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This is true compared to normal nuclear facilities operating normally. However, it is not a comparison to nuclear activity as due to nuclear accidents. http://

by 13years 11y ago

This is true compared to normal nuclear facilities operating normally. However, it is not a comparison to nuclear activity as due to nuclear accidents. http://www.cejournal.net/?p=410 http://www.cejournal.net/?p=410

saulrh 11y ago
And what he said above is also true of fossil fuel industry facilities operating normally. He doesn't consider pollution due to spills, oil well fires, or refinery explosions. If wells or refineries failed at the rate you're implying nuclear plants do, our entire planet would be an inch deep in crude. And, yes, I understand that there physically isn't enough oil on earth to do that. That's part of my point. The alternatives to nuclear are strictly worse. There are no tradeoffs. They are just worse in every way, whether they're operating as designed or not.
- 13years 11y ago
  My point is about the disregard of the significance of the Fukishima accident. You must include that in the analysis. This was written in 2011, and Fukishima has been continuously releasing radiation ever since. "...every 600 years worldwide coal combustion releases as much radiation as was released from the nuclear accident at Fukushima..." http://nuclearaustralia.blogspot.com/2011/12/coal-1-fukushima-every-6-months.html http://nuclearaustralia.blogspot.com/2011/12/coal-1-fukushim... I'm not arguing in favor of any energy source that damages the environment; nonetheless, I would prefer we acknowledge risks where they exist. To not do so, would be to send us down the path of possibly less safe nuclear facilities.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    I feel like you're not getting his point. The coal industry in its steady state reliably kills more people every year than every nuclear accident put together, even when you include imputed civilian cancer fatalities from Chernobyl. I think you are going to have a difficult time coming up with an evidence-based argument that (a) supplies electricity to everyone in the world currently depending on it, (b) doesn't use nuclear, and (c) kills fewer people as a result of (b). I am ready to be surprised, though.
    - 13years 11y ago
      No, I do get it. I will restate my point again. "My point is about the disregard of the significance of the Fukishima accident". Why is that important. Because nuclear is not a panacea of risk free energy. The public should demand technology and safety to be continually improved and outdated reactors to be revamped or decommissioned. If Chernobyl possibly killed 100k, then Fukishima will likely in the end kill far more. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/chernobyl-deaths-180406/ http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/che... This is not a plea to abandon nuclear, it is that in order to prevent future disasters there has to be an honest assessment of potential risk impact so that there is incentive to make better designs. Otherwise, all of these counter arguments could be interpreted as saying "Coal kills 1 million, so what if nuclear only kills 100k every once and a while".
      - tedunangst 11y ago
        "Coal kills 1 million, so what if nuclear only kills 100k every once and a while". That sounds like a pretty compelling argument for nuclear to me.
      - saulrh 11y ago
        > Otherwise, all of these counter arguments could be interpreted as saying "Coal kills 1 million, so what if nuclear only kills 100k every once and a while". Well, yes. We are, unfortunately, stuck in a pretty awful region of the configuration space of possible existences. We can't be perfect. And that, unfortunately, means that perfect is the enemy of good enough. Right now we only have a few choices either we stick with coal or oil and kill a lot of people and maybe everybody, or we switch to nuclear/solar/whatever and only kill a few people. I acknowledge that nuclear kills people. I fully understand that Chernobyl and Fukushima were catastrophes. And I'm not going to disregard them. I've thought about them carefullyh, and considered the options, and even if I accept the most pessimistic evaluations I come to a single conclusion: We need to switch. Now. I can give you credit for wanting to be sure. But there's a point where you have to stop wanting to be sure and start making choices. And it's well past the point where we needed to make that choice, and as a result the conversation needs to be different. Right now our biggest obstacle is the public, and that means we need to present a united front. We can't tolerate dissenting opinions on a topic where the decision is so critical and the public is so pathetic. When you say "don't disregard Fukushima", people hear "radioactive scientist-men will eat your babies". So stop fearmongering. Also, stop bullshitting about Chernobyl. "The total global collective dose from Chernobyl was earlier estimated by UNSCEAR in 1988 to be "600,000 man Sv, equivalent on average to 21 additional days of world exposure to natural background radiation."". And that's an early, pessimistic estimate that's since been revised to half that. Maybe half a million people total were exposed in any measurable way. The few thousand people who worked on the reactor itself lost maybe ten years each. Everybody else lost... a few hours? Fukushima, similarly, is estimated based on data from Chernobyl (which, remember, happened thirty years ago! we have data from it! lots of data!) to kill a few hundred people. Pessimistically, a few thousand. Indirectly, ten years before they'd have died of old age anyway, and with a relatively treatable cancer. Seriously, thyroid cancer? Five-year survival rate 98%, and that's if you aren't watching for it already and you catch it late. And, really, greenpeace? They haven't been reasonable about nuclear since ever. If they ever realized how radioactive their bananas were their heads would explode.
pdonis 11y ago
> it is not a comparison to nuclear activity as due to nuclear accidents. But nuclear accidents are rare, and are not a necessary consequence of nuclear power. Coal ash is not rare, and it is a necessary consequence of burning coal.

by 13years 11y ago

saulrh 11y ago

And what he said above is also true of fossil fuel industry facilities operating normally. He doesn't consider pollution due to spills, oil well fires, or refinery explosions. If wells or refineries failed at the rate you're implying nuclear plants do, our entire planet would be an inch deep in crude. And, yes, I understand that there physically isn't enough oil on earth to do that. That's part of my point. The alternatives to nuclear are strictly worse. There are no tradeoffs. They are just worse in every way, whether they're operating as designed or not.

13years 11y ago
My point is about the disregard of the significance of the Fukishima accident. You must include that in the analysis. This was written in 2011, and Fukishima has been continuously releasing radiation ever since. "...every 600 years worldwide coal combustion releases as much radiation as was released from the nuclear accident at Fukushima..." http://nuclearaustralia.blogspot.com/2011/12/coal-1-fukushima-every-6-months.html http://nuclearaustralia.blogspot.com/2011/12/coal-1-fukushim... I'm not arguing in favor of any energy source that damages the environment; nonetheless, I would prefer we acknowledge risks where they exist. To not do so, would be to send us down the path of possibly less safe nuclear facilities.
- tptacek 11y ago
  I feel like you're not getting his point. The coal industry in its steady state reliably kills more people every year than every nuclear accident put together, even when you include imputed civilian cancer fatalities from Chernobyl. I think you are going to have a difficult time coming up with an evidence-based argument that (a) supplies electricity to everyone in the world currently depending on it, (b) doesn't use nuclear, and (c) kills fewer people as a result of (b). I am ready to be surprised, though.
  - 13years 11y ago
    No, I do get it. I will restate my point again. "My point is about the disregard of the significance of the Fukishima accident". Why is that important. Because nuclear is not a panacea of risk free energy. The public should demand technology and safety to be continually improved and outdated reactors to be revamped or decommissioned. If Chernobyl possibly killed 100k, then Fukishima will likely in the end kill far more. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/chernobyl-deaths-180406/ http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/che... This is not a plea to abandon nuclear, it is that in order to prevent future disasters there has to be an honest assessment of potential risk impact so that there is incentive to make better designs. Otherwise, all of these counter arguments could be interpreted as saying "Coal kills 1 million, so what if nuclear only kills 100k every once and a while".
    - tedunangst 11y ago
      "Coal kills 1 million, so what if nuclear only kills 100k every once and a while". That sounds like a pretty compelling argument for nuclear to me.
    - saulrh 11y ago
      > Otherwise, all of these counter arguments could be interpreted as saying "Coal kills 1 million, so what if nuclear only kills 100k every once and a while". Well, yes. We are, unfortunately, stuck in a pretty awful region of the configuration space of possible existences. We can't be perfect. And that, unfortunately, means that perfect is the enemy of good enough. Right now we only have a few choices either we stick with coal or oil and kill a lot of people and maybe everybody, or we switch to nuclear/solar/whatever and only kill a few people. I acknowledge that nuclear kills people. I fully understand that Chernobyl and Fukushima were catastrophes. And I'm not going to disregard them. I've thought about them carefullyh, and considered the options, and even if I accept the most pessimistic evaluations I come to a single conclusion: We need to switch. Now. I can give you credit for wanting to be sure. But there's a point where you have to stop wanting to be sure and start making choices. And it's well past the point where we needed to make that choice, and as a result the conversation needs to be different. Right now our biggest obstacle is the public, and that means we need to present a united front. We can't tolerate dissenting opinions on a topic where the decision is so critical and the public is so pathetic. When you say "don't disregard Fukushima", people hear "radioactive scientist-men will eat your babies". So stop fearmongering. Also, stop bullshitting about Chernobyl. "The total global collective dose from Chernobyl was earlier estimated by UNSCEAR in 1988 to be "600,000 man Sv, equivalent on average to 21 additional days of world exposure to natural background radiation."". And that's an early, pessimistic estimate that's since been revised to half that. Maybe half a million people total were exposed in any measurable way. The few thousand people who worked on the reactor itself lost maybe ten years each. Everybody else lost... a few hours? Fukushima, similarly, is estimated based on data from Chernobyl (which, remember, happened thirty years ago! we have data from it! lots of data!) to kill a few hundred people. Pessimistically, a few thousand. Indirectly, ten years before they'd have died of old age anyway, and with a relatively treatable cancer. Seriously, thyroid cancer? Five-year survival rate 98%, and that's if you aren't watching for it already and you catch it late. And, really, greenpeace? They haven't been reasonable about nuclear since ever. If they ever realized how radioactive their bananas were their heads would explode.

pdonis 11y ago

> it is not a comparison to nuclear activity as due to nuclear accidents. But nuclear accidents are rare, and are not a necessary consequence of nuclear power. Coal ash is not rare, and it is a necessary consequence of burning coal.