6 ms·

My personal opinion is that in large part, the reason people have such an aversion to nuclear power is the imagery that is associated with the word "nuclear". B

My personal opinion is that in large part, the reason people have such an aversion to nuclear power is the imagery that is associated with the word "nuclear". Bring up the word, and there is an immediate association with nuclear weapons, mushroom clouds, irradiated wastelands. Just think of how many entertainment properties use the trope of a nuclear wasteland or things glowing green, mutants and radiation beasts..etc. We know that media significantly affects culture, so it's not that surprising to me that if how we picture nuclear anything in entertainment leaks into how people think of it in the real world. We're also not very good about perceiving continued effects. The radiation that a coal plant spits out is in effect diffuse. Yes there's a lot, but its a lot over a time scale instead of immediately. Whereas a nuclear meltdown, well, that's quick and extremely potent. We're far more likely to react to the latter viscerally. For a parallel, consider air travel vs car travel. Air travel is far safer per miles traveled, but we still get our collective panties in a bunch over airplane accidents, despite there being far more car accidents in any given span of time. I think nuclear power's biggest issue is image. It has far too many negative associations in most people's minds. Until that image is changed, I don't know if nuclear power is viable culturally. Maybe once we start going further out in space and nuclear becomes the only viable power source, that might change. Right now, a few RTG-powered probes aren't going to do it.

A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
You do have a point, but it is also what makes that particular fear not completely without merit. Over the past few decades, the number of nuclear arsenal wielding countries increased. It is genuinely hard to keep the two separated when having a nuclear power plant can easily lead to a weapon.
Krasnol 7y ago
No need for weird opinions there. People don't want a potential bomb in their neighbourhood in the same way they don't want a nuclear waste dump in their neighbourhood. No sane person would blame them and that's the whole story. Germany is sitting on decades of dirty waste and has no hole to make it disappear. It creates ridiculous costs that have been shifted to the tax payer and they will pay for it for hundreds of years. Again: no sane person wants to do that or would blame them. Meanwhile there is renewable energy getting better and better with every year and decade. This whole story is a no-brainer. Nuclear is dead. Renewables is the way to go.
- roenxi 7y ago
  > People don't want a potential bomb in their neighbourhood in the same way they don't want a nuclear waste dump in their neighbourhood. No sane person would blame them and that's the whole story. The stubbornness of people like that has cost thousands if not tens of thousands of lives to air pollution, caused the destruction due to coal mining of big swathes of land and increases the risk of a resource war or other difficult geopolitical situation arising. They are also causing tens of thousands of people to waste their lives working unproductively in energy-producing industries when they could have been doing something useful instead. Sane or otherwise, they are just people who don't understand statistics or how energy works. They are symptoms of the general problem that society has with implementing evidence-based policies.
  - godelski 7y ago
    > The stubbornness of people like that has cost thousands if not tens of thousands of lives to air pollution Considering that the research suggests 7,500 and 52,000 people in the US each year[0], I think you could safely say "hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost due to this argument" (considering that less than 30k lives have been lost to nuclear, including future deaths from disasters). I want to make this abundantly clear. We're pro-nuclear because we want to save lives. Because we want to save the environment. And because we are listening to the scientists. No one is saying "nuclear vs renewables", but rather "keep nuclear on the table". We're on the same team as those that advocate for renewables (I myself strongly advocate for renewables!). [0] 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-...
  - Krasnol 7y ago
    Yeah statistics look so great...on paper. In reality A SINGLE overdue French reactor could wipe out a whole country (Luxembourg) leaving us with a nuclear wasteland right in the middle of Europe. A beautiful picture you can't draw with numbers. To make my point even clearer and because I have the feeling like I'm talking to Americans who have never even took a look at an European map. This is it: https://i.imgur.com/SVom3rl.jpg https://i.imgur.com/SVom3rl.jpg Yes, there are people all over the place. This stuff is being kept alive for political reasons (hey here is your favourite reason for nuclear "mistakes": human error again) while it rots from within. So how it may be surprising that people do not trust the energy and those who are responsible for it politically and technically, is beyond me. All that money wasted for this technology could have been invested into renewables which would have brought us much farther than we are today but it didn't happen because: hey nuclear lobby. Throwing even more money on it now is beyond stupid (https://www.reddit.com/r/de/comments/emc2ne/quelle_surprise_frankreich_verzichtet_vorerst/fdoxtt3/ https://www.reddit.com/r/de/comments/emc2ne/quelle_surprise_...) and I really hope the lobby money for this artificially kept alive propaganda train finally runs out just like the technology did.
cycomanic 7y ago
Nuclear power has a horrible image for very good reason. There are devastating consequences when something goes wrong (nobody will insure your plant), horrible economics relying on large subsidies, storage requirements that exceed the lifetimes of any previous civilisation, operators having a history of shady practices like not reporting incidents, requirement for strong centralised (large corporations) control (that's why authoritarian states like it so much). People always point that this is all not inherent and could be fixed by enough research (and new regulations), but why would you? Renewables have none of these issues and are much cheaper. If baseload is an issue, we know how to fix this, modernize your electricity grid to be smarter (there is always wind/sun somewhere) and invest in research into storage (that would also be needed for nuclear. I don't get the obsession with nuclear, it does not make sense on an economical, political and environmental level.
- belorn 7y ago
  > I don't get the obsession with nuclear, it does not make sense on an economical, political and environmental level. I have a rather simple suggestion to resolve that. Ban fossil fuels for large scale power plants and heating plants. Under those conditions, if nuclear is more expensive, political nightmare and economical worse than the alternative then don't use nuclear. If on the other hand people just want to use renewable when its in optimal weather conditions and then use fossil fuels because a stable energy grid is more important than the ban on burning fossil fuels, then no. At that point I rather people build that expensive, political nightmare, and waste producing nuclear plant. As the old green movement slogan went. Keep the coal in the ground. Stop the pipeline. The sun is setting on the oil industry. It time to Get out of the Combustion Engine. The obsession with fossil fuels has run its course. Nuclear has problems but if that is the cost we have to pay in order to ban fossil fuels than I will happily pay it. I don't demand anything more than that, but I won't settle for less either. It is criminal that enlighten countries who talk large about the current climate crisis also build fresh new fossil fueled power plants as energy demands goes up. Just like nations created a treaty against blowing up nukes in the atmosphere, there need to be one against turning the planet into a desert just because its cheap and can be done with minimum political consequences.

A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago

You do have a point, but it is also what makes that particular fear not completely without merit. Over the past few decades, the number of nuclear arsenal wielding countries increased. It is genuinely hard to keep the two separated when having a nuclear power plant can easily lead to a weapon.

Krasnol 7y ago

No need for weird opinions there. People don't want a potential bomb in their neighbourhood in the same way they don't want a nuclear waste dump in their neighbourhood. No sane person would blame them and that's the whole story. Germany is sitting on decades of dirty waste and has no hole to make it disappear. It creates ridiculous costs that have been shifted to the tax payer and they will pay for it for hundreds of years. Again: no sane person wants to do that or would blame them. Meanwhile there is renewable energy getting better and better with every year and decade. This whole story is a no-brainer. Nuclear is dead. Renewables is the way to go.

roenxi 7y ago
> People don't want a potential bomb in their neighbourhood in the same way they don't want a nuclear waste dump in their neighbourhood. No sane person would blame them and that's the whole story. The stubbornness of people like that has cost thousands if not tens of thousands of lives to air pollution, caused the destruction due to coal mining of big swathes of land and increases the risk of a resource war or other difficult geopolitical situation arising. They are also causing tens of thousands of people to waste their lives working unproductively in energy-producing industries when they could have been doing something useful instead. Sane or otherwise, they are just people who don't understand statistics or how energy works. They are symptoms of the general problem that society has with implementing evidence-based policies.
- godelski 7y ago
  > The stubbornness of people like that has cost thousands if not tens of thousands of lives to air pollution Considering that the research suggests 7,500 and 52,000 people in the US each year[0], I think you could safely say "hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost due to this argument" (considering that less than 30k lives have been lost to nuclear, including future deaths from disasters). I want to make this abundantly clear. We're pro-nuclear because we want to save lives. Because we want to save the environment. And because we are listening to the scientists. No one is saying "nuclear vs renewables", but rather "keep nuclear on the table". We're on the same team as those that advocate for renewables (I myself strongly advocate for renewables!). [0] 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-...
- Krasnol 7y ago
  Yeah statistics look so great...on paper. In reality A SINGLE overdue French reactor could wipe out a whole country (Luxembourg) leaving us with a nuclear wasteland right in the middle of Europe. A beautiful picture you can't draw with numbers. To make my point even clearer and because I have the feeling like I'm talking to Americans who have never even took a look at an European map. This is it: https://i.imgur.com/SVom3rl.jpg https://i.imgur.com/SVom3rl.jpg Yes, there are people all over the place. This stuff is being kept alive for political reasons (hey here is your favourite reason for nuclear "mistakes": human error again) while it rots from within. So how it may be surprising that people do not trust the energy and those who are responsible for it politically and technically, is beyond me. All that money wasted for this technology could have been invested into renewables which would have brought us much farther than we are today but it didn't happen because: hey nuclear lobby. Throwing even more money on it now is beyond stupid (https://www.reddit.com/r/de/comments/emc2ne/quelle_surprise_frankreich_verzichtet_vorerst/fdoxtt3/ https://www.reddit.com/r/de/comments/emc2ne/quelle_surprise_...) and I really hope the lobby money for this artificially kept alive propaganda train finally runs out just like the technology did.

cycomanic 7y ago

Nuclear power has a horrible image for very good reason. There are devastating consequences when something goes wrong (nobody will insure your plant), horrible economics relying on large subsidies, storage requirements that exceed the lifetimes of any previous civilisation, operators having a history of shady practices like not reporting incidents, requirement for strong centralised (large corporations) control (that's why authoritarian states like it so much). People always point that this is all not inherent and could be fixed by enough research (and new regulations), but why would you? Renewables have none of these issues and are much cheaper. If baseload is an issue, we know how to fix this, modernize your electricity grid to be smarter (there is always wind/sun somewhere) and invest in research into storage (that would also be needed for nuclear. I don't get the obsession with nuclear, it does not make sense on an economical, political and environmental level.

belorn 7y ago
> I don't get the obsession with nuclear, it does not make sense on an economical, political and environmental level. I have a rather simple suggestion to resolve that. Ban fossil fuels for large scale power plants and heating plants. Under those conditions, if nuclear is more expensive, political nightmare and economical worse than the alternative then don't use nuclear. If on the other hand people just want to use renewable when its in optimal weather conditions and then use fossil fuels because a stable energy grid is more important than the ban on burning fossil fuels, then no. At that point I rather people build that expensive, political nightmare, and waste producing nuclear plant. As the old green movement slogan went. Keep the coal in the ground. Stop the pipeline. The sun is setting on the oil industry. It time to Get out of the Combustion Engine. The obsession with fossil fuels has run its course. Nuclear has problems but if that is the cost we have to pay in order to ban fossil fuels than I will happily pay it. I don't demand anything more than that, but I won't settle for less either. It is criminal that enlighten countries who talk large about the current climate crisis also build fresh new fossil fueled power plants as energy demands goes up. Just like nations created a treaty against blowing up nukes in the atmosphere, there need to be one against turning the planet into a desert just because its cheap and can be done with minimum political consequences.