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Since this is Hacker News, I knew it would be nuclear before opening the article. And for an article making use of the word 'source' multiple times, it sure do

by davedx 9y ago

Since this is Hacker News, I knew it would be nuclear before opening the article. And for an article making use of the word 'source' multiple times, it sure doesn't provide any, does it? What a surprise. Where do the 150 deaths per 1000 TWh from wind energy come from? Skeptical minds would like to know.

vezycash 9y ago
Nuclear is safer than solar? (Couldn't read the article, because the read more button needs JavaScript.)
- kingkongjaffa 9y ago
  The materials and quantities of said materials, needed to make solar panels, are dug up from the ground, mines are not very safe.
  - bloak 9y ago
    It's probably totally against the Hacker News comment guidelines for me to say this, but do you think people could perhaps stop globally replacing "the" with "said"? This meme, or whatever it is, is getting rather old and rather irritating. But if for some reason people feel it's necessary, by all means carry on and I'll try not to complain again.
    - deaps 9y ago
      The use totally fits the definition: adjective: said 1. used in legal language or humorously to refer to someone or something already mentioned or named.
    - Spare_account 9y ago
      It's not a meme, it's a valid use of that word.
      - bloak 9y ago
        Sure. It's used in patents, for example. But recently it has been massively overused in online discussions and it's no longer funny (if it ever was). It seems to roughly fit this definition of "meme": "an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users". Clearly this is the wrong place for this discussion. Is there a right place to discuss it, from a linguistic/sociological/stylistic point of view? Not that I really should... I'm just trying to avoid an unpleasant task that I really ought to be doing.
        Spare_account 8y ago
        >Is there a right place to discuss it, from a linguistic/sociological/stylistic point of view? The first place that springs to mind is https://english.stackexchange.com/ https://english.stackexchange.com/ I've seen other forums with good quality contributions on topics like this, I think one of them was for people speaking English as a second language looking for advice from native speakers. The name eludes me at the moment but if I come across it again I'll respond here with it.
- bryanlarsen 9y ago
  They specifically said rooftop solar. I imagine it's the rooftop part where the deaths come from.
simonh 9y ago
EDITED - Found it. Complete report on wind farm related accidents and deaths world wide. It's pretty extensive, so I've not had a chance to check it in any way. It seems to go up to 2018. It seems to include things like studies on increased suicides from the noise. It's a PDF so not very easy to analyse the figures. http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/fullaccidents.pdf http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/fullaccidents.pdf
- joosters 9y ago
  I wonder how they extrapolated from a list of accidents into deaths per 1,000TWh? Do you divide the estimated world output by the number of deaths? Do you 'weight' deaths by the year in which they happened and the output at that time? There's lots of ways to mangle those figures...
  - simonh 9y ago
    No idea, but the other issue is are the same criteria being applied for each source of power? I've got no problem accepting that industrial accidents happen with wind turbine manufacture, installation and maintenance. Also that it's reasonable to include all those in the figures, after all if a particular form of power generation involves a lot of industrial accidents, that's a problem. There's just not enough info to see if these figures are truly comparable. Maybe they are, I just can't tell and on a highly charged issue like this you really need to be able to trust the figures you're looking at.
- jusssi 9y ago
  This list seems to include some incidents that are only tangentially related to wind power: "Second of three public fatalities at the same location put down to driver distraction. Accident spot is where turbines become visible to drivers" "34 year old was killed when his car collided with a truck carrying large wind turbine components" "47-yr old man killed when the snowmobile he was driving stuck a fence around a wind farm construction site"
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
mattlondon 9y ago
Likewise - was keen to understand what deaths are attributable to solar panels as well, especially since they wre more than turbines. For wind turbines I can kind of imagine a few disaster scenarios (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-16115139/storm-caused-wind-turbine-fire http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-16115139/storm-caused-wind-t...) with all the large, heavy, moving parts swinging around at height. But solar? The same solar panels that sit there stationary like widow glass or floor tiles with zero moving parts? I guess there are deaths from the manufacturing and raw resource extraction? Otherwise I can only assume they include people falling off of the roof installing them?
- pasta 9y ago
  Yes, it's because people are falling of a roof while installing panels.
Tarrosion 9y ago
Here's a similar article with lots of sources (which also reports nuclear as extremely safe): https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy
- davedx 9y ago
  I can't find wind or solar in that article?
hoppi 9y ago
If you follow the links that are inlined in the article you eventually find referenced articles that they themselves have then referenced. Not optimal. These are the linked articles that contain the references for this data (haven't checked it out so I am assuming on a cursory glance) https://forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/#7b6f0c06151a https://forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-death... and https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy
PJDK 9y ago
I don't know how this article calculates things, but both Solar and Wind require lots of sites, and lots of working at heights. Every time someone goes up on a roof to instal a panel there is a non zero chance that they will fall off and die. The kind of people installing domestic solar don't tend to perform the same level of health and safety analysis as those installing nuclear reactors!
- sametmax 9y ago
  Plus the radiation from the 3 major nuclear accidents caused a lot of problems the article doesn't acknowledge. In France the number of cancers increased a lot for the generation living on the east border during Tchernobyl. One of my friends had to have his thyroid removed. Fukushima is still leaking radiation in the ocean (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/fukushima-nuclear-disaster-radiation-lethal-levels-leak-japan-tsunami-tokyo-electric-power-company-a8190981.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/fukushima-nucl...) and we can't (don't ?) measure the consequences. Then of course you have the burring sites. And the fact it's used to create bombs and we need only to fail one time to prevent a terrorist to getting one, but they can try again and again. So yes, nuclear energy is an interesting source of technology, but it's not the perfect source HN readers love to depict. It's also very expensive, and the calculations for the cost of nuclear energy usually completely ignore the cost of destroying the plant on retirement. I'm glad we have it, it has many benefits, but let's keep trying to find something better. Wind, solar, fusion...
  - imglorp 9y ago
    Maybe when Big Solar has as many lobbyists, astroturfers and PR shills as the defense contractors that build the nuclear stuff, we'll start to see the other kind of article :)
    - supreme_sublime 9y ago
      2 nuclear power plants in the US in the last 20 years. [0] These shills, lobbyists, and astroturfers need to get better at their job for the defense contractors. [0] - https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=228&t=21 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=228&t=21
dwighttk 9y ago
Has wind produced 1000TWh of energy yet?

by davedx 9y ago

vezycash 9y ago

Nuclear is safer than solar? (Couldn't read the article, because the read more button needs JavaScript.)

kingkongjaffa 9y ago
The materials and quantities of said materials, needed to make solar panels, are dug up from the ground, mines are not very safe.
- bloak 9y ago
  It's probably totally against the Hacker News comment guidelines for me to say this, but do you think people could perhaps stop globally replacing "the" with "said"? This meme, or whatever it is, is getting rather old and rather irritating. But if for some reason people feel it's necessary, by all means carry on and I'll try not to complain again.
  - deaps 9y ago
    The use totally fits the definition: adjective: said 1. used in legal language or humorously to refer to someone or something already mentioned or named.
  - Spare_account 9y ago
    It's not a meme, it's a valid use of that word.
    - bloak 9y ago
      Sure. It's used in patents, for example. But recently it has been massively overused in online discussions and it's no longer funny (if it ever was). It seems to roughly fit this definition of "meme": "an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users". Clearly this is the wrong place for this discussion. Is there a right place to discuss it, from a linguistic/sociological/stylistic point of view? Not that I really should... I'm just trying to avoid an unpleasant task that I really ought to be doing.
      - Spare_account 8y ago
        >Is there a right place to discuss it, from a linguistic/sociological/stylistic point of view? The first place that springs to mind is https://english.stackexchange.com/ https://english.stackexchange.com/ I've seen other forums with good quality contributions on topics like this, I think one of them was for people speaking English as a second language looking for advice from native speakers. The name eludes me at the moment but if I come across it again I'll respond here with it.
bryanlarsen 9y ago
They specifically said rooftop solar. I imagine it's the rooftop part where the deaths come from.

simonh 9y ago

EDITED - Found it. Complete report on wind farm related accidents and deaths world wide. It's pretty extensive, so I've not had a chance to check it in any way. It seems to go up to 2018. It seems to include things like studies on increased suicides from the noise. It's a PDF so not very easy to analyse the figures. http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/fullaccidents.pdf http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/fullaccidents.pdf

joosters 9y ago
I wonder how they extrapolated from a list of accidents into deaths per 1,000TWh? Do you divide the estimated world output by the number of deaths? Do you 'weight' deaths by the year in which they happened and the output at that time? There's lots of ways to mangle those figures...
- simonh 9y ago
  No idea, but the other issue is are the same criteria being applied for each source of power? I've got no problem accepting that industrial accidents happen with wind turbine manufacture, installation and maintenance. Also that it's reasonable to include all those in the figures, after all if a particular form of power generation involves a lot of industrial accidents, that's a problem. There's just not enough info to see if these figures are truly comparable. Maybe they are, I just can't tell and on a highly charged issue like this you really need to be able to trust the figures you're looking at.
jusssi 9y ago
This list seems to include some incidents that are only tangentially related to wind power: "Second of three public fatalities at the same location put down to driver distraction. Accident spot is where turbines become visible to drivers" "34 year old was killed when his car collided with a truck carrying large wind turbine components" "47-yr old man killed when the snowmobile he was driving stuck a fence around a wind farm construction site"
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

mattlondon 9y ago

Likewise - was keen to understand what deaths are attributable to solar panels as well, especially since they wre more than turbines. For wind turbines I can kind of imagine a few disaster scenarios (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-16115139/storm-caused-wind-turbine-fire http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-16115139/storm-caused-wind-t...) with all the large, heavy, moving parts swinging around at height. But solar? The same solar panels that sit there stationary like widow glass or floor tiles with zero moving parts? I guess there are deaths from the manufacturing and raw resource extraction? Otherwise I can only assume they include people falling off of the roof installing them?

pasta 9y ago
Yes, it's because people are falling of a roof while installing panels.

Tarrosion 9y ago

Here's a similar article with lots of sources (which also reports nuclear as extremely safe): https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy

davedx 9y ago
I can't find wind or solar in that article?

hoppi 9y ago

If you follow the links that are inlined in the article you eventually find referenced articles that they themselves have then referenced. Not optimal. These are the linked articles that contain the references for this data (haven't checked it out so I am assuming on a cursory glance) https://forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/#7b6f0c06151a https://forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-death... and https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy

PJDK 9y ago

I don't know how this article calculates things, but both Solar and Wind require lots of sites, and lots of working at heights. Every time someone goes up on a roof to instal a panel there is a non zero chance that they will fall off and die. The kind of people installing domestic solar don't tend to perform the same level of health and safety analysis as those installing nuclear reactors!

sametmax 9y ago
Plus the radiation from the 3 major nuclear accidents caused a lot of problems the article doesn't acknowledge. In France the number of cancers increased a lot for the generation living on the east border during Tchernobyl. One of my friends had to have his thyroid removed. Fukushima is still leaking radiation in the ocean (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/fukushima-nuclear-disaster-radiation-lethal-levels-leak-japan-tsunami-tokyo-electric-power-company-a8190981.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/fukushima-nucl...) and we can't (don't ?) measure the consequences. Then of course you have the burring sites. And the fact it's used to create bombs and we need only to fail one time to prevent a terrorist to getting one, but they can try again and again. So yes, nuclear energy is an interesting source of technology, but it's not the perfect source HN readers love to depict. It's also very expensive, and the calculations for the cost of nuclear energy usually completely ignore the cost of destroying the plant on retirement. I'm glad we have it, it has many benefits, but let's keep trying to find something better. Wind, solar, fusion...
- imglorp 9y ago
  Maybe when Big Solar has as many lobbyists, astroturfers and PR shills as the defense contractors that build the nuclear stuff, we'll start to see the other kind of article :)
  - supreme_sublime 9y ago
    2 nuclear power plants in the US in the last 20 years. [0] These shills, lobbyists, and astroturfers need to get better at their job for the defense contractors. [0] - https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=228&t=21 https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=228&t=21

dwighttk 9y ago

Has wind produced 1000TWh of energy yet?