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It was a bad accident and I was worried about it to. But in retrospect, zero people died from Fukushima and the surrounding land is mostly at dose rates well be

It was a bad accident and I was worried about it to. But in retrospect, zero people died from Fukushima and the surrounding land is mostly at dose rates well below some area's natural background already. Compared to the alternatives that are killing people as we speak it doesn't seem that bad.

toyg 10y ago
> zero people died from Fukushima You don't really know that until you have 20 years of cancer rates to study, and even then you still won't be sure, because god knows where the ocean sent all that crap. Regardless of accidents, anyway, the dirty little secret of nuclear is still there: untreatable waste. Sure, we don't breathe it like fossil fuel byproducts, but it's still there, ruining the planet. EDIT: Note I'm not mentioning coal anywhere. Solar and wind have little to no waste - that is what we should be aiming for. It's doable, today - if only we make sure all the money that goes into white-elephant new nuclear or new coal goes in actual green energy.
- ceejayoz 10y ago
  > Regardless of accidents, anyway, the dirty little secret of nuclear is still there: untreatable waste. That waste can at least be sequestered. Coal ash emits radioactivity into the surrounding environment, whereas stored nuclear waste doesn't. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-...
- 0xfeba 10y ago
  Relatively contained waste compared to the waste products of coal burning that are just spewed into the air? Please. And with newer generation reactors, waste is even less of a problem than in the past.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  > untreatable waste. Sure, we don't breathe it like fossil fuel byproducts, but it's still there, ruining the planet. It's not ruining the planet when it's sitting safely in storage. Not to mention, there's very, very little of it. Every other industry is dealing with much bigger amounts of dangerous waste; if you want to worry about something, worry about chemical plants, electronics recycling and plastic bottles.
  - toyg 10y ago
    False dichotomy. Of course we worry about the others too; but adding to the pile does not seem like a smart thing to do.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      We're talking about adding a single drop of water to a bathtub while simultaneously closing down an open tap (fossil fuel power). Sounds like a net win to me, actually. And I mentioned other industries because it's ridiculous to freak over nuclear waste while being calm about all the other waste that's many, many times more dangerous and more omnipresent.
      - toyg 10y ago
        > We're talking about adding a single drop of water But why should we add even a single drop, when we now have alternatives that don't require it?
        cgh 10y ago
        Large areas of the world cannot be powered with wind or solar. To use a Canadian example, the west coast of British Columbia is not a sunny place, to put it mildly, and not particularly windy. In other places, the solar energy is simply too weak, which is why Edmonton is often sunny and -30 degrees C. I find the whole "just use solar and wind!" argument is often made by people who live in warm, flat places.
- saiya-jin 10y ago
  do you know how much radioactive isotopes are there in crust/core of Earth? plenty, some gets randomly released by eruptions. it's also still there and practically forever will be.
- tremon 10y ago
  the dirty little secret of nuclear is still there: untreatable waste Most of that waste is not untreatable at all, only politically so. Fast (breeder) reactors can use that "waste" as their own fuel source, reducing the total waste by some 95%. But we don't have those, because the political climate has made it impossible to deploy even close to modern reactor designs.

toyg 10y ago

> zero people died from Fukushima You don't really know that until you have 20 years of cancer rates to study, and even then you still won't be sure, because god knows where the ocean sent all that crap. Regardless of accidents, anyway, the dirty little secret of nuclear is still there: untreatable waste. Sure, we don't breathe it like fossil fuel byproducts, but it's still there, ruining the planet. EDIT: Note I'm not mentioning coal anywhere. Solar and wind have little to no waste - that is what we should be aiming for. It's doable, today - if only we make sure all the money that goes into white-elephant new nuclear or new coal goes in actual green energy.

ceejayoz 10y ago
> Regardless of accidents, anyway, the dirty little secret of nuclear is still there: untreatable waste. That waste can at least be sequestered. Coal ash emits radioactivity into the surrounding environment, whereas stored nuclear waste doesn't. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-...
0xfeba 10y ago
Relatively contained waste compared to the waste products of coal burning that are just spewed into the air? Please. And with newer generation reactors, waste is even less of a problem than in the past.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
> untreatable waste. Sure, we don't breathe it like fossil fuel byproducts, but it's still there, ruining the planet. It's not ruining the planet when it's sitting safely in storage. Not to mention, there's very, very little of it. Every other industry is dealing with much bigger amounts of dangerous waste; if you want to worry about something, worry about chemical plants, electronics recycling and plastic bottles.
- toyg 10y ago
  False dichotomy. Of course we worry about the others too; but adding to the pile does not seem like a smart thing to do.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    We're talking about adding a single drop of water to a bathtub while simultaneously closing down an open tap (fossil fuel power). Sounds like a net win to me, actually. And I mentioned other industries because it's ridiculous to freak over nuclear waste while being calm about all the other waste that's many, many times more dangerous and more omnipresent.
    - toyg 10y ago
      > We're talking about adding a single drop of water But why should we add even a single drop, when we now have alternatives that don't require it?
      - cgh 10y ago
        Large areas of the world cannot be powered with wind or solar. To use a Canadian example, the west coast of British Columbia is not a sunny place, to put it mildly, and not particularly windy. In other places, the solar energy is simply too weak, which is why Edmonton is often sunny and -30 degrees C. I find the whole "just use solar and wind!" argument is often made by people who live in warm, flat places.
saiya-jin 10y ago
do you know how much radioactive isotopes are there in crust/core of Earth? plenty, some gets randomly released by eruptions. it's also still there and practically forever will be.
tremon 10y ago
the dirty little secret of nuclear is still there: untreatable waste Most of that waste is not untreatable at all, only politically so. Fast (breeder) reactors can use that "waste" as their own fuel source, reducing the total waste by some 95%. But we don't have those, because the political climate has made it impossible to deploy even close to modern reactor designs.