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This is what I'd describe as a 'narrowly rational view'. All other things being equal, x leads to y. In this case - political, economic and social conditions re
by dbspin 7y ago
This is what I'd describe as a 'narrowly rational view'. All other things being equal, x leads to y. In this case - political, economic and social conditions remaining in roughly the same range as they have since the post war period. This is quite frankly a wildly unsupported assumption - when compared to the span of human history, or even taking the 20th century into account (rather than merely the post war period). The idea that we should build devices which will become deadly (and indeed irreparable) under conditions of economic collapse, pandemic, conventional, let alone nuclear conflict, is utterly irrational. Over a long enough time line, all else is never equal. In the case of human culture and civilisation, that time line - i.e.: the duration of a stable society, let alone a stable post industrial society - isn't particularly long at all. And we have no good reason to assume that our current high volatile, tightly couple global economic system and political order will fare any better.
And lets say you believe that we are for whatever reason living in some kind of stable 'end of history' period; need I remind anyone that California is home to the San Andreas Fault, which is long overdue to produce the so called 'big one' >7.0 mega quake.
- BurningFrog 7y agoNuclear power plants do not "become deadly (and indeed irreparable) under conditions of economic collapse etc" outside of comic books. The power source that might apply to is hydro electric dams. Those dams won't stand forever without active maintenance, and the flood wave can sweep away entire cities.
- Isinlor 7y agoIndeed. The best example is Banqiao Dam failure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam Its failure in 1975 caused as many as 230,000 deaths. The death toll of this disaster was considered a state secret until 2005 when it was declassified.[4] According to the Hydrology Department of Henan Province, approximately 26,000 people died in the province[13] from flooding and another 145,000 died during subsequent epidemics and famine. In addition, about 5,960,000 buildings collapsed, and 11 million residents were affected. Unofficial estimates of the number of people killed by the disaster have run as high as 230,000 people.
- makomk 7y agoIt's the example nuclear proponents always cite, but it's a terrible example. Banqiao Dam was a dual-purpose dam, for downstream flood control as well as power, and the immediate cause of its failure was that they didn't allow enough water out for fear of downstream flooding. Its flood control role was apparently so important that the government had to rebuild it despite the previous failure and its death toll. Also, I don't think it'd even be possible to build a nuclear power plant with the level of technology at which Banqaio Dam was constructed; it was an early-50s dam made of clay, back when the two nuclear powers were just starting their first experiments with nuclear generation. That's probably a good thing too, given the quality of engineering involved. The idea we have some kind of choice between disasters like the Banqaio Dam one and nuclear power seems like a false one on every level.
- boomboomsubban 7y agoThe Banqiao dam is by far the most catastrophic failure, but there are many other examples. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hydroelectric_power_station_failures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hydroelectric_power_st... >The idea we have some kind of choice between disasters like the Banqaio Dam one and nuclear power seems like a false one on every level. That is broadly the choice though.