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I grew up near Chernobyl. My parents still work on CNPP (which was closed in 2000 but still needs personnel). In my opinion nuclear is the only reallistic solut
by option 8y ago
I grew up near Chernobyl. My parents still work on CNPP (which was closed in 2000 but still needs personnel).
In my opinion nuclear is the only reallistic solution to solve global warming. Per kw produced it is safer than even solar or wind and modern reactors are even safer.
I now live in bay area and have high end solar panels. While this is a nice thing, looking at their output - it is just not enough (covers our family consumption at about 70%, this is house plus electric cars, but, obviously, not including products consumed and long distance travel. And this is California)
- capsulecorp 8y agoNot to be rude but that seems like a silly qualification to be speaking on a matter. I grew up next to a Lockheed factory and my father worked for NASA, but I fail to see how that qualifies me to comment on what a "realistic" solution for interstellar travel would be.
- option 8y agoYes, this is anecdotal evidence. But having grew up there I obviously read up about it a lot and this is why I am speaking my opinion on this matter. Also, in my opinion, what I saw written about it in the US media is fear mongering or outright lies about death tolls, radiation levels in nearby areas, cancer rates, etc. To give you an example. Did you know that CNPP was profitably working until 2000 while the disaster was in 1986? Or another, fact - CNPP is an almost exact copy of an older nuclear plant which still profitably produces clean energy near St. Petersburg in Russia
- petre 8y agoYes but the RBMK is still an irresponsible design: highly positive void coeficient, no containment, then the control rod misdesign which was fixed. VVER reactors (Russian PWRs) are much more safer by contrast. Of course it was profitable, it ran on natural Uranium and it was cheaper to build (no containnent). You should watch the "A is for Atom" episode from Adam Curtis "Pandora's Box" series. It also talks about US designs and how they upscaled the naval PWRs to utility level which was not deemed safe by nuclear scientists of the time.
- option 8y agoI am not advocating for building more CNPP - like plants. Those reactors are obsolete. There are much, much safer options now ( such as generation 3 reactors in US). However, even those older designes are statistically much safer than coal - how many people died just in coal mines colapses?
- capsulecorp 8y ago>But having grew up there I obviously read up about it a lot I disagree, what you read isn't obvious and still doesn't qualify you to speak on the matter unless it was legitimate and vetted information. Reading a bunch of infowars doesn't make me a legitimate political commentator.
- jason0597 8y agoHow do you know what they read?
- capsulecorp 8y agoExactly my point, I don't know, and it isn't "obvious" as he claims. For all I know its the equivalent of infowars, skepticism is my default position, like it or not.
- gricardo99 8y agoI think he’s speaking as someone whose family history is directly impacted by a nuclear disaster, the fear of which has greatly affected the politics of nuclear power. Sure that doesn’t qualify as expert opinion, but that also only gets you so far. In a debate that gets emotional it can’t hurt to have someone stand up and say “yes, bad things can happen. It happened to me and my family, but I still support it because it makes sense overall”
- sjwright 8y agoIt's a valid qualification to speak on the reasonableness of community fears. As someone who grew up near a Lockheed factory and a father that worked for NASA, you are qualified to speak about the community impacts of building and operating flying machines.
- dorgo 8y ago>Per kw produced it is safer than even solar or wind how do you define "safer"?
- option 8y agoless deaths. I was myself surprised when I learned this, but apparently people fall off while installing solar and wind; combine that with much smaller energy output and you'll get nuclear to be the safest
- peterashford 8y agoRooftop solar is quite different to industrial solar plants. The latter is on the ground, for example. Also, the installation of the latter is less ad-hoc and not done by small scale operators. I don't think the safety of a large power plant vs lots of home power installations is at all a fair metric.
- godelski 8y agoThe people falling off is just one example of death, not the only. You have to include total solar, industrial and home. But you get numbers that show that per kwhr nuclear results in less deaths (even when including predictions of deaths caused by future cancer incidents from Chernobyl and Fukushima). It honestly is a surprising result.
- sjwright 8y agoThe definition of "safer" is fewer people killed per kilowatt hour of energy generated. By that very reasonable metric, nuclear power is objectively less deadly than rooftop solar or wind turbines.
- michaelmrose 8y agoPeople are usually more ok with predictable risks that can be mitigated by the parties involved. Example taking proper safety precautions against falls vs oops we melted down and gave you cancer 10 years later.