Building more nuclear to combat climate change is like cutting off your head to cure a brain tumor.

[kristopher]

EOM.

[jtuck004]

1. I am as concerned as the next person about nuclear, but most

particularly about the lack of transparency. For example, Vermont Yankee employees deny that underground pipes carry tritium, yet they do. And the plans show it. Nearly any company that has caused serious pollution has not been open about it, and people have died, unnecessarily.

On the other hand, how many millions of people die from exposure to burned hydrocarbons, how many die from digging coal, how many die because they cannot afford power from these sources? How much of our planet is being changed (maybe destroyed, though no one knows for sure) by those processes? And how much longer have we got until everything goes silent, or extraordinarily expensive) because we have not done the necessary work to combat their shortage.

There is no answer today for storage or some process that would render nuclear waste harmless. Every single solution that exists in the world today is temporary. An answer has to be found for that.

Aside from weapons, more nuclear fuel in the world is a red flag for terrorists. They may not be able to build or buy a nuclear weapon, but scattering nuclear fuel with a conventional explosive is most definitely within their grasp. I don't lay awake at night worrying about it, but there are people who would destroy themselves to destroy or even just hurt us because of what is on our passport, and to deny this is dangerous. We need to find a way to defend and secure these assets.

Solar technologies, even geothermal, seem to contain enough technical problems and inefficiencies so that they can only provide a portion of the need.

I think we are on the way to nuclear, not so much as a way to "help" the planet, but because there is no other obvious choice and no real impetus for finding one that will satisfy the energy needs of so many people, both here and abroad.

I have much to learn about nuclear, but I sure hope we resolve the "honesty" deficiency.

[Nederland]

2. Really?

Let us analyze the accuracy of this analogy.

A brain tumor will kill you in the long run, but cutting your head off will kill you instantly.

So if your analogy holds, we would have to say that climate change will kill us in the long run, but building more nuclear will kill us instantly.

Hmmmmm....nope.

Epic Fail. As usual.

[kristopher]

5. That is one (wrong) way to look at it.

The other is less nuanced - the cure is a rash solution to a problem that has other, better solutions.

But hey, thanks for playing. We always enjoy seeing the perspective of the right.

[Nederland]

7. No

It has nothing to do with nuance or looking at it a certain way.

You're just wrong.

[kristopher]

10. ROFL...

No, nneds, I'm not.

[Nederland]

18. Ctrl-V for Victory!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x245092#245096

[madokie]

3. Only fools

and small minded individuals advocate for more nuclear energy as a solution to the present problem of choking our selves to death on co2. We can stop this but more nuke plants won't be what does it and the sooner thats figured out the better we can get on with what needs to be done. I have one thing to say to the nuke boys, go back to the drawing boards and come up with a viable and safe way to deal with the waste. Saying it isn't dangerous is not dealing with the problem its only kicking the can further on down the road. I know this falls on deaf ears but there it is anyway.

[Statistical]

4. There is a safe way to deal with it.

Deep Geological Repository.
Many progressive countries are building them. The US isn't because that would remove the waste canard.

Preferably one that will allow access at some point in the future. Most likely spent waste today will be very valuable source of future energy in a century or two.

Even if nuclear energy powered 100% of all your lifetime energy needs the amount of waste it would generate is tiny compared to all of the conventional forms of waste you generate (landfill, vehicles, electronics, human waste, sewage, storm drain waste, etc).

[kristopher]

6. Ramping up nuclear power to solve climate change would require a new Yucca every 2 years.

[Statistical]

8. Only if the goal is for nuclear energy to provide 100% of worlds energy

and only if entire worlds spent waste was going to Yucca.

Canards and Strawmen are fun.

[kristopher]

11. 100% would require MORE THAN a new Yucca every 8 months.

The nuclear option: size of the challenges
• If world electricity demand grows 2%/year until 2050 and nuclear share of electricity supply is to rise from 1/6 to 1/3...

–nuclear capacity would have to grow from 350 GWe in 2000 to 1700 GWe in 2050;

– this means 1,700 reactors of 1,000 MWe each.
• If these were light-water reactors on the once-through fuel cycle...

–enrichment of their fuel will require ~250 million Separative Work Units (SWU);

–diversion of 0.1% of this enrichment to production of HEU from natural uranium would make ~20 gun-type or ~80 implosion-type bombs.

-If half the reactors were recycling their plutonium the associated flow of separated, directly weapon-usable plutonium would be 170,000 kg per year;
•diversion of 0.1% of this quantity would make ~30 implosion-type bombs.

- Spent-fuel production in the once-through case would be...
•34,000 tonnes/yr, a Yucca Mountain every two years.

Conclusion: Expanding nuclear enough to take a modest bite out of the climate problem is conceivable, but doing so will depend on greatly increased seriousness in addressing the waste-management & proliferation challenges.

Mitigation of Human-Caused Climate Change
John P. Holdren

[Statistical]

12. Well that would be 33% global nuclear power.

I would love to see 33% nuclear power but that is unlikely IMHO. Not every country is going to purse nuclear power. For global average to be 33% it would be have to be much higher in "pro-nuclear" countries (roughly 55%-60%). I doubt that will happen.

Still there won't be a single global repository and the capacity of Yucca was limited by legislation not science. Remember the goal was for Yucca to be up and running a decade ago so the capacity was limited based on number of reactors operating at that time.

Larger repositories are possible. For example the repository in Finland will be large enough to handle 100 years of spent fuel even with energy growth and if Finland % of power from nuclear rises.

If wind provides 33% of power by 2050 it will require roughly 5500 GWe of capacity (at 26% capacity factor). That is 1.8 million 3 MW peak turbines. If we assume the average turbine last 20 years the annual replacement rate (not growing capacity simply replacing destroyed and end-of-life) turbines would be 92,000 per year. Every single year 92,000 turbines would need to be built, installed, connected to grid, and dead ones removed, recycled. That would need to continue forever.

It doesn't mean it can't be done but the planet is a big place and 6-10 billion people require a lot of energy.

Still that doesn't mean a modest growth in nuclear power is "useless". Nuclear current mitigates millions of tons of CO2 and is nuclear share doesn't decline (or even grows slowly) that lowers overall carbon intensity.

Still DOE thinks 25% nuclear in the US would be possible by 2035. Roughly 1 trillion kwh of annual generation. Given that all current reactors would be retired by then we are looking at 124 GW of capacity (@ 92% capacity factor). That is roughly 5 GW of new capacity annually.

[kristopher]

13. It DOES "mean a modest growth in nuclear power is "useless"".

In fact it is worse than useless because it ties up funding that is needed elsewhere and would be more effective if spent elsewhere.

Jacobson's analysis incorporates replacing turbines and refurbishing reactors. Nuclear is a third rate solution.

It is really fucking incredible how you persist is your dedication to nuclear power when it is obvious you really don't understand the implications of its development.

[Statistical]

14. Your premise is based on the UTTERLY BS "analysis" by Jacobson.

I don't accept the flawed premise that nuclear is third rate solution.

If possible we should make nuclear 40%, 60%, 90% of electrical generation however I am a realist and understand that is neither practical nor possible it current geopolitical environment.

Given that at a MINIMUM we should peruse modest and prudent increased in nuclear energy. Most of nuclear energy growth will be overseas but the United States will at least maintain our current level of generation.

[kristopher]

15. Jacobson's analysis isn't BS. It is solid.

You are a realist that doesn't know the difference between the amount of storage for nuclear waste if we build 1500 plants and if we build 6000 plants; and you don't know because you don't CARE.

Yet you always (with no evidence) attempt to discredit Jacobson's analysis. What are the ACTUAL criticisms of his product? So far it amounts to:
1) A claim by the nuclear industry that disputes one part of ONE of the FIVE sources Jacobson uses to establish nuclear CO2 emissions.

2) Jacobson includes the consequences of increased risk of nuclear detonation due to the spread of nuclear weapons associated with the spread of nuclear power.

The idea that either of those points invalidates his analysis is absurd.

[Statistical]

16. THERE IS NOTHING THAT IS VALID ABOUT HIS "ANALYSIS"

Those 2 complaints are just 2 of hundreds.

There isn't a single realistic stat used anywhere in his "calculations".

Average size of plants - wrong
Average lifespan of plants - wrong
Average time for construction - wrong
Average amount of fuel per GWh - wrong
Average capacity factor - wrong
Non-existent nuclear war in CO2 costs - wrong
CO2 cost per kwh - wrong

:rofl:

That "study" gives junk science a bad name.

[kristopher]

17. All of his inputs are supported. You just want him to use deceptive nuclear industry data instead.

All that is needed is for anyone to look at posts 6,8 and 11 to see that the facts are irrelevant to you and you will say absolutely ANYTHING to defend the nuclear INDUSTRY from unfavorable information.

You don't care if you are truthful or not.

[Nederland]

19. He cherry picks his inputs

Look at how he arrives at his capacity factor numbers.

When it comes to wind, this is what he says:

The average capacity factor of wind turbines installed in the U.S. between 2004-2007 was 33-35%, which compares with 22% for projects installed before 1998. Of the 58 projects installed from 2004-2006, 25.9% had capacity factors greater than 40%.

When is comes to nuclear, he offers up no explanation, nor does he give a range of numbers. He just picks the global average.

Why does wind get to use numbers from the newest deployments in the US, but nuclear is forced to use old numbers from the entire world? Why is it that one of his sources for wind's capacity factor is one of his own papers, but his source for nuclear's capacity factor is a report that doesn't even mention capacity factor?

As if this cherry picking wasn't obvious enough, when it comes time to calculate the capacity factor of hydro, he cites the EIA and this chart:



Now you have to ask, if the EIA is a trustworthy enough source for the hydro capacity factor number, why not use the 92% number the EIA specifies for nuclear?

Well, now, that just wouldn't do, because it would make nuclear look just too damn good... :eyes:

[kristopher]

20. More piffle from the pronuclear antitruth squad...

I see your point: you see a way that nuclear power could be made to appear more favorable therefore Jacobson MUST be biased against nuclear since he did not follow the path that would have enhanced the score of nuclear power.

I'm pretty sure the proper term for that is sour grapes, but lets take a look at your specific claims. Now remember to objective of the exercise it to determine as realistically as possible the best choice going forward with current technology. You wrote,

Look at how he arrives at his capacity factor numbers. When it comes to wind, this is what he says:
The average capacity factor of wind turbines installed in the U.S. between 2004-2007 was 33-35%, which compares with 22% for projects installed before 1998. Of the 58 projects installed from 2004-2006, 25.9% had capacity factors greater than 40%.

This is what MJ wrote:

The capacity factor of a 5 MW turbine with a 126 m diameter rotor in 7-8.5 m/s eds is 0.294-0.425 (Appendix), which encompasses the measured capacity factors, 0.33-0.35, of all wind farms installed in the U.S. between 2004-200726. As such, this wind speed range is the relevant range for considering the large-scale deployment of wind.

Since it is a reasonable expectation that future wind turbines will be as good or better than existing technology both in the area of physical performance but also wind siting, it makes sense to use leading edge confirmed technologies for the forecast.

You want to assert that this imparts an unfair advantage to wind since he does not use the last couple of years performance numbers that the US fleet of reactors has achieved.
You wrote:

When is comes to nuclear, he offers up no explanation, nor does he give a range of numbers. He just picks the global average. Why does wind get to use numbers from the newest deployments in the US, but nuclear is forced to use old numbers from the entire world?

That sounds reasonable until you factor in the path to these capacity factor numbers. The lessons learned in the evolution of wind turbines and wind forecasting is directly applicable to all future wind turbines. It is assembly line production that adopts and implements the knowledge gained across all new technology.

Nuclear power on the other hand, has been and is a mishmash of different technologies that have been tweaked over a period of 20, 30 and even 40 years of operation. I was as an example I was just reading of a change in the way fuel is loaded that is going to add 3% to the maximum power of a specific aged reactor. That example is a peek at the norm for the nuclear industry, not the exception. While it is an application of a lesson learned, how do you account for that type of progress going forward. The track record for these plants is in the 90+% range only very recently. The same reactors were operating at a 50%, 60% and 70% capacity factor for decades.

So, the industry claims that we've learned what we need to know in order to make all new nuclear generation operate at that level. But that is a claim that has no empirical evidence behind it. I'm sure you object to "No empirical evidence" and you're preparing to tell us all about the past 5 years around the world, right?

Well if this were a technology with a lifespan and construction schedule like a wind turbine I'd agree; 5 years would be plenty of time to prove the technology. However with nuclear what empirical evidence do you offer to validate the ability of future nuclear plants to sustain that level of performance over their scheduled lifespan? I'm sorry if the data isn't there to support your desires, but the fact is the data isn't there.

So what should he use for nuclear? Let's look at this next question you raise as a lead-in to answer that:

Why is it that one of his sources for wind's capacity factor is one of his own papers, but his source for nuclear's capacity factor is a report that doesn't even mention capacity factor?

There is nothing at all wrong in referencing another of your own peer reviewed papers. The fact that you even raise this as an issue demonstrates you are only ranting, not thinking.

But regardless, why did he use that source for nuclear? My guess is that he wanted something that could be easily verified as objective, not a product of deliberate distortion by an industry intent on enhancing performance numbers.

He COULD have legitimately used the historic number for the US fleet of 71%, but he didn't. So it looks to me like he calculated it for 2005 himself using global data on "installed power and electricity generation" which he retrieved from European Nuclear Society (2008) Nuclear power plants, worldwide, http://www.euronuclear.org/info/npp-ww.htm.

Then we have the FACT that these new reactors do not have a history of reliability. We just had a potentially serious consideration emerge with the basic design of the AP1000.** Where is the empirical evidence that other such flaws are not lurking in the designs of all the reactors we are lining up to "test". If we build 1500-6000 nuclear reactors do you really think they are all going to be built and run to the standards we've achieved after nearly 50 years of tweaking? Or do you think that a lot of them are going to have a lot of problems. (Before you answer remember the serious deficit of trained engineers and a supply chain that will be slammed to keep up with demand if the stress is placed on nuclear.)

I'd say that your insistence that he consider only the latest performance without incorporating somehow the implications of known challenges is the position that is based on bias.

As for the hydro, I agree with you sort of. I think he SHOULD have used EIA data for both nuclear and hydro; only I'd differ and suggest that he use the historical average of 71% for nuclear and whatever it is for hydro.

Of course, that is just me reacting to your bias.

**http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?sectioncode=132&storyCode=2056229

[Nederland]

21. You completely missed the point

as usual.

[kristopher]

22. No, I didn't. I addressed the point directly. It is the difference between pretend blog analysis

and real analysis that seeks to find accurate information.

[Nederland]

23. The ignorance on display is stunning

Nuclear power on the other hand, has been and is a mishmash of different technologies that have been tweaked over a period of 20, 30 and even 40 years of operation. I was as an example I was just reading of a change in the way fuel is loaded that is going to add 3% to the maximum power of a specific aged reactor. That example is a peek at the norm for the nuclear industry, not the exception. While it is an application of a lesson learned, how do you account for that type of progress going forward. The track record for these plants is in the 90+% range only very recently. The same reactors were operating at a 50%, 60% and 70% capacity factor for decades.

So, the industry claims that we've learned what we need to know in order to make all new nuclear generation operate at that level. But that is a claim that has no empirical evidence behind it. I'm sure you object to "No empirical evidence" and you're preparing to tell us all about the past 5 years around the world, right?

Well if this were a technology with a lifespan and construction schedule like a wind turbine I'd agree; 5 years would be plenty of time to prove the technology. However with nuclear what empirical evidence do you offer to validate the ability of future nuclear plants to sustain that level of performance over their scheduled lifespan? I'm sorry if the data isn't there to support your desires, but the fact is the data isn't there.

These statements reflect a complete ignorance of what drives capacity factors for nuclear reactors. Capacity factors improve when you reduce the amount of time it takes to refuel the reactor and/or extend the amount of time you can run between refueling. Both of those numbers improve with Gen III and Gen III+ designs. Capacity factors also improve as a result of technological improvements in materials that extend the useful lifespan of reactor components like pipes, pumps, valves, etc.--and believe it or not, new reactors won't be using 30 year old pump designs. On top of the extended lifespan that individual Gen III and Gen III+ components will exhibit, the new designs use far fewer of these components. For example, the AP1000 uses 50% fewer valves, 83% less pipe (safety grade), 87% less cable, 36% fewer pumps, and 56% less seismic building volumes than a typical Gen II design. Fewer components means fewer things that can break down, and less time spent replacing things as they wear out. You also point out that nuclear power has been a mis-mash of different technologies. That was true, it will not be true of future reactors. The new approval process means that the old pattern of every nuclear plant being different will change. No longer will every plant need to discover for itself what works best for that individual plant--experiences and improvements can be shared by all the reactors using the same design.

Finally, you say "I'm sorry if the data isn't there to support your desires, but the fact is the data isn't there." I would first point out that you didn't provide any links to data that supports your claims. I would second point out that there is in fact data to support my claims. At this point in time there are four Gen III designs (ABWR) have been operating in Japan for years (the reactors completed in 1996, 1997, 2004, 2006). The national average capacity factor of all reactors in Japan is around 80% (one of the worst among nations with large amounts of nuclear power -- http://www.nea.fr/general/profiles/japan.html -- the figures pre-date shutdowns mandated by the 2007 earthquake). The capacity factor achieved by the ABWR Gen III design? 92%. http://www.nuclearinnovation.com/pdf/abwr-factsheet-final.pdf

So there you have it Kristopher, hard data that shows that Gen III designs have higher, not lower, capacity factors than Gen II designs.

QED

[kristopher]

25. The future will be similar to the past.

You have S. Korea, Japan, China, Russia, Canada, France and who knows how many others in the future who are intent on SELLING nuclear reactors. Each of their initial designs will be modified as the early models reveal unknown issues that must be taken care of in future iterations.

That is going to produce the same mishmash that occurred during the last Band Wagon market.

Your insistence that the actual average CF of the world nuclear fleet in 2005 is a bad benchmark is self serving, nothing more. Note that you have to engage in data trimming to even get an example to support your case, "the figures pre-date shutdowns mandated by the 2007 earthquake", you wrote.

But the earthquake DID happen and other things WILL happen to the global fleet.

Then we have your assertion that I "didn't provide any links to data". In fact I did link to the website that was the source of the raw data Jacobson used. Are you asserting that the capacity factor of the global nuclear fleet in 2005 wasn't 80.8%?

Using an actual number that is based on real world performance across a variety of operators and conditions is realistic, it isn't bias.

What IS bias is wanting to ignore all the failures and highlight only the successes, and that is precisely the exercise you are engaged in. Your example from Japan is a perfect case in point.

[Nederland]

27. You are right

The future will be like the past, which is precisely why the capacity factor in the US will remain above 90%.

The future will be also be like the past in that you will never reference anything but a debunked paper by Mark Z Jacobson.

[kristopher]

28. Jacobson's work is solid analysis

The criticisms you offer would not pass peer review. We know that because it was tried and the critique was rejected by the journal.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=245092&mesg_id=245172

[Nederland]

29. Jacobson's work is a theory

The link I provide is a fact. Gen III reactors have higher capacity factors than Gen II reactors. Period end of story.

[kristopher]

30. More piffle from the pronuclear antitruth squad...

The links I provided are facts also. Jacobson's analysis is full of facts. However his effort is an objective evaluation while your effort is designed to obfuscate anything that reflects negatively on nuclear power without regard to validity.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=245092&mesg_id=245172

[joshcryer]

35. No, Jacobson's work is not "a theory." It is a review of technologies...

...and a cursory result. His methods can easily be refined in a future review report (and I do hope Jacobson makes a 2015 report), as they are mostly sound. Given better data, however, they would likely place nuclear above hydro as far as a solution to climate change is concerned.

He did pick the worst data points.

[Nederland]

36. Correct

That is a better way of describing it.

[joshcryer]

34. Jacobson's work is not an analysis, it is a review.

His work did not pass the level of peer review one would expect, from say, a paper.

[joshcryer]

33. "reasonable expectation that future wind turbines will be better than existing technology"

Except if that technology is nuclear.

[joshcryer]

32. It's not a paper, it's a review, which is distinct in the peer review process.

It is also published in a third rate journal that had to resort to spamming Wikipedia to get noticed. The fact that "links to websites" are seen as "legitimate sources" shows that as a review it does not come under the same level of scrutiny that a study would have to endure.

This is precisely why it is full of mostly biased data, it would not survive as a peer review paper, in say, Science.

[NNadir]

9. Now we have anti-nukes who discuss science without knowing any composing metaphors

while being completely devoid of even the most primitive literary sense.

The metaphor not merely stupid - although it is stupid and has no bearing on the irrational hatred of nuclear science by people who are incomptent to know any nuclear science - it is also offensive to anyone who has, as I have, lost a loved one to a brain tumor.

I note with due disgust, that anti-nukes are blissfully unaware of epidemiology and medicine, which is why they often raise idiotic claims like the claim that Harrisburg, PA has ceased to exist because of Three Mile Island. That would be news to the people that live there and in fact to me, since I've driven through that city often in recent years.

You never see an anti-nuke make wild claims about coal or found thousands of threads about it. This is ironic in light of the insipid anti-poetic metaphor used in the regrettable OP. It is well known, for instance, that a common etiology of brain tumors involves metastatic lung cancer. And yet we have anti-nukes come here and say, as Amory Lovins first said in 1976, that coal is an "acceptable" "transistional" fuel, even though it has caused many tens of millions of cases of lung cancer over the last several decades.

Have a nice hysterical evening.

[jpak]

26. Now we have pro-nukes who discuss science without knowing any composing metaphors

while being completely devoid of even the most primitive literary sense.

The metaphor not merely stupid - although it is stupid and has no bearing on the irrational hatred of renewable energy science by people who are incomptent to know any renewable energy science - it is also offensive to anyone who has, as I have, lost a loved one to a brain tumor.

I note with due disgust, that pro-nukes are blissfully unaware of epidemiology and medicine, which is why they often raise idiotic claims like the claim that Harrisburg, PA has ceased to exist because of Three Mile Island. That would be news to the people that live there and in fact to me, since I've driven through that city often in recent years.

You never see an pro-nuke make wild claims about coal or found thousands of threads about it. This is ironic in light of the insipid anti-poetic metaphor used in the regrettable OP. It is well known, for instance, that a common etiology of brain tumors involves metastatic lung cancer. And yet we have pro-nukes come here and say, as Amory Lovins first said in 1976, that coal is an "acceptable" "transistional" fuel, even though it has caused many tens of millions of cases of lung cancer over the last several decades.

Have a nice hysterical evening.

[eqfan592]

43. Ummm, if you're going to do something as childish as change around somebodies post...

...and turn it around on them, do it all the way so it at least makes a little sense. Seriously, I hope you don't fail this hard on a regular basis. Otherwise, I do pity you.

[kristopher]

46. If you're going to do something as childish as criticizing someone

who is responding to nnad's unhinged rants, then do it so that it makes a little sense.

Seriously I hope you don't fail this hard on a regular basis. I already pity you.

[crikkett]

24. I've been reading about a new type of reactor, molten salt reactors

which can burn nuclear waste to create energy and a byproduct which is significantly *less* radioactive: 200yrs vs 10,000yrs.

In other words, I've read that it's technology to treat nuclear waste.

I might be able to get behind that.

[madokie]

31. The key is if it was true

the new jersey molten salt breeder reactor or some such shit was supposedly invented by one of our niceest and polite posters here :puke: I read about it here myself.
Nuclear energy cannot stand on its own with out a big hand out from the government wherever they are located.

[arachadillo]

37. The Black Swan

A quick review of all the recent nuclear energy posts here shows that the nuclear energy argument sells (both the pro and con sides).

FWIW, here's one more POV...

In his article http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/taleb08/taleb08_index.html">The Fourth Quadrant: A Map of the Limits of Statistics, Nassim Nicholas Taleb reminds us,

"you can't be a modern intellectual and not think probabilistically - but... let's not be suckers. The problem is much more complicated than it seems to the casual, mechanistic user who picked it up in graduate school. Statistics can fool you."

So, it looks as if we are once again a bunch of suckers, fooled by the statistics wielded by the oil companies that told us, given technological improvements, the risk of a catastrophic oil spill were http://www-static.shell.com/static/usa/downloads/about_shell/strategy/major_projects/alaska/osr_myth_busterfinal_0809.pdf">virtually nil.

When you listen closely, it's the same statistical language used by proponents of nuclear energy. In effect the new push for nuclear is the new push to discover the next black swan.

The link between nuclear power and nuclear weapons can not be undone, placing it squarely in the fourth quadrant, "Complex decisions in Extremistan".

The current push for nuclear energy would result in the exponential spread of nuclear knowledge throughout the world, including nuclear weapons knowledge.

More nuclear plants also increases the possibility for human caused accidents and/or technology failures.

More nuclear plants also increases the number of both stationary terrorist targets and mobile targets (as fuel is moved for storage or recycling).

With all of those increased probabilities, it's difficult to understand how an exponential spread in nuclear energy makes the world a safer place.

There are some ugly truths in life. With respect to safe nuclear power, we may as well be http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/carroll/lewis/snark/complete.html">hunting snarks.

"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true."

[bananas]

38. Yup - good post. nt

[Nederland]

39. There are two types of statistics

Statistics that are generated by an analysis of some piece of complicated engineering, and statistics that come from historical events. I agree, the first type is basically worthless--it probably just reflects the biases of the people that created it.

Statistics of the second type are far more useful however. A look at the number of times the events you are concerned about have occurred in the past 50 years are useful statistics to have. Does anyone have statistics on the following:

1) Number of times a nuclear reactor containment structure has failed.
2) Number of times reactor fuel has been stolen and used to make a bomb.
3) Number of times nuclear reactors have been the target of terrorist attacks.
4) Number of times reactor fuel in transit has been captured by terrorists.
5) Number of times reactor waste in transit has been captured by terrorists.

I'm curious...

[kristopher]

40. Two types?

So the "analysis of some piece of complicated engineering" does not incorporate the historic failure rates of the individual components and systems?

High consequence low probability events are just that: HIGH consequence - LOW probability.

As such, one time is one time too many.

Your post and your point are both absurd.

[Nederland]

41. Ok

So, do you have numbers for my questions?

[kristopher]

42. Do you have any legitimate questions that address the issue?

So the "analysis of some piece of complicated engineering" does not incorporate the historic failure rates of the individual components and systems?

High consequence low probability events are just that: HIGH consequence - LOW probability.

As such, one time is one time too many.

Your post and your point are both remain absurd.

Experts Are Often Wrong

Experts Are Often Wrong
That expert interpretations in the area of science and technology are often questionable, and that there is no positivist rule to guarantee their complete reliability, is illustrated by a recent study by hazard assessors in the Netherlands.

They used actual empirical frequencies obtained from a study done by Oak Ridge National Laboratories to calibrate some of the more testable subjective probabilities used in the famous Rasmussen Report, WASH-1400, probably one of the most famous and most extensive risk assessments ever accomplished.14

The Oak-Ridge frequencies were obtained as part of an evaluation of operating experience at nuclear installations.

These frequencies were of various types of mishaps involving reactor subsystems whose failure probabilities were calculated in WASH-1400.

The Oak-Ridge study used operating experience to determine the failure probability for seven such subsystems, and the Dutch researchers then compared these probabilities with the 90 percent confidence bounds for the same probabilities calculated in WASH-1400.

The subsystem failures included loss-of-coolant accidents, auxiliary feedwater-system failures, high-pressure injection failures, long-term core-cooling failures, and automatic depressurization-system failures for both pressurized and boiling water reactors.

Amazingly, all the values from operating experience fell outside the 90 percent confidence bands in the WASH-1400 study.

However, there is only a subjective probability of ten percent that the true value should fall outside these bands.

This means that, if the authors’ subjective probabilities were well calibrated, we should expect that approximately ten percent of the true values should lie outside their respective bands.

The fact that all the quantities fall outside them means that WASH-1400, the most famous and allegedly best risk assessment, is very poorly calibrated.

Moreover, the fact that five of the seven values fell above the upper confidence bound suggests that the WASH-1400 accident probabilities, subjective probabilities, are too low.

This means that, if the Oak-Ridge data are correct, then WASH-1400 exhibits a number of flaws, including an overconfidence bias.

This direct test of the process of risk assessment you are relying on shows that there is a very real and significant problem with the level of certainty that the nuclear industry asserts the assessments prove.

Kahneman and Tversky have uncovered other biases of experts. They corroborated the claim that, in the absence of an algorithm completely guaranteeing scientific rationality, experts do not necessarily or always make more correct judgments about the acceptability of technological risk than do laypersons.

Kahneman and Tversky showed that virtually everyone falls victim to a number of characteristic biases in the interpretation of statistical and probabilistic data. For example, people often follow an intuition called representativeness, according to which they believe samples to be very similar to one another and to the population from which they are drawn; they also erroneously believe that sampling is a self-correcting process.16

In subscribing to the representativeness bias, both experts and laypeople are insensitive: to the prior probability of outcomes; to sample size; to the inability to obtain a good prediction; to the inaccuracy of predictions based on redundant and correlated input variables; and to regression toward the mean. Nevertheless, training in elementary probability and statistics warns against all these errors.

Both risk assessors and statistics experts also typically fall victim to a bias called “availability,” assessing the frequency of a class, or the probability of an event, by the ease with which instances or occurrences can be brought to mind.

In subscribing to the availability bias, they forget that they are judging a class on the basis of the retrievability of the instances, and that imaginability is not a good criterion for probability.18

Most people also fall victim to the “anchoring” bias, making estimates on the basis of adjusting values of an initial variable.

In so doing, they forget:
that diverse initial starting points typically yield different results;
that insufficient adjustments can skew results;
and that probabilities of failures are typically underestimated in complex systems.

Although employing each of these biases (representativeness, availability, and anchoring) is both economical and often effective, any of them can lead to systematic and predictable errors.19

These systematic and predictive errors are important because technology and:
"... risk assessment must be based on complex theoretical analyses such as fault trees, rather than on direct experience. Hence, despite an appearance of objectivity, these analyses include a large component of judgment. Someone, relying on educated intuition, must determine the structure of the problem, the consequences to be considered, and the importance of the various branches of the fault tree."

In other words, the risk assessor must make a number of unavoidable, sometimes incorrect, epistemic value judgments.


Kahneman and Tversky warned that “the same type of systematic errors,” often found in the epistemic or methodological value judgments of laypersons, “can be found in the intuitive judgments of sophisticated scientists. Apparently, acquaintance with the theory of probability does not eliminate all erroneous intuitions concerning the laws of chance.”21 The researchers even found that psychologists themselves, who should know better, used their feelings of confidence in their understanding of cases as a basis for predicting behavior and diagnosing ailments, even though there was no correlation between their feelings of confidence and the correctness of the judgments.22

Such revelations about the prevalence and causes of expert error are not totally surprising since, after all, the experts have been wrong before. They were wrong when they said that irradiating enlarged tonsils was harmless. They were wrong when they said that x-raying feet, to determine shoe size, was harmless. They were wrong when they said that irradiating women’s breasts, to alleviate mastitis, was harmless. And they were wrong when they said that witnessing A-bomb tests at close range was harmless.23

For all these reasons it should not be surprising that psychometric analysts have found, more generally, that once experts go beyond the data and rely on value judgments, they tend to be as error-prone and overconfident as laypeople.

With respect to technological risk assessment, psychometric researchers have concluded that experts systematically overlook many “pathways to disaster.”

These include:
(l) failure to consider the way human error could cause technical systems to fail, as at Three Mile Island;

(2) overconfidence in current scientific knowledge, such as that causing the 1976 collapse of the Teton Dam; and

(3) failure to appreciate how technical systems, as a whole, function. For example, engineers were surprised when cargo- compartment decompression destroyed control systems in some airplanes.

Experts also typically overlook:

(4) slowness to detect chronic, cumulative effects, e.g., as in the case of acid rain;

(5) the failure to anticipate inadequate human responses to safety measures, e.g., failure of Chernobyl officials to evacuate immediately; and

(6) the inability to anticipate “common-mode” failures simultaneously afflicting systems that are designed to be independent. A simple fire at Brown’s Ferry, Alabama, for example, damaged all five emergency core cooling systems for the reactor.

Scientific Method, Anti-Foundationalism and Public Decisionmaking
Kristin Shrader-Frechette*

[eqfan592]

44. His were perfectly legitimate questions.

And your obvious dodge demonstrates that you either don't have the answer, or don't like what the answers are because they don't support your case.

[kristopher]

45. No they were not legitimate questions.

His basic premise of "two types" of risk analysis was clearly bunk, and his questions that were set up by that failed premise were also bunk. Low probability high consequence risk is not evaluated in that manner.

Experts Are Often Wrong

Experts Are Often Wrong
That expert interpretations in the area of science and technology are often questionable, and that there is no positivist rule to guarantee their complete reliability, is illustrated by a recent study by hazard assessors in the Netherlands.

They used actual empirical frequencies obtained from a study done by Oak Ridge National Laboratories to calibrate some of the more testable subjective probabilities used in the famous Rasmussen Report, WASH-1400, probably one of the most famous and most extensive risk assessments ever accomplished.14

The Oak-Ridge frequencies were obtained as part of an evaluation of operating experience at nuclear installations.

These frequencies were of various types of mishaps involving reactor subsystems whose failure probabilities were calculated in WASH-1400.

The Oak-Ridge study used operating experience to determine the failure probability for seven such subsystems, and the Dutch researchers then compared these probabilities with the 90 percent confidence bounds for the same probabilities calculated in WASH-1400.

The subsystem failures included loss-of-coolant accidents, auxiliary feedwater-system failures, high-pressure injection failures, long-term core-cooling failures, and automatic depressurization-system failures for both pressurized and boiling water reactors.

Amazingly, all the values from operating experience fell outside the 90 percent confidence bands in the WASH-1400 study.

However, there is only a subjective probability of ten percent that the true value should fall outside these bands.

This means that, if the authors’ subjective probabilities were well calibrated, we should expect that approximately ten percent of the true values should lie outside their respective bands.

The fact that all the quantities fall outside them means that WASH-1400, the most famous and allegedly best risk assessment, is very poorly calibrated.

Moreover, the fact that five of the seven values fell above the upper confidence bound suggests that the WASH-1400 accident probabilities, subjective probabilities, are too low.

This means that, if the Oak-Ridge data are correct, then WASH-1400 exhibits a number of flaws, including an overconfidence bias.

This direct test of the process of risk assessment you are relying on shows that there is a very real and significant problem with the level of certainty that the nuclear industry asserts the assessments prove.

Kahneman and Tversky have uncovered other biases of experts. They corroborated the claim that, in the absence of an algorithm completely guaranteeing scientific rationality, experts do not necessarily or always make more correct judgments about the acceptability of technological risk than do laypersons.

Kahneman and Tversky showed that virtually everyone falls victim to a number of characteristic biases in the interpretation of statistical and probabilistic data. For example, people often follow an intuition called representativeness, according to which they believe samples to be very similar to one another and to the population from which they are drawn; they also erroneously believe that sampling is a self-correcting process.16

In subscribing to the representativeness bias, both experts and laypeople are insensitive: to the prior probability of outcomes; to sample size; to the inability to obtain a good prediction; to the inaccuracy of predictions based on redundant and correlated input variables; and to regression toward the mean. Nevertheless, training in elementary probability and statistics warns against all these errors.

Both risk assessors and statistics experts also typically fall victim to a bias called “availability,” assessing the frequency of a class, or the probability of an event, by the ease with which instances or occurrences can be brought to mind.

In subscribing to the availability bias, they forget that they are judging a class on the basis of the retrievability of the instances, and that imaginability is not a good criterion for probability.18

Most people also fall victim to the “anchoring” bias, making estimates on the basis of adjusting values of an initial variable.

In so doing, they forget:
that diverse initial starting points typically yield different results;
that insufficient adjustments can skew results;
and that probabilities of failures are typically underestimated in complex systems.

Although employing each of these biases (representativeness, availability, and anchoring) is both economical and often effective, any of them can lead to systematic and predictable errors.19

These systematic and predictive errors are important because technology and:
"... risk assessment must be based on complex theoretical analyses such as fault trees, rather than on direct experience. Hence, despite an appearance of objectivity, these analyses include a large component of judgment. Someone, relying on educated intuition, must determine the structure of the problem, the consequences to be considered, and the importance of the various branches of the fault tree."

In other words, the risk assessor must make a number of unavoidable, sometimes incorrect, epistemic value judgments.


Kahneman and Tversky warned that “the same type of systematic errors,” often found in the epistemic or methodological value judgments of laypersons, “can be found in the intuitive judgments of sophisticated scientists. Apparently, acquaintance with the theory of probability does not eliminate all erroneous intuitions concerning the laws of chance.”21 The researchers even found that psychologists themselves, who should know better, used their feelings of confidence in their understanding of cases as a basis for predicting behavior and diagnosing ailments, even though there was no correlation between their feelings of confidence and the correctness of the judgments.22

Such revelations about the prevalence and causes of expert error are not totally surprising since, after all, the experts have been wrong before. They were wrong when they said that irradiating enlarged tonsils was harmless. They were wrong when they said that x-raying feet, to determine shoe size, was harmless. They were wrong when they said that irradiating women’s breasts, to alleviate mastitis, was harmless. And they were wrong when they said that witnessing A-bomb tests at close range was harmless.23

For all these reasons it should not be surprising that psychometric analysts have found, more generally, that once experts go beyond the data and rely on value judgments, they tend to be as error-prone and overconfident as laypeople.

With respect to technological risk assessment, psychometric researchers have concluded that experts systematically overlook many “pathways to disaster.”

These include:
(l) failure to consider the way human error could cause technical systems to fail, as at Three Mile Island;

(2) overconfidence in current scientific knowledge, such as that causing the 1976 collapse of the Teton Dam; and

(3) failure to appreciate how technical systems, as a whole, function. For example, engineers were surprised when cargo- compartment decompression destroyed control systems in some airplanes.

Experts also typically overlook:

(4) slowness to detect chronic, cumulative effects, e.g., as in the case of acid rain;

(5) the failure to anticipate inadequate human responses to safety measures, e.g., failure of Chernobyl officials to evacuate immediately; and

(6) the inability to anticipate “common-mode” failures simultaneously afflicting systems that are designed to be independent. A simple fire at Brown’s Ferry, Alabama, for example, damaged all five emergency core cooling systems for the reactor.

Scientific Method, Anti-Foundationalism and Public Decisionmaking
Kristin Shrader-Frechette*

[Nederland]

49. If they were not legitimate questions...

...what's the harm in answering them?

[kristopher]

52. What's the point in asking them?

[Nederland]

53. To prove you wrong

[kristopher]

54. You're dead in the water, dude. Your postion has no merit.

[Nederland]

57. Let's review

In Post 40 you implied that it's necessary to "incorporate the historic failure rates of the individual components and systems".

I agree, an analysis of some piece of complicated engineering needs to incorporate historic failure rates. So I am asking for:

1) Number of times a nuclear reactor containment structure has failed.
2) Number of times reactor fuel has been stolen and used to make a bomb.
3) Number of times nuclear reactors have been the target of terrorist attacks.
4) Number of times reactor fuel in transit has been captured by terrorists.
5) Number of times reactor waste in transit has been captured by terrorists.

Why is it that you believe that looking at historical failure rates is important, but you don't want to look at the failure rates for the above components and processes? How can you calculate the probability of terrorists seizing nuclear waste if you don't take a look at how many times terrorists have done so in the past?

[kristopher]

60. Yes, let's review.

You wrote, "There are two types of statistics. Statistics that are generated by an analysis of some piece of complicated engineering, and statistics that come from historical events. I agree, the first type is basically worthless--it probably just reflects the biases of the people that created it.

As I demonstrated, your initial statement was WRONG. It set the stage for your entire line of argumentation. That line of argumentation is likewise wrong. The failure of such probablistic determination to capture effects of of HIGH consequence, LOW probability events is well documented and has been detailed on this thread in two different ways by two different experts in the field.

You are now engaged in sophistry, nothing more.

[Nederland]

61. Answer the questions

1) Number of times a nuclear reactor containment structure has failed.
2) Number of times reactor fuel has been stolen and used to make a bomb.
3) Number of times nuclear reactors have been the target of terrorist attacks.
4) Number of times reactor fuel in transit has been captured by terrorists.
5) Number of times reactor waste in transit has been captured by terrorists.

[kristopher]

63. Sure.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=245092&mesg_id=245643

[bananas]

47. LOL - you just used the faulty reasoning the other poster was talking about!

It's like someone playing Russian Roulette - they pull the trigger three times and nothing happens - it MUST be perfectly safe! Statistics PROVE it!
:rofl:

[Nederland]

50. A simple question

Have you ever flown in an airplane?

[kristopher]

55. A better simpler question.

Since we have superior alternatives in the areas of cost, performance, reliability and pace of deployment, why take any risk at all with nuclear power and it's problems.

Over the next 50 years, unless patterns change dramatically, energy production and use will contribute to global warming through large-scale greenhouse gas emissions — hundreds of billions of tonnes of carbon in the form of carbon dioxide. Nuclear power could be one option for reducing carbon emissions. At present, however, this is unlikely: nuclear power faces stagnation and decline.

This study analyzes what would be required to retain nuclear power as a significant option for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and meeting growing needs for electricity supply. Our analysis is guided by a global growth scenario that would expand current worldwide nuclear generating capacity almost threefold, to 1000 billion watts,by the year 2050.Such a deployment would avoid 1.8 billion tonnes of carbon emissions annually from coal plants, about 25% of the increment in carbon emissions otherwise expected in a business-as-usual scenario. This study also recommends changes in government policy and industrial practice needed in the relatively near term to retain an option for such an outcome. (Want to guess what these are? - K)

We did not analyze other options for reducing carbon emissions — renewable energy sources, carbon sequestration,and increased energy efficiency — and therefore reach no conclusions about priorities among these efforts and nuclear power. In our judgment, it would be a mistake to exclude any of these four options at this time.

STUDY FINDINGS
For a large expansion of nuclear power to succeed,four critical problems must be overcome:

Cost. In deregulated markets, nuclear power is not now cost competitive with coal and natural gas.However,plausible reductions by industry in capital cost,operation and maintenance costs, and construction time could reduce the gap. Carbon emission credits, if enacted by government, can give nuclear power a cost advantage.

Safety.
Modern reactor designs can achieve a very low risk of serious accidents, but “best practices”in construction and operation are essential.We know little about the safety of the overall fuel cycle,beyond reactor operation.

Waste.
Geological disposal is technically feasible but execution is yet to be demonstrated or certain. A convincing case has not been made that the long-term waste management benefits of advanced, closed fuel cycles involving reprocessing of spent fuel are outweighed by the short-term risks and costs. Improvement in the open,once through fuel cycle may offer waste management benefits as large as those claimed for the more expensive closed fuel cycles.

Proliferation.
The current international safeguards regime is inadequate to meet the security challenges of the expanded nuclear deployment contemplated in the global growth scenario. The reprocessing system now used in Europe, Japan, and Russia that involves separation and recycling of plutonium presents unwarranted proliferation risks.

[bananas]

56. The Black Swan stuff really went over your head, didn't it?

[Nederland]

58. Nope

I just don't think it belongs in the same box you do.

[bananas]

48. Apparently, you didn't read the links in the post you responded to

You wrote, "Statistics that are generated by an analysis of some piece of complicated engineering, and statistics that come from historical events. I agree, the first type is basically worthless--it probably just reflects the biases of the people that created it."
But the article "The Fourth Quadrant: A Map of the Limits of Statistics" doesn't say that at all. It says that statistics of both types are very useful in three quadrants, but both types of statistics are extremely misleading in the fourth quadrant:

The four quadrants. The South-East area (in orange) is where statistics and models fail us.

You are using the dangerously erroneous reasoning that he warns against.

[Nederland]

51. The payoffs of nuclear power

...are not complex. They are simple. Less CO2.

[BrightKnight]

65. annually eliminates billions of tons of CO2, 100 M tons of coal ash, acid rain...

The DU dirty coal lobby doesn't want anyone to know that there is no way to offset 6 billion tons of CO2 per year in the US with a wind farm or PV.

Nuclear power plants each generate Gigawatts of energy and the largest solar power plant in the world is 50 MW. I am all for building massive wind farms. The worlds largest wind farm would have to be scaled up many times to match the output of a single nuclear plant.

For a given amount of energy produced, coal ash is actually more radioactive than nuclear waste. Nobody worries much about the radioactivity of coal ash because the chemicals in it are far more dangerous. They include several thousand tons per year of mercury and other heavy metals, along with huge amounts of lead, arsenic, and asbestos, for example.

[arachadillo]

59. re: two types of statistics

Statistics of the second type are far more useful however. A look at the number of times the events you are concerned about have occurred in the past 50 years are useful statistics to have. Does anyone have statistics on the following:

1) Number of times a nuclear reactor containment structure has failed.
2) Number of times reactor fuel has been stolen and used to make a bomb.
3) Number of times nuclear reactors have been the target of terrorist attacks.
4) Number of times reactor fuel in transit has been captured by terrorists.
5) Number of times reactor waste in transit has been captured by terrorists.

It's difficult to determine whether you ask the question, to use Riker's terminology, for sincere or strategic reasons.

Assuming your question was sincere, consider the premise of terrorism upon which the questions were built.

Accepting the fact that a lack of access to classified information limits most discussion of nuclear related terror, the public record suggests that the push to acquire a nuclear capacity in order to foster "terrorist" goals only fits the past ten year span, and falls in a new wave far right Islamic movement, generally grouped as Al Quaeda.

Again, there might be classified information regarding attempts by actors in Europe's earlier terrorism wave (Baader-Meinhof in Germany or the nationalist movements in Ireland and Spain, for example) but that's doubtful.

In effect, there are no adequate, fifty years "terrorist" and nuclear energy/weapons related statistics because it is not a fifty year phenomena, it is a post Cold-war phenomena.

Your questions are framed in a way that is similar to asking for fifty years of statistics on internet hacking and national security issues. The internet is not a fifty year phenomena.

[Nederland]

62. A fair criticism

We have not had terrorism of the type in question for fifty years, so the degree of confidence that one can gain by fifty years of non-events is not as high as it would be. Still, you have to ask why in the last 20 years terrorists have not choosen to engage in nuclear terrorism, even when it was exceptionally easy to do so. The 9/11 hijackers, for example, could have flown those planes into any structures they wanted to, and yet they chose not to fly them into nuclear reactors. Why?

[arachadillo]

64. Al Qaeda’s Nuclear Plant

A follow up to my original post.

"All eyes are on Faisal Shahzad, the man charged with the attempted bombing in Times Square on Saturday.

But perhaps we ought to be concerned a bit less with Mr. Shahzad, a failed terrorist now in custody, and significantly more with Sharif Mobley — a New Jersey native, a former high school wrestler and, until shortly before he moved to Yemen to allegedly join Al Qaeda, a maintenance worker at five nuclear power plants along the East Coast."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/opinion/06Faddis.html

Charles Faddis, a former officer at the Central Intelligence Agency, is the author of "Willful Neglect: The Dangerous Illusion of Homeland Security."