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I'm generally in favor of nuclear power, but I recognize that there's some reasonable ground for opposing its development on grounds of potential catastrophe or
by maxander 7y ago
I'm generally in favor of nuclear power, but I recognize that there's some reasonable ground for opposing its development on grounds of potential catastrophe or radiation leakage risk. What gets me, rather, is that while we as a society have rejected nuclear power plants as too dangerous, we're still sitting on thousands and thousands of nuclear weapons- and still building more in the present day! [0] The failure of anti-nuclear activists to address the kind of nuclear technologies which can actually be catastrophic, while instead focusing on those which are constructive and at least generally safe, is maddening.
[0] https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-nuclear-weapons-modernization https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-nuclear-weapons-moderniz...
- 0xffff2 7y agoThe grounds really aren't that reasonable. Nuclear has potential for catastrophe, but coal and other fossil fuels are a constant ongoing catastrophe by their very nature even if you disregard climate change. It would take many, many nuclear disasters for nuclear to come even remotely close to killing as many people as fossil fuel energy generation already has. https://climate.nasa.gov/news/903/coal-and-gas-are-far-more-harmful-than-nuclear-power/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/903/coal-and-gas-are-far-more-...
- pfdietz 7y agoArguiung that we should stick with nuclear because it's cleaner than coal is like saying we should continue with gasoline fueled cars because they're cleaner than horses. It's looking at the wrong competition.
- 0xffff2 7y agoHuh? This analogy makes no sense to me at all. Which is cleaner is only incidentally related to my point. Nuclear is safer than goal in terms of deaths caused by such a tremendous margin that no single nuclear catastrophe could possibly even make a dent.
- pfdietz 7y agoSubstitute "better" for "cleaner". The point is nuclear is not competing (just) with coal, it's competing with every other alternative and combinations of alternatives. For nuclear to be preferable it has to beat all of them, not just one of them. Comparing it to just coal is a species of strawman argument.
- 0xffff2 7y agoNuclear is the only alternative on a scale that can actually replace fossil fuel plants in a reasonable time scale. It does beat coal oil and gas. Solar, wind and hydro aren't going to come close to fulfilling our energy needs on their own (probably ever, certainly not in the next several decades).
- pfdietz 7y ago> Nuclear is the only alternative on a scale that can actually replace fossil fuel plants in a reasonable time scale. Why do you people keep saying that? It's not true, and it's obvious that it's not true. It's not true in two ways: renewables can do so, and nuclear can't do so (too expensive, too risky, too dangeous for proliferation).