7 ms·

Most humans born today will experience the negative effects of climate change over the next 80 years, with between 10-30% of them dying due to events caused by

Most humans born today will experience the negative effects of climate change over the next 80 years, with between 10-30% of them dying due to events caused by it. Dying at 60 from cancer is still a hell a lot better than starving at 15. And that's assuming we have a Chernobyl like even happen every few hundred square kilometers. If climate change is an extinction level even we should expect to make sacrifices like those in other events that killed millions, like WWI and WWII. I don't understand people who can think that we think we will die for sure because of climate change, but aren't willing to risk a much smaller chance of dying from nuclear accidents.

anoncake 7y ago
And I don't understand people that don't make this very valid point rather than making fools of themselves by denying the dangers of nuclear power and refuting arguments no one ever used.
- anon4242 7y ago
  If there Germans managed to support themselves on 100% renewable energy I wouldn't say they needed to go nuclear again. As it is the Germans rely on more than 50% dirty energy which is polluting all of northern Europe and people ARE dying because of it. So, sure there are dangers with nuclear power if there's an accident. Ideally there shouldn't be, historically there has been a few (seven with fatal outcomes to be exact)[1]. Still with modern reactors that shutdown instead of melting down we should be able to safely handle virtually any accident. With burning fossil fuels the deaths are not _if_ there's an accident, they are a _consequence_ of polluting the air. And the 800000 annual deaths caused by coal burning doesn't even include deaths due to global warming [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident... [2] https://endcoal.org/health/ https://endcoal.org/health/
_ph_ 7y ago
Yes, if our only choices were coal and nuclear, I would be strongly in favour of nuclear. Both on the direct emissions and global warming level. But the thing is, wind and solar (and quite a few other reneweable energies) are now cheaper than nuclear and don't bear the risk of contaminating large regions in case of a major accident. Of course these risks could be mitigated by different designs or just building the reactors 200m underground, but that seems to be even more cost-prohibitive, so it has not even being suggested.
- buzzkillington 7y ago
  >But the thing is, wind and solar (and quite a few other reneweable energies) are now cheaper than nuclear and don't bear the risk of contaminating large regions in case of a major accident. And are destroying every grid which they dominate. Germany, South Australia, California. When you start getting negative price events while the overall price increases something has gone very wrong with the market. A renewable network is not fit for an industrial society. You need a stable base load to run machines, like computers, elevators or hospitals. You can either try and build batteries, which costs trillions of dollars build in large enough quantities (the largest battery in the world can run South Australia for about 5 minutes), a transcontinental grid to share power, which costs trillions of dollars to build, or nuclear power, which cost billions and is something we already know how to do.
  - _ph_ 7y ago
    That is all just FUD. At least here in Germany, reneweables are not destroying the grid. Quite the contrary, they help to stabilize it, when e.g. nuclear power plants have to reduce their power output due to the streams they use for cooling are overheating. Negative grid prices are the consequences of power plants which cannot shut down in times of oversupply, that is mainly coal and nuclear. Of course there need to be further investments to be made in the grid and even more so some market mechanisms need to adjust in an age of mostly renweables in the grid. So far, grid pricing was dominated by a varying demand vs. a more constant power output on the grid. With reneweables, there comes the additional component of a variable production. But that is something the market can adjust to. Companies which require a constant supply have to pay for that, those that don't can save a lot of money. Charging electrical cars is a great example of something that can use electricity when the supply is very large.
    - whalebird 7y ago
      > Negative grid prices are the consequences of power plants which cannot shut down in times of oversupply, that is mainly coal and nuclear. Riddle me this, then: Why did negative energy prices emerge along with renewables[1]? The problem isn't coal/nuclear, because the variance in demand is far lower than the variance in output of renewables. Furthermore, both coal and nuclear plants can be adjusted to react to seasonal variance. [1] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/why-power-prices-turn-negative https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/why-power-prices-...
whalebird 7y ago
> Most humans born today will experience the negative effects of climate change over the next 80 years, with between 10-30% of them dying due to events caused by it. [citation desperately needed]

anoncake 7y ago

And I don't understand people that don't make this very valid point rather than making fools of themselves by denying the dangers of nuclear power and refuting arguments no one ever used.

anon4242 7y ago
If there Germans managed to support themselves on 100% renewable energy I wouldn't say they needed to go nuclear again. As it is the Germans rely on more than 50% dirty energy which is polluting all of northern Europe and people ARE dying because of it. So, sure there are dangers with nuclear power if there's an accident. Ideally there shouldn't be, historically there has been a few (seven with fatal outcomes to be exact)[1]. Still with modern reactors that shutdown instead of melting down we should be able to safely handle virtually any accident. With burning fossil fuels the deaths are not _if_ there's an accident, they are a _consequence_ of polluting the air. And the 800000 annual deaths caused by coal burning doesn't even include deaths due to global warming [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident... [2] https://endcoal.org/health/ https://endcoal.org/health/

_ph_ 7y ago

Yes, if our only choices were coal and nuclear, I would be strongly in favour of nuclear. Both on the direct emissions and global warming level. But the thing is, wind and solar (and quite a few other reneweable energies) are now cheaper than nuclear and don't bear the risk of contaminating large regions in case of a major accident. Of course these risks could be mitigated by different designs or just building the reactors 200m underground, but that seems to be even more cost-prohibitive, so it has not even being suggested.

buzzkillington 7y ago
>But the thing is, wind and solar (and quite a few other reneweable energies) are now cheaper than nuclear and don't bear the risk of contaminating large regions in case of a major accident. And are destroying every grid which they dominate. Germany, South Australia, California. When you start getting negative price events while the overall price increases something has gone very wrong with the market. A renewable network is not fit for an industrial society. You need a stable base load to run machines, like computers, elevators or hospitals. You can either try and build batteries, which costs trillions of dollars build in large enough quantities (the largest battery in the world can run South Australia for about 5 minutes), a transcontinental grid to share power, which costs trillions of dollars to build, or nuclear power, which cost billions and is something we already know how to do.
- _ph_ 7y ago
  That is all just FUD. At least here in Germany, reneweables are not destroying the grid. Quite the contrary, they help to stabilize it, when e.g. nuclear power plants have to reduce their power output due to the streams they use for cooling are overheating. Negative grid prices are the consequences of power plants which cannot shut down in times of oversupply, that is mainly coal and nuclear. Of course there need to be further investments to be made in the grid and even more so some market mechanisms need to adjust in an age of mostly renweables in the grid. So far, grid pricing was dominated by a varying demand vs. a more constant power output on the grid. With reneweables, there comes the additional component of a variable production. But that is something the market can adjust to. Companies which require a constant supply have to pay for that, those that don't can save a lot of money. Charging electrical cars is a great example of something that can use electricity when the supply is very large.
  - whalebird 7y ago
    > Negative grid prices are the consequences of power plants which cannot shut down in times of oversupply, that is mainly coal and nuclear. Riddle me this, then: Why did negative energy prices emerge along with renewables[1]? The problem isn't coal/nuclear, because the variance in demand is far lower than the variance in output of renewables. Furthermore, both coal and nuclear plants can be adjusted to react to seasonal variance. [1] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/why-power-prices-turn-negative https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/why-power-prices-...

whalebird 7y ago

> Most humans born today will experience the negative effects of climate change over the next 80 years, with between 10-30% of them dying due to events caused by it. [citation desperately needed]