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I grew up near Chernobyl and my parents still work there. A lot of what people see in the media about nuclear is fear mongering lies. The recent “documentaries”

by option 7y ago

I grew up near Chernobyl and my parents still work there. A lot of what people see in the media about nuclear is fear mongering lies. The recent “documentaries” on this topic further delays any progress on fighting global warming.

SiempreViernes 7y ago
Opposition to carbon tax is the real blocker to rapid progress, more nuclear power ranks in the "nice to have" list.
- manfredo 7y ago
  Opposition to a carbon tax is much more down to earth. The people who will mostly be paying carbon taxes are rural people who rely on automobiles for transport, and need more energy to deliver power, plumbing, and goods over longer distances. There's a reason why urban people favor carbon taxes and the rest do not: the former won't be paying nearly as much. And since rural people tend to be poorer this makes a carbon tax highly regressive. Offering tax credits for reducing carbon emissions is fundamentally the same thing, but people oppose it because many times the people earnings these credits still use fossil fuels but are switching from coal to gas. Many oppose any development of fossil fuel power, even if it reduces emissions.
  - SiempreViernes 7y ago
    The reasoning for the opposition is largely irrelevant to the question of which blocking actions harms our survival chances the most.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > The reasoning for the opposition is largely irrelevant to the question of which blocking actions harms our survival chances the most. It's not at all, because the reason for opposition is directly relevant to the question of which failures to address the reasons for opposition are, in fact, “blocking actions” that harm our survival the most. Perhaps more importantly, it's relevant to the fix instead of blame issue of which approached to address opposition are likely to be most fruitful in improving our survival chances. Which is, to me, the more important question: I'd rather human civilization survive than be able to efficiently place the blame for it's collapse.
      - SiempreViernes 7y ago
        Sure, but that was not the context of my statement and not a discussion I'm interested in having here. Also, (and this is the real reason for this reply) that was some pretty bad use of italics. You just made your text harder to read mate, and honestly I just skimmed it.
    - manfredo 7y ago
      It is highly relevant. Failure to understand the reasoning of the opposition makes it hard for those that do want to reduce emissions to gain office, which drastically reduces the ability to introduce changes to limit climate change.
- option 7y ago
  carbon tax is a great idea. But we still need to get clean energy from somewhere. Reducing (energy) consumption is not a long term answer
  - SiempreViernes 7y ago
    The sun is a more logical source if you talk long term, the sun is likely to destroy the earth before it stops being a viable source of energy. Meanwhile nuclear uses up finite stores of fuel and exotic materials for the containment and control systems.
    - ars 7y ago
      It's not quite that simple, to harvest the sun you need machines, and those machines take a lot of resources to built. You need to calculate the trade-offs of those resources vs resources used for other types of energy. The "sun" part of the question is the least interesting part.
      - fyfy18 7y ago
        The CO2 in the production, transport and installation of solar panels leads to an equivalent CO2 output of 50g per kWh. This compares to 975g per kWh for coal. Solar still wins. https://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/blogs/how-much-co2-does-one-solar-panel-create https://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/blogs/ho... I'm currently building a house quite north at 55N. I plan to install a solar PV system that will make the house a net-zero energy consumer (everything is electric, no fossil fuels). It should pay for itself in around 10 years and then continue producing electricity for another 15 before warranties run out. After that the electrical equipment may need to be replaced, but the panels themselves should be fine. If it makes sense here, it can make sense almost anywhere.
        ars 7y ago
        > leads to an equivalent CO2 output of 50g per kWh Like I said, it's not so simple, nuclear is 66 g/kWh, and does not have intermittency issues. > that will make the house a net-zero energy consumer (everything is electric, no fossil fuels). Are you heating with electricity as well? Because that's really bad for the environment, even with PV. (Because if you heated with natural gas, you could send your PV electricity to another grid consumer and avoid more hydrocarbon fuel being burned.) If yes, are you at least using a ground-source heat pump? (Although even there natural gas is better - install a "gas absorption heat pump" if you really want to minimize your emissions.) > If it makes sense here, it can make sense almost anywhere. In small quantities yes, but if everyone did that you need something to generate electricity at night. To me nuclear wins easily.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  Opposition to carbon tax is also doing more to negatively impact nuclear adoption than any documentary; a carbon tax is, effectively, a subsidy to any carbon neutral generation method, including nuclear.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
option 7y ago
As a thought experiment - by delaying the adoption of nuclear power, the creators of recent HBO series are probably going to be implicitly responsible for more deaths and habitat destruction than CHNPP explosion was. EDIT: their work isn’t simply journalism. They intentionally dramatized and lied about things - radiation being contagious, radiation bringing down helicopter, etc.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > As a thought experiment - by delaying the adoption of nuclear power, the creators of recent HBO series are probably going to be implicitly responsible for more deaths and habitat destruction than CHNPP explosion was. That's not a thought experiment, that's just an unsupported claim. Further, it's not like there was a rush to adopt nuclear power that was abandoned as a result of public response to the Chernobyl miniseries. Even further, it is not even the case that the miniseries implicated nuclear power in the accident, which it went out of its way to lay at the foot of corner-cutting by the Soviet bureaucracy causing an accident for which all the knowledge needed to prevent it absolutely existed within the system, it was just (in the narrative of the miniseries) not acted on and actively walled off from the people actually involved.
  - autokad 7y ago
    I disagree with his hypothesis but: "A thought experiment considers a hypothesis, theory, or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences."
    - option 7y ago
      care to elaborate why you disagree? Suppose that show delayed/reduced nuclear usage by 1%. Than that capacity is filled by coal or oil (sun and wind can’t fill for nuclear - nuclear should fill for them when they arent available). The coal and oil is responsible for a lot of deaths due to the pollution, multiply that by 1% and you’ll get a lot of deaths
- dmix 7y ago
cowmoo728 7y ago
There has been a little bit of an update on views of chernobyl. Despite being considered the worst nuclear accident of all time, the actual death and damage toll from chernobyl is minimal compared to more boring things like coal dust and air pollution. This is a self-professed anti-nuclear hippy giving a talk about how rationally looking at chernobyl and fukushima made him a nuclear power advocate. https://youtu.be/ciStnd9Y2ak https://youtu.be/ciStnd9Y2ak

by option 7y ago

SiempreViernes 7y ago

Opposition to carbon tax is the real blocker to rapid progress, more nuclear power ranks in the "nice to have" list.

manfredo 7y ago
Opposition to a carbon tax is much more down to earth. The people who will mostly be paying carbon taxes are rural people who rely on automobiles for transport, and need more energy to deliver power, plumbing, and goods over longer distances. There's a reason why urban people favor carbon taxes and the rest do not: the former won't be paying nearly as much. And since rural people tend to be poorer this makes a carbon tax highly regressive. Offering tax credits for reducing carbon emissions is fundamentally the same thing, but people oppose it because many times the people earnings these credits still use fossil fuels but are switching from coal to gas. Many oppose any development of fossil fuel power, even if it reduces emissions.
- SiempreViernes 7y ago
  The reasoning for the opposition is largely irrelevant to the question of which blocking actions harms our survival chances the most.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > The reasoning for the opposition is largely irrelevant to the question of which blocking actions harms our survival chances the most. It's not at all, because the reason for opposition is directly relevant to the question of which failures to address the reasons for opposition are, in fact, “blocking actions” that harm our survival the most. Perhaps more importantly, it's relevant to the fix instead of blame issue of which approached to address opposition are likely to be most fruitful in improving our survival chances. Which is, to me, the more important question: I'd rather human civilization survive than be able to efficiently place the blame for it's collapse.
    - SiempreViernes 7y ago
      Sure, but that was not the context of my statement and not a discussion I'm interested in having here. Also, (and this is the real reason for this reply) that was some pretty bad use of italics. You just made your text harder to read mate, and honestly I just skimmed it.
  - manfredo 7y ago
    It is highly relevant. Failure to understand the reasoning of the opposition makes it hard for those that do want to reduce emissions to gain office, which drastically reduces the ability to introduce changes to limit climate change.
option 7y ago
carbon tax is a great idea. But we still need to get clean energy from somewhere. Reducing (energy) consumption is not a long term answer
- SiempreViernes 7y ago
  The sun is a more logical source if you talk long term, the sun is likely to destroy the earth before it stops being a viable source of energy. Meanwhile nuclear uses up finite stores of fuel and exotic materials for the containment and control systems.
  - ars 7y ago
    It's not quite that simple, to harvest the sun you need machines, and those machines take a lot of resources to built. You need to calculate the trade-offs of those resources vs resources used for other types of energy. The "sun" part of the question is the least interesting part.
    - fyfy18 7y ago
      The CO2 in the production, transport and installation of solar panels leads to an equivalent CO2 output of 50g per kWh. This compares to 975g per kWh for coal. Solar still wins. https://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/blogs/how-much-co2-does-one-solar-panel-create https://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/blogs/ho... I'm currently building a house quite north at 55N. I plan to install a solar PV system that will make the house a net-zero energy consumer (everything is electric, no fossil fuels). It should pay for itself in around 10 years and then continue producing electricity for another 15 before warranties run out. After that the electrical equipment may need to be replaced, but the panels themselves should be fine. If it makes sense here, it can make sense almost anywhere.
      - ars 7y ago
        > leads to an equivalent CO2 output of 50g per kWh Like I said, it's not so simple, nuclear is 66 g/kWh, and does not have intermittency issues. > that will make the house a net-zero energy consumer (everything is electric, no fossil fuels). Are you heating with electricity as well? Because that's really bad for the environment, even with PV. (Because if you heated with natural gas, you could send your PV electricity to another grid consumer and avoid more hydrocarbon fuel being burned.) If yes, are you at least using a ground-source heat pump? (Although even there natural gas is better - install a "gas absorption heat pump" if you really want to minimize your emissions.) > If it makes sense here, it can make sense almost anywhere. In small quantities yes, but if everyone did that you need something to generate electricity at night. To me nuclear wins easily.
dragonwriter 7y ago
Opposition to carbon tax is also doing more to negatively impact nuclear adoption than any documentary; a carbon tax is, effectively, a subsidy to any carbon neutral generation method, including nuclear.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

option 7y ago

As a thought experiment - by delaying the adoption of nuclear power, the creators of recent HBO series are probably going to be implicitly responsible for more deaths and habitat destruction than CHNPP explosion was. EDIT: their work isn’t simply journalism. They intentionally dramatized and lied about things - radiation being contagious, radiation bringing down helicopter, etc.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> As a thought experiment - by delaying the adoption of nuclear power, the creators of recent HBO series are probably going to be implicitly responsible for more deaths and habitat destruction than CHNPP explosion was. That's not a thought experiment, that's just an unsupported claim. Further, it's not like there was a rush to adopt nuclear power that was abandoned as a result of public response to the Chernobyl miniseries. Even further, it is not even the case that the miniseries implicated nuclear power in the accident, which it went out of its way to lay at the foot of corner-cutting by the Soviet bureaucracy causing an accident for which all the knowledge needed to prevent it absolutely existed within the system, it was just (in the narrative of the miniseries) not acted on and actively walled off from the people actually involved.
- autokad 7y ago
  I disagree with his hypothesis but: "A thought experiment considers a hypothesis, theory, or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences."
  - option 7y ago
    care to elaborate why you disagree? Suppose that show delayed/reduced nuclear usage by 1%. Than that capacity is filled by coal or oil (sun and wind can’t fill for nuclear - nuclear should fill for them when they arent available). The coal and oil is responsible for a lot of deaths due to the pollution, multiply that by 1% and you’ll get a lot of deaths
dmix 7y ago

cowmoo728 7y ago

There has been a little bit of an update on views of chernobyl. Despite being considered the worst nuclear accident of all time, the actual death and damage toll from chernobyl is minimal compared to more boring things like coal dust and air pollution. This is a self-professed anti-nuclear hippy giving a talk about how rationally looking at chernobyl and fukushima made him a nuclear power advocate. https://youtu.be/ciStnd9Y2ak https://youtu.be/ciStnd9Y2ak