5 ms·

Are you sure about that? Wouldn't a 1 or 2 degrees temperature increase be preferable to nuclear meltdowns becoming more frequent because we get much more nucle

by flexie 10y ago

Are you sure about that? Wouldn't a 1 or 2 degrees temperature increase be preferable to nuclear meltdowns becoming more frequent because we get much more nuclear power plants?

Bluestrike2 10y ago
And just how common are nuclear meltdowns over time? It's a flawed risk analysis, further mitigated by newer Gen-IV reactor designs that are going to be coming out of China and India before long. Altogether, there have only been two INES level 7 incidents and one level 6 incident since 1954 [0]. And while unfortunate and expensive, they're incidents that can be cleaned up and recovered from. By contrast, you're stuck with the consequences of a 1-2 degree temperature increase. And they're guaranteed, and will be around for centuries before the carbon cycle could ever even hope to compensate. The loss of low-lying property and other problems tied to rising sea levels would be in the tens of trillions [1]. People tend to bake in all sorts of potential negative externalities for nuclear energy, and much of that's baked into current regulations. Unfortunately, the same isn't done for other energy sources. When you start to try and look at those externalities (and that's a very difficult task, as many are hard to precisely measure), it can drastically change the math involved. And many of those negative consequences aren't a matter of chance. They're 100% guaranteed byproducts, especially with coal for instance. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Sc... 1. http://www.un.org/climatechange/blog/2014/06/sea-level-rise-in-small-island-nations-up-to-four-times-the-global-average-to-cost-us-trillions-in-annual-economic-loss-and-impede-future-development-shift-to-green-policies-and-investment-criti/ http://www.un.org/climatechange/blog/2014/06/sea-level-rise-...
- flexie 10y ago
  Easy now. It's not an analysis, it's a question. Here are the costs of just a single nuclear disaster, one considered minor: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/getinvolved/They-profit-you-pay/ http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/getinvolved/They-... Please bear in mind that this was the most conservative estimate I found when googling. According to the below post, even a relatively nuclear heavy country like the US would need 5 times more nuclear power to cover the electricity need: https://www.quora.com/How-many-nuclear-reactors-would-be-required-to-power-the-United-States https://www.quora.com/How-many-nuclear-reactors-would-be-req... So, on a global scale that would be many new reactors, including many in countries with dubious safety records in other areas.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
abalone 10y ago
You may not fully appreciate the truly massive destructive effects of a global increase of 2 degrees.[1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming
vilhelm_s 10y ago
The effect of the Fukushima meltdown was that 156,000 people were displaced, although some people say that this was an over-reaction and the exclusion zone could be much smaller [1,2]. Climate change is expected to displace 150 - 200 million people by 2050 [3], so it corresponds to about a thousand meltdowns. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_the_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_the_Fuk... [2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35761136 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35761136 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_migrant#Enumeration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_migrant#Enumerat...

by flexie 10y ago

Are you sure about that? Wouldn't a 1 or 2 degrees temperature increase be preferable to nuclear meltdowns becoming more frequent because we get much more nuclear power plants?

Bluestrike2 10y ago

And just how common are nuclear meltdowns over time? It's a flawed risk analysis, further mitigated by newer Gen-IV reactor designs that are going to be coming out of China and India before long. Altogether, there have only been two INES level 7 incidents and one level 6 incident since 1954 [0]. And while unfortunate and expensive, they're incidents that can be cleaned up and recovered from. By contrast, you're stuck with the consequences of a 1-2 degree temperature increase. And they're guaranteed, and will be around for centuries before the carbon cycle could ever even hope to compensate. The loss of low-lying property and other problems tied to rising sea levels would be in the tens of trillions [1]. People tend to bake in all sorts of potential negative externalities for nuclear energy, and much of that's baked into current regulations. Unfortunately, the same isn't done for other energy sources. When you start to try and look at those externalities (and that's a very difficult task, as many are hard to precisely measure), it can drastically change the math involved. And many of those negative consequences aren't a matter of chance. They're 100% guaranteed byproducts, especially with coal for instance. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Sc... 1. http://www.un.org/climatechange/blog/2014/06/sea-level-rise-in-small-island-nations-up-to-four-times-the-global-average-to-cost-us-trillions-in-annual-economic-loss-and-impede-future-development-shift-to-green-policies-and-investment-criti/ http://www.un.org/climatechange/blog/2014/06/sea-level-rise-...

flexie 10y ago
Easy now. It's not an analysis, it's a question. Here are the costs of just a single nuclear disaster, one considered minor: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/getinvolved/They-profit-you-pay/ http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/getinvolved/They-... Please bear in mind that this was the most conservative estimate I found when googling. According to the below post, even a relatively nuclear heavy country like the US would need 5 times more nuclear power to cover the electricity need: https://www.quora.com/How-many-nuclear-reactors-would-be-required-to-power-the-United-States https://www.quora.com/How-many-nuclear-reactors-would-be-req... So, on a global scale that would be many new reactors, including many in countries with dubious safety records in other areas.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

abalone 10y ago

You may not fully appreciate the truly massive destructive effects of a global increase of 2 degrees.[1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming

vilhelm_s 10y ago

The effect of the Fukushima meltdown was that 156,000 people were displaced, although some people say that this was an over-reaction and the exclusion zone could be much smaller [1,2]. Climate change is expected to displace 150 - 200 million people by 2050 [3], so it corresponds to about a thousand meltdowns. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_the_Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_effects_from_the_Fuk... [2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35761136 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35761136 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_migrant#Enumeration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_migrant#Enumerat...