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No energy source is 100% safe. People die when working on windmills and hydroelectric disasters are way more deadly than nuclear disasters. I think 100% safe is

by jeltz 7y ago

No energy source is 100% safe. People die when working on windmills and hydroelectric disasters are way more deadly than nuclear disasters. I think 100% safe is an unreasonable requirement.

nicoburns 7y ago
I'd much rather be involved in a hydro-electric disaster than a nuclear one though...
- Mythanar 7y ago
  Are you really? If you’re involved in nuclear accident, you get to live anywhere from days to months to years to decades. Even in the worst of the worst cases (you literally touched the fuel rod), you will have time to say farewells to the family, perhaps even write a will. With hydroelectric accident you drown. The end.
  - nicoburns 7y ago
    I'm not scared of dying. I am scared of dying slowly and painfully as I burn from the inside out.
- zetazzed 7y ago
  Hydro disasters can be dams bursts and are no joke! Thousands dead, towns wiped away, stuff like that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Machchhu_dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Machchhu_dam_failure Luckily not that common especially with well-maintained dams. But it was a huge fear with the Mosul dam in Iraq, which was expected to put over a million lives at risk during the ISIL insurgency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul_Dam I'm not anti-hydro at all! But it's important to understand how powerful these dams are...
  - usrusr 7y ago
    GP was saying, I think, that they'd prefer a quick violent water surge over slow radiation poisoning. You can say good bye, but you might have to do nothing else but saying good bye for an awful low of time (perhaps to similarly doomed people). I don't have data but I assume that most immediate dam breach deaths are from acute force trauma (and then drowning) rather than from just drowning. Less similar to the slow death of being without a boat in the middle of an ocean than to the hypothetical of getting stomped by the Terry Gilliam foot in Flying Circus.
- entropyneur 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam Suddenly, Chernobyl doesn't sound that bad anymore.
  - willis936 7y ago
    When you consider that the elephant’s foot nearly contaminated the water table, it sort of does.
thiagomgd 7y ago
if a windmill falls/explodes, the area wouldn't be unliveable and contaminated for centuries...
- imgabe 7y ago
  If a dam fails the area below it can be unlivable for quite some time.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Swizec 7y ago
Coal pollution kills more people per day globally[1] than all nuclear disasters combined[2] ever have. Pollution kills between 7500 and 52000 annually just in USA. The range is wide because it's hard to measure. That's 20/day dead from pollution just in USA. Nuclear disasters are verified at about 2400 deaths over 41 years. Around 1/week. Yeah ... crazy hard to make a safe energy source. 1: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-other-reason-to-shift-away-from-coal-air-pollution-that-kills-thousands-every-year/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-other-reason-... 2: 0 deaths for 3 Mile Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_Nuclear_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_Nuclear_Gene... 142 deaths for chernobyl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster 2203 deaths for Fukushima (2202 of which were due to the evacuation itself) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... PS: the "more per day than nuclear ever" bit comes from The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace
- ThinkBeat 7y ago
  The death from coal pollution is cumulative over time. By that, I mean that they absorb chemicals over time that is believed to have contributed to the dying. 20 / day are not killed in coal plant explosions ever day. Yet the numbers you compare are from nuclear disasters. As far as I know, there are no numbers for the number of people killed in coal plant explosions and they certainly would not be 20/day Now, how to count the number of people impacted by Chernobyl. Do the numbers include the increase in cancer deaths in the north of Norway? The radiation in the moss that reindeer eat meant the meat could not be eaten for quite a long time and it is still not over. I think that is more like comparing apples to apples, than explosions vs long term exposure.
keanzu 7y ago
Banqiao Hydroelectric Dam, China, was breached Aug. 8 1975 killing more than 85,000 people that day. A study conducted by eight Chinese water science experts who probably had access to censored government reports, estimated the number of total dead — from flooding and the resulting epidemics and famine — at 230,000. https://www.ozy.com/flashback/230000-died-in-a-dam-collapse-that-china-kept-secret-for-years/91699/ https://www.ozy.com/flashback/230000-died-in-a-dam-collapse-...

by jeltz 7y ago

No energy source is 100% safe. People die when working on windmills and hydroelectric disasters are way more deadly than nuclear disasters. I think 100% safe is an unreasonable requirement.

nicoburns 7y ago

I'd much rather be involved in a hydro-electric disaster than a nuclear one though...

Mythanar 7y ago
Are you really? If you’re involved in nuclear accident, you get to live anywhere from days to months to years to decades. Even in the worst of the worst cases (you literally touched the fuel rod), you will have time to say farewells to the family, perhaps even write a will. With hydroelectric accident you drown. The end.
- nicoburns 7y ago
  I'm not scared of dying. I am scared of dying slowly and painfully as I burn from the inside out.
zetazzed 7y ago
Hydro disasters can be dams bursts and are no joke! Thousands dead, towns wiped away, stuff like that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Machchhu_dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Machchhu_dam_failure Luckily not that common especially with well-maintained dams. But it was a huge fear with the Mosul dam in Iraq, which was expected to put over a million lives at risk during the ISIL insurgency: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul_Dam I'm not anti-hydro at all! But it's important to understand how powerful these dams are...
- usrusr 7y ago
  GP was saying, I think, that they'd prefer a quick violent water surge over slow radiation poisoning. You can say good bye, but you might have to do nothing else but saying good bye for an awful low of time (perhaps to similarly doomed people). I don't have data but I assume that most immediate dam breach deaths are from acute force trauma (and then drowning) rather than from just drowning. Less similar to the slow death of being without a boat in the middle of an ocean than to the hypothetical of getting stomped by the Terry Gilliam foot in Flying Circus.
entropyneur 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam Suddenly, Chernobyl doesn't sound that bad anymore.
- willis936 7y ago
  When you consider that the elephant’s foot nearly contaminated the water table, it sort of does.

thiagomgd 7y ago

if a windmill falls/explodes, the area wouldn't be unliveable and contaminated for centuries...

imgabe 7y ago
If a dam fails the area below it can be unlivable for quite some time.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Swizec 7y ago

Coal pollution kills more people per day globally[1] than all nuclear disasters combined[2] ever have. Pollution kills between 7500 and 52000 annually just in USA. The range is wide because it's hard to measure. That's 20/day dead from pollution just in USA. Nuclear disasters are verified at about 2400 deaths over 41 years. Around 1/week. Yeah ... crazy hard to make a safe energy source. 1: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-other-reason-to-shift-away-from-coal-air-pollution-that-kills-thousands-every-year/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-other-reason-... 2: 0 deaths for 3 Mile Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_Nuclear_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_Nuclear_Gene... 142 deaths for chernobyl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster 2203 deaths for Fukushima (2202 of which were due to the evacuation itself) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa... PS: the "more per day than nuclear ever" bit comes from The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace

ThinkBeat 7y ago
The death from coal pollution is cumulative over time. By that, I mean that they absorb chemicals over time that is believed to have contributed to the dying. 20 / day are not killed in coal plant explosions ever day. Yet the numbers you compare are from nuclear disasters. As far as I know, there are no numbers for the number of people killed in coal plant explosions and they certainly would not be 20/day Now, how to count the number of people impacted by Chernobyl. Do the numbers include the increase in cancer deaths in the north of Norway? The radiation in the moss that reindeer eat meant the meat could not be eaten for quite a long time and it is still not over. I think that is more like comparing apples to apples, than explosions vs long term exposure.

keanzu 7y ago

Banqiao Hydroelectric Dam, China, was breached Aug. 8 1975 killing more than 85,000 people that day. A study conducted by eight Chinese water science experts who probably had access to censored government reports, estimated the number of total dead — from flooding and the resulting epidemics and famine — at 230,000. https://www.ozy.com/flashback/230000-died-in-a-dam-collapse-that-china-kept-secret-for-years/91699/ https://www.ozy.com/flashback/230000-died-in-a-dam-collapse-...