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547610831 t1_ja7qf13 wrote

Reply to comment by Infernalism in The Dream of Mini Nuclear Plants Hangs in the Balance by OutlandishnessOk2452

That's not really true at all. Lots of nuclear plants were built in reasonable time frames and budgets. A new nuclear plant used to only cost a Billion dollars (yes, that's adjusted for inflation. The problem is that anti-nuke forces took hold in many governments (especially after TMI and Chernobyl) and they made the regulatory environment completely untenable. Plants that were virtually complete had to be torn apart and rebuilt, many were just abandoned because the cost of the new regulations was more than the cost of the original plant. No industry can ever survive that way. And that was the whole point. The people who make these regulations don't want nuclear to survive. It was just a backhanded way of killing nuclear without an outright ban.

https://thebreakthrough.org/articles/historical-construction-costs-of-global-nuclear-power-reactors

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Infernalism t1_ja7qmk1 wrote

> The problem is that anti-nuke forces took hold in many governments (especially after TMI and Chernobyl) and they made the regulatory environment completely untenable.

Because safety is something that totally should be flexible when it comes to nuclear reactors.

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547610831 t1_ja7xh0f wrote

  1. Just because a regulation exists doesn't mean it actually improves safety. Quite frankly a lot of nuclear regulations DECREASE safety. They're not really about safety at all, they're just a way to increase costs. Most of the cost isnt new safety decices, it's just mountains of extra paperwork.

  2. The perception of risk regarding nuclear is just completely askew. Thousands of chemicals we use are also known carcinogens and can be handled with minimal regulations. Chemical leaks are a daily occurrence to the point they rarely make the news. The regulations against radiation are thousands of times stricter than those against most chemical carcinogens. Even the worst case scenario with nuclear you're talking tens of deaths. Lots of chemical spills have killed thousands and they kill hundreds of thousands in terms of long term exposures. Global warming will kill millions or even tens of millions. The risk from nuclear is miniscule in comparison to the alternatives.

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BurningPenguin t1_ja87kr2 wrote

> Quite frankly a lot of nuclear regulations DECREASE safety

Name one

> Chemical leaks are a daily occurrence to the point they rarely make the news.

Maybe in the US...

> The regulations against radiation are thousands of times stricter than those against most chemical carcinogens

Again, something that might be a US thing

> Even the worst case scenario with nuclear you're talking tens of deaths. Lots of chemical spills have killed thousands and they kill hundreds of thousands in terms of long term exposures.

Oh, so nuclear accidents have no long term effect now. Nice.

Sure, nuclear appears to be quite safe nowadays, but let's not pretend that a major accident has less consequences than chemical spills. I live in Bavaria and our mushrooms are still radioactive.

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547610831 t1_ja88cn7 wrote

>I live in Bavaria and our mushrooms are still radioactive.

Everything is radioactive my guy. If you brought a pallet of bananas into a nuclear plant it would have to be disposed of as nuclear waste due to the radiation level. Regardless, Chernobyl killed less people than coal plants do every day. And it's much less an indictment of nuclear as it is Communism and the Soviet Union. No reactor like that is currently operating.

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BurningPenguin t1_jabfv66 wrote

So, you can't name a regulation that decreases safety. Got it.

Also, news flash: Mushrooms and wild animals aren't bananas. And I'm quite sure even bananas don't contain a considerable amount Cesium-137.

>No reactor like that is currently operating.

Almost like those "unsafe" safety regulations are working as intended.

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hobbers t1_ja9hki0 wrote

Safety or risk mitigation should always be quantified.

About 40k - 50k people die every year in automobile collisions. We could mitigate most of that, but we don't, because we judge it not worthy.

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Infernalism t1_ja9hnfo wrote

The car companies judge it not worthy. It's like the people dying have any say in the matter.

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hobbers t1_jaaec5u wrote

We don't have legislation requiring cars to be safe enough to not kill 40k - 50k people a year. That's all of us together deciding it's not worthy.

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