3 ms·

It is not just directly related deaths, but also the area of land made un-inhabitable and the duration for which it will remain un-inhabitable. And the fact tha

It is not just directly related deaths, but also the area of land made un-inhabitable and the duration for which it will remain un-inhabitable. And the fact that we have no workable way of dealing with the waste. Sure it only take a small storage space, but it will be lethal for a million years to come.

arcticbull 8y ago
I think there would be if we chose to invest in it, but it's a chicken and egg problem. The optics preclude investment which precludes development of ways of dealing with the waste. Nuclear power is sort of on hiatus. For instance, Thorium cycle reactors require no enrichment, product two to three orders of magnitude less nuclear waste (whose products have much shorter half-lives) and are much safer than Uranium cycle reactors -- though research only really resumed in 2008 after a 30 year break. One ton of thorium can produce as much energy as 200 tons of Uranium, or 3,500,000 tons of coal. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power
petre 8y ago
Wildlife gets another chance with the land being uninhabitable by humans for 300 years until Cs137 and Sr99 pass 10 lifetimes. A million years is a gross exageration. There are also people currently living in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. They even have a name: samosely.
- arcticbull 8y ago
  They actually continued to operate two of the other reactors at the Chernobyl power plant until Unit 2 was closed in 1991 and Unit 3 in 2000. [1] How crazy is that? [1] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Chernobyl-1-3-enter-decommissioning-phase https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Chernobyl-1-3-en...
  - petre 8y ago
    Well, it was the USSR. 'Gorbachev states, “The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl 20 years ago this month, even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later”' http://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2017/8/21/the-reason-the-ussr-collapsed-chernobyl-gorbachev-and-glasnost http://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2017/8/21/the-reaso...

arcticbull 8y ago

I think there would be if we chose to invest in it, but it's a chicken and egg problem. The optics preclude investment which precludes development of ways of dealing with the waste. Nuclear power is sort of on hiatus. For instance, Thorium cycle reactors require no enrichment, product two to three orders of magnitude less nuclear waste (whose products have much shorter half-lives) and are much safer than Uranium cycle reactors -- though research only really resumed in 2008 after a 30 year break. One ton of thorium can produce as much energy as 200 tons of Uranium, or 3,500,000 tons of coal. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

petre 8y ago

Wildlife gets another chance with the land being uninhabitable by humans for 300 years until Cs137 and Sr99 pass 10 lifetimes. A million years is a gross exageration. There are also people currently living in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. They even have a name: samosely.

arcticbull 8y ago
They actually continued to operate two of the other reactors at the Chernobyl power plant until Unit 2 was closed in 1991 and Unit 3 in 2000. [1] How crazy is that? [1] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Chernobyl-1-3-enter-decommissioning-phase https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Chernobyl-1-3-en...
- petre 8y ago
  Well, it was the USSR. 'Gorbachev states, “The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl 20 years ago this month, even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later”' http://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2017/8/21/the-reason-the-ussr-collapsed-chernobyl-gorbachev-and-glasnost http://www.historyisnowmagazine.com/blog/2017/8/21/the-reaso...