6 ms·

Scientists have figured out the reason London fog killed 12,000 people

CamperBob2 10y ago
So the compounds released from burning coal and the compounds found inside natural fog – an aqueous medium made of, you guessed it, water – work together to make droplets of sulphuric acid, the same stuff that makes 'acid rain'. Remind me again why we can't have nuclear power?
- scott_karana 10y ago
  While I sympathize with your sentiment, it's really disingenuous to play dumb. Chernobyl and Fukushima would immediately come to mind.
  - cheald 10y ago
    "Nuclear power isn't 100% harmless" is a bad argument here, given the number of people that due from coal mining and processing and coal-originated externalities on an annual basis. The number of deaths (including future cancer cases) due to Fukushima is estimated to be in the hundreds on the high end. Chernobyl is expected to have killed around 4,000 after cancer takes its toll. That's a miniscule drop in the bucket compared to the number of deaths directly and indirectly attributable to coal power.
  - CamperBob2 10y ago
    How many people did these two incidents kill?
- labster 10y ago
  Because nuclear leaves toxic waste that lasts over 10000 years in the best case; and because wind, hydro, solar, and tidal are better alternatives in most cases.
  - CamperBob2 10y ago
    (Shrug) Put it in Antarctica. It'll be fine for 10,000 years there. No one will stumble across it accidentally, and we can get it back if we need it. I've never understood why this is considered a problem.
    - Nadya 10y ago
      How do you route the power from Antarctica to where it needs to be? That'd be an impractically large expense.
      - db48x 10y ago
        You can put the waste there without putting the power plants there.
        JadeNB 10y ago
        But now you have the problem of transporting large quantities of nuclear waste for long time periods, with little tolerance for delays or stoppages.
        CamperBob2 10y ago
        At some point you have to accept that all energy sources have drawbacks. Besides not making a whole lot of sense, this particular objection is pretty small potatoes compared to toxic fogs that kill people by the thousands, or other fossil fuels that appear to be altering the climate on a planetary scale.
        db48x 10y ago
        No, the existing storage pools at nuclear reactors provide a long-term buffer that can smooth out any irregularities in shipping. After all, there already is such an irregularity. Once you start shipping the waste again, it's not really all that difficult. It's transported in containers which are essentially indestructible.
    - 10y ago
- Pxtl 10y ago
  Because it's insanely expensive and if we're going to go with the insanely expensive solution we should go with the one that's fully green and has lower start-up costs.
  - closeparen 10y ago
    Uh, nuclear costs about the same as conventional coal [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#Energy_Information_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#...
- MrZongle2 10y ago
  "Remind me again why we can't have nuclear power?" Ignorance and fear. The Three Mile Island accident (1979) took place less than two weeks after the release of the movie The China Syndrome, the plot of which featured a coverup of a major nuclear accident. Activists seized the opportunity, and then-President Jimmy Carter (who had personal experience with nuclear engineering) failed to properly rein in public fears or beliefs about the accident (https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=sM1RAAAAIBAJ&sjid=W20DAAAAIBAJ&pg=7107%2C772506 https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=sM1RAAAAIBAJ&sjid=W20D...). Despite a tenuous-at-best link between the accident and human health (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#Health_effects_and_epidemiology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#Hea...), for the longest time it was considered a "disaster". Growth of the nuclear industry in the United States took a major hit at this point. Subsequent films such as Silkwood and general Cold War nuclear war fears did little to change the opinion of the layman that nuclear == bad. The 1986 Chernobyl accident further reinforced these beliefs. People focused on the aftermath of the explosion and the Soviet coverup and generally ignored the underlying causes such as the antiquated design of the reactor and operator error. This incident had a major negative effect on the nuclear industry. The 2011 Fukushima accident was an trainwreck of corporate negligence and insufficient government oversight. The facility, which had been operating since 1971, performed as intended when the earthquake struck but the subsequent tsunami breached the insufficient (identified as such since 2008) seawall and took out the generators powering the shutdown. All these incidents demonstrate cases where negligence or antiquated design can lead to disaster. But few take a look at the successes. France, for instance, is a major user of nuclear energy and has avoided catastrophe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Accidents_and_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Accide...). Fear of nuclear power is akin to "reefer madness" nonsense in the 1940s and 1950s.
  - CamperBob2 10y ago
    Wow, that Post-Gazette article is illuminating. I knew Carter was a nuclear engineer, but I wasn't aware of how well-positioned he was to argue against people like Jane Fonda and Ralph Nader, and how ineffective he was at doing so. What an unfortunate lost opportunity. I wonder if Nader's work fighting against nuclear power has ultimately cost more lives than he saved through auto safety advocacy.
aychedee 10y ago
Kind of how mustard gas works, compound that turns to sulphuric acid when it gets wet.
remarkEon 10y ago
There's a new Netflix Original called The Crown, and a few episodes in the London Fog of 1952 is a prominent plot point (no spoilers beyond that, though if you're a history buff it shouldn't be much of a spoiler anyway). Made me think considerably about how far we've come in terms of environmental regulations and our understanding of weather patterns. I had honestly completely forgotten this even happened until that episode (though it gets a few of the finer details wrong, but nothing catastrophic.)

So the compounds released from burning coal and the compounds found inside natural fog – an aqueous medium made of, you guessed it, water – work together to make droplets of sulphuric acid, the same stuff that makes 'acid rain'. Remind me again why we can't have nuclear power?

scott_karana 10y ago
While I sympathize with your sentiment, it's really disingenuous to play dumb. Chernobyl and Fukushima would immediately come to mind.
- cheald 10y ago
  "Nuclear power isn't 100% harmless" is a bad argument here, given the number of people that due from coal mining and processing and coal-originated externalities on an annual basis. The number of deaths (including future cancer cases) due to Fukushima is estimated to be in the hundreds on the high end. Chernobyl is expected to have killed around 4,000 after cancer takes its toll. That's a miniscule drop in the bucket compared to the number of deaths directly and indirectly attributable to coal power.
- CamperBob2 10y ago
  How many people did these two incidents kill?
labster 10y ago
Because nuclear leaves toxic waste that lasts over 10000 years in the best case; and because wind, hydro, solar, and tidal are better alternatives in most cases.
- CamperBob2 10y ago
  (Shrug) Put it in Antarctica. It'll be fine for 10,000 years there. No one will stumble across it accidentally, and we can get it back if we need it. I've never understood why this is considered a problem.
  - Nadya 10y ago
    How do you route the power from Antarctica to where it needs to be? That'd be an impractically large expense.
    - db48x 10y ago
      You can put the waste there without putting the power plants there.
      - JadeNB 10y ago
        But now you have the problem of transporting large quantities of nuclear waste for long time periods, with little tolerance for delays or stoppages.
        CamperBob2 10y ago
        At some point you have to accept that all energy sources have drawbacks. Besides not making a whole lot of sense, this particular objection is pretty small potatoes compared to toxic fogs that kill people by the thousands, or other fossil fuels that appear to be altering the climate on a planetary scale.
        db48x 10y ago
        No, the existing storage pools at nuclear reactors provide a long-term buffer that can smooth out any irregularities in shipping. After all, there already is such an irregularity. Once you start shipping the waste again, it's not really all that difficult. It's transported in containers which are essentially indestructible.
  - 10y ago
Pxtl 10y ago
Because it's insanely expensive and if we're going to go with the insanely expensive solution we should go with the one that's fully green and has lower start-up costs.
- closeparen 10y ago
  Uh, nuclear costs about the same as conventional coal [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#Energy_Information_Administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#...
MrZongle2 10y ago
"Remind me again why we can't have nuclear power?" Ignorance and fear. The Three Mile Island accident (1979) took place less than two weeks after the release of the movie The China Syndrome, the plot of which featured a coverup of a major nuclear accident. Activists seized the opportunity, and then-President Jimmy Carter (who had personal experience with nuclear engineering) failed to properly rein in public fears or beliefs about the accident (https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=sM1RAAAAIBAJ&sjid=W20DAAAAIBAJ&pg=7107%2C772506 https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=sM1RAAAAIBAJ&sjid=W20D...). Despite a tenuous-at-best link between the accident and human health (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#Health_effects_and_epidemiology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#Hea...), for the longest time it was considered a "disaster". Growth of the nuclear industry in the United States took a major hit at this point. Subsequent films such as Silkwood and general Cold War nuclear war fears did little to change the opinion of the layman that nuclear == bad. The 1986 Chernobyl accident further reinforced these beliefs. People focused on the aftermath of the explosion and the Soviet coverup and generally ignored the underlying causes such as the antiquated design of the reactor and operator error. This incident had a major negative effect on the nuclear industry. The 2011 Fukushima accident was an trainwreck of corporate negligence and insufficient government oversight. The facility, which had been operating since 1971, performed as intended when the earthquake struck but the subsequent tsunami breached the insufficient (identified as such since 2008) seawall and took out the generators powering the shutdown. All these incidents demonstrate cases where negligence or antiquated design can lead to disaster. But few take a look at the successes. France, for instance, is a major user of nuclear energy and has avoided catastrophe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Accidents_and_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Accide...). Fear of nuclear power is akin to "reefer madness" nonsense in the 1940s and 1950s.
- CamperBob2 10y ago
  Wow, that Post-Gazette article is illuminating. I knew Carter was a nuclear engineer, but I wasn't aware of how well-positioned he was to argue against people like Jane Fonda and Ralph Nader, and how ineffective he was at doing so. What an unfortunate lost opportunity. I wonder if Nader's work fighting against nuclear power has ultimately cost more lives than he saved through auto safety advocacy.

aychedee 10y ago

Kind of how mustard gas works, compound that turns to sulphuric acid when it gets wet.

remarkEon 10y ago

There's a new Netflix Original called The Crown, and a few episodes in the London Fog of 1952 is a prominent plot point (no spoilers beyond that, though if you're a history buff it shouldn't be much of a spoiler anyway). Made me think considerably about how far we've come in terms of environmental regulations and our understanding of weather patterns. I had honestly completely forgotten this even happened until that episode (though it gets a few of the finer details wrong, but nothing catastrophic.)