Fukushima farce reveals nuclear industry's fatal flaw

[kristopher]

Fukushima farce reveals nuclear industry's fatal flaw

Keeping the lid on costs when the task is to keep the lid on a slow motion atomic explosion is an impossible challenge


Once upon a time, when the nuclear industry was shiny and new, it simply burned uranium. Now, old and tarnished, it burns money. From the promise of nuclear electricity being too cheap to meter, we now have costs that are too great to count.

At the site of the Fukushima meltdown in Japan, the government is being forced to spend over £200m** on a fanciful-sounding underground ice wall in the latest desperate attempt to halt the radiation-contaminated water that is leaking into the sea.

When mere stopgaps cost this much, it is clear any real solution will cost the earth....

Yet supporters maintain that nuclear power offers affordable low-carbon electricity and is a vital tool in the fight to curb climate change. The UK government, already spending most of its energy budget on nuclear clean up, has crashed through deadline after deadline in a fruitless search to find anybody willing to build new nuclear power stations at reasonable cost.

The only serious players left in the game are those backed by the French, Chinese and Russian states, whose interest in power is as much political as electrical. Commercial companies have fled the scene...

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2013/sep/04/fukushima-farce-nuclear-industry-flaw

*All other reports I've seen place the cost of the ice wall at $470m or 300m British Pounds.

[AtheistCrusader]

1. It is also an example of

privatized profit, and socialized risk. I would think fiscal conservatives would also recognize that, given SONGS and Vermont Yankee.

To say nothing of what, dozens of reactors financed and never completed?
It has its allure, but our execution has been so bad... I'd rather throw money at wind/tidal/solar, you name it.

Five reactors, just this year, gone.

[kristopher]

2. "It has its allure..."

That's an interesting point. Here is what one study says about who tends to find it alluring.

Here is the abstract of the primary source

The Future of Nuclear Power: Value Orientations and Risk Perception
Stephen C. Whitfield,1 Eugene A. Rosa,2 Amy Dan,3 and Thomas Dietz3;

Abstract
Since the turn of the 21st century, there has been a revival of interest in nuclear power. Two decades ago, the expansion of nuclear power in the United States was halted by widespread public opposition as well as rising costs and less than projected increases in demand for electricity. Can the renewed enthusiasm for nuclear power overcome its history of public resistance that has persisted for decades? We propose that attitudes toward nuclear power are a function of perceived risk, and that both attitudes and risk perceptions are a function of values, beliefs, and trust in the institutions that influence nuclear policy.

Applying structural equation models to data from a U.S. national survey, we find that increased trust in the nuclear governance institutions reduces perceived risk of nuclear power and together higher trust and lower risk perceptions predict positive attitudes toward nuclear power. Trust in environmental institutions and perceived risks from global environmental problems do not predict attitudes toward nuclear power. Values do predict attitudes: individuals with traditional values have greater support for, while those with altruistic values have greater opposition to, nuclear power. Nuclear attitudes do not vary by gender, age, education, income, or political orientation, though nonwhites are more supportive than whites. These findings are consistent with, and provide an explanation for, a long series of public opinion polls showing public ambivalence toward nuclear power that persists even in the face of renewed interest for nuclear power in policy circles.

It basically breaks down this way:

1) Attitudes toward nuclear power are a result of perceived risk

2) Attitudes and risk perceptions are set by previously held values and beliefs that serve to determine the level of trust in the nuclear industry.

3) Increased trust in the nuclear industry reduces perceived risk of nuclear power

4) Therefore, higher trust in the nuclear industry and the consequent lower risk perceptions predict positive attitudes toward nuclear power.

5) Traditional values are defined here as assigning priority to family, patriotism, and stability

6) Altruism is defined as a concern with the welfare of other humans and other species.

7) Neither trust in environmental institutions nor perceived risks from global environmental problems predict a person’s attitudes toward nuclear power.

8) Those with traditional values tend to embrace nuclear power; while those with altruistic values more often reject nuclear power.

9) Altruism is recognized as a dependable predictor of various categories of environmental concern.

10) Traditional values are associated with less concern for the environment and are unlikely to lead to pro-environmental behavioral intentions.

[AtheistCrusader]

3. I was raised with considerable 'Your Friend the Atom' propaganda.

Much of it in the Seattle Public Schools. By the time I reached middle school, I could draw from memory the design differences between an RBMK, BWR, and PWR on demand. I loved this stuff, because it was all clean, steady, controlled power (compared to things like Coal, etc).

It was the future.

Now, not so much. That sort of nostalgia is hard to get past.

[Nihil]

4. I sympathise.

> I loved this stuff, because it was all clean, steady, controlled power (compared to things like Coal, etc).
> It was the future.
> Now, not so much.

Having grown up in an industrial town whose primary growth had been fuelled (literally) by coal,
I saw the clean power stations - have been round a number of them - with no smoke-stacks,
no soot, no acid rain as a genuine technological marvel - the future for both the planet & the people.

Now, having had my eyes opened to the corruption of the modern world, as you say: "not so much".




> That sort of nostalgia is hard to get past.

Agreed. I was appalled at Chernobyl - the incompetence of the operators and the devastation
that resulted - but was comforted that "it couldn't happen here". Whilst technically true, the
events at Fukushima showed that other things *could* happen "here" and the primary reason
behind it was the greed & laziness of the humans involved. Having seen that greed & laziness
at work across several continents and many different cultures, I now believe it to be inherent
in the class of people who "rise" to positions of control & decision-making (at a national level
as well as within any specific company/corporation/division).

I have refused to work on safety-critical software projects (due to my experience regarding
the rigour & confidence of the proof of implementation even more than that of design) so I found
Fukushima to be the point when I decided "no more nukes". (And no, I know that a certain poster
has never believed me since I first said that but he's entitled to his own opinion - even when wrong.)

I will still correct the more hysterical science-free comments that occasionally arise but I agree
with the underlying concept that humans - of whatever nation - are not to be trusted with such things.