3 ms·

You can have a look at another (rough) estimate I did on my answer to geuis. I agree with you, and as I stated in my other answer, things like barrage breakings

by maigret 16y ago

You can have a look at another (rough) estimate I did on my answer to geuis. I agree with you, and as I stated in my other answer, things like barrage breakings (due to an equivalent earthquake) can be also devastating for civilization. What I think would be useful is to have a public look at the track record of nuclear and compare it's impact with other energies. Nuclear power is going to stay for now, and that's probably necessary with the current state of the technology, but do we really want to invest so many billion in it for the next 100 year? Is really nuclear our safest bet against climate change?

ericd 16y ago
Realistically, we need an alternative that is as cheap as or nearly as cheap as the dirty energy production methods if we want it to take off. Nuclear is the only clean energy source that comes close, and it's likely to remain that way partly because of fundamental reasons. Things like solar, wind, etc. simply don't have the energy density to be viable replacements, with the possible exception of large scale solar deployments if one could reduce the material cost of panels, increase the efficiency, and find a way to store excess energy for the dark periods. For a very readable analysis with a good amount of rigor, I highly recommend the book Sustainable Energy - without the hot air by a professor of physics at the University of Cambridge, available free here: http://www.withouthotair.com/ http://www.withouthotair.com/
potatolicious 16y ago
> "and compare it's impact with other energies" This is where your argument falls apart. What other energy sources are there? Let's see... burning fossil fuels is not only environmentally unsustainable but also, as part of its regular operation, releases more radioactive material into the atmosphere than nuclear power plants. Solar? Workable on small scale, physically impossible to provide the majority of humanity's energy needs. Same goes for tidal, wind, and hydro. Geothermal? Ditto - only possible in very selective environments, zero chance of being able to provide significant power generation outside of very limited circumstances. There simply isn't a better technology out there right now. Until fusion comes along, nuclear is the best we've got. Nobody here is claiming it isn't without its risks, but it sure beats the pants off of what we're doing right now. Even if we completely ignore the environmental angle, the social angle, and the economic angle, and consider these choices purely on how much radiation exposure they will subject people to, nuclear still wins. That's how far apart these options are. You are choosing between an extremely low chance of being exposed to a potentially damaging dose of radiation... or a guarantee of breathing down radiogenic material for your entire lifetime. Anti-nuclear paranoia has been one of the most insidious and evil things to infect our collective consciousness in the past decades. It has enforced a continued and growing reliance on depleting fossil fuels, which has not only damaged the environment via greenhouse gas emissions, but pumped gigatons of radioactive material into the atmosphere to be inhaled by everyone. It has caused wars and famine and anti-science paranoia (did you know that the MRI was first called the NMRI? Guess why they had to rename it?).
- maigret 16y ago
  Renewable energies are almost making the same output as nuclear power, so this should be possible to get off nuclear without flooding the world under CO2 https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Nuclear_power https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Nuclear_power You may also look at that http://energypriorities.com/entries/2010/12/renewables_nuclear_share.php http://energypriorities.com/entries/2010/12/renewables_nucle...
- Dn_Ab 16y ago
  First, I am not against nuclear and hope the fallout from this incident isn't used as fuel for damaging propaganda. But this >Solar? Workable on small scale, physically impossible to provide the majority of humanity's energy needs. is wrong. Efficient use of all sustainable earth's solar input is a hard engineering problem (how best to stick satellites in space and then efficiently radiate back to base stations) but not impossible and would compete with anything Fusion (yes fusion) could produce. The world's current usage is estimated at 1.6 x 10^13/yr watts while 5.2 x 10^16 watts (30% of the sun's constant input to us) is completely reflected and never used by Earth. And the end game in some far flung future would be solar taken straight from the sun. The Kardashev scale is a probably not useful but nonetheless interesting take on this.

by maigret 16y ago

ericd 16y ago

Realistically, we need an alternative that is as cheap as or nearly as cheap as the dirty energy production methods if we want it to take off. Nuclear is the only clean energy source that comes close, and it's likely to remain that way partly because of fundamental reasons. Things like solar, wind, etc. simply don't have the energy density to be viable replacements, with the possible exception of large scale solar deployments if one could reduce the material cost of panels, increase the efficiency, and find a way to store excess energy for the dark periods. For a very readable analysis with a good amount of rigor, I highly recommend the book Sustainable Energy - without the hot air by a professor of physics at the University of Cambridge, available free here: http://www.withouthotair.com/ http://www.withouthotair.com/

potatolicious 16y ago

> "and compare it's impact with other energies" This is where your argument falls apart. What other energy sources are there? Let's see... burning fossil fuels is not only environmentally unsustainable but also, as part of its regular operation, releases more radioactive material into the atmosphere than nuclear power plants. Solar? Workable on small scale, physically impossible to provide the majority of humanity's energy needs. Same goes for tidal, wind, and hydro. Geothermal? Ditto - only possible in very selective environments, zero chance of being able to provide significant power generation outside of very limited circumstances. There simply isn't a better technology out there right now. Until fusion comes along, nuclear is the best we've got. Nobody here is claiming it isn't without its risks, but it sure beats the pants off of what we're doing right now. Even if we completely ignore the environmental angle, the social angle, and the economic angle, and consider these choices purely on how much radiation exposure they will subject people to, nuclear still wins. That's how far apart these options are. You are choosing between an extremely low chance of being exposed to a potentially damaging dose of radiation... or a guarantee of breathing down radiogenic material for your entire lifetime. Anti-nuclear paranoia has been one of the most insidious and evil things to infect our collective consciousness in the past decades. It has enforced a continued and growing reliance on depleting fossil fuels, which has not only damaged the environment via greenhouse gas emissions, but pumped gigatons of radioactive material into the atmosphere to be inhaled by everyone. It has caused wars and famine and anti-science paranoia (did you know that the MRI was first called the NMRI? Guess why they had to rename it?).

maigret 16y ago
Renewable energies are almost making the same output as nuclear power, so this should be possible to get off nuclear without flooding the world under CO2 https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Nuclear_power https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Nuclear_power You may also look at that http://energypriorities.com/entries/2010/12/renewables_nuclear_share.php http://energypriorities.com/entries/2010/12/renewables_nucle...
Dn_Ab 16y ago
First, I am not against nuclear and hope the fallout from this incident isn't used as fuel for damaging propaganda. But this >Solar? Workable on small scale, physically impossible to provide the majority of humanity's energy needs. is wrong. Efficient use of all sustainable earth's solar input is a hard engineering problem (how best to stick satellites in space and then efficiently radiate back to base stations) but not impossible and would compete with anything Fusion (yes fusion) could produce. The world's current usage is estimated at 1.6 x 10^13/yr watts while 5.2 x 10^16 watts (30% of the sun's constant input to us) is completely reflected and never used by Earth. And the end game in some far flung future would be solar taken straight from the sun. The Kardashev scale is a probably not useful but nonetheless interesting take on this.