11 ms·

So on the one hand with nuclear, we're talking about one swimming pool's worth of waste since the beginning of the French nuclear programme. Currently stored sa

So on the one hand with nuclear, we're talking about one swimming pool's worth of waste since the beginning of the French nuclear programme. Currently stored safely enough, long term solution identified and implementation in progress. You find this unacceptable. On the other hand, we have renewables with no solution in sight (let alone implemented) for the intermittence problem (awaiting an hypothetical scientific breakthrough in batteries). In practice, you rely on coal for the day-to-day base load. Coal, for only a year's worth of running a country's trains generates "700.000 tons of solid ash (usually stored in the open air), plus 1.000 tons of soot and fine particles, including tons / dozens of tons of arsenic, lead, thallium, mercury, even uranium and thorium". You call this the reasonable option. And in another comment, you even feel entitled to lecture the Belgians and French about their nuclear plants near the border that might hypothetically fail one day, when 7 of the 10 worst polluters in Europe are Germany's lignite plants (https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-lignite-plants-eus-top-polluters-free-democrats-attack-eeg/german-lignite-dominates-list-most-polluting-european-power-plants https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-lignite-plants-e...), with coal killing 23.300 people in Europe every year (https://endcoal.org/health/ https://endcoal.org/health/) right now, with certainty

PeterStuer 7y ago
Let me put your 'swimming pool' into the right context: Q: In principle, using AECB's regulatory limits, how many ''civilians'' can be overdosed by 100 grams of plutonium? 0.1 micrograms can overdose one civilian 0.1 grams can overdose one million civilians 1 gram can overdose ten million civilians 100 grams can overdose one billion civilians 600 grams can overdose six billion civilians Q: If there is a serious accident involving 120 grams of plutonium (in the form of MOX), how many civilian overdoses could, in principle, result? if NONE of the plutonium is safely contained there is a potential for one billion two hundred million civilian overdoses if 90 percent of it is safely contained there is a potential for one hundred and twenty million civilian overdoses if 99.9 percent of it is safely contained there is a potential for one hundred and twenty thousand civilian overdoses if 99.999 percent of it is safely contained there is a potential for one thousand two hundred civilian overdoses {1} http://www.ccnr.org/max_plute_aecb.html http://www.ccnr.org/max_plute_aecb.html
- renaudg 7y ago
  You're being disingenuous now. It feels like arguing about aviation being the safest means of transportation and having someone answer "but it's scary and deadly when it happens!" This will be my last answer. It's obviously not a swimming pool of plutonium ! Plutonium is less than 1% of the waste in the first place, and it's removed and recycled. In any case, nuclear waste is vitrified into glass with an estimated 10.000 years lifespan. Fukushima casualties : 1 confirmed from radiation, 2202 from evacuation, over 15000 from the tsunami itself. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... : "These numbers are very low compared to the estimated 20,000 casualties caused by the tsunami itself, and it has been estimated that if Japan had never adopted nuclear power, accidents and pollution from coal or gas plants would have caused more lost years of life" Again, coal causes 35.000 deaths per year across Europe. Every, year. Right now. Coal or gas are currently mandatory in the renewables + nuclear-free mix that Germany has chosen as the future. Why aren't you out protesting already ?
  - PeterStuer 7y ago
    I'm sure you mean wel, and as I said before, like you, I want to believe. The difference between us seems to be you live in a fictional world where nuclear waste was stored in very safe places underground, vitrified into glass with a 10k lifespan, and dealt with very responsibly throughout the lifecyle. I live in a country where power-plants were built by typical contract builders using sub-spec concrete that is cracking, where all nuclear waste is stored above ground near densly populated areas, where young activists (luckily without malafide intentions) find to their surprise they could just walk into supposedly military protected nuclear plants, where first 55.000 barrels nuclear waste were just dumped of the coast, where the rest of the stuff is in corroding barrels filled not with 10Ky Glass but with tar and concrete, where this deterioration was kept secret for years, and once it came to light resealing it in inox barrels is considered too expensive, where nuclear plants that have failures several times a year because of malpractice during construction and aging installations are kept open with permits issued by administrations and politicians in charge that pass though the revolving doors of the plant's exploiter right into plushy 'consulting' seats, ... I wish my country was the exception. A rogue state in the very heart of Western Europe. Sadly, it is not. Humans will be humans, with all their vices and fallacies. Humans as a species just can not handle the responsibilities of this type of systems (significant and high short exploitation benefits resulting in extreme long term very costly mitigation commitments, low probability failure modes but with extreme potential impacts). You imply that there is no alternative. That it is either nuclear or browncoal. This is not true. Germany is the largest net exporter of electric energy in the European grid. Net export amounted to 45.6 TWh in 2018. In that year 72.1 TWh was produced from nuclear power, so almost two thirds of nuclear power was exported). The advances in and deployment of Solar and Wind power have lead to a significant reduction in the use of coal especially starting the second half of 2019. There is no impact on nuclear because nuclear plants unlike coal and gas can not be easily shut down and restarted at will. Energy is just too cheap by far, so we just continue to waste it like there is no tomorrow. Any gains we make in efficiency, we just take as a bonus and immediatly compensate for by consuming more (cfr. Jevons paradox). Sadly, a neoliberal market economy can never discover the solution of moderation or abstinence, as it is purely driven by privatized marginal profit. It is systemically outside of its potential.

PeterStuer 7y ago

Let me put your 'swimming pool' into the right context: Q: In principle, using AECB's regulatory limits, how many ''civilians'' can be overdosed by 100 grams of plutonium? 0.1 micrograms can overdose one civilian 0.1 grams can overdose one million civilians 1 gram can overdose ten million civilians 100 grams can overdose one billion civilians 600 grams can overdose six billion civilians Q: If there is a serious accident involving 120 grams of plutonium (in the form of MOX), how many civilian overdoses could, in principle, result? if NONE of the plutonium is safely contained there is a potential for one billion two hundred million civilian overdoses if 90 percent of it is safely contained there is a potential for one hundred and twenty million civilian overdoses if 99.9 percent of it is safely contained there is a potential for one hundred and twenty thousand civilian overdoses if 99.999 percent of it is safely contained there is a potential for one thousand two hundred civilian overdoses {1} http://www.ccnr.org/max_plute_aecb.html http://www.ccnr.org/max_plute_aecb.html

renaudg 7y ago
You're being disingenuous now. It feels like arguing about aviation being the safest means of transportation and having someone answer "but it's scary and deadly when it happens!" This will be my last answer. It's obviously not a swimming pool of plutonium ! Plutonium is less than 1% of the waste in the first place, and it's removed and recycled. In any case, nuclear waste is vitrified into glass with an estimated 10.000 years lifespan. Fukushima casualties : 1 confirmed from radiation, 2202 from evacuation, over 15000 from the tsunami itself. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... : "These numbers are very low compared to the estimated 20,000 casualties caused by the tsunami itself, and it has been estimated that if Japan had never adopted nuclear power, accidents and pollution from coal or gas plants would have caused more lost years of life" Again, coal causes 35.000 deaths per year across Europe. Every, year. Right now. Coal or gas are currently mandatory in the renewables + nuclear-free mix that Germany has chosen as the future. Why aren't you out protesting already ?
- PeterStuer 7y ago
  I'm sure you mean wel, and as I said before, like you, I want to believe. The difference between us seems to be you live in a fictional world where nuclear waste was stored in very safe places underground, vitrified into glass with a 10k lifespan, and dealt with very responsibly throughout the lifecyle. I live in a country where power-plants were built by typical contract builders using sub-spec concrete that is cracking, where all nuclear waste is stored above ground near densly populated areas, where young activists (luckily without malafide intentions) find to their surprise they could just walk into supposedly military protected nuclear plants, where first 55.000 barrels nuclear waste were just dumped of the coast, where the rest of the stuff is in corroding barrels filled not with 10Ky Glass but with tar and concrete, where this deterioration was kept secret for years, and once it came to light resealing it in inox barrels is considered too expensive, where nuclear plants that have failures several times a year because of malpractice during construction and aging installations are kept open with permits issued by administrations and politicians in charge that pass though the revolving doors of the plant's exploiter right into plushy 'consulting' seats, ... I wish my country was the exception. A rogue state in the very heart of Western Europe. Sadly, it is not. Humans will be humans, with all their vices and fallacies. Humans as a species just can not handle the responsibilities of this type of systems (significant and high short exploitation benefits resulting in extreme long term very costly mitigation commitments, low probability failure modes but with extreme potential impacts). You imply that there is no alternative. That it is either nuclear or browncoal. This is not true. Germany is the largest net exporter of electric energy in the European grid. Net export amounted to 45.6 TWh in 2018. In that year 72.1 TWh was produced from nuclear power, so almost two thirds of nuclear power was exported). The advances in and deployment of Solar and Wind power have lead to a significant reduction in the use of coal especially starting the second half of 2019. There is no impact on nuclear because nuclear plants unlike coal and gas can not be easily shut down and restarted at will. Energy is just too cheap by far, so we just continue to waste it like there is no tomorrow. Any gains we make in efficiency, we just take as a bonus and immediatly compensate for by consuming more (cfr. Jevons paradox). Sadly, a neoliberal market economy can never discover the solution of moderation or abstinence, as it is purely driven by privatized marginal profit. It is systemically outside of its potential.