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That's not even internally consistent. We have no terrible catastrophes because the others have terrible catastrophes?

by onli 10y ago

vidarh 10y ago
It's more that even Chernobyl is a tiny little blip compared to things like the Banqiao dam failure, even if you take some of the worst long term death toll estimates. And coal kills several times as many people every year in the US alone as what Chernobyl is projected to kill from the accident until the radioactivity released is all gone, even without any accidents.
- onli 10y ago
  That's not what he wrote though. Besides, why is the coal thing used as an argument? That's a good point to make when discussing with someone who wants to replace nuclear energy with coal. But I doubt anyone here has that goal. Something like the dam does not compare, it is not one or the other, and it is not long-lasting damage.
  - vidarh 10y ago
    Se his own answer. My response mirrors his. And there have been coal fires and explosions that have killed more people in single incidents too. The point is that if you're going to worry about risks, the moral thing to do would be to get rid off coal even if your alternative is massive increases in nuclear. > Something like the dam does not compare, it is not one or the other, and it is not long-lasting damage. No it does not, it is several magnitudes more deaths and millions of homeless. As for long-lasting damage, hydro projects are amongst the most devastating power plant projects we have, routinely displacing millions of people from their homes forever, submerging entire cities, destroying vast forest areas and animal habitats, and setting off ticking environmental disasters in the form of rotting vegetation releasing vast amounts of CO2. So, no, dams do not compare - they are some of the least environmentally friendly options we have, and have killed a lot more people (even excluding Banqiao), and made far larger areas uninhabitable.
    - onli 10y ago
      No, that's just not valid. One thing does not become less horrible because another thing is more horrible. The relative horribleness might change, the absolute does not. If you are against coal and therefor for nuclear, that's your choice to make. I'm against both, and thus the whole "but coal kill people too" does not apply at all to my thinking.
      - vidarh 10y ago
        The "but coal kills people too" - at magnitudes higher rate - factors in because it's not a matter of turning things off without replacing it. Turning off nuclear means coal continues to be used for longer. The death rates of coal are so incredibly high that it is immoral and irresponsible to switch off nuclear plants - the way e.g. Germany is doing - as long as coal is being used. The same applies to fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent to well maintained hydro (the caveat being "well maintained" - build a dam and you sign up for eternal maintenance or putting towns downstream at risk of destruction), though the far bigger problem with hydro is environmental impacts and displacement of people. The point is that these debates do not happen in isolation. It's not a matter of disliking one so we turn it off, and that's it. It's a matter of relative risk and relative damage. When you argue against nuclear, without giving another option, the reality is that today you argue for more dangerous, more lethal, more environmentally damaging options, because we are unable to build out sufficient replacement capacity of safer renewables, and lack sufficient storage capacity for them to be suitable for base load. The number of dead from the panicked early decommissioning in Germany due to their dependence on coal, for example, will measure in the thousands, not just in Germany but across Europe - they can't contain their air. The decision was a staggering display of ignorance of the relative risks, and part of the reason why some of us get really upset about these debates. It's not hypotheticals - peoples fears are literally killing people.
      - mpweiher 10y ago
        All energy forms are more deadly than nuclear, sometimes significantly so, and that includes burning wood. Including solar and wind. So what do you want to do? Die? Because without ready access to energy the vast majority of humans will die.
mpweiher 10y ago
Yeah, it is. The only thing that rates as catastrophe is Chernobyl, so singular. And that was 56 direct deaths. Fifty-six. Fukushima, which is widely regarded as a "catastrophe" has zero direct deaths and so far it looks unlikely that effects on mortality will be statistically detectable. What was the worst energy-generation catastrophe? Banqiao Dam, 1973[1]. 170,000 direct deaths. Or that coal explosion with >1000 direct deaths. On those types of scales, even Chernobyl doesn't actually register. And when you take into account long term effects, there simply is no comparison. 100K deaths per T-kWH for coal, 90 for nuclear. So for every death due to nuclear power, there are 1000 deaths due to coal. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
- onli 10y ago
  You are aware that your numbers are wrong? As dark as it is to argue about something like that, but Chernobyl caused many more deaths. Even the WHO predicted 4000, and that is one of the lower figures. This is heavily debated, but to say it was 56 is not even a base for discussion. The cleanup crews alone died in higher numbers. Second: If you look at coal like that, you have to factor in all the deaths caused by nuclear energy, including uran production. That number raises fast as well. Third: I never mentioned coal. Bashing against coal is a typical defence strategy of the nuclear industry, and something I see again and again repeated on HN. It's a very weak strategy imo: It is an obvious strawman, and many people who are against nuclear energy are also against coal. Edit Four: No, it is no case consistent logic. Something does not become not a catastrophe only because another thing is a catastrophe. It might become a lesser evil (that is not the case here), but that's as far as it goes.
  - vidarh 10y ago
    > Even the WHO predicted 4000, and that is one of the lower figures. This is heavily debated, but to say it was 56 is not even a base for discussion. The cleanup crews alone died in higher numbers. The WHO number is number of people expected to die prematurely as a result of Chernobyl. The deathcount he gave is an estimate of direct deaths. They mean very different things. The WHO number includes anyone who can be expected to die sooner, whether their life expectancy has been cut by a decade or a year. It's an important consideration, but it's not in any way directly comparable to the direct deaths numbers. > Second: If you look at coal like that, you have to factor in all the deaths caused by nuclear energy, including uran production. That number raises fast as well. Uranium mines used to be bad. In most present mines the amount of radon miners inhale is no higher than you risk in residential housing in areas with high natural occurence of radon. Even if you went back to unventilated mines to kill miners on purpose, it would still cause fewer radiation deaths than fly ash from coal plants, before even factoring in the other major causes of death from coal plants. > Third: I never mentioned coal. Bashing against coal is a typical defence strategy of the nuclear industry, and something I see again and again repeated on HN. It's a very weak strategy imo: It is an obvious strawman, and many people who are against nuclear energy are also against coal. It is relevant because power plants do not exist in isolation. If you shut down nuclear, it needs to be replaced. None of the alternative we currently have for base load are as safe as nuclear. So if you shut down nuclear plants over fears about them, odds are your replacement generation load will kill far more people. And a lot of places the goto replacement is still coal or oil/gas, which are some of the worst. Stoking fears over nuclear is outright immoral, given the consequences such fears have already had. E.g. the nuclear phaseout in Germany has resulted in continued use of coal at much higher levels than otherwise, to the extent that assuming lethality quivalent to US levels, the phaseout has likely already killed several magnitudes as many as all nuclear accidents combined, on top of the environmental effects.

That's not even internally consistent. We have no terrible catastrophes because the others have terrible catastrophes?

by onli 10y ago

That's not even internally consistent. We have no terrible catastrophes because the others have terrible catastrophes?

It's more that even Chernobyl is a tiny little blip compared to things like the Banqiao dam failure, even if you take some of the worst long term death toll estimates. And coal kills several times as many people every year in the US alone as what Chernobyl is projected to kill from the accident until the radioactivity released is all gone, even without any accidents.

onli 10y ago
That's not what he wrote though. Besides, why is the coal thing used as an argument? That's a good point to make when discussing with someone who wants to replace nuclear energy with coal. But I doubt anyone here has that goal. Something like the dam does not compare, it is not one or the other, and it is not long-lasting damage.
- vidarh 10y ago
  Se his own answer. My response mirrors his. And there have been coal fires and explosions that have killed more people in single incidents too. The point is that if you're going to worry about risks, the moral thing to do would be to get rid off coal even if your alternative is massive increases in nuclear. > Something like the dam does not compare, it is not one or the other, and it is not long-lasting damage. No it does not, it is several magnitudes more deaths and millions of homeless. As for long-lasting damage, hydro projects are amongst the most devastating power plant projects we have, routinely displacing millions of people from their homes forever, submerging entire cities, destroying vast forest areas and animal habitats, and setting off ticking environmental disasters in the form of rotting vegetation releasing vast amounts of CO2. So, no, dams do not compare - they are some of the least environmentally friendly options we have, and have killed a lot more people (even excluding Banqiao), and made far larger areas uninhabitable.
  - onli 10y ago
    No, that's just not valid. One thing does not become less horrible because another thing is more horrible. The relative horribleness might change, the absolute does not. If you are against coal and therefor for nuclear, that's your choice to make. I'm against both, and thus the whole "but coal kill people too" does not apply at all to my thinking.
    - vidarh 10y ago
      The "but coal kills people too" - at magnitudes higher rate - factors in because it's not a matter of turning things off without replacing it. Turning off nuclear means coal continues to be used for longer. The death rates of coal are so incredibly high that it is immoral and irresponsible to switch off nuclear plants - the way e.g. Germany is doing - as long as coal is being used. The same applies to fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent to well maintained hydro (the caveat being "well maintained" - build a dam and you sign up for eternal maintenance or putting towns downstream at risk of destruction), though the far bigger problem with hydro is environmental impacts and displacement of people. The point is that these debates do not happen in isolation. It's not a matter of disliking one so we turn it off, and that's it. It's a matter of relative risk and relative damage. When you argue against nuclear, without giving another option, the reality is that today you argue for more dangerous, more lethal, more environmentally damaging options, because we are unable to build out sufficient replacement capacity of safer renewables, and lack sufficient storage capacity for them to be suitable for base load. The number of dead from the panicked early decommissioning in Germany due to their dependence on coal, for example, will measure in the thousands, not just in Germany but across Europe - they can't contain their air. The decision was a staggering display of ignorance of the relative risks, and part of the reason why some of us get really upset about these debates. It's not hypotheticals - peoples fears are literally killing people.
    - mpweiher 10y ago
      All energy forms are more deadly than nuclear, sometimes significantly so, and that includes burning wood. Including solar and wind. So what do you want to do? Die? Because without ready access to energy the vast majority of humans will die.

mpweiher 10y ago

Yeah, it is. The only thing that rates as catastrophe is Chernobyl, so singular. And that was 56 direct deaths. Fifty-six. Fukushima, which is widely regarded as a "catastrophe" has zero direct deaths and so far it looks unlikely that effects on mortality will be statistically detectable. What was the worst energy-generation catastrophe? Banqiao Dam, 1973[1]. 170,000 direct deaths. Or that coal explosion with >1000 direct deaths. On those types of scales, even Chernobyl doesn't actually register. And when you take into account long term effects, there simply is no comparison. 100K deaths per T-kWH for coal, 90 for nuclear. So for every death due to nuclear power, there are 1000 deaths due to coal. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

onli 10y ago
You are aware that your numbers are wrong? As dark as it is to argue about something like that, but Chernobyl caused many more deaths. Even the WHO predicted 4000, and that is one of the lower figures. This is heavily debated, but to say it was 56 is not even a base for discussion. The cleanup crews alone died in higher numbers. Second: If you look at coal like that, you have to factor in all the deaths caused by nuclear energy, including uran production. That number raises fast as well. Third: I never mentioned coal. Bashing against coal is a typical defence strategy of the nuclear industry, and something I see again and again repeated on HN. It's a very weak strategy imo: It is an obvious strawman, and many people who are against nuclear energy are also against coal. Edit Four: No, it is no case consistent logic. Something does not become not a catastrophe only because another thing is a catastrophe. It might become a lesser evil (that is not the case here), but that's as far as it goes.
- vidarh 10y ago
  > Even the WHO predicted 4000, and that is one of the lower figures. This is heavily debated, but to say it was 56 is not even a base for discussion. The cleanup crews alone died in higher numbers. The WHO number is number of people expected to die prematurely as a result of Chernobyl. The deathcount he gave is an estimate of direct deaths. They mean very different things. The WHO number includes anyone who can be expected to die sooner, whether their life expectancy has been cut by a decade or a year. It's an important consideration, but it's not in any way directly comparable to the direct deaths numbers. > Second: If you look at coal like that, you have to factor in all the deaths caused by nuclear energy, including uran production. That number raises fast as well. Uranium mines used to be bad. In most present mines the amount of radon miners inhale is no higher than you risk in residential housing in areas with high natural occurence of radon. Even if you went back to unventilated mines to kill miners on purpose, it would still cause fewer radiation deaths than fly ash from coal plants, before even factoring in the other major causes of death from coal plants. > Third: I never mentioned coal. Bashing against coal is a typical defence strategy of the nuclear industry, and something I see again and again repeated on HN. It's a very weak strategy imo: It is an obvious strawman, and many people who are against nuclear energy are also against coal. It is relevant because power plants do not exist in isolation. If you shut down nuclear, it needs to be replaced. None of the alternative we currently have for base load are as safe as nuclear. So if you shut down nuclear plants over fears about them, odds are your replacement generation load will kill far more people. And a lot of places the goto replacement is still coal or oil/gas, which are some of the worst. Stoking fears over nuclear is outright immoral, given the consequences such fears have already had. E.g. the nuclear phaseout in Germany has resulted in continued use of coal at much higher levels than otherwise, to the extent that assuming lethality quivalent to US levels, the phaseout has likely already killed several magnitudes as many as all nuclear accidents combined, on top of the environmental effects.