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> nuclear is responsible for fewer deaths per TWh of power generated than anything you're proposing as a "dirty" alternative. Irrelevant. The issue here isn't
by cletus 7y ago
> nuclear is responsible for fewer deaths per TWh of power generated than anything you're proposing as a "dirty" alternative.
Irrelevant. The issue here isn't the expected value but the magnitude of the failure modes.
Hundreds of thousands of people die every year in or because of automobiles, way more than in commercial airplanes, By any measure you can planes are safer. Yet, you will find more prevalence of the fear of flying than driving. Why? Because incidents are catastrophic often killing hundreds of people at once. There's only so much damage a single car can do even though cars collectively do way more damage than planes.
Caol has obvious issues but the failure modes aren't catastrophic. Nuclear failure modes are. Nuclear has the power to make thousands of square miles uninhabitable for centuries (the last time I mentioned this I was accused at exaggerating so I'll preempt that by pointing out the absolute Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is, currently, 1000 square miles).
> The most problematic nuclear contaminants are therefore the ones with medium half lives
Yeah, no sale. There are two factors you're ignoring here:
1. Not just the strength but the type of radioactive decay. For example, a piece of paper will stop alpha emissions but alpha emissions are highly energetic and this is what makes Polonium-210 (as an extreme example) so deadly;
2. The chemical toxicity of the byproducts. Even U-238 (with a 4.5B year half life) is quite toxic; and
3. What an element decays into and the properties it (and all subsequent elements) has.
> How is a nuclear reactor worse than a chemical plant?
And what "chemical substances" are you referring to in particular here?
I'll reverse your own argument here and say that any process is capable of producing toxic byproducts, nuclear waste has the additional property of being radioactive too. How is that better?
- roenxi 7y ago> Why? Because incidents are catastrophic often killing hundreds of people at once. You're rationalising something that isn't a rational or reasonable response. Exactly the same argument could be applied to trains; but I havn't met anyone who is scared of traveling by train. People are scared of heights and having no plausible escape routes if something goes wrong is also pretty scary. The statistics are overwhelming that this instinctive response is wrong.
- ivanhoe 7y agoHaving no plausible escape (or counter measures) is also a big factor for nuclear scare. If there's a fire or flood, a few weeks/months later everything will be back to normal. If radiation leaks contamination remains for generations (even if it's not that bad as news make it sound) and that freaks out people. That and the general fear of unknown and invisible (just look at the 5G panic for that)
- xenonite 7y agoI don't think this is a "fear" or a "feeling" thing. Accidents do have a non-negligible probability. Then it can kill people, can make land completely unhabitable. I don't have an _unsubstantiated_ "bad feeling", "fear" or "panic" about it, because accidents pose a real, even proven problem. Furthermore, there might come a time when the knowledge about radioactivity is diminished so far that people call it a "believe" thing. And then it will cause even further problems.
- ivanhoe 7y agoIrrational part of this fear is ignoring the very low probability of it ever happening. People have this strong, but from mathematical perspective irrational preference for 100% safety, compared to say 99.99999% safety, even when the 2nd offers many benefits.
- xenonite 7y agoI think it is rather irresponsible to make up such a number. With Chernobyl 1986 and Fukushima 2011, two ultimate MCA's happened in my past lifetime. Does your number include them? And, even if it is a small percentage: if it does happen, the costs involved are so much more than one would be ready to set aside (e.g., if you just measure the monetary effect, Fukushima costs $750 billion, and the US insurances would max. payout $13 billion) I would be very happy if the world does experience the next 50 years without no more of these events. But I honestly consider that as quite unlikely. Especially from a mathematical perspective.
- belorn 7y ago> Caol has obvious issues but the failure modes aren't catastrophic. If we don't recognize global warming as a catastrophic failure mode then people are going to disagree on a fundamental level with no space for agreement or understanding of the other persons view. Chernobyl Exclusion Zone is pretty large. Add a few order of magnitude and you get the desert that global warming is causing to grow. It would take quite a few nuclear accident to cause global starvation, but with global warming we are on track for just that future.