3 ms·

Half of Europe got contaminated with the fallout for thousands of years, from the north down to the Alps many countries were and still are effected. The same id

by frik 11y ago

Half of Europe got contaminated with the fallout for thousands of years, from the north down to the Alps many countries were and still are effected. The same idiotic disaster happened again in Japan (and could have been easily prevented by attaching generators, but fearing loosing the face, it was a cultural problem), and contaminated huge parts of the ocean, Hawaii and the west coast. Only a few countries stopped using or never used this very problematic technology. Hopefully, we don't have to see a third such disaster. Neither Soviet Union (USSR) nor Russia, Ukraine or Japan paid other countries money for the damage their action or non-action they did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Effects Apparently the downvoters are either lobbiest of the atom lobby, from those named countries or should read more about the history. The true history isn't always nice.

jcranmer 11y ago
Coal power is probably responsible for more radiological deaths and injuries than nuclear power, certainly in normal operation (although given the acute impact of specific release events, you might have to include the entirety of the Industrial Revolution to balance out again, which isn't necessarily a fair comparison). On the other hand, if you want to go for specific acute events, hydroelectric dams make nuclear power look safe. The only way to claim otherwise is to choose your dates to ignore the failure of the Banqiao Dam (171,000 deaths) and take the unreasonable high end of death toll estimates from Chernobyl and Fukushima. Presently, Mosul Dam is an excellent example of just how dangerous and real major dam failures can be.
- frik 11y ago
  All true, but there is one difference, those are visible, their danger is visible or can be smelled (at least by educated people). The half life of C137 and other are invisible and contaminated larger areas and will be not good for people health for many hundreds and often thousands of years. So these two disasters are rather serious, and there isn't even an real solution where to store the waste of atomic plants. Just dumping the waste somewhere in Nevada, Ural, Kazakhstan or at the bottom of the ocean isn't a real solution. No other energy technologies (beside fusion) needs any thinking about storage of waste (secure storage for thousands of years).
- dullgiulio 11y ago
  Also the Vajont disaster in Italy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajont_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajont_Dam
- hga 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam The resulting flood waters caused a wave, 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) wide and 3–7 meters (9.8–23.0 ft) high in Suiping (遂平), to rush onto the plains below at nearly 50 kilometers per hour (31 mph), almost wiping out an area 55 kilometers (34 mi) long and 15 kilometers (9.3 mi) wide, and creating temporary lakes as large as 12,000 square kilometers (4,600 sq mi).
coddingtonbear 11y ago
It may make you feel better to assume that those downvoting your post are part of some pro-nuclear conspiracy, but the truth of the matter is that you appear to have an unscientifically hyperbolic understanding of what the effects of both disasters were, and you are as a result being downvoted by people who are better-educated about this subject.
- frik 11y ago
  Those should get off one's high horse. Yeah, it seems some received biased (higher?) education and don't grasp the long term effects. Playing the conspiracy card is just stupid. It might be a cultural issue. Objectively, atomic technology is only viable if you don't even think about longterm storage and possible disastrous fallout events. At the moment I live in a first world country that never operated (and never will) atomic power plants (it was voted against it). It produces more power than needed with water, gas, wind and photovoltaic power plants and closed all coal power plants years ago. And yes I know on HN many lobby for atomic research and programs. Some are pretty irrational to the society and environment, and look only for their own wallet.
  - coddingtonbear 11y ago
    I know you probably won't care to take this seriously, but you may stand to benefit by checking what you are basing your opinion upon; there is a fantastic amount of misinformation on this subject accepted as truth, and doing some basic research may show you that your beliefs are not grounded in reality. The following things are true, but do feel free to double-check, these facts are not controversial: nuclear energy is far, far safer per kWh than those power sources your country voluntarily switched to; the UN -- using the very conservative & pessimistic linear-no-threshold model -- expects that approximately 4,000 people will eventually die as a result of our most catastrophic nuclear disaster in human history (it seems others in this thread have given you good examples of disasters caused by non-nuclear power sources, so I won't repeat those numbers here); and the volume of waste generated by a 1 GWe nuclear reactor (were it reprocessed and vitrified) would fill right around three cubic meters. Those things are probably a little hard for you to swallow -- I understand, you've probably spent your entire life being preached to about the dangers of nuclear power, especially if you're in a country that's remotely close to the disaster in Ukraine -- but, really, try to take a deep breath and make sure you know why you believe what you do.

by frik 11y ago

jcranmer 11y ago

Coal power is probably responsible for more radiological deaths and injuries than nuclear power, certainly in normal operation (although given the acute impact of specific release events, you might have to include the entirety of the Industrial Revolution to balance out again, which isn't necessarily a fair comparison). On the other hand, if you want to go for specific acute events, hydroelectric dams make nuclear power look safe. The only way to claim otherwise is to choose your dates to ignore the failure of the Banqiao Dam (171,000 deaths) and take the unreasonable high end of death toll estimates from Chernobyl and Fukushima. Presently, Mosul Dam is an excellent example of just how dangerous and real major dam failures can be.

frik 11y ago
All true, but there is one difference, those are visible, their danger is visible or can be smelled (at least by educated people). The half life of C137 and other are invisible and contaminated larger areas and will be not good for people health for many hundreds and often thousands of years. So these two disasters are rather serious, and there isn't even an real solution where to store the waste of atomic plants. Just dumping the waste somewhere in Nevada, Ural, Kazakhstan or at the bottom of the ocean isn't a real solution. No other energy technologies (beside fusion) needs any thinking about storage of waste (secure storage for thousands of years).
dullgiulio 11y ago
Also the Vajont disaster in Italy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajont_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajont_Dam
hga 11y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam The resulting flood waters caused a wave, 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) wide and 3–7 meters (9.8–23.0 ft) high in Suiping (遂平), to rush onto the plains below at nearly 50 kilometers per hour (31 mph), almost wiping out an area 55 kilometers (34 mi) long and 15 kilometers (9.3 mi) wide, and creating temporary lakes as large as 12,000 square kilometers (4,600 sq mi).

coddingtonbear 11y ago

It may make you feel better to assume that those downvoting your post are part of some pro-nuclear conspiracy, but the truth of the matter is that you appear to have an unscientifically hyperbolic understanding of what the effects of both disasters were, and you are as a result being downvoted by people who are better-educated about this subject.

frik 11y ago
Those should get off one's high horse. Yeah, it seems some received biased (higher?) education and don't grasp the long term effects. Playing the conspiracy card is just stupid. It might be a cultural issue. Objectively, atomic technology is only viable if you don't even think about longterm storage and possible disastrous fallout events. At the moment I live in a first world country that never operated (and never will) atomic power plants (it was voted against it). It produces more power than needed with water, gas, wind and photovoltaic power plants and closed all coal power plants years ago. And yes I know on HN many lobby for atomic research and programs. Some are pretty irrational to the society and environment, and look only for their own wallet.
- coddingtonbear 11y ago
  I know you probably won't care to take this seriously, but you may stand to benefit by checking what you are basing your opinion upon; there is a fantastic amount of misinformation on this subject accepted as truth, and doing some basic research may show you that your beliefs are not grounded in reality. The following things are true, but do feel free to double-check, these facts are not controversial: nuclear energy is far, far safer per kWh than those power sources your country voluntarily switched to; the UN -- using the very conservative & pessimistic linear-no-threshold model -- expects that approximately 4,000 people will eventually die as a result of our most catastrophic nuclear disaster in human history (it seems others in this thread have given you good examples of disasters caused by non-nuclear power sources, so I won't repeat those numbers here); and the volume of waste generated by a 1 GWe nuclear reactor (were it reprocessed and vitrified) would fill right around three cubic meters. Those things are probably a little hard for you to swallow -- I understand, you've probably spent your entire life being preached to about the dangers of nuclear power, especially if you're in a country that's remotely close to the disaster in Ukraine -- but, really, try to take a deep breath and make sure you know why you believe what you do.