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How can nuclear (fision) energy be safer than wind/solar/hydro? New efficient solar cells should be enough, environment friendly, and safer than other alternati

How can nuclear (fision) energy be safer than wind/solar/hydro? New efficient solar cells should be enough, environment friendly, and safer than other alternatives as long as the manufacturing of these are environment friendly as well. Also, everyone can setup their own solar plant at home, I almost did so, but the price of the materials and the setup are too high for me. I'd like you to consider if nuclear material is useful for something apart from generating energy. It may be useful for other things we don't even know right now, and in the future we may have consumed all the resources.

tboughen 9y ago
I believe it us due to the installation deaths. Typically solar cells are installed on rooftops, which are non-trivially dangerous places to work. Multiply the risk by tens of thousands of installations and we get fatalities due to solar power.
- jesus92gz-spain 9y ago
  You serious? And building an hydroelectric/atomic/coal plant is not dangerous? It's not a too dangerous place, when the people who set these up are professionals who are following a security guideline. I see lots of people working on their roof, so, at least for me, this is a nonsense argument to discredit solar energy.
  - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
    The number should fall as solar becomes something that you add when a roof is constructed, rather than retro-fitted, since that roof work is already being done.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    You have to look at statistics, not just declare that installers are professionals so it's nonsense. Yes, building power plants is dangerous too. The question is, how do they compare? Wikipedia has some stats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents#Fatalities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents#Fatalities Rooftop solar is vastly better than anything fossil fuels, but worse than nuclear, wind, and first-world hydropower.
- bluthru 9y ago
  Yep. Installing solar arrays at ground level is even safer than building a fission plant.
epistasis 9y ago
Working on the roofs of homes is extremely dangerous. This makes residential solar much more deadly than utility-scale solar, for example.
GeneralMayhem 9y ago
The manufacture of solar panels is not as safe or as environmentally friendly as you might hope, just like how buying a new Prius to replace your car is probably a net loss for the environment unless your existing one is already near the end of its useful life.
- jesus92gz-spain 9y ago
  Yes, that's what I'm afraid of. Building solar cells might not be as environment friendly as I'd like, but hey, we can optimize these processes later on. Building a nuclear plant would also be very unfriendly when it comes to ecology.
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  You have to look at the whole market. When you buy a new car the old one gets resold to someone else, which causes yet another even older car to be resold and so on through the market until the oldest, broken-est car actually exits the market (assuming the total market size is static, if it's growing then you need to compare the Prius against the other new cars that would enter the market) so as long as you're replacing existing usage then you're probably doing good.

tboughen 9y ago

I believe it us due to the installation deaths. Typically solar cells are installed on rooftops, which are non-trivially dangerous places to work. Multiply the risk by tens of thousands of installations and we get fatalities due to solar power.

jesus92gz-spain 9y ago
You serious? And building an hydroelectric/atomic/coal plant is not dangerous? It's not a too dangerous place, when the people who set these up are professionals who are following a security guideline. I see lots of people working on their roof, so, at least for me, this is a nonsense argument to discredit solar energy.
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  The number should fall as solar becomes something that you add when a roof is constructed, rather than retro-fitted, since that roof work is already being done.
- mikeash 9y ago
  You have to look at statistics, not just declare that installers are professionals so it's nonsense. Yes, building power plants is dangerous too. The question is, how do they compare? Wikipedia has some stats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents#Fatalities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents#Fatalities Rooftop solar is vastly better than anything fossil fuels, but worse than nuclear, wind, and first-world hydropower.
bluthru 9y ago
Yep. Installing solar arrays at ground level is even safer than building a fission plant.

epistasis 9y ago

Working on the roofs of homes is extremely dangerous. This makes residential solar much more deadly than utility-scale solar, for example.

GeneralMayhem 9y ago

The manufacture of solar panels is not as safe or as environmentally friendly as you might hope, just like how buying a new Prius to replace your car is probably a net loss for the environment unless your existing one is already near the end of its useful life.

jesus92gz-spain 9y ago
Yes, that's what I'm afraid of. Building solar cells might not be as environment friendly as I'd like, but hey, we can optimize these processes later on. Building a nuclear plant would also be very unfriendly when it comes to ecology.
ZeroGravitas 9y ago
You have to look at the whole market. When you buy a new car the old one gets resold to someone else, which causes yet another even older car to be resold and so on through the market until the oldest, broken-est car actually exits the market (assuming the total market size is static, if it's growing then you need to compare the Prius against the other new cars that would enter the market) so as long as you're replacing existing usage then you're probably doing good.