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Taleb would say all this statistics are bullshit, cause they ignore the long tails. I doubt a gas or coal power station can destroy a nation. A nuclear plant ha

by nextos 9y ago

Taleb would say all this statistics are bullshit, cause they ignore the long tails. I doubt a gas or coal power station can destroy a nation. A nuclear plant has the potential to do so.

padseeker 9y ago
That is an excellent comment. The downvotes are already coming in, your comment was grayed out (downvoted) by the time I saw it. No substantive responses yet, just anonymous click revenge. :(
philippnagel 9y ago
It would be interesting to hear his actual opinion on this topic.
wbl 9y ago
Did Chernobyl? The reactor next door kept operating after the accident. A coal fly ash spill closed a river to fishing for weeks. Nuclear accident badness is massively overplayed by the media.
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  Are you seriously being that callous about Chernobyl? Several dozen people died from it. Many more statistically died from radiation exposure over the ensuing decades. Three hundred thousand people were forced to abandon their homes and relocate. Chernobyl was a huge fucking disaster that killed people and had a huge negative impact on many people's lives. You don't get to minimize that just because a nearby reactor kept running.
  - ajmurmann 9y ago
    It didn't"destroy a nation" though which was the point made they are responding to.
ajmurmann 9y ago
Arguably gas and coal power stations are a huge part of what is not only destroying a nation but ids making the entire planet uninhabitable.
jacamat 9y ago
I believe wind and solar are the best solutions for our future. But many concerns mentioned in this thread are becoming irrelevant in the face of emerging nuclear storage technology. For example, the pebble bed reactor system eliminates the risk of a meltdown by no longer storing spent fuel in rods; it also makes the process for extracting fuel significantly more efficient. Presently we can only extract about 4% of energy contained in nuclear materials, with a PBR system the "pebbles" stay in circulation for longer, meaning we can extract more energy and pursue new designs that could ingratiate these systems into our cities without the catastrophic risks we face today. The more people focus on this technology, the better it will get. But we can't improve if we don't try. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble-bed_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble-bed_reactor

by nextos 9y ago

Taleb would say all this statistics are bullshit, cause they ignore the long tails. I doubt a gas or coal power station can destroy a nation. A nuclear plant has the potential to do so.

padseeker 9y ago

That is an excellent comment. The downvotes are already coming in, your comment was grayed out (downvoted) by the time I saw it. No substantive responses yet, just anonymous click revenge. :(

philippnagel 9y ago

It would be interesting to hear his actual opinion on this topic.

wbl 9y ago

Did Chernobyl? The reactor next door kept operating after the accident. A coal fly ash spill closed a river to fishing for weeks. Nuclear accident badness is massively overplayed by the media.

CydeWeys 9y ago
Are you seriously being that callous about Chernobyl? Several dozen people died from it. Many more statistically died from radiation exposure over the ensuing decades. Three hundred thousand people were forced to abandon their homes and relocate. Chernobyl was a huge fucking disaster that killed people and had a huge negative impact on many people's lives. You don't get to minimize that just because a nearby reactor kept running.
- ajmurmann 9y ago
  It didn't"destroy a nation" though which was the point made they are responding to.

ajmurmann 9y ago

Arguably gas and coal power stations are a huge part of what is not only destroying a nation but ids making the entire planet uninhabitable.

jacamat 9y ago

I believe wind and solar are the best solutions for our future. But many concerns mentioned in this thread are becoming irrelevant in the face of emerging nuclear storage technology. For example, the pebble bed reactor system eliminates the risk of a meltdown by no longer storing spent fuel in rods; it also makes the process for extracting fuel significantly more efficient. Presently we can only extract about 4% of energy contained in nuclear materials, with a PBR system the "pebbles" stay in circulation for longer, meaning we can extract more energy and pursue new designs that could ingratiate these systems into our cities without the catastrophic risks we face today. The more people focus on this technology, the better it will get. But we can't improve if we don't try. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble-bed_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble-bed_reactor