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While nuclear is certainly going to be around longer than coal, the impact is just as catastrophic, if not more so than coal. The reason it is hard to see is th

While nuclear is certainly going to be around longer than coal, the impact is just as catastrophic, if not more so than coal. The reason it is hard to see is that the cost of both of these technologies is going to be with us for thousands, and tens of thousands of years. It may also be that solar, wind, and geothermal will also have similar cost integrations over time, but it seems less likely.

CountSessine 7y ago
It may also be that solar, wind, and geothermal will also have similar cost integrations over time, but it seems less likely. Some of the storage technologies associated with solar will almost certainly have huge death tolls associated with them. There's been a proposal that we stack large blocks of concrete into towers with cranes to store solar energy. But this is basically a construction site. We can pretend otherwise, but with cranes and heavy blocks of concrete, it's hard to call this something other than a construction site. Workers and site managers in modern construction sites in developed countries are almost fanatical about safety, and yet accidents happen and people die. And these storage sites would be larger than the cities they supply back-up power to - they would be the largest construction sites ever built.
- bronson 7y ago
  What you’re saying may or may not come true one day but it’s not on anyone’s road map today. Your last sentence veers into science fiction.
  - CountSessine 7y ago
    The future is now! https://qz.com/1355672/stacking-concrete-blocks-is-a-surprisingly-efficient-way-to-store-energy/ https://qz.com/1355672/stacking-concrete-blocks-is-a-surpris... All of the technology surrounding solar storage is science fiction right now - we have lots of things working at a nano-scale. And every one of them has problems when we imagine using them to store nation-sized power. If stacking blocks of concrete is what prevails, then of course we need to compare the death tolls from that to what we see with nuclear and other technologies.
    - bronson 7y ago
      A 20-meter-tall, single-armed crane is the future? According to your article, that’s all that exists now. So, again, maybe or maybe not. You have a long, long way to go first.
    - pfdietz 7y ago
      Pumped hydro is science fiction? No.
    - mimixco 7y ago
      I believe Spain has working salt storage for solar power at commercial scale.[0] [O] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Spain https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Spain
vidarh 7y ago
The death toll and radioactivity released by coal plants exceed Chernobyl and Fukushima ever year to every few years depending on which casualty estimates we go by. And then the long term environmental effects of coal come on top. The vast majority of radioactive material we've released through nuclear accidents is far shorter lived isotopes than what gets released from the coal industry. Chernobyl was mostly Caesium and Strontium isotopes with a half life around 30 years. The comparison is ridiculous.
opo 7y ago
>...While nuclear is certainly going to be around longer than coal, the impact is just as catastrophic, Coal plants will kill more people this year than nuclear has done over the last 100 years - and that includes the Chernobyl accident and the atomic bombs dropped on Japan! In terms of the waste, right now nuclear waste can and should be recycled which would reduce the amount of waste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste Soon it will be possible to use most of the waste as fuel: "...Fast reactors can "burn" long lasting nuclear transuranic waste (TRU) waste components (actinides: reactor-grade plutonium and minor actinides), turning liabilities into assets. Another major waste component, fission products (FP), would stabilize at a lower level of radioactivity than the original natural uranium ore it was attained from in two to four centuries, rather than tens of thousands of years" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor While there are issues with nuclear power, the worry people have about nuclear waste is greatly overblown to say the least. The amounts generated are manageable and in a relatively short amount of time we can use most of this "waste" to generate electricity.

CountSessine 7y ago

It may also be that solar, wind, and geothermal will also have similar cost integrations over time, but it seems less likely. Some of the storage technologies associated with solar will almost certainly have huge death tolls associated with them. There's been a proposal that we stack large blocks of concrete into towers with cranes to store solar energy. But this is basically a construction site. We can pretend otherwise, but with cranes and heavy blocks of concrete, it's hard to call this something other than a construction site. Workers and site managers in modern construction sites in developed countries are almost fanatical about safety, and yet accidents happen and people die. And these storage sites would be larger than the cities they supply back-up power to - they would be the largest construction sites ever built.

bronson 7y ago
What you’re saying may or may not come true one day but it’s not on anyone’s road map today. Your last sentence veers into science fiction.
- CountSessine 7y ago
  The future is now! https://qz.com/1355672/stacking-concrete-blocks-is-a-surprisingly-efficient-way-to-store-energy/ https://qz.com/1355672/stacking-concrete-blocks-is-a-surpris... All of the technology surrounding solar storage is science fiction right now - we have lots of things working at a nano-scale. And every one of them has problems when we imagine using them to store nation-sized power. If stacking blocks of concrete is what prevails, then of course we need to compare the death tolls from that to what we see with nuclear and other technologies.
  - bronson 7y ago
    A 20-meter-tall, single-armed crane is the future? According to your article, that’s all that exists now. So, again, maybe or maybe not. You have a long, long way to go first.
  - pfdietz 7y ago
    Pumped hydro is science fiction? No.
  - mimixco 7y ago
    I believe Spain has working salt storage for solar power at commercial scale.[0] [O] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Spain https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Spain

vidarh 7y ago

The death toll and radioactivity released by coal plants exceed Chernobyl and Fukushima ever year to every few years depending on which casualty estimates we go by. And then the long term environmental effects of coal come on top. The vast majority of radioactive material we've released through nuclear accidents is far shorter lived isotopes than what gets released from the coal industry. Chernobyl was mostly Caesium and Strontium isotopes with a half life around 30 years. The comparison is ridiculous.

opo 7y ago

>...While nuclear is certainly going to be around longer than coal, the impact is just as catastrophic, Coal plants will kill more people this year than nuclear has done over the last 100 years - and that includes the Chernobyl accident and the atomic bombs dropped on Japan! In terms of the waste, right now nuclear waste can and should be recycled which would reduce the amount of waste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste Soon it will be possible to use most of the waste as fuel: "...Fast reactors can "burn" long lasting nuclear transuranic waste (TRU) waste components (actinides: reactor-grade plutonium and minor actinides), turning liabilities into assets. Another major waste component, fission products (FP), would stabilize at a lower level of radioactivity than the original natural uranium ore it was attained from in two to four centuries, rather than tens of thousands of years" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_fast_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor While there are issues with nuclear power, the worry people have about nuclear waste is greatly overblown to say the least. The amounts generated are manageable and in a relatively short amount of time we can use most of this "waste" to generate electricity.