Jeffrey, see comments embedded below.

On 21 March 2011 09:29, jeffrey chan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Fil,
> Is NIMBYism always evil? I don't want lots of things in my backyard, nuclear
> wastes included, but does this mean that I am automatically mean-spirited to
> my neighbors because I do not condone nuclear wastes?

NIMBYism is, IMHO, always evil.  If I'm too special to take one for
the team, and the stuff has to go somewhere, then I'm saying that I'm
more special than my neighbours.  That undermines society.  And the
stuff *does* have to go somewhere.

And I don't have to "condone" nuclear waste to accept it's presence in
my back yard.  It exists.  Not condoning it is, quite frankly, just
avoiding reality.

> Would anyone of us
> (dare to) say this differently?

Yes.  I would.  If there was a clear, non-political, scientifically
grounded reason why the stuff had to be in my back yard, then that's
how it has to be.  I wouldn't like it, but I'd accept it.

> Can anyone of us possibly accept--in the
> spirit of acceptance and generousity and perhaps compassion--to take in
> nuclear wastes on behalf of our neighbors?

Yes, because that's the situation we're stuck with.  It may be that
someone will invent some new way of dealing with the waste - and I
would welcome that - but in the meantime we're just stuck with it.

> Since no one is quite ready to
> take on the high risks of radiation sickness on behalf of this 'neighbor',
> then not only should we not avoid this topic, but NIMBYism is not a "greater
> evil" as you have posited. Quite on the contrary, it is a rational human
> response in this instance.

It's natural.  It's not rational.

Also, please indicate what source you're using to indicate that living
near a nuclear waste facility would necessarily lead to a high risk of
radiation sickness.  Again, I would note that the risk of death by
radiation is lower than the risk of dying in a car accident.  As
Charlotte wrote, there's a difference between actual risk and
perceived risk.  If the two are not the same, then the perceived risk
is incorrect.  The real issue here is convincing people of the actual
risk.

> No one should accept nuclear wastes--and this
> solidarity can hopefully prompt a response from those who support this
> technology to think otherwise, and to stop the exercise of pushing this
> waste upon the weakest political constituency they could find. In this
> sense, NIMBYism as solidarity on nuclear wastes does make the world a better
> place, and not a more evil place as you have suggested.

But where will the waste go?  We can't just teleport it into the sun
or something.  All this talk of political constituency is fine and
good, but not if it ends up with a bunch of nuclear waste lying
fallow, as it were, while people argue about what to do with it.  The
risk of accident is 'way higher then.

> I understand the physicist's logic behind your arguments. But public logic
> works differently. I raised the example of water recycling to underscore my
> point: the psychological war has to be won for this energy harvesting to be
> publicly accepted and adopted. Because this energy harvesting is understood
> differently, energy being the same is perceived differently, unless you
> suggest that social construction of risk is irrelevant.

Okay.  So that means mounting a really, really large and costly effort
to educate the public.  But to *really* educate the public would mean
turning them into "experts."  And to have a real, well-informed
opinion about not just nuclear power, but also water recycling and
myriad other issues would mean turning everyone into experts in
everything.

That doesn't sound feasible to me.

Instead, I prefer educating people to trust experts.  I'm not a
nuclear expert, but I know enough about science to know that the best
I can do is to trust those who are nuclear experts.  They'll make
mistakes - they're only human after all - but on the whole they'll do
the right thing.

That's the same reason I trust my doctor; I trust his expertise.

> This is where such
> psychological perceptions make it different--whether we care or not. I can
> see your point, but I don't think I am legitimizing anyone's position: I am
> merely stating a possible reaction from the public. Besides, if we care to
> think about it, there are a whole lot of problematic issues and unintended
> externalities when we decide to operate on radioactive decay of nuclear
> wastes (e.g., who do we send in when it fails? Robots?). As a technique it
> is simply unsound and unsafe.

We "design" it to fail safely.  It can be done.  I just posted a note
about a leak we had at one of our CANDU reactors.  The leak was of
pure, distilled, non-radioactive water.  At Yucca Mountain, for
instance, one could separate the systems in such a way that it's
virtually impossible to leak radioactivity.  That is, if the system
that generates energy from the heat of the waste fails, the storage
system itself remains secure.  Indeed, it would be safer than the
average nuclear reactor because the waste facility is generating heat
only through natural radioactive decay and not through fission.  If we
can build safe nuclear reactors - and we can - then the storage
facility would be at least as safe.

> "This is just the way things are" is simply an untenable position. In fact,
> you are quite right: all the other technologies you have mentioned have
> unknown and unknowable long term consequences, but perhaps with a hierarchy
> implied in their order and magnitude of risks to the human species. But this
> does not mean that we should accept them as your position suggests.

What I mean is that some things are givens.  Nuclear waste exists.
That's how it is.  If we could travel back in time and warn Enrico
Fermi what a mess he was starting, then maybe we'd have options.
Maybe.  But we can't.  It's one thing to think about whether we want
to keep building more reactors; it's quite another to deal with the
waste we have.

> Can we
> really compare the long term use of computers with the long term use of
> nuclear energy?  One produces a mountain of e-wastes, which we know are
> slowly poisoning alot of people in places on Earth that thrive on scavenging
> operations, and the other produces something in which a little concentrated
> amounts will kill us either directly or indirectly upon close contact. They
> are incommensurable; nuclear energy by fission of highly radioactive matter
> is simply not tenable.

What about the impact on people's lives?  What if the Internet
vanished today?  I still remember the world pre-Internet for business.
 It  moved at a snail's pace compared to today.  If we lost the
internet, we'd be thoroughly screwed on a global level.  Far worse
than if we lost a reactor here or there.

Indeed, I would suggest that the risk of failure of the Internet is
far more significant than the risk of failure of a reactor exactly
because the reactor failure is more concentrated in space.  Which
gives us a better chance to manage it and limit damage.

> You seemed to only offer polar alternatives: either we go back to the cave
> or we have to embrace nuclear energy by fission. But there is so much
> middle-ground that we miss if we take on this polar extremes of choices.
> What about wind mills? Or geothermal energy? Or smarter and more efficient
> energy usages? Or the outright banning and rationing of energy? All
> politically unpopular I am afraid.

And that's what's wrong with politics.

Polar opposites are useful to make a point.

Geothermal may be useful, but only in certain locations.  There aren't
enough sources of geothermal energy for wide scale provision of base
load.  We *could* move towards a highly distributed power system,
where each building provided its own energy.  There's movement there
with solar panels and small scale ground-source heat pumps.  If we
could figure out how to make good fuel cells, that could help.

Energy efficiency is overrated.  To be extremely efficient means
giving up robustness - what I call effectiveness.  And a lack of
robustness means more severe failure when the system strays from its
very narrow operating regime.

We need to cut consumption.  Some of it is simply reduction (e.g. more
insulation in your house, LED lights, composting).  Other bits are
harder (changing zoning laws to allow people to live and work in
closer physical proximity, more working from home).  There's an
interesting little book by John Maeda about simplicity.  Some of the
techniques he suggests in his book would help cut consumption too.

Solar and wind are intermittent and local.  We need sources that
provide "base load" energy that we can put near where the energy is
needed.  We could generate all the electricity needs of Europe by
covering a part of the Sahara desert with solar cells (an area roughly
the size of Germany).  But it would only work during the day, and
transmitting that much power from Africa to Europe would be a monster
of a problem.

But that's all long term stuff.

What do we do in the meantime?

Technologies we can use today to bind us over while we get our act
together are very limited; basically we've got hydroelectric (okay, so
long as you're using natural falls and not doing too much of the Three
Gorges thing, which severely limits where it can be used), coal (yah,
right), and nuclear.

> The choice to go nuclear as you probably know is neither innocent nor
> presumed; they are deliberate political, and design choices, that a small
> group of people make on our behalf. If every nuclear policy is up for
> popular referendum, I dare to say all would be struck down if people are
> aware of the long term consequences of this technology.

That's why we need to trust the experts.  Not the politicians.  The experts.

> That said, I must clarify: I am not against nuclear energy as a category;
> only as a technique practiced now and against our limited control over this
> technique and the 'residues' that it produces. As raised by another
> participant, nuclear fusion is something else.
> Best,
> Jeff
>

Wait.  You seem to be against nuclear waste, but your not necessarily
against nuclear energy?  Do I have that right?

Fusion is now where fission was in Fermi's day.  If Fermi and his
colleagues couldn't predict the issues we're having now with fission
power, then how are we to think that fusion won't have similar
problems?

Anyways, real, reliable fusion power is at least 50 yrs off, I think.
Again, what do we do in the meantime.

I repeat: thorium-based reactors.  They exist; they're safer; they're
produce FAR less waste; their waste can't be weaponized.  But that's a
different question than that of what to do with the existent waste.

If I recall, the "benefits" of thorium reactors was known a long time
ago.  The reason why uranium was chosen was exactly because it's waste
can be weaponized.  If that's true, then I think I know who I would
"blame" for the current situation.

Cheers.
Fil
--
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON
M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/