7 ms·

Per kilowatt, nuclear energy is by far the safest. People fall off wind and solar installations all the time. Hydro fails catastrophically.

mkesper 10y ago
How can you say that without being cynic when it made big parts of Japan uninhabitable for centuries if not thousands of years?
- theamk 10y ago
  Do you have quantitative information about that? I was always wondering how big is Fukushima's nuclear incident zone (in km^2) today. How much bigger is it compared to coal waste ponds / landfills, or hydroelectric dam which provides the same amount of power?
  - Aelinsaar 10y ago
    The problem with coal as well, is that the effect of its pollution is known to contribute to many deaths a year, especially in the elderly, people with compromised cardiopulmonary systems, and of course, the asthmatic. It's not like a nuclear disaster though, where someone comes in "radioactive" with coal. The best we can do is explain the statistical link. When nuclear goes wrong, it's much less lethal, but so much more easy to recognize and very dramatic. Then again, we live in a world of people obsessed with shark attacks and winning the lottery, but who drive around in cars all day.
  - joelwilliamson 10y ago
    The exclusion zone is 20km, so the area will be around 600 km^2. Compare that to Lake Mead, which is 640 km^2 and runs a power station with half the installed capacity of Fukushima Daiichi.
    - vilhelm_s 10y ago
      A circle of 20km is 1200 km^2. In this case, only half the circle was over land, but the evacuation zone also extended about 40km downwind, based on the amount of radiation, so the original exclusion zone was also about 1200 km^2. Since then, part of the exclusion has been lifted: I think in this map, the green areas are places which are no longer restricted. The yellow areas can be visited with a permit, but you are not allowed to live in them or stay over night. The pink area is the "difficult to return" zone, I think the government treats this as a total loss and reimburses house owners for the full value of their property. http://userdisk.webry.biglobe.ne.jp/001/285/53/N000/000/009/138387581709871406225.jpg http://userdisk.webry.biglobe.ne.jp/001/285/53/N000/000/009/... From counting pixels in the picture, it seems the yellow+pink area is 670 km^2, and the pink area is 330 km^2.
- JorgeGT 10y ago
  The failure of the Banqiao Dam in China in 1975 killed 171,000 people; 11,000,000 people lost their homes. This is many orders of magnitude higher than the casualties and damages directly attributed to the failure of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Furthermore, Fukushima Daiichi was an old design (more than a decade older than Chernobyl nº4 reactor) whereas modern designs are much more safe.
  - Aelinsaar 10y ago
    Fukushima Daiichi was also subjected to a historically significant natural disaster, it wasn't exactly an "everyday" or even "every century" event.
    - guscost 10y ago
      And the area around the reactor isn't uninhabitable, it's just illegal to live there at the moment.
      - ptaipale 10y ago
        Yes. What is funny is that some of my countrymen, who lived in Japan as expats, left the area because of radiation, and came back home, where the natural background radiation is higher than in the evacuated Fukushima area.
  - makomk 10y ago
    From what I can tell, Banqiao Dam was dual-purpose: it was intended for flood control as well as power generation. If China had sourced power from a nuclear plant, the dam would likely still have failed and killed hundreds of thousands of people, we just wouldn't be able to attribute those deaths to hydroelectric power. Furthermore, modern nuclear power plants may be safe but they aren't exactly economically viable, which is why nuclear operators are so keen on extending the operation of existing plants of the same design as Fukushima Daiichi. Also, I'm pretty sure the official position on Fukushima was that it was safe, right up until it wasn't.
Aelinsaar 10y ago
I don't know about Solar and wind being inherently less safe, in fact I'd disagree with that. The issue though, is that we still can't rely on them to power our entire grid. Hydro though, even without failure, seems to have a pretty undesirable environmental impact. Nuclear has to go catastrophically wrong for that to be the case.
- howlin 10y ago
  > Hydro though, even without failure, seems to have a pretty undesirable environmental impact. Nuclear has to go catastrophically wrong for that to be the case. Arguably, the Chernobyl disaster was an environmental boon by forcing humans out of a region and creating a de facto nature preserve.
- bewaretheirs 10y ago
  For residential installs, solar systems go up on roofs, a few kilowatts at a time. The main risk is to the installers (they fall off). Little capacity per roof, every roof different, every fall a potential hazard = higher risk per kilowatt than you might think..
  - Aelinsaar 10y ago
    I suppose so, but it's a risk that can be managed with existing technology, and without spending insane amounts of money.
  - mschuster91 10y ago
    > The main risk is to the installers (they fall off). Huge NO. The biggest risk is for firefighters if any part of the PV panel or the technology or the roof itself catch fire! The DC side can easily pack in a couple hundred volts DC with double-digit amperages. And you can't turn it off unless the sun goes dark... not to mention that it's hard for firefighters to fight a fire if the whole roof is PV-panel-filled and something in the roof is burning.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
stcredzero 10y ago
People fall off wind and solar installations all the time. But our society has always just shrugged its shoulders at this cost, so long as its paid by the working class. (In Texas, it's the lowest very rungs of the working class that get sent up radio towers.) It's different when the damage directly impacts homes, particularly those of white collar workers.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  Sounds a bit like a chip on the shoulder when, in this context, you talk about radio towers, which aren't windmills or solar plants (although yes, accidents happen also there).
  - stcredzero 10y ago
    Also applies to coal miners. There are still a lot of fairly hazardous jobs in our society that our society isn't all that concerned about the workers being fully covered/compensated.
noobermin 10y ago
And people don't fall off nuclear installations as well? Death is tragic in all cases, but are death rates of workers in installations worse for solar installations? I can see it in wind installations, but are accidental rates in solar installations worse than those in the installation of nuclear plants?
- Aelinsaar 10y ago
  Or radio masts, cell towers, smokestacks, etc. It's a known risk of working up on a tall structure, but it's also a risk that's understood, and managed with safety equipment and best practices. We don't seem to compose a dirge for every tree that gets trimmed around a utility pole either.

mkesper 10y ago

How can you say that without being cynic when it made big parts of Japan uninhabitable for centuries if not thousands of years?

theamk 10y ago
Do you have quantitative information about that? I was always wondering how big is Fukushima's nuclear incident zone (in km^2) today. How much bigger is it compared to coal waste ponds / landfills, or hydroelectric dam which provides the same amount of power?
- Aelinsaar 10y ago
  The problem with coal as well, is that the effect of its pollution is known to contribute to many deaths a year, especially in the elderly, people with compromised cardiopulmonary systems, and of course, the asthmatic. It's not like a nuclear disaster though, where someone comes in "radioactive" with coal. The best we can do is explain the statistical link. When nuclear goes wrong, it's much less lethal, but so much more easy to recognize and very dramatic. Then again, we live in a world of people obsessed with shark attacks and winning the lottery, but who drive around in cars all day.
- joelwilliamson 10y ago
  The exclusion zone is 20km, so the area will be around 600 km^2. Compare that to Lake Mead, which is 640 km^2 and runs a power station with half the installed capacity of Fukushima Daiichi.
  - vilhelm_s 10y ago
    A circle of 20km is 1200 km^2. In this case, only half the circle was over land, but the evacuation zone also extended about 40km downwind, based on the amount of radiation, so the original exclusion zone was also about 1200 km^2. Since then, part of the exclusion has been lifted: I think in this map, the green areas are places which are no longer restricted. The yellow areas can be visited with a permit, but you are not allowed to live in them or stay over night. The pink area is the "difficult to return" zone, I think the government treats this as a total loss and reimburses house owners for the full value of their property. http://userdisk.webry.biglobe.ne.jp/001/285/53/N000/000/009/138387581709871406225.jpg http://userdisk.webry.biglobe.ne.jp/001/285/53/N000/000/009/... From counting pixels in the picture, it seems the yellow+pink area is 670 km^2, and the pink area is 330 km^2.
JorgeGT 10y ago
The failure of the Banqiao Dam in China in 1975 killed 171,000 people; 11,000,000 people lost their homes. This is many orders of magnitude higher than the casualties and damages directly attributed to the failure of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Furthermore, Fukushima Daiichi was an old design (more than a decade older than Chernobyl nº4 reactor) whereas modern designs are much more safe.
- Aelinsaar 10y ago
  Fukushima Daiichi was also subjected to a historically significant natural disaster, it wasn't exactly an "everyday" or even "every century" event.
  - guscost 10y ago
    And the area around the reactor isn't uninhabitable, it's just illegal to live there at the moment.
    - ptaipale 10y ago
      Yes. What is funny is that some of my countrymen, who lived in Japan as expats, left the area because of radiation, and came back home, where the natural background radiation is higher than in the evacuated Fukushima area.
- makomk 10y ago
  From what I can tell, Banqiao Dam was dual-purpose: it was intended for flood control as well as power generation. If China had sourced power from a nuclear plant, the dam would likely still have failed and killed hundreds of thousands of people, we just wouldn't be able to attribute those deaths to hydroelectric power. Furthermore, modern nuclear power plants may be safe but they aren't exactly economically viable, which is why nuclear operators are so keen on extending the operation of existing plants of the same design as Fukushima Daiichi. Also, I'm pretty sure the official position on Fukushima was that it was safe, right up until it wasn't.

Aelinsaar 10y ago

I don't know about Solar and wind being inherently less safe, in fact I'd disagree with that. The issue though, is that we still can't rely on them to power our entire grid. Hydro though, even without failure, seems to have a pretty undesirable environmental impact. Nuclear has to go catastrophically wrong for that to be the case.

howlin 10y ago
> Hydro though, even without failure, seems to have a pretty undesirable environmental impact. Nuclear has to go catastrophically wrong for that to be the case. Arguably, the Chernobyl disaster was an environmental boon by forcing humans out of a region and creating a de facto nature preserve.
bewaretheirs 10y ago
For residential installs, solar systems go up on roofs, a few kilowatts at a time. The main risk is to the installers (they fall off). Little capacity per roof, every roof different, every fall a potential hazard = higher risk per kilowatt than you might think..
- Aelinsaar 10y ago
  I suppose so, but it's a risk that can be managed with existing technology, and without spending insane amounts of money.
- mschuster91 10y ago
  > The main risk is to the installers (they fall off). Huge NO. The biggest risk is for firefighters if any part of the PV panel or the technology or the roof itself catch fire! The DC side can easily pack in a couple hundred volts DC with double-digit amperages. And you can't turn it off unless the sun goes dark... not to mention that it's hard for firefighters to fight a fire if the whole roof is PV-panel-filled and something in the roof is burning.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

stcredzero 10y ago

People fall off wind and solar installations all the time. But our society has always just shrugged its shoulders at this cost, so long as its paid by the working class. (In Texas, it's the lowest very rungs of the working class that get sent up radio towers.) It's different when the damage directly impacts homes, particularly those of white collar workers.

ptaipale 10y ago
Sounds a bit like a chip on the shoulder when, in this context, you talk about radio towers, which aren't windmills or solar plants (although yes, accidents happen also there).
- stcredzero 10y ago
  Also applies to coal miners. There are still a lot of fairly hazardous jobs in our society that our society isn't all that concerned about the workers being fully covered/compensated.

noobermin 10y ago

And people don't fall off nuclear installations as well? Death is tragic in all cases, but are death rates of workers in installations worse for solar installations? I can see it in wind installations, but are accidental rates in solar installations worse than those in the installation of nuclear plants?

Aelinsaar 10y ago
Or radio masts, cell towers, smokestacks, etc. It's a known risk of working up on a tall structure, but it's also a risk that's understood, and managed with safety equipment and best practices. We don't seem to compose a dirge for every tree that gets trimmed around a utility pole either.