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Post by nuclear1 on Apr 28, 2012 0:57:21 GMT 9.5
I spend a fair bit of time responding to the misinformation put out by the likes of Caldicott and Gunderson.
A centralized source of information that debunks their misinformation could save a lot of time.
Does anyone know of such a site? Or is there any interest in gathering the info here?
Thanks Barry for a most excellent site!
Your dedication and hard work is inspiring.
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Post by Luke Weston on Apr 28, 2012 18:01:09 GMT 9.5
The thing about the likes of Caldicott and Gundersen is that 99% of the time they just say the same old crap again and again and again. So often you can just write down one particular debunking of a particular claim and just point to it again and again when that claim comes up. Yes, I think it's worth doing. Happy to help  |
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Post by Anon on Apr 28, 2012 19:05:29 GMT 9.5
Sounds like a wiki might be the best place for that kind of thing.
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Post by QuarkingMad on Apr 29, 2012 14:59:14 GMT 9.5
There are three main anti-arguments, with one sub argument:
1) They always are an imminent hazard
1a) Radiation leakage = Fatal cancer, no matter the dose
2) There is no solution for waste
3) Nuclear Power = Nuclear Weapons
They are the same arguments from the 1970s. The moment you know you have stumped them is when they assert, "Your credibility is poor because you are a Nuclear industry PR shill".
For this most of the work has been done by posters on BNC, Monibot et al., and Nuclear Engineers. Good to go out and find these papers and articles to collate them into one area, have the "truths" and then link off to all the relevant debunking sources.
One thing to remember is to state the truth, briefly state the myth, then reassert the truths.
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Post by Barry Brook on Apr 29, 2012 15:30:01 GMT 9.5
We talked about this back on BNC a long while ago, but it was hard to organise here. It can be done much more effectively on this forum, and once a FAQ or similar is up and going, it can be stickied for easy access.
You can number each of the arguments rebuttals too, and then when they spout some nonsense you just need to say: FAQ 1, 4, 5, 11 and 14! That last past is only half joking...
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Post by LancedDendrite on Apr 29, 2012 16:12:39 GMT 9.5
What we need is a nuclear equivalent of Skeptical Science. That is, a database of counter-arguments with references. A protected wiki could work. |
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Post by davidm on May 2, 2012 3:30:28 GMT 9.5
There are three main anti-arguments, with one sub argument:
1) They always are an imminent hazard
1a) Radiation leakage = Fatal cancer, no matter the dose
2) There is no solution for waste
3) Nuclear Power = Nuclear Weapons
They are the same arguments from the 1970s. The moment you know you have stumped them is when they assert, "Your credibility is poor because you are a Nuclear industry PR shill".
For this most of the work has been done by posters on BNC, Monibot et al., and Nuclear Engineers. Good to go out and find these papers and articles to collate them into one area, have the "truths" and then link off to all the relevant debunking sources.
One thing to remember is to state the truth, briefly state the myth, then reassert the truths. I'd like to see a comprehensive clearing house on nuclear issues like Skeptical Science has done with AGW but the skeptic rebuttals might be a bit harder. 1. Considerable area around Chernobyl and Fukushima remain off limits because nuclear radiation fall out. 2. Waste disposal remains a problem, resulting in spent fuel rods being kept on site, with serious consequences in the case of Fukushima. No doubt NIMBY contributes to the problem as we have seen with Yucca Mountain. 3. Nuclear power has commonly been a resource for nuclear weapons if the politics is there. In edition there are: 4. Mining, transport and decommission problems. 5. Security concerns. 6. Increasing building costs and long construction times and extended EROEI in a time when there is so little time to turn things around. 7. Thermal pollution requiring periodic shutdowns in many cases. 8. Lack of downward scalability for local control. 9. Plays into the delusion of the possibility of consequence free unlimited growth, both population and economic. 10. The breakdowns when they occur are so dramatic and lacking in near term closure, nuclear has inherent PR problems. No doubt nuclear power beats fossil fuel power as a better base line source of energy. But it would be a mistake to not acknowledge that it does have a lot of drawbacks. Serious informed people might conclude it is better thought of as a transition technology to free us from fossil fuel. But they might not see it as a long term solution, like say a lower population wedded to a more sustainable life style change, using simpler more locally integrated sources of energy. |
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Post by anonposter on May 2, 2012 3:59:32 GMT 9.5
1. Considerable area around Chernobyl and Fukushima remain off limits because nuclear radiation fall out. Never mind that the people living in the Chernobyl exclusion zone are doing just fine (and contamination from Fukushima was no where near as bad with most of it going into the sea). 2. Waste disposal remains a problem, resulting in spent fuel rods being kept on site, with serious consequences in the case of Fukushima. No doubt NIMBY contributes to the problem as we have seen with Yucca Mountain. No where near as bad as fossil fuels and technically solved (politically OTOH…). 3. Nuclear power has commonly been a resource for nuclear weapons if the politics is there. Evidence? AFAIK only the UK (Magnox), France (UNGG) and US (Hanford N reactor) have ever used power reactors to produce weapons grade Plutonium and even then those were pretty much just putting steam turbines and generators on a weapons reactor to get some use out of the waste heat. There's also no need for a nuclear power industry if you want the bomb. 4. Mining, transport and decommission problems. Fossil fuels and renewables are worse in these areas (and I can't see any possible transport problems with nuclear). Highly radioactive materials (e.g. partly used nuclear fuel) are good at protecting themselves from theft by anyone who doesn't have some pretty serious shielded manipulators. 6. Increasing building costs and long construction times Fixing the regulator would solve that problem (it's worth noting that the latest CANDUs have been built on time and budget and also that reactors have been built within 3 years (even first of a kind reactors). and extended EROI in a time when there is so little time to turn things around. Nuclear has a better EROI than almost anything and uses less resources for initial construction than renewables (i.e. renewables would suffer this problems even worse). 7. Thermal pollution requiring periodic shutdowns in many cases. Fossil fuel power plants suffer this problem too, it also isn't an issue with coastal power plants or air cooled power plants (GenIV reactors could be aircoooled). It's also rare that nuclear power plants have to shut-down or reduce power due to thermal pollution concerns. 8. Lack of downward scalability for local control. How so? There's no technical reason why you can't build 10 MW nuclear power plants (with factory construction they may even end up cheaper) and homogeneous reactors are incredible load followers (if anything is better at load following than hydro it's them). 9. Plays into the delusion of the possibility of consequence free unlimited growth, both population and economic. So part of the reason you don't like nuclear is that it allows for the possibility of the majority getting what they want? If nuclear can allow us to continue unlimited growth without destroying the environment then what possible objection could there to be it? 10. The breakdowns when they occur are so dramatic and lacking in near term closure nuclear has inherent PR problems. The PR problems are not inherent to the technology (which does have the best safety record of any power generation technology). No doubt nuclear power beats fossil fuel power as a better base line source of energy. But it would be a mistake to not acknowledge that it does have a lot of drawbacks. Yes, but when compared with the other options (i.e. fossil fuels and renewable energy) those drawbacks seem pretty minor (and many of the claimed drawbacks turn out to be imaginary). Serious informed people might conclude it is better thought of as a transition technology to free us from fossil fuel. But they might not see it as a long term solution, like say a lower population wedded to a more sustainable life style change, using simpler more locally integrated sources of energy. What you propose is simply not something the population will accept, the long term solution is to get off the planet (though there's nothing wrong with each village having a few SMRs buried to provide electricity and process heat). |
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Post by Luke Weston on May 2, 2012 14:11:15 GMT 9.5
1. Considerable area around Chernobyl and Fukushima remain off limits because nuclear radiation fall out. Based on what scientific evidence and reasoning are these areas off limits? At what radiological dose rate does it really actually justify declaring a particular region off limits to human habitation in terms of bona fide harm? That dose rate threshold, rationally, would be at the very least equal to the very highest natural dose rates that we see in places like Ramsar, where no physiological harm occurs. There were no significant "serious consequences" involving any used fuel at Fukushima I, as far as I'm aware. Any examples? What problems? Two words does not make an argument. Please elucidate your argument. Of course it's silly to say that this is just some sort of argument specific to nuclear power which doesn't apply to anything else in the world. There is really no difference to coal or solar thermal or any other thermal energy source in this regard. In many respects nuclear energy is better because there is more site flexibility for nuclear power, and has a heat-source temperature higher than and therefore thermodynamic efficiency higher than geothermal or solar thermal, and higher than coal in VHTR/HTGR type reactors. This is the argument that small-scale energy generation from rooftop solar cells and similar is better because it's less controlled by "the man" and "the system" and "the big corporation", and that makes it better than a large power station, even though it's far more expensive per kilowatt-hour. It's not a technical argument at all. If anything, it's more of a philosophical position. This doesn't even begin to resemble any kind of coherent argument against nuclear power, technical argument or otherwise. For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled. Nuclear energy doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be better than all the other alternatives. |
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Post by davidm on May 3, 2012 22:31:29 GMT 9.5
1. Considerable area around Chernobyl and Fukushima remain off limits because nuclear radiation fall out. Based on what scientific evidence and reasoning are these areas off limits? Russian and Japanese nuclear experts. I guess we were reading different news sources. How about India, Pakistan, N. Korea and potentially Iran. The overlap of nuclear power as facilitating nuclear weapons development has frequently been commented on and an inspection regimen has developed around it. Go to google and put in nuclear power proliferation risks and you will get 18,400,000 hits. The matters are discussed here in wikipedia, including interestingly a nice bow to Barry Brook. Sorry to leave this incomplete but I have to go now. |
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Post by anonposter on May 4, 2012 10:20:59 GMT 9.5
Russian and Japanese nuclear experts. Have they accounted for the fact that the people still living in the Chernobyl exclusion zone are doing just fine? Used a research reactor which doesn't generate electricity to make Plutonium (yes, they did buy it from Canada using US money, but it wasn't a power plant and they never used a CANDU to breed weapons grade plutonium). A. Q. Khan (whose name seems to come up a lot when the topic is rogue states and nuclear weapons) stole the blueprints for URENCO centrifuge enrichment technology and their plutonium programme is based on research reactors they designed and built themselves. Also based on a reactor they built themselves (they also had an older Soviet supplied reactor but couldn't get enough fuel to keep operating it), though most likely based on Magnox plans the British foolishly released to the public domain (the Magnox isn't a very good power reactor (it was obsolete at the time they released the plans) but is quite good at making weapons grade plutonium (in fact that was it's original use)). A. Q. Khan also provided information on uranium enrichment (apparently in return for ballistic missile technology). The power reactor they are building would be almost completely useless for making weapons material and also appears to have been the vector Israel used to introduce stuxnet (wouldn't surprise me if Russia assisted). It does seem likely that Iran will just enrich the Uranium to weapons grade levels and store it without actually building it into a bomb. Iran's uranium enrichment programme used technology supplied by…you guessed it, A. Q. Khan. The overlap of nuclear power as facilitating nuclear weapons development has frequently been commented on and an inspection regimen has developed around it. Yet there is no evidence that having nuclear energy increases the risk of a country developing nuclear weapons, many countries with the bomb got the bomb before they had nuclear power plants and even the ones that did have nuclear power plants before getting the bomb haven't been using their power plants to make weapons grade material. The closest you could get to a link would be the URENCO technology A. Q. Khan stole but that's already out of the bag (and probably not that hard to duplicate anyway, besides, the US did just fine with diffusion). Simply put if a country wants nuclear weapons and want them badly enough the only way you'll stop them is to go to war with them (it worked on Iraq). Go to google and put in nuclear power proliferation risks and you will get 18,400,000 hits. Some of which even show that such a risk is at the very least exaggerated. I think an argument could be made that not having nuclear power is the bigger proliferation risk as it increases the likelihood of countries going to war over resources such as energy and water, countries which feel threatened by their neighbours are countries which develop nuclear weapons, India because of China, Pakistan because of India, North Korea because of, well, everyone, Israel because of their Arab neighbours, Iran because of Israel. Putting too much attention on nuclear weapons may very well be distracting us from the real problems. The matters are discussed here in wikipedia, including interestingly a nice bow to Barry Brook. Yes, it turns out that they aren't all that bad when you compare to the other energy sources we could be using (you can't look at any technology in isolation, it must always be compared to what else you could use instead as well as doing without). |
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Post by QuarkingMad on May 4, 2012 11:29:29 GMT 9.5
This is a nice post on debunking two current anti-nuclear propaganda pieces with regards to Fukushima's No. 4 reactor spent fuel pool and San Onfre's leaking Steam System: theenergycollective.com/dan-yurman/82480/argh-debunking-some-nuclear-nonsenseWith respect to the Nuclear Power = Nuclear Weapons industry I'd like to point out from a person who has studied this very topic at Uni that civilian organisations building plants are exclusively used for commercial purposes. There is a financial motivation. Reactors built in a Military industry are used for either propulsion to deliver weaponry, or weapons themselves. There is a defence/offence motivation. Westinghouse building a reactor is going to be used for commercial purposes. US DoD building a reactor is not going to be used for a commercial purpose. There will be exceptions, but these are from the rule. A way to cover this distinction up is to say that a military reactor is a civilian reactor and use it as the former. Deception is not uncommon in the Military complex. |
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Post by Jim Baerg on May 4, 2012 11:44:48 GMT 9.5
I think something similar to the Index of Creationist Claims www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.htmlis what is needed. I don't think there would need to be as many distinct articles to cover anti-nuclear lies as thoroughly as the IoCC covers creationist lies. |
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Post by BNC Moderator on May 4, 2012 12:49:50 GMT 9.5
In response to those commenters who are suggesting we need a group similar to Skeptical Science, or Climate Crock of the Week, to de-bunk mis-information. I remind you that we are in the process of developing just such a website - KnowMoreFearLess. The site will be pitched to the general public and use a lot of graphics, videos, Q&A etc.
If any of you feel that you could assist in this project and would like to become involved, please contact Barry by email in the first instance:
barry.brook@adelaide.edu.au
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Post by davidm on May 4, 2012 14:21:15 GMT 9.5
I find it hard to imagine a country that has nuclear power capability that can't, in fairly short order, ramp up to making nuclear bombs. It's that capability that allows you to make a bomb if you want one or divert nuclear materials to someone else who might. There is a reason we have nuclear inspections.
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Post by Christine Brook on May 4, 2012 14:48:00 GMT 9.5
David M
Even if nuclear bombs were easy to make,(which they are not) would they be used?
Exactly how many times has a nuclear bomb been detonated in a conflict, or actually, at any time except in testing, since the Second World War?
Many of us who grew up with the bomb, were terrified that this would occur, but when carefully considered, why would it? We invented a term MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) which says it all really.
Countries want nuclear weapons as a deterrent - to ensure that one won't be used against them.
Even the most extreme, realising that retaliation was inevitable, have not resorted to using a nuclear weapons. As a dictator or despot,(cowards mostly) the realisation that one's actions would result in one's OWN death (and that of the family) would act to concentrate the mind.
You no doubt will say - how about terrorists?
Even if they could get hold of the wherewithal to make even a dirty bomb, which is VERY unlikely, terrorists act under the auspices of those same cowardly beings mentioned above, who have not and would not authorise such an assault, knowing that retribution would swiftly follow.
So- stop worrying - and learn to love the bomb - as we baby boomers have. ;D
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Post by anonposter on May 4, 2012 17:45:14 GMT 9.5
I find it hard to imagine a country that has nuclear power capability that can't, in fairly short order, ramp up to making nuclear bombs. If you don't have any enrichment or reprocessing facilities you'd first have to build some, you'd also need to switch the fuel cycle of your reactors to shorter burn up (ideally you'd use a research reactor). Whether you've got a nuclear power plant or not is largely irrelevant to that (research reactors matter more). It's that capability that allows you to make a bomb if you want one or divert nuclear materials to someone else who might. There is a reason we have nuclear inspections. Yes, those inspectors would find out if you were diverting material for a weapons programme and then the international community could deal with you appropriately (in practice we're not very good at actually stopping countries from getting nuclear weapons, the only real success was Iraq and that was due to Israeli F16s). David M Even if nuclear bombs were easy to make,(which they are not) would they be used? Exactly how many times has a nuclear bomb been detonated in a conflict, or actually, at any time except in testing, since the Second World War? Many of us who grew up with the bomb, were terrified that this would occur, but when carefully considered, why would it? We invented a term MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) which says it all really. Countries want nuclear weapons as a deterrent - to ensure that one won't be used against them. Even the most extreme, realising that retaliation was inevitable, have not resorted to using a nuclear weapons. As a dictator or despot,(cowards mostly) the realisation that one's actions would result in one's OWN death (and that of the family) would act to concentrate the mind. A good point, may I also contribute homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_101.html to this discussion. You no doubt will say - how about terrorists? There are methods they could do to kill a lot of people which would be much easier for them to do (I wouldn't be too surprised if the intelligence community were trying to exaggerate the risks of dirty bombs for the purpose of diverting terrorists down a blind alley and away from more effective methods of killing lots of people). Even if they could get hold of the wherewithal to make even a dirty bomb, which is VERY unlikely, The big problem with so-called dirty bombs is that anything dirty enough to be effective would also require quite a bit of shielding to actually handle to the point at which the maker and user would likely die before they could use it unless they had equipment terrorists aren't likely to have (to my knowledge only the Soviets ever deployed radiological weapons, they had special shielded manipulators to put the warhead on the rocket and didn't have them in the inventory for long preferring fission bombs which only become lethally radioactive when they detonate) while a dirty bomb using less radioactive substances that wouldn't kill its users would have even less effect on the people it's aimed at. Of course terrorism is largely psychological as well and the exaggerated fear of anything nuclear or to do with radiation means it would probably be more effective at scaring people than the same number of deaths from an ordinary truck bomb. |
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Post by Jim Baerg on May 5, 2012 2:29:29 GMT 9.5
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Post by davidm on May 5, 2012 13:31:57 GMT 9.5
David M
This doesn't even begin to resemble any kind of coherent argument against nuclear power, technical argument or otherwise.
As to the "otherwise", I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss my point. If you have noticed nuclear power advocacy appears to be often linked to a rather cavalier attitude toward population and economic growth limits, as if NPPs by virtue of their clean and unlimited bounty would obviate any serious concern for these matters. If you think, as I do, that honoring these limits is critical to our future survival then these nuclear associated attitudes would seem to be dangerous expressions of denial. |
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Post by BNC Moderator on May 8, 2012 14:16:21 GMT 9.5
David M and Anon - your comments regarding Malthus, growth etc have been moved to Natural Limits of Economic Growth, which better reflects your discussion than the "Debunking anti-nuke misinformation" topic which you have strayed from. Please continue there. Thankyou.
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Post by David B. Benson on Jul 7, 2013 12:02:29 GMT 9.5
Can a light water nuclear reactor which was designed for civilian electric power generation be used to make bomb grade plutonium? What about a heavy water reactor like the CANDU?
My knowledge is not sufficient to answer other than hesitantly: no to the first and yes to the second.
Those more knowledgeable will please reply.
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Post by anonposter on Jul 7, 2013 12:16:45 GMT 9.5
They probably could, but you'd have to run them in a way that would be sub-optimal for power generation and easily noticed (you'd have a better chance of a dedicated graphite reactor secret).
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Post by edireland on Jul 8, 2013 3:25:01 GMT 9.5
Anyone who can build a B-reactor can potentially have nuclear weapons.
The hard part is keeping it a secret, and a dedicated reactor is considerably easier to keep secret.
So what if a warehouse sized building beside a lake or the sea appears in the other country?
You have a hard time proving that the warehouse contains a few thousand tonnes of graphite.
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Post by David B. Benson on Jul 8, 2013 13:43:14 GMT 9.5
Somewhere here there is a transcript of an interview with Dr. Till who stated that a weapons designer needs a dedicated reactor. Local nuclear physicist George Hinman stated over dinner Friday night that he didn't think a light water moderated reactor could produce bomb grade plutonium, but clearly indicated he was not sure. The first reactors dedicated to producing bomb grade plutonium were graphite moderated. Later the US switched to purpose built heavy water reactors at the Savannah River site. The Russians used graphite moderated reactors; the ones at Chernobyl were of a similar design but modified for power production. The British en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnoxreactors were graphite moderated. |
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Post by edireland on Jul 8, 2013 21:35:21 GMT 9.5
Magnox is a dual use reactor.
B-reactor and the Windscale Piles are examples of how primitive pure bomb creation reactors can be if you are on a shoestring.
You could probably build an entire nuclear weapons programme for less than the price of a two reactor LWR plant if didn't have to worry about keeping the whole thing a secret.
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Post by trag on Jul 9, 2013 4:29:52 GMT 9.5
Having a weapons reactor and plutonium is nice, but remember that a perfectly serviceable nuclear weapon can be built with U235. Ultimately, no reactor is needed to build a nuclear explosive device -- only the ability to purify U235. So the argument that reactors should be restricted to prevent bomb proliferation is a red herring. Anyone who really wants a bomb can make one with enrichment techology. Reactors are not a requirement.
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Post by edireland on Jul 9, 2013 4:40:27 GMT 9.5
In theory you don't even need a Uranium enrichment plant if you have access to a uranium mine.
You can process uranium mining tails for Pa-231, which is a decay product of Uranium-235.
It is isotopically pure and can generate a critical mass for fast fission... which means in theory you could make a bomb.
But it would need a lot of uranium ore.
And a reactor is probably cheaper than an enrichment plant, the only ones you can make with unrestricted technology are probably either Calutrons and Gaseous Diffusion.
Those plants would be enormously expensive to ooperate and nearly impossible to keep secret. (What is that plant that is guzzling several gigawatts of electricity?)
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Post by anonposter on Jul 9, 2013 11:20:17 GMT 9.5
Checking wikipedia 231Pa was calculated to have a critical mass of between half a tonne and a tonne with more recent work ruling out a chain reaction so I'd say that route is really iffy (then there's getting a tonne of 231Pa).
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Post by cyrilr on Aug 10, 2013 0:22:38 GMT 9.5
Bill Hannahan's original paper isn't bad as far as a single document goes. www.coal2nuclear.com/energy_facts.htmThe late Cohen's book is a more elaborate read, but deals very well with most of the hysteria of anti-nukes. One of the best books on nuclear power ever, and freely available in full on the web. Well worth a reference. Gives the anti-nukes something to chew on. www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/ |
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