4 ms·
Fellow Brazilian here. Many if not most of our energy comes from hydroelectricity. We just had two catastrophic dam failures in the last few years, causing hund
by emiliobumachar 7y ago
Fellow Brazilian here. Many if not most of our energy comes from hydroelectricity. We just had two catastrophic dam failures in the last few years, causing hundreds of deaths. (mining residue dams unrelated to hydroelectricity). The worldwide death toll record for dam failure is in the hundreds of thousands, long ago in China.
The risks of nuclear power are large on themselves, but they have to be compared with the risks of other types of energy.
A rooftop solar panel installer that falls and dies will make the local news if as much.
And don't even get me started on coal.
- CyanBird 7y agoI live in Uruguay and a shudder runs by my spine to even think of what might happen if Brazil government and companies where to get their hands in a working reactor/plant. Brazilian companies can't be trusted to handle measly mining residue pools, what makes you even dream that the government and companies would be able to handle nuclear plants? Brazil is the absolute perfect example of a country where corruption is so high that it shouldn't be allowed to own nuclear plants.
- emiliobumachar 7y agoBrazil has had a working nuclear plant since the 80's, with no issues of note. It's state-run and far from any borders. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angra_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angra_Nuclear_Power_Plant
- pdorje 7y agoThe Brazilian dictatorship government planned to have ~100 reactors going by 2000. Thankfully, Brazilian incompetence and the Goiania accident helped us a lot here. Many Brazilians still use things like electric showers, at 5000w. So you are there, cleaning your body everyday, or more than once a day -- Brazilians are crazy about showers, for some reason --, even in hot dry climate, and you still have the water heated. Then you create nuclear residue for thousands of years just to keep the Brazilians taste for dry skin and the fervent attachment to the cleanliness of soap. Any discussion on energy has to take into consideration Limits of Growth and similar studies. The idea is always to have a bigger economy e more energy, and more data centers to foster the next big addictive social network. The reflection should be in alternatives to very polluting energy, sure, but also to drop the focus on growth and economic indicators. The fellow Brazilian there talks about deaths. Deaths, and horrible deaths, and deaths of pets, are to be considered. But also drops in quality of life, dead zones, geopolitical defense, economics (as well, because, everything added, nuclear is quite a bit more expensive than anything else), and long-term thinking (more than 100 or 200 years). Mostly, countries like Brazil wish to have nuclear power for the technology, for when it is needed for geopolitical advance. Even if we have non-belic agreements, in the long run, sovereignty depends on such technology. But Angra is enough, plenty and too much already.