I think what Fukushima taught us, is that profit-driven companies will always be looking for ways to cut costs. Nuclear, like oil, requires extremely tight regulation to keep the companies involved from cutting corners and creating unreasonable safety problems.
Also, doesn't nuclear also still have a storage problem? Storing electricity is mostly a solved issue: batteries. We just need to do it cheaper and on a larger scale. And it doesn't even have to be centralized: a Tesla Powerwall in every home will also solve the problem.
I think it's a bad idea to take perfectly working nuclear power plants offline, but it's really only a temporary solution during the transition towards full solar.
Why do we need storage for nuclear? It has always on capacity. If surge capability is the need - this can mostly be fixed with demand scheduling or smaller more nimble power plants.
Electricity storage is far from a "solved" problem. Long term storage losses are high, battery safety is concern, durability/life is still a concern, scarcity of the materials to make batteries is a concern, recycling the materials used is a concern.
We have batteries, but not very good ones, and not ones that are anywhere near close to solving the intermittent nature of solar and wind, nor the demand cycles of each working day.
Nuclear plants are not good at rapidly changing to accommodate demand. Powering down a nuclear reactor is a big operation. Powering down a smaller reactor may be a smaller operation, but they still don't adapt as easily as gas turbines. Or batteries.
But the storage problem I was alluding to is the storage of nuclear waste. Some of it remains dangerous for an extremely long time, and storing it safely is far from trivial. There are several options, but they all have problems.
Similar to batteries for electricity storage, perhaps: there are millions of ways to store electrical energy. None of them are perfect, but on the other hand, they are improving rapidly.
We can already store it. With more research, we may be able to store it more efficiently. But we do already have a lot of options for electricity storage.
I'd like to know why you think that is what Fukishima taught us?
A giant earthquake AND a tsunami hits the plant and not a single person is killed... For me it reinforced the fact that nuclear energy is one of the most tightly regulated industries in the world in terms of safety.
> A giant earthquake AND a tsunami hits the plant and not a single person is killed
This IS the worst problem with nuclear, a denial complex of the size of Jupiter.
Two workers Kazuhiko Kokubo and Yoshiki Terashima were killed directly by the tsunami, as other >15.000 japanese. At least 20 among the thousands of workers involved where injured by radiation, some where severely burned. Other died by sudden leukemia of course quickly tagged as "non related with Fukushima". 230.000 people can't still return to their homes and live in temporary refuges and are vulnerable to depression. Stress-related illnesses and other maladies had killed about 1,656 people in Fukushima Prefecture since the tsunami. I bet that living in a refuge for years takes a toll to your health.
> For me it reinforced the fact that nuclear energy is one of the most tightly regulated industries in the world in terms of safety.
The one-damned-single-page safety plan of fukushima was all except a good example of "a tighly regulated industry"
This comment taught me that 100,000 people still unable to return to their homes five years later is no big deal...
And if you actually believe that "not a single person killed" bullshit, I got a bridge to sell you. Death from cancer is still death, even if it takes a year or two.
> Death from cancer is still death, even if it takes a year or two.
Yes, but even those are monitored. And the expected increase in cancer deaths over the next several decades due to Fukushima is still modeled to be fewer than 100 people.
I think parent post is downplaying things a bit, but I'd take the risk of 100k people bring displaced by a nuclear accident over 100's of millions of people being displaced by climate change.
I totally agree. But when we have the option to not displace anyone, I prefer that. Nuclear technology is to me at best a transitional technology to fill the gap until solar is ready to take over. And it seems solar kind of is already.
I'm not arguing for taking nuclear reactors offline, but it's not clear to me why we should build new ones if solar is cheaper and cleaner. Of course large scale electricity storage is still an issue for solar, and I can understand solar isn't the best option for cloudy countries, but I do think it's important to look beyond nuclear.
If we can get there with mostly solar, I'd be all for it. I just hope we don't get into a situation of perfection paralysis where we wait so long for the perfect solution that the adequate solution doesn't get implemented and we end up with worse consequences.
Well before the disaster, there was a report that stated that the backup generators would be flooded by a powerful tsunami, and recommended improvements to fix that. TEPCO chose to ignore that report.
This is one of the dangers of a technology that is inherently centralized. It puts control of safety in the hands of a large, uncaring, faceless entity.
For that reason, decentralized technologies like solar are a better choice for where to spend money on energy.
Also, doesn't nuclear also still have a storage problem? Storing electricity is mostly a solved issue: batteries. We just need to do it cheaper and on a larger scale. And it doesn't even have to be centralized: a Tesla Powerwall in every home will also solve the problem.
I think it's a bad idea to take perfectly working nuclear power plants offline, but it's really only a temporary solution during the transition towards full solar.