The case for nuclear...
Bloke on another forum I visit wrote:
The fact that coal is worth some $50+ billion a year in export revenue is certainly a troubling issue for the Australian Government. Put a blanket ban on it and our economy would certainly take a big hit crippling Qld and the federal budget. Then the argument goes that these countries, such as Japan and China will simply continue to burn coal as they can get it else where, and in China's case they source 90% themselves it's just that their bonkers growth rate means we can sell to them as well.
I reckon it would be a disaster if we didn't explore all avenues first before going nuclear, but at the same time we don't have an eternity as each set of projects having an ~15 year turn around time, we would hit 2050 before we know it. One only has to read some prominent works from ANU scientists to see that the solar revolution has been promised since 1970 to be just around the corner. If you want to get cynical you will say the coal industry pushed this view as they knew solar had no immediate future but could win them the short term battle over Nuclear, now we bare the climate change realities we can't hide behind coal anymore, large scale solar has to deliver soon.
I base my acceptance of nuclear as a last resort on:
-The assumption that world wide socialism will not break out, thus our standard of living will still rest on competitive market forces for the foreseeable future and production will not be massively halted in the coming years,
- That the state of society is in some ways (health, education etc.) largely improved by the supply of stable baseload electricity, and
- The following work by physicist Bernard Cohen on the relative rating of risks, his is an attempt to seek an objective look at the risks of nuclear in the USA UNDERSTANDING RISK vs those we already accept in our lives.
How it's calculated is that the total years lost are summed and then divided by the overall population. e.g. if 10 out of a 100 die at an age where they have 30 years remaining due to smog, we get (10*30*365)/100 = 1095 days lost on average per person.
Some of the table:
LOSS OF LIFE EXPECTANCY (LLE) DUE TO VARIOUS RISKS
TABLE 1
Activity or risk* LLE (days)
Living in poverty 3500
Being male (vs. female) 2800
Cigarettes (male) 2300
Heart disease* 2100
Being unmarried 2000
Being black (vs. white) 2000
Socioeconomic status low 1500
Working as a coal miner 1100
Cancer* 980
30-lb overweight 900
Grade school dropout 800
Sub-optimal medical care* 550
Stroke* 520
15-lb overweight 450
All accidents* 400
Alcohol*230
Motor vehicle accidents 180
Drug abuse* 100
Air pollution* 80
Small cars (vs. midsize) 60
Married to smoker 50
Drowning* 40
Speed limit: 65 vs. 55 miles per hour* 40
Radiation worker, age 18-65 25
Firearms* 11
Birth control pills 5
All electricity nuclear (UCS)* 1.5 (using the concerned scientists data)
Peanut butter (1 Tbsp./day) 1.1
Hurricanes, tornadoes* 1
Airline crashes* 1
Dam failures* 1
Living near nuclear plant 0.4
All electricity nuclear (NRC)* 0.04 (more friendly data)
*asterisks indicate averages over total U.S. population; others refer to those exposed.
Interesting to note that technically it would be safer to build more power plants to keep people in bigger cars, than to simply all drive small cars at the same current speed limits.
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
~ Richard Feynman