4 ms·
Except for renewables.
by chess_buster 9y ago
Except for renewables.
- rcoveson 9y agoNo, surprising though it may seem, renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and hydro have all caused more deaths proportional to the energy they have produced than nuclear.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoOP wasn't referring to deaths, only that its a demonstrable alternative [1]. Some deaths might be warranted over a fuel that has no waste disposal method. [1] Nuclear is hated due to superstition and fear-mongering. Please don't add to it; it's our only thoroughly demonstrated alternative to large-scale fossil fuel consumption.
- pilom 9y agoNot true. Hydro is a great example. The majority of hydro deaths are caused by dam failures. The most deadly dam failure in the world was the Banqiao Dam. It's failure caused 85,000 direct deaths and an estimated 150,000 deaths due to famine caused by destruction of cropland. Even in the US, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure lists 498 deaths in the US alone since 1945 while generating significantly less power than nuclear has in that time. And that doesn't include the tens of people who die in boating accidents related to dams every single year.
- flukus 9y agoNot all damns are hydro power plants, many are just for water, the kind of steady water supply that nuclear and coal energy need.
- makomk 9y agoThen China had to rebuild the dam in the same location a few years later because, without the flood control that Banqiao Dam was built to provide, there was regular and catastrophic downstream flooding. Anyone who blames those deaths on hydroelectric power is being less than honest. The alternative wasn't those people not dying; the alternative was them dying from dam failure anyway, but without the dam providing power in the meantime. The dam failure seems to have been a direct result of trying to use it to control downstream flooding.