5 ms·

> Germany is about to open a coal plant (partially) to take over from one of the nuclear power plants we're shutting down When nuclear is shut down, it's often

by Reedx 7y ago

> Germany is about to open a coal plant (partially) to take over from one of the nuclear power plants we're shutting down When nuclear is shut down, it's often replaced by coal. See also Japan, with a lot of coal plants coming up: "It is one unintended consequence of the Fukushima nuclear disaster almost a decade ago, which forced Japan to all but close its nuclear power program. Japan now plans to build as many as 22 new coal-burning power plants — one of the dirtiest sources of electricity — at 17 different sites in the next five years, just at a time when the world needs to slash carbon dioxide emissions to fight global warming." https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/climate/japan-coal-fukushima.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/climate/japan-coal-fukush... And a lot of people aren't aware nuclear is the safest form of energy per TWh: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

Puts 7y ago
Maybe depends on how you define safest. Where I live in Sweden, there are parts of the country where it's still not safe to hunt and eat wild boar because of a nuclear accident over 30 years ago 3000 kilometers away. If you just divide the number of meltdowns (5) with the number of active power reactors in the world (449) we learn that statistically 1% of reactors will have a core meltdown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accidents_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accident...
- matwood 7y ago
  A localized problem which is still nowhere close to the worldwide problem of mercury levels in fish attributed to fossil burning and coal plants.
- maelito 7y ago
  Well, ~100% of coal plants do kill lots of people.
  - jpdus 7y ago
    That's such a short-sighted argument. Same as with "more deaths through flu" we heard so often in February. Think about fat tails and asymmetric risk. If you read in the newspaper next year: "Hundred thousand people dead/displaced due to power plant accident" - more likely to be coal or nuclear?
    - maelito 7y ago
      Please understand that no electricity generation technology has no risk. > Think about fat tails and asymmetric risk. If you read in the newspaper next year: "Hundred thousand people dead/displaced due to power plant accident" - more likely to be coal or nuclear? What's your evaluation of the probability of this event ? Without putting figures in the equation, I could also ask you in the same way to think about this event : if you read in the newspaper next year: "Billions of people dead/displaced due to one in a thousands year drought, leading to global famine" - more likely to be coal or nuclear?
      - jpdus 7y ago
        > more likely to be coal or nuclear Nuclear. Naive probability matters relatively little here. The risk of coal plants due to CO2 is a thin-tailed long term risk. No single coal plant will ever cause a headline (or an event) like this. Thin-tailed long-term risks can be mitigated and planned for and the result is always a sum of many smaller choices (albeit global warming is an existential risk for sure!). Nuclear is different. 99,999% of time it's cheaper and cleaner than coal. Doesn't matter. The tail-risk is what matters and that's also, why (conventional) nuclear can't ever be economically competitive against any other power source without direct or indirect subsidies (there is no insurance that will insure a nuclear power plant). Highly recommend Taleb`s paper on fat-tailedness [1]. [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.10488 https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.10488
        maelito 7y ago
        I sincerely don't understand your appreciation of risks. If you have a simpler introduction to this, please share.
- simloo 7y ago
  That's preposterous. Wild boar is hunted, eaten and sold everywhere here in Sweden. The radioactivity (among other things) is measured and there are about a handful of animals above the limits for cesium-137 each year. It's important to note the limits are set very, very low. The term "meltdown" means the core has melted. I don't know where you got the number "5" from, because it's not the number of meltdowns globally (there have been a lot, almost all of them contained) nor the number of accidents with widespread consequences (2: Chernobyl and Fukushima).
  - moogly 7y ago
    It's not entirely accurate, but it's not preposterous and you're whitewashing the whole thing. During tests of felled wild boar in early 2019[0][1] showed that around 70% of the ones from Gästrikland (the region in Sweden that was hit hardest from the Chernobyl fallout) contained caesium-137 concentrations way above the 1500 Bq/kg guidelines, above which the animal is considered unsellable, ungiftable, and meat from such animals, for private use, should only be consumed at most a few times a month (up to 3000 Bq/kg), or not at all (>10 000 Bq/kg). Several animals (unclear how many) had caesium concentrations of over 40 000 Bq/kg, so there's a huge variation. Cannot find more exact figures than that. There are some interesting updated figures here, but not as big a study: https://krets.jagareforbundet.se/gavlesodra/cesiumrapport/ https://krets.jagareforbundet.se/gavlesodra/cesiumrapport/ There's a debate[2][3] about who should pay for testing these animals, because any animal above 1500 Bq/kg should be destroyed, and radioactivity tests are really expensive. Hunters want the government to pay. The government wants none of it. As it looks right now, wild boar hunting in these regions for the purpose of selling the meat is not economically feasible. This might change [4] (taxpayers will foot the bill). It's not only in Gävleborg/Gästrikland either. This map is from the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority's tests from 2018, mostly south of the really problematic areas: https://www.stralsakerhetsmyndigheten.se/contentassets/90ef7be03fab4638a5077a7fe0b7e221/vildsvinskarta-stor.png https://www.stralsakerhetsmyndigheten.se/contentassets/90ef7... Sources: [0]: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/gavleborg/mer-an-vartannat-vildsvin-i-gavleborg-radioaktivt-jaktintresset-falnar https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/gavleborg/mer-an-vartannat... [1]: https://www.livsmedelsverket.se/livsmedel-och-innehall/oonskade-amnen/radioaktivitet-och-bestralning/radioaktivt-cesium-i-vildsvin-fragor-och-svar https://www.livsmedelsverket.se/livsmedel-och-innehall/oonsk... [2]https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/gavleborg/mer-an-vartannat-vildsvin-i-gavleborg-radioaktivt-jaktintresset-falnar https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/gavleborg/mer-an-vartannat... [3]: https://www.thelocal.se/20191222/should-sweden-foot-the-bill-for-radioactive-wild-boar https://www.thelocal.se/20191222/should-sweden-foot-the-bill... [4]: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/gavleborg/staten-kan-bekosta-cesiumprover-pa-vildsvin https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/gavleborg/staten-kan-bekos...

by Reedx 7y ago

Puts 7y ago

Maybe depends on how you define safest. Where I live in Sweden, there are parts of the country where it's still not safe to hunt and eat wild boar because of a nuclear accident over 30 years ago 3000 kilometers away. If you just divide the number of meltdowns (5) with the number of active power reactors in the world (449) we learn that statistically 1% of reactors will have a core meltdown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accidents_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accident...

matwood 7y ago
A localized problem which is still nowhere close to the worldwide problem of mercury levels in fish attributed to fossil burning and coal plants.
maelito 7y ago
Well, ~100% of coal plants do kill lots of people.
- jpdus 7y ago
  That's such a short-sighted argument. Same as with "more deaths through flu" we heard so often in February. Think about fat tails and asymmetric risk. If you read in the newspaper next year: "Hundred thousand people dead/displaced due to power plant accident" - more likely to be coal or nuclear?
  - maelito 7y ago
    Please understand that no electricity generation technology has no risk. > Think about fat tails and asymmetric risk. If you read in the newspaper next year: "Hundred thousand people dead/displaced due to power plant accident" - more likely to be coal or nuclear? What's your evaluation of the probability of this event ? Without putting figures in the equation, I could also ask you in the same way to think about this event : if you read in the newspaper next year: "Billions of people dead/displaced due to one in a thousands year drought, leading to global famine" - more likely to be coal or nuclear?
    - jpdus 7y ago
      > more likely to be coal or nuclear Nuclear. Naive probability matters relatively little here. The risk of coal plants due to CO2 is a thin-tailed long term risk. No single coal plant will ever cause a headline (or an event) like this. Thin-tailed long-term risks can be mitigated and planned for and the result is always a sum of many smaller choices (albeit global warming is an existential risk for sure!). Nuclear is different. 99,999% of time it's cheaper and cleaner than coal. Doesn't matter. The tail-risk is what matters and that's also, why (conventional) nuclear can't ever be economically competitive against any other power source without direct or indirect subsidies (there is no insurance that will insure a nuclear power plant). Highly recommend Taleb`s paper on fat-tailedness [1]. [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.10488 https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.10488
      - maelito 7y ago
        I sincerely don't understand your appreciation of risks. If you have a simpler introduction to this, please share.
simloo 7y ago
That's preposterous. Wild boar is hunted, eaten and sold everywhere here in Sweden. The radioactivity (among other things) is measured and there are about a handful of animals above the limits for cesium-137 each year. It's important to note the limits are set very, very low. The term "meltdown" means the core has melted. I don't know where you got the number "5" from, because it's not the number of meltdowns globally (there have been a lot, almost all of them contained) nor the number of accidents with widespread consequences (2: Chernobyl and Fukushima).
- moogly 7y ago
  It's not entirely accurate, but it's not preposterous and you're whitewashing the whole thing. During tests of felled wild boar in early 2019[0][1] showed that around 70% of the ones from Gästrikland (the region in Sweden that was hit hardest from the Chernobyl fallout) contained caesium-137 concentrations way above the 1500 Bq/kg guidelines, above which the animal is considered unsellable, ungiftable, and meat from such animals, for private use, should only be consumed at most a few times a month (up to 3000 Bq/kg), or not at all (>10 000 Bq/kg). Several animals (unclear how many) had caesium concentrations of over 40 000 Bq/kg, so there's a huge variation. Cannot find more exact figures than that. There are some interesting updated figures here, but not as big a study: https://krets.jagareforbundet.se/gavlesodra/cesiumrapport/ https://krets.jagareforbundet.se/gavlesodra/cesiumrapport/ There's a debate[2][3] about who should pay for testing these animals, because any animal above 1500 Bq/kg should be destroyed, and radioactivity tests are really expensive. Hunters want the government to pay. The government wants none of it. As it looks right now, wild boar hunting in these regions for the purpose of selling the meat is not economically feasible. This might change [4] (taxpayers will foot the bill). It's not only in Gävleborg/Gästrikland either. This map is from the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority's tests from 2018, mostly south of the really problematic areas: https://www.stralsakerhetsmyndigheten.se/contentassets/90ef7be03fab4638a5077a7fe0b7e221/vildsvinskarta-stor.png https://www.stralsakerhetsmyndigheten.se/contentassets/90ef7... Sources: [0]: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/gavleborg/mer-an-vartannat-vildsvin-i-gavleborg-radioaktivt-jaktintresset-falnar https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/gavleborg/mer-an-vartannat... [1]: https://www.livsmedelsverket.se/livsmedel-och-innehall/oonskade-amnen/radioaktivitet-och-bestralning/radioaktivt-cesium-i-vildsvin-fragor-och-svar https://www.livsmedelsverket.se/livsmedel-och-innehall/oonsk... [2]https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/gavleborg/mer-an-vartannat-vildsvin-i-gavleborg-radioaktivt-jaktintresset-falnar https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/gavleborg/mer-an-vartannat... [3]: https://www.thelocal.se/20191222/should-sweden-foot-the-bill-for-radioactive-wild-boar https://www.thelocal.se/20191222/should-sweden-foot-the-bill... [4]: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/gavleborg/staten-kan-bekosta-cesiumprover-pa-vildsvin https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/gavleborg/staten-kan-bekos...