From: ems@michael.apple.com (E. Michael Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.energy
Subject: Re: Nuke Stupidity Rebuttal
Date: 29 Sep 92 02:25:57 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA

In article <1992Sep24.205410.7405@nuchat.sccsi.com> kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown) writes:
>In article <53856@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>>In article <1992Sep23.195247.1075@nuchat.sccsi.com> kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown) writes:

>So?  Unless you have some personal grudge against nuclear power, you should
>find the worst-case failure of *most* power systems to be worrisome.  

What is the worst case failure mode of solar or wind?  Maybe it is 
self delusion, but I can't think of anything that even comes close 
to a core explosion and containment breach upwind of a population center...
(as unlikely as that is ...)

>That
>being the case, what makes nuclear so special that you obviously devote so
>much extra attention to its worst-case failure mode?

Mostly that fact that the adherents of nuclear like to poo-poo the risk
and act as though it wasn't real and they didn't really care about it.

If the pro-nuke side were saying things like:  "That is a very real
concern and we have done everything possible to address it, but it 
still worries us a bit, so we're still working on making it better" rather
than "It doesn't make sense to spend more time on THAT irrelevant bit
of paranoia, who cares.  We've done what we were REQUIRED to do... shut
up and sit down 'cause WE know better what's good for you."  I'd be much
less interested and would instead be asking more questions about storage
of toxic chemicals ...

>It wouldn't be because you happen not to *like* nuclear power, would it?

No, it wouldn't.  I suppose you'd have to call me a 'closet nuke supporter'
(gads, am I, then, 'comming out of the closet'? ;-) in that I think the
technology has great promise, and I DO wish it were being done right.

I'd really like to be able to support it.  But I can't.  (Mostly on
the grounds that the management isn't very good and the attitudes need
a tune-up ... with a little worry about the once-through fuel cycle
squandering a valuable resource while causing excessive amounts of mining
and lack of care in quaranteening nuclear materials in the past).

I really admire some of the advanced reactor designs, and would like
to see more of them being used in sizes scaled up to production rather
than just blindly building more of the '60s teakettles we've got now.

>>You claim that n deaths distributed over 10 years are equivalent to n
>>deaths over 3 days embedded in 10 death free years.
>>I disagree. Who's being objective?
>
>Whether or not these are "equivalent" depends on how you're measuring them.
>In terms of the numbers alone, they are quite obviously equivalent.  Dead
>is dead, no matter how it's concentrated.

Ah, but lets change the span a little.  You have a village of 1000.
What is the difference if 1000 die in a single year followed by 99
death free years, or if 10 die per year over 100 years?  In the first
case you have a case of genocide followed by a village empty for 99 years.
In the second you have a normal functioning society with long lives and
normal death in old age.

I don't think this example is really a reflection of what nuclear could
do to a nearby village (I can't envision a way to kill 1000 in a 
single year, others may be able to come up with one).  But it is offered
only to illustrate the case that two identical numeric quantities have
dramatically different human terms, once the details are unmasked.

You may argue, with some cause, that this type of failure cannot be
caused by nuclear, but to argue that there is no difference in the
two outcomes since 'dead is dead' and 1000=1000 is only to illustrate
a gaping void of perception ...

>Since the danger ("risk") presented by each type of plant cannot be assessed
>in an unbiased and objective fashion, but the benefits and costs *can* be
>assessed in an objective and unbiased fashion (reasoning: we have large
>amounts of data on the amount of power produced by each type of plant, the
>operating expenses for each, the building costs for each, and the pollutants
>produced by each), and since the real world doesn't give a damn about how we
>feel about things, I argue that we would be better off, in real-world terms,
>making the decision *primarily* based on the objective cost/benefit
>evaluation and only *secondarily* based on the subjective risk evaluation.

Ah, so if it is cost effective to commit genocide and kill the village, 
we should, but if it isn't clearly cost effective, then and only then 
should we think about the subjective value of killing the village ...

While this is an 'absurdum ad reductum' argument, it does illustrate
the point that numbers cannot be trusted in isolation from human values.
'Common sense' and 'sanity checks' must be 'in the loop' ...

Show that the village will not be killed.  Show the credible rates of
death are simlarly distributed for nuclear and coal (maybe nuclear is
more 'bursty' than coal, but not by enough to change the community
lifecycle?)  But don't try to argue that ANY degree of concentration
of life loss is not relevant.  That point cannot be conceeded, since
there is a 'thought experiment' that shows it false...

If you can show that the distribution of deaths would not be 
statistically significantly different TO THE COMMUNITY and TO THE
FAMILIES for nuclear and coal, (and ditto for the miserable diseases
that don't kill you), then you have won the case.  Until then you
will have a skeptical audience thinking about the devistation of 
families in the Nazi era, in American Indian villages, in Armenia, 
in Kurdistan, in Bohpal, in ...

>If the judgement of the danger presented by the various power-plant options
>is a subjective one, why is it that the anti-nuclear people insist on
>concentrating on that judgement?

Because they don't trust the particular subjective slant that the 
pro-nukers manifest when they discuss their evaluation of that danger...
especially the dogged insistance that it is mathmatically objective
and that they are stupid for not believing the Nuclear Priests who
have shown them the numbers even though the priests know that they 
cannot comprehend ...

Nothing gets an IRS auditor interested more than someone saying "I've
got it all figured just exactly right, trust me, no need for you to 
audit MY return, I'll just be going now." ...

-- 

E. Michael Smith  ems@apple.COM

'Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has
 genius, power and magic in it.'  -  Goethe

I am not responsible nor is anyone else.  Everything is disclaimed.