to build in or retrofit obvious protections (like
flood-proofing generators and batteries).

The following article is just one voice, but it's not hard to find
plenty of others, and I have so far not found any (other than the
predictable apologists) who put significantly different views. I'd be
happy to read any that others do find:

https://carnegieendowment.org/2012/03/06/why-fukushima-was-preventable-pub-47361

That article also has a really interesting discussion of other reactors
and their issues.

What I dislike about it though is that it gives the impression that if
only we do better, nuclear power will be safe. The problem with that
sentiment is that the penalty for failure is so extreme.

It just takes one mistake, anywhere in the millions of operations that
go into designing, constructing, fuelling and running a nuclear reactor
and disposing of its waste. Only some of those mistakes are
predictable, or can be prevented, or can be built around, mitigated, or
modelled. The mistake that blows everything to hell is always the one
you didn't think of (or didn't deal with, which is what happened to
Fukushima).

This is especially true around nuclear waste disposal, where your plans
have to work for hundreds of thousands of years - something no human
plan in the history of human planning has ever done.

When everyone is hip-deep in radioactive slag it really doesn't matter
any more whether you shoulda, coulda or oughta have done something
about it earlier.

This is why I say that the only answer is not to do it. The benefits
simply do not outweigh the risks.

Regards, K.

-- 
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Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer

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