Still support nuke power plants?

[DSeid]

Why yes, they are okay with the odds. Because even though plane crashes are high profile and dramatic when they occur the actual fact is that you are much more likely to die travelling the same distance by car, even if that crash wouldn’t make the evening news.

Other than some dramatic mine explosions deaths from coal don’t make the evening news either. Nuclear, even after a major meltdown, is ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE safer than what you are willing to accept every day from coal, but because that multitude of coal deaths are every day they are mundane and devalued. I am sure that fallacy has some name but dang if I know what to call it.

[FXMastermind]

What a load of crap.

[DSeid]

Ah. I take it that you have no actual argument to make or facts to offer then?

I had asked a specific question of you: are the lives of those lost due to coal somehow worth less than the ones due to a nuclear cause? If so why?

Or do you have some cites that contradict the multiple ones that I have offered up that document the deaths due to coal and the ones due to nuclear?

No? just “crap” throwing?

Ah well.

Like I said before, that informs about the quality of your position.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

In light of today’s Question: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3000/followup-why-dont-we-ditch-nukes-em-and-em-coal

And the notion that we simply will not be able to meet global energy demand without pretty much every energy source we can get our hands on, do we really still need to ask this question?

Its all of the above until we have a quantum leap in solar technology or some other technology.

[XT]

[QUOTE=FXMastermind]
What a load of crap.
[/QUOTE]

No, it isn’t. It’s the uncomfortable truth that seemingly none of the anti-nukes ever want to address. They (and you) WANT nuclear power to be this ravening monster, responsible for massive deaths. But the reality is that people are horrible at risk assessment…and anti-nukes are perhaps even worse than the average person. 10’s of thousands of people die each year…EVERY year…due to coal. I’ve seen cites that estimate 22,000 deaths a year to the health impacts of coal in the US alone, with a larger number having health related problems due to coal fired energy. It’s the price we pay for the energy that we use…the price we collectively pay for our civilization. Even if the 22,000 per year is an exaggeration for the US (and I think it’s reasonably accurate), then consider what it would be in countries like China, India, Russia, or any other heavily industrialized nation without the air quality standards we have in the US. Then consider what it was 10, 15 or 50 years ago. Consider how many have died due to coal in that period of time. Millions world wide.

Then consider how many have died from nuclear power OVER THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF NUCLEAR ENERGY. Over 60+ years of nuclear energy in the US. 10,000? 100,000? A million? Probably closer to the first figure than the second…almost certainly, unless you look at the over exaggerated estimates from Chernobyl that have been posted in some of these threads.

Look at the Japanese disaster you are always harping on. How many people have died in Japan due to radiation from Fukushima? Zero so far. Over the next few decades some are bound to die, however…that’s undeniable. How many though? 100? 500? 10,000? Probably closer to the first figure than the last, but even if it’s the last one that isn’t even half of the number of people who have ALREADY died from the earthquake and tsunami. And it’s probably not even as many as die annually in Japan from coal fired power plants (though that’s just a WAG on my part…I don’t have the energy to look up the estimates from Japan on possible annual deaths due to the effects of their electrical or industrial use of coal).

And, of course, none of this even touches on global warming, and the possible deadly effects that might have on the plant. If the temperatures continue to go up and the sea levels rise like they are predicting, we’re likely to get a hell of a lot more deaths in the future due to more energetic weather and more widespread flooding (and droughts in other parts of the world). And coal is a major contributor to CO2 in the atmosphere.

So, rather than risk purely local disasters like Fukushima (which have happened in Japan exactly once in the decades they have had nuclear energy…and have happened zero times in every other country on earth with the exception of Russia), the anti-nukes would rather risk a GLOBAL disaster that will effect billions of people. Oh, they and you will go on about renewable energy, and how we should be building millions of wind turbines or thousands of square miles of solar panels, but the reality is that it’s simply not realistic for any nation to do that. If it was cost effective to do then someone would be doing it. We have a perfect test bed for that proposition right now…Germany has decided, to the anti-nuclear folks glee, to put a major stop on their nuclear energy, and supposedly pursue renewable energy. Wind, solar, geothermal. We’ll see how that works out for them in a decade or so. Will they manage to build massive new wind farms? Solar power plants? Geothermal energy plants? Will they be able to do that and keep up with the aging nuclear power plants as they go off line? We’ll see. I’m willing to bet fairly hefty amounts that what they will do is build wind, solar and geothermal plants, but won’t be able to balance the energy they lose from nuclear with these wonderful clean energy sources, and so will either build new coal plants, or increasingly buy energy from their neighbors…many of who, ironically, use nuclear.

People are just really horrible at risk assessment and threat analysis.

-XT

[gonzomax]

@DSeid

Why yes, they are okay with the odds. Because even though plane crashes are high profile and dramatic when they occur the actual fact is that you are much more likely to die travelling the same distance by car, even if that crash wouldn’t make the evening news.

Other than some dramatic mine explosions deaths from coal don’t make the evening news either. Nuclear, even after a major meltdown, is ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE safer than what you are willing to accept every day from coal, but because that multitude of coal deaths are every day they are mundane and devalued. I am sure that fallacy has some name but dang if I know what to call it.

We are not happy that coal plants and oil refineries are dirty and dangerous. We just can not do anything about it. Clinton passed laws forcing coal plants to add scrubbers in the interest of cleaning up the surrounding areas. As soon as Bush came in they threw out all the efforts to clean them up.
I have given up. Energy companies are super powerful and rich. in America that translates to making your own rules.
I suppose we have to accept that nuke plant construction companies will cut corners , We know they will cut staffs and training. We are aware they will cover up. But that is our reality.
There will be spills and lies. There may be more meltdowns. Maintenance logs will be dishonest. Releases into the atmosphere will occur. We will be assured they are small and of no danger. Then much later, the truth will ooze out on page 15 of the newspaper.

[FXMastermind]

@DSeid

Nuclear, even after a major meltdown, is ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE safer than what you are willing to accept every day from coal,

What a complete load of crap.

[chiefgeorgeearle]

I am a New Zealander. As far as I am aware this is the only country that is nuclear free by law. Now, being raised in a society with such an abhorrence to nuclear energy, I admit, I am more than deterred by the idea of nuclear power altogether. However, deeper thought reveals my fear to be one of the consequences of a disaster, also a lament that a tool with the capacity to achieve astounding leaps in technology and scientific thought (I will refrain from saying a tool of progress, because the modern definition of progress in my opinion is half the reason this world’s resources are being depleted and cast aside faster than they are recycled or put to worthy use) is a weapon to be used at a bargaining table by a power hungry few.

[FXMastermind]

@gonzomax

We are not happy that coal plants and oil refineries are dirty and dangerous. We just can not do anything about it.

Nonsense. That sort of crap is what makes the internet a suck device for fighting ignorance.

Today, the drivers toward ‘clean’ energy are not really pollution derived, since almost any energy source can be used today in a relatively pollution-free fashion. They are rather price-based, and more nebulously political.

The whole article is worth reading

All Analysis Articles | Seeking Alpha

but of course most won’t bother to look. Which is how ignorance thrives online.

The new shift is the greening of the coal industry. Scrubbers to eliminate sulfur (and mercury, etc.) from coal smokestacks have been required for all new sources for some time. The industry chose to fight the regulations tooth and nail, claiming that major repairs were minor repairs, and refusing to build new plants, to avoid the scrubber mandate (they are expensive). But that approach stymied the industry growth, so there was a shift to ‘clean’ coal, which meant ‘low-sulfur’ coal, since the smoke stack pollution monitoring could be satisfied with that feedstock even without the latest scrubber technology. Finally, some of the players have decided that instead of retrograde fighting, maybe they should just go with the spirit of the regulation and see if they can make a business model for it, and it turns out they can. The absurdity of this paradox is that the shift is now towards high sulfur coal.

The Wall St. Journal (sub. req.) did a nice job on this yesterday. They looked at 3 coal sources: Northern Appalachia [NA], the Powder River Basin [PRB], and Central Appalachia [CA] (see further review). The NA coal is high sulfur, and as a result has 40% more heat content than low-sulfur PRB coal, and 10% more heat content than low-sulfur CA coal, but sells for $53/ton, whereas PRB and CA coal sell for $55 and 71/ton, respectively, including transportation costs. So who wouldn't want to get 40% more heat for between 4% and 25% less, for a total /btu differential of ca. 44-65%? The only problem is that using high-sulfur coal necessitates scrubbers, but for that price differential, it’s worth it. Currently “…between 30% to 40% of the nations coal-fired electricity output is generated by facilities that use scrubbers, but that figure is expected to jump to about 60% during the next five years…”

[FXMastermind]

The US has more coal than Saudi Arabia has oil. Energy compared. Coal can be clean. It’s also cheaper than oil.

The problem isn’t physics. It’s never physics.

[GIGObuster]

@FXMastermind

The US has more coal than Saudi Arabia has oil. Energy compared. Coal can be clean. It’s also cheaper than oil.

The problem isn’t physics. It’s never physics.

Coal can’t, and it should not be cheaper.

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200701/coal.asp

Despite the industry’s hype, there’s no such thing as “clean coal.” But new technologies and policies can help reduce coal plants’ deadly emissions, including carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, mercury, and nitrogen oxides.

CARBON DIOXIDE CAPTURE AND STORAGE As greenhouse gases increase and politicians seem paralyzed or worse, scientists are attempting to control the damage. They are working on ways to corral the carbon dioxide emitted by the coal industry, transport it, and “sequester” it deep in the ocean, underground coal seams, or saline reservoirs. According to the National Academy of Sciences, annually 5 billion to 10 billion tons–as much as 40 percent of human-made CO2–“could be removed from the atmosphere and tucked safely away.” For years, the oil industry has been injecting carbon dioxide into the ground to help increase oil production. But the capture and storage of CO2 from the world’s coal-fired plants would be on a much larger scale.

Economics is the big hurdle. Carbon capture and storage would raise the cost of coal power by 40 to 90 percent. If polluters had to pay a tax of $100 per ton of carbon emitted, however, sequestration would become a more attractive option. The technology would work best with IGCC plants; retrofitting pulverized-coal plants would be costly and reduce efficiency.

CARBON TAX Fossil-fuel burning imposes severe health and environmental costs that aren’t factored into the cost of producing electricity. A tax on all energy sources that release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere would correct this failure by reflecting the real cost of CO2 emissions–and make cleaner energy more financially viable. Norway and Sweden instituted carbon taxes in 1991, and the European Union is debating its own version. All is quiet on the U.S. political front, but Duke Energy, one of the country’s largest utilities, has announced that it supports “mandatory federal action” with regard to a carbon tax.

[DSeid]

Yes FX coal companies are still good stocks to own - which is the point of that Seeking Alpha article. America has lots of coal and electricity produced from coal is cheap, so long as there is no value put on the CO2, the other environmental costs, and the health costs. It will be a backbone of America’s energy for years to come. All the more so because of people like you prefer to accept the massive numbers of deaths we got with coal rather than allow the relatively safer nuclear continue to be part of the mix.

But if you read that article and think that scrubbers have reduced the Climate Change consequences of coal, or that they have even got coal’s more immediate health consequences to a level below “orders of magnitude” above that associated with nuclear, then you reading something that is not there.

The 13,000 death a year from coal I quoted upthread some? Those were 2010 numbers and were

almost half the impact that our 2004 study found and is reflective of the impact that state and federal actions have had in reducing power plant emissions by roughly half.

So “relatively pollution free” sure, relative to what it has been, but still ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE deadlier than nuclear. Nuclear would have to cause over 6000 deaths a year in the US alone to be as deadly on a per TWh basis as “relatively pollution free” coal is. Yes, ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE deadlier applies.

Yes, carbon capture and almost clean coal is possible, and maybe if coal’s consequences were fully monetized they would be worth doing, but as noted upthread as well, coal would no longer be cheap if those things were done.

You have twice now called my cites that document the massive death rates from coal as “crap”. Yet those numbers are the facts. Coal kills many thousands every year and its long term consequences are potentially catastrophic. Yet those real every day deaths do not matter to you. Those lives apparently have no value to you. Because they aren’t on the news.

Nuclear is no panacea. It has problems and I believe realistically even keeping its current share of energy production will be a stretch. But coal use needs to be reduced and given that renewables and even renewables plus natural gas cannot totally displace coal on their own in any moderate term future, achieving that stretch is in our best interest.

[levdrakon]

@DSeid

Why yes, they are okay with the odds. Because even though plane crashes are high profile and dramatic when they occur the actual fact is that you are much more likely to die travelling the same distance by car, even if that crash wouldn’t make the evening news.

Other than some dramatic mine explosions deaths from coal don’t make the evening news either. Nuclear, even after a major meltdown, is ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE safer than what you are willing to accept every day from coal, but because that multitude of coal deaths are every day they are mundane and devalued. I am sure that fallacy has some name but dang if I know what to call it.

It’s Captain Hyperbole! He’s everywhere, he’s everywhere!

I don’t think fallacy means what you think it means, but one of its possible meanings is not “disagrees with me.”

Death by old age and declining, shitty health is pretty well expected, isn’t shocking, doesn’t come as that big a surprise, etc. Sudden death in a crazy ass fire makes the news, and yes, it more or less “more important.”

Cooking over an open flame/high heat raises people’s lung cancer risk significantly, and while I don’t have a cite, I think it’s pretty much up there with cigarette smoking, and maybe worse.

Should everyone give up cooking? Not likely. Sorry. That’s not a fallacy, and it’s not flawed risk assessment. It’s, “oh well, I ain’t giving up my burgers and stir-fries.”

By all means though, tax carbon or make high emitters pay for socialized medicine or something. Opposing nuclear power because it’s an expensive, dangerous boondoggle is not a fallacy.

[DSeid]

@levdrakon

It’s Captain Hyperbole! He’s everywhere, he’s everywhere!..

And what do you claim is hyperbole. Documentation provided - deaths caused by coal power are over 4000 times that of nuclear. “Order of magnitude” means 10 x. “Orders” of magnitude means 100x or more. Stating that 4000x is "orders of magnitude is no hyperbole; it is a factual statement.

Blanket opposition to nuclear power when such opposition results in more coal and more deaths is not rational. Ignoring those deaths because they are not as dramatic is not rational.

[levdrakon]

@DSeid

And what do you claim is hyperbole. Documentation provided - deaths caused by coal power are over 4000 times that of nuclear. “Order of magnitude” means 10 x. “Orders” of magnitude means 100x or more. Stating that 4000x is "orders of magnitude is no hyperbole; it is a factual statement.

Blanket opposition to nuclear power when such opposition results in more coal and more deaths is not rational. Ignoring those deaths because they are not as dramatic is not rational.

And basing your entire argument on the one little factoid “deaths/yer” I think probably is a fallacy of some kind.

Who says I’m ignoring coal emission deaths? Tax them until truly cleaner coal is a reality. Don’t believe anyone in the power/coal industry who whines about how they’ll surely go out of business if they have to slap scrubbers on their smoke stacks or whatever reason they start whining. We have huge amounts of coal and there is no way turning it into energy is going to go out of business. But, if some of the current leaders of that industry would like to jump out windows now because they can’t adapt, I won’t mind.

[DSeid]

Hmm. Basing an argument that coal every year kills orders of magnitude than nuclear has on the “factoid” that coal has killed orders of magnitude every year than nuclear has is a fallacy of some kind? Alrightee.

Here is the argument:

1. Coal kills many thousands every year. Even a major melt down in Japan is not expected to kill more than coal kills every year.

2. Coal has a huge impact on global climate change; nuclear much less of one.

3. Renewables and natural gas will not completely eliminate our need for coal on their own. Decreasing nuclear therefore means more coal. Increasing nuclear need not mean less renewables and more renewables need not mean less nuclear. Using both will still leave us using lots of coal, and more’s the pity.

4. Coal appears cheap because it doesn’t have to pay for its waste disposal or for its waste’s consequences. (The nuclear industry has paid for that; those who they have paid have not delivered however.) Paying for it, either by mandating carbon capture, etc., or by charging its true costs to society, would result in coal no longer appearing cheap. In that circumstance nuclear would compete on cost and the markets would decide what was expensive boondogle and what a reasonable investment.

Dispute the veracity of those points or the rationality of how the conclusions follow from the points if you can, but positing that somehow you can wave a magic technowand and make all those coal deaths decrease by, yes, orders of magnitude, and keep it cheap, can only be met with derision. (And I say that as someone who believes that less dirty coal has a major role in the future that can only be motivated by charging appropriately and explicitly for that which is currently implicitly subsidized.)

[XT]

[QUOTE=levdrakon]
And basing your entire argument on the one little factoid “deaths/yer” I think probably is a fallacy of some kind.
[/QUOTE]

Except no one is doing this. YOU (and FXM) were the ones focusing on the supposed dangers of nuclear energy. When it’s pointed out to you (and he) that, in fact, coal is much more dangerous both on a local level AND a global level you fall back on making this just a single ‘little factoid’, and handwave it away. FXM simply calls it all bullshit and chooses not to even engage on the subject at all.

Who says I’m ignoring coal emission deaths?

Well, your own posts seem to say this. You are and have ever ignored this, then attempted to change the subject…and when you figure the coast is clear you come back to frantic fear about how deadly and dangerous nuclear energy is. Until you are called on it again…rinse and repeat. Multiple posters have been over this same ground with you in at least 3 other threads I can think of off the top of my head, and you have yet to even attempt to address the core points. Instead…

Tax them until truly cleaner coal is a reality.

…just change the subject and propose magic solutions! The irony, of course, is that if you did this it will increase the costs of coal based energy. Which is your OTHER great argument against nuclear…it costs too much! So, to make coal as safe as nuclear you propose to make coal cost as much as nuclear does. GODS! Now THAT if fucking funny!

What’s the fallback then? ‘Well, you see, coal and nuclear are both really expensive, so what we need to do is spend our collective money on solar and wind power! Since the cost of energy is so high, they can now compete! As for the scale thingy, well, if we throw enough money at it we can fix that too!’. All of which means that energy costs would go through the roof. Who will pay for that? Just soak the energy companies? Good luck with that. You’d probably end up having to nationalize them…and that would still mean increased costs which would have to be paid by someone.

Don’t believe anyone in the power/coal industry who whines about how they’ll surely go out of business if they have to slap scrubbers on their smoke stacks or whatever reason they start whining.

If it costs more to build new power plants or modify the existing ones than the projected profit then how exactly do you expect those companies to continue to do business? They are in the business to make MONEY, not provide a public service for the good of all. So, they will increase their rates…which will cause people (like you) to howl and scream bloody murder. Consider what it would mean if all of the electric companies in the country who use coal fired power plants doubled their rates…which is what they would do if they were forced to fix this problem (well, and probably lobby for loopholes and exemptions and exceptions so they could continue to run their plants exactly as they have been). Any increases are going to be passed on to the public, one way or the other.

We have huge amounts of coal and there is no way turning it into energy is going to go out of business.

If it costs more to operate than they make in profit, or even if they run at a profit but if the profits are small enough to make the ROI take an inordinate amount of time, then companies will certainly go out of business, or leave the business and do something else.

But really it’s not the companies going out of business that’s the actual issue. These companies aren’t going to operate at a loss…they will simply pass on the added expenses to their customers in the form of higher energy bills. Even leaving aside all of the other things that will impact (such as the costs for American companies to operate in the US), that’s going to hurt Joe Public pretty hard, don’t you think?

But, if some of the current leaders of that industry would like to jump out windows now because they can’t adapt, I won’t mind.

You have no idea what the effects of what you are proposing would be, do you?

-XT

[Una_Persson]

@gonzomax

Clinton passed laws forcing coal plants to add scrubbers in the interest of cleaning up the surrounding areas. As soon as Bush came in they threw out all the efforts to clean them up.

I already refuted your claims on this years ago, with numerous citations. Why you are allowed to deliberately and continually post things you know are untrue in Great Debates is a real mystery to me.

[FXMastermind]

I just say “What a load of crap”, but then I don’t care that much.

[XT]

[QUOTE=FXMastermind]
I just say “What a load of crap”, but then I don’t care that much.
[/QUOTE]

And that’s probably one of your more cogent contributions. With such enlightening contributions as this and your other invaluable pronouncements of lesser weight to the nuclear debates, no one much cares what you say either…so we are all square, ehe?

-XT