5 ms·

Yes, it always has been a way out. The blocker is public opinion. Nuclear, taking into account disasters, is far safer for society than any other known energy s

Yes, it always has been a way out. The blocker is public opinion. Nuclear, taking into account disasters, is far safer for society than any other known energy source.

millstone 7y ago
Nuclear is really far safer than solar panels? How is that?
- johngalt 7y ago
  Scale. Nuclear puts a huge denominator in the 'deaths per kwh' ratio.
- keanzu 7y ago
  By measuring deaths per TWhr. Nuclear power plants generate a lot of power and very few deaths. The amount of energy generated by nuclear is so vast that it more than outweighs incidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima over the long-term. This source only has "rooftop solar" which is more deadly than nuclear power. https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw... I don't have numbers for non-rooftop solar.
  - pg_is_a_butt 7y ago
    You don't have the numbers for rooftop nuclear either.
  - millstone 7y ago
    I suspect this is just a proxy measure for rate of construction. Construction workers fall off roofs because they're installing solar panels. They don't fall off nuclear towers, because the world has mostly stopped building them.
    - DuskStar 7y ago
      I'd think the size of the project matters more. Nuclear power plant? Better bet OSHA's there. But a rooftop solar installation? Lol no.
  - Krasnol 7y ago
    What is the amount of long term deaths for Chernobyl and Fukushima?
    - keanzu 7y ago
      There's been 1 recorded radiation death. The other 2202 deaths were all related to evacuation. The cause of these early deaths were due to the disruption of hospital operations, exacerbation of pre-existing health problems and the stress of dramatic changes in life. It is stated that the vast majority of people who died during their evacuation were elderly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
      - Krasnol 7y ago
        I wonder if people repeating those phrases are just ignorant or if you do it intentionally. 1) You don't know the true numbers of deaths around Chernobyl and we'll probably never know. 2) People are still dying, their children are and their children will probably die early too. Here: http://www.hilfe-tschernobyl.de/tschernobyl-katastrophe/ http://www.hilfe-tschernobyl.de/tschernobyl-katastrophe/ you can help. I'm sure they could use some Bill Gates attention too...
        keanzu 7y ago
        If you have an issue with the numbers take it up with the Japanese government, they commissioned the study. Source was provided.
        Krasnol 7y ago
        I didn't even mention Fukushima there. The health issues connected to Fukushima will show themselves in due time, just like they do with Chernobyl up to today and for many years to come. Your ignorance of those facts clearly presented to you show how disgusting the discussion is being lead on the side of the nuclear supporters.
- SapporoChris 7y ago
  Rooftop solar is fairly dangerous to install. However, the main reason nuclear is considered so safe is the massive amount of energy it produces is far greater than the danger. There are quite a few resources on energy safety. Key terms to search for: energy production safety https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-safest-source-energy/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-safest-source-energy...
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  In an average year nuclear accidents from power generation kill no one and the total deaths from all nuclear accidents ever are probably under 5,000. People die installing rooftop solar panels every year. Nuclear waste is treated with incredible care and there’s very little of it. Every solar panel has toxic heavy metals in it and most of them are manufactured China. I guarantee you people die from heavy metal exposure every year and once solar panels come to the end of their useful lives someone will be reprocessing them, probably unsafely. Nuclear power is really safe. https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy
  - pmoriarty 7y ago
    "Nuclear waste is treated with incredible care and there’s very little of it." There's very little of it? Really? Even the Spiegel article says: "the amount of highly radioactive waste that Germany will have to store indefinitely - a total of around 10,000 tons - would fit inside a largish furniture store" 10,000 tons doesn't sound like very little to me. And that's just Germany. I don't know the numbers, but I would be shocked if other countries like the US and Russia didn't have way, way, way more.
    - Krasnol 7y ago
      The "treated with care" part is also more like a shortsighted wish. See Asse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine Waste from decommission is not even included there.
      - barry-cotter 7y ago
        No containment breaches ever sounds pretty great to me. There’s obviously room for improvement but if all you’ve got is that it’s not actually perfect I’ll happily concede that. Meanwhile Germany’s withdrawal from nuclear power has resulted in 1,000 additional deaths per year. http://papers.nber.org/tmp/26395-w26598.pdf http://papers.nber.org/tmp/26395-w26598.pdf This paper examines the impact of the shutdown of roughly half of the nuclear production capacity in Germany after the Fukushima accident in 2011. We use hourly data on power plant operations and a novel machine learning framework to estimate how plants would have operated differently if the phase-out had not occurred. We find that the lost nuclear electricity production due to the phase-out was replaced primarily by coal- fired production and net electricity imports. The social cost of this shift from nuclear to coal is approximately 12 billion dollars per year. Over 70% of this cost comes from the increased mortality risk associated with exposure to the local air pollution emitted when burning fossil fuels. Even the largest estimates of the reduction in the costs associated with nuclear accident risk and waste disposal due to the phase-out are far smaller than 12 billion dollars.
- eloff 7y ago
  I've heard it seriously argued, because of the number of injuries and deaths taking of roofs and ladders while installing them. I'm not sure I buy it, but there's an argument to be made at least.
- manicdee 7y ago
  Almost entirely because of rooftop solar. Contractors doing lots of small jobs end up cutting corners including foregoing safety gear (“how much is a fall from a roof going to hurt anyway”) and the inevitable death-per-thousand-installs basically blows the deaths-per-MW-capacity figure out of the water. Nuclear plants tend to be large, tightly regulated work sites where things like fences and safety rails can be installed for little cost of time and money relative to the overall cost of the project. Solar farms have deaths too, the usual fatalities expected from humans working around forklifts, cranes, and other heavy equipment. Nuclear plants have all the extra joys of falls from heights (ref fences and cutting corners), asphyxiation in confined spaces, concrete injuries (skin burns, lung damage), etc. This is all highly simplified, the pedants will argue the decimal points but I am only talking hand-wavy numbers.
fuckyah 7y ago
Keeping that dangerous waste safe for millions of years, how?

Yes, it always has been a way out. The blocker is public opinion. Nuclear, taking into account disasters, is far safer for society than any other known energy source.

millstone 7y ago

Nuclear is really far safer than solar panels? How is that?

johngalt 7y ago
Scale. Nuclear puts a huge denominator in the 'deaths per kwh' ratio.
keanzu 7y ago
By measuring deaths per TWhr. Nuclear power plants generate a lot of power and very few deaths. The amount of energy generated by nuclear is so vast that it more than outweighs incidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima over the long-term. This source only has "rooftop solar" which is more deadly than nuclear power. https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw... I don't have numbers for non-rooftop solar.
- pg_is_a_butt 7y ago
  You don't have the numbers for rooftop nuclear either.
- millstone 7y ago
  I suspect this is just a proxy measure for rate of construction. Construction workers fall off roofs because they're installing solar panels. They don't fall off nuclear towers, because the world has mostly stopped building them.
  - DuskStar 7y ago
    I'd think the size of the project matters more. Nuclear power plant? Better bet OSHA's there. But a rooftop solar installation? Lol no.
- Krasnol 7y ago
  What is the amount of long term deaths for Chernobyl and Fukushima?
  - keanzu 7y ago
    There's been 1 recorded radiation death. The other 2202 deaths were all related to evacuation. The cause of these early deaths were due to the disruption of hospital operations, exacerbation of pre-existing health problems and the stress of dramatic changes in life. It is stated that the vast majority of people who died during their evacuation were elderly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
    - Krasnol 7y ago
      I wonder if people repeating those phrases are just ignorant or if you do it intentionally. 1) You don't know the true numbers of deaths around Chernobyl and we'll probably never know. 2) People are still dying, their children are and their children will probably die early too. Here: http://www.hilfe-tschernobyl.de/tschernobyl-katastrophe/ http://www.hilfe-tschernobyl.de/tschernobyl-katastrophe/ you can help. I'm sure they could use some Bill Gates attention too...
      - keanzu 7y ago
        If you have an issue with the numbers take it up with the Japanese government, they commissioned the study. Source was provided.
        Krasnol 7y ago
        I didn't even mention Fukushima there. The health issues connected to Fukushima will show themselves in due time, just like they do with Chernobyl up to today and for many years to come. Your ignorance of those facts clearly presented to you show how disgusting the discussion is being lead on the side of the nuclear supporters.
SapporoChris 7y ago
Rooftop solar is fairly dangerous to install. However, the main reason nuclear is considered so safe is the massive amount of energy it produces is far greater than the danger. There are quite a few resources on energy safety. Key terms to search for: energy production safety https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-safest-source-energy/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-safest-source-energy...
barry-cotter 7y ago
In an average year nuclear accidents from power generation kill no one and the total deaths from all nuclear accidents ever are probably under 5,000. People die installing rooftop solar panels every year. Nuclear waste is treated with incredible care and there’s very little of it. Every solar panel has toxic heavy metals in it and most of them are manufactured China. I guarantee you people die from heavy metal exposure every year and once solar panels come to the end of their useful lives someone will be reprocessing them, probably unsafely. Nuclear power is really safe. https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy
- pmoriarty 7y ago
  "Nuclear waste is treated with incredible care and there’s very little of it." There's very little of it? Really? Even the Spiegel article says: "the amount of highly radioactive waste that Germany will have to store indefinitely - a total of around 10,000 tons - would fit inside a largish furniture store" 10,000 tons doesn't sound like very little to me. And that's just Germany. I don't know the numbers, but I would be shocked if other countries like the US and Russia didn't have way, way, way more.
  - Krasnol 7y ago
    The "treated with care" part is also more like a shortsighted wish. See Asse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine Waste from decommission is not even included there.
    - barry-cotter 7y ago
      No containment breaches ever sounds pretty great to me. There’s obviously room for improvement but if all you’ve got is that it’s not actually perfect I’ll happily concede that. Meanwhile Germany’s withdrawal from nuclear power has resulted in 1,000 additional deaths per year. http://papers.nber.org/tmp/26395-w26598.pdf http://papers.nber.org/tmp/26395-w26598.pdf This paper examines the impact of the shutdown of roughly half of the nuclear production capacity in Germany after the Fukushima accident in 2011. We use hourly data on power plant operations and a novel machine learning framework to estimate how plants would have operated differently if the phase-out had not occurred. We find that the lost nuclear electricity production due to the phase-out was replaced primarily by coal- fired production and net electricity imports. The social cost of this shift from nuclear to coal is approximately 12 billion dollars per year. Over 70% of this cost comes from the increased mortality risk associated with exposure to the local air pollution emitted when burning fossil fuels. Even the largest estimates of the reduction in the costs associated with nuclear accident risk and waste disposal due to the phase-out are far smaller than 12 billion dollars.
eloff 7y ago
I've heard it seriously argued, because of the number of injuries and deaths taking of roofs and ladders while installing them. I'm not sure I buy it, but there's an argument to be made at least.
manicdee 7y ago
Almost entirely because of rooftop solar. Contractors doing lots of small jobs end up cutting corners including foregoing safety gear (“how much is a fall from a roof going to hurt anyway”) and the inevitable death-per-thousand-installs basically blows the deaths-per-MW-capacity figure out of the water. Nuclear plants tend to be large, tightly regulated work sites where things like fences and safety rails can be installed for little cost of time and money relative to the overall cost of the project. Solar farms have deaths too, the usual fatalities expected from humans working around forklifts, cranes, and other heavy equipment. Nuclear plants have all the extra joys of falls from heights (ref fences and cutting corners), asphyxiation in confined spaces, concrete injuries (skin burns, lung damage), etc. This is all highly simplified, the pedants will argue the decimal points but I am only talking hand-wavy numbers.

fuckyah 7y ago

Keeping that dangerous waste safe for millions of years, how?