It's always hard count indirect deaths.

We could for example argue that Japan, by stopping it's nuclear power plants for long time and replacing it's cheap nuclear electricity with expensive imported gas electricity caused more deaths than by direct radiological impact of Fukoshima accident.

"Be Cautious with the Precautionary Principle: Evidence from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident"

https://docs.iza.org/dp12687.pdf

"In an effort to meet the energy demands, nuclear power was replaced by imported fossil fuels, which led to increases in electricity prices. The price increases led to a reduction in electricity consumption but only during the coldest times of the year. Given its protective effects from extreme weather, the reduced electricity consumption led to an increase in mortality during very cold temperatures. We estimate that the increased mortality resulting from the higher energy prices outnumbered the mortality from the accident itself, suggesting that applying the precautionary principle caused more harm than good."

In term of money, you have look at the sums that Japan has been pouring into importing gas, which was needed to replace the missing nuclear power generation.

"With the Japanese government’s blessing, these companies are encouraging other countries to use more gas and LNG by investing US$93 billion from March 2013 to March 2024 in midstream and downstream oil and gas infrastructure globally."

https://energyexplained.substack.com/p/japan-1-how-fukushima...

▲

cogman10 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I pretty much fully agree.

I'm not actually arguing that Gen II plants need to be decommissioned immediately. I'm arguing that they need to be decommissioned and ideally replaced as soon as possible.

The process that takes can look like running the Gen II reactor while a replacement Gen IV reactor is being built and then decommissioning after the IV reactor is up and running.

I'm not against using nuclear, far from it. But I do think we need to actually have a plan about how we evolve the current nuclear fleet.

▲

thrownthatway 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> Gen II … need to be decommissioned and ideally replaced as soon as possible.

Why? The overwhelming majority of Gen II reactors aren’t on the east coast of Japan.

And the lessons learned from Fukushima Daiitchi can be applied elsewhere to mitigate similar risks.

My opinion is it’s more prudent to run the existing fleet for its economically useful life, remembering that reliable base load can have more value than intermittent wind / solar + (largely non-existent) batteries.

You also don’t get process heat not district heating from wind / solar + (largely non-existent) batteries.

▲

cogman10 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Gen II reactors everywhere are subject to war and sabotage. Places that are currently safe aren't always safe.

Fukushima was a demonstration that these reactors can still melt down. It doesn't take exactly fukushima to cause a meltdown.

The reason to prioritize decommissioning is because the new generations of reactors are completely safe. There can be no meltdown, even if they are explicitly sabotaged. Then the bigger risk becomes not the reactor but the management of waste.

What Gen II reactors are is effectively a landmine in a box. The proposed solution to avoid detonating the landmine is adding more pillows, buffers, and padding, but still keeping the landmine because it'd be expensive to replace.

I think that's just a bad idea. Unexpected things happen. They don't have to (and probably won't) look exactly like a Tsunami hitting the facility. So why not replace the box with a landmine with one that doesn't have the landmine. Yes it cost money to do, but it's simply safer and completely eliminates a whole class of risks.

▲

leonidasrup 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There are many kinds of Gen IV reactors. Which of the Gen IV reactors would you prefer? Which Gen IV reactor can not melt down, even if explicitly sabotaged?

	▲	cogman10 32 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> Which of the Gen IV reactors would you prefer? TBH, probably the SCWR. They seem like the easiest to build without a lot of new surprises. > Which Gen IV reactor can not melt down, even if explicitly sabotaged? One like the BREST. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BREST_(reactor) . Funnily my preferred reactor, the SCWR, would probably not be immune to some sabotage, specifically explosives around the reactor. But a reactor which uses a metal coolant would be. It just so happens that the nature of a SCWR cooled with water means that the reactor core has to be much beefier anyways, so it's a lot harder to really damage even if that was an explicit goal.

▲

thrownthatway 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Gen II reactors everywhere are subject to war and sabotage.

<eye roll> this is just bullshit.

Which Gen II reactors are subject to war, exactly?

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, where one employ was killed by a drone strike?

What’s the status of the four new planned(?) reactors at Khmelnitski?

Wikipedia seems to indicate that two new AP1000 reactors are under construction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytskyi_Nuclear_Power_Pla...

A country that is having a hot war with its neighbour Russia(!) is getting the fuck on with it, while the rest of the Western world still thinks windmills are cool.

	▲	cogman10 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> Which Gen II reactors are subject to war, exactly? Potentially any of them. World governments aren't static. Mitt Romney was literally laughed at for talking about the Russian military threat in 2012. > two new AP1000 These are Gen III+ reactors, which thoughout this thread I've been saying we should be building to replace the Gen II reactors. If Ukraine was building new Gen II reactors you might have a point.