5 ms·

Which statistics? Rate of unintended explosions? I believe the "steel man" argument is that living next to a nuclear power plant exposes you to unknown tail ri

Which statistics? Rate of unintended explosions? I believe the "steel man" argument is that living next to a nuclear power plant exposes you to unknown tail risks.

acidburnNSA 6y ago
These statistics: http://origin.who.int/airpollution/en/ http://origin.who.int/airpollution/en/
ekianjo 6y ago
Like statistics on something like 70 years of industrial experience with nuclear plants? How many centuries are required to make a point?
ashtonkem 6y ago
Living near a coal power plant exposes you to significantly more radiation than a nuclear power plant, let alone other health risks due to non-radioactive pollution.
- Melting_Harps 6y ago
  > Living near a coal power plant exposes you to significantly more radiation than a nuclear power plant, let alone other health risks due to non-radioactive pollution. But who is advocating for coal in lieu of Nuclear, other than say China? This is such a red herring, that no one in their right mind is trying to use coal as alternative, I mean even Texas with a dreadful position on environmental damage (see examples like COVID) and is swimming in oil--they had 99 cent gasoline before the pandemic--is moving towards wind farms. Even the Gulf States see the writing on the wall and are moving on to other investments in Aerospace and mining asteroids in space.
  - loeg 6y ago
    > But who is advocating for coal in lieu of Nuclear, other than say China? Germany, for example, is literally dismantling their nuclear energy program and the slack is taken up with coal. Due to self-named "green" advocacy. Or anyone arguing against nuclear in the developing world, for example. The status quo is coal.
    - dispat0r 6y ago
      It gets a lot crazier than that. Germany is also closing coal plants. If not enough power is available we are importing from France(nuclear) or Poland(coal) for a premium of course. Germany's energy policy is a complete fail and should never be praised.
    - pfdietz 6y ago
      The US has built just one new coal power plant in the last five years (a tiny one in Alaska). Coal is not the status quo; coal is collapsing here. Neither nuclear nor coal is the way forward.
      - loeg 6y ago
        You've taken that statement completely out of context: "in the developing world."
        pfdietz 6y ago
        Granted. However, even in the poorer countries coal is struggling. Look at India -- there is great risk of stranded coal assets there as solar crashes the price of electricity.
  - yongjik 6y ago
    > But who is advocating for coal in lieu of Nuclear, other than say China? As of 2016, Germany generated ~40% of its electricity from coal [1]. At the same time, France generated 72.3% of its electricity from nuclear (2016) [2], and 1.18% from coal [3]. Yet you will see people straight-up praising Germany for its anti-nuclear stance. People who advocate against nuclear, yet stay silent on coal, are contributing to our coal-burning world, whether they realize it or not. Actions speak louder than words. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#Electricity_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#Electricity_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_France [3] https://www.climatescorecard.org/2020/04/france-aims-at-clearing-its-electricity-production-of-fossil-fuels/ https://www.climatescorecard.org/2020/04/france-aims-at-clea...
    - Melting_Harps 6y ago
      > Yet you will see people straight-up praising Germany for its anti-nuclear stance. I don't, and I wore the 'Atomkraft, nein danke' patch too while I lived there and installed solar on several sites for the Farm owners I worked for; the State may have subsidized solar a lot, but as you said they have gaps and they just import the energy from France's Nuclear behemoth despite this policy. I lived and worked in Southern Germany 30 Km away from the border of France near Alsace and this was common knowledge when I lived there. The mother of my friend who I worked for was a politician of the Green Party, and this was one of the point of contentions she and I would argue over; the facade of doing something while only externalizing the issue. This was the same in my hometown with the nuclear plant in Orange County, we ended up paying Mitusbishi Heavy Industries for a f'd re-design, paid Edison more for electricity, and had our lives impacted with the radiation leak and our surf spots closed off so that we could subsidize and help offset the energy needs of the greater San Diego region; specifically Camp Pendelton Military base, which was/is the biggest domestic concentration of Marines on US soil for a mobilization point into the Pacific region where Obama had placed his military focus on early into this administration. Turns out the grid could handle it without the need of SONGS as its been shutdown, and they restarted natural gas plants in OC as result. > People who advocate against nuclear, yet stay silent on coal, are contributing to our coal-burning world, whether they realize it or not. Actions speak louder than words. Agreed but this is portraying things in a false dichotomy, I'm for advocating the use of all renewable in conjunction of having fossil fuels be the (limited) back up for when its needed to fill the gaps. I really do not think we will 100% remove ourselves on fossil fuel, airplanes will likely never be EV, nor cargo crafts for Sea Freight, neither will propellants for rockets go away either. In fact I see it going up in fact as SpaceX makes progress with Starship and increases its manifest, and at the tail end of the consumer market motorsports people like myself will always have a need for it. There are far too many variables to realistically think Fossil fuel will go away 100% in any of our Lifetimes, my friend is finishing his BSc in renewable energy/EE and just got accepted to a Masters program in Iceland focused on geothermal and even he says the same thing. Albeit incredibly reluctantly.
- mpalczewski 6y ago
  I'm very much in favor of nuclear, but if you want to advocate for it, you should know what the strongest arguments against it are. It's very easy to beat down the strawman of pollution. The risks of living next to a coal plant are rather well understood. The worst case scenario of living next to a coal plant is very different from the worst case scenario of living next to a nuke.

Which statistics? Rate of unintended explosions? I believe the "steel man" argument is that living next to a nuclear power plant exposes you to unknown tail risks.

acidburnNSA 6y ago

These statistics: http://origin.who.int/airpollution/en/ http://origin.who.int/airpollution/en/

ekianjo 6y ago

Like statistics on something like 70 years of industrial experience with nuclear plants? How many centuries are required to make a point?

ashtonkem 6y ago

Living near a coal power plant exposes you to significantly more radiation than a nuclear power plant, let alone other health risks due to non-radioactive pollution.

Melting_Harps 6y ago
> Living near a coal power plant exposes you to significantly more radiation than a nuclear power plant, let alone other health risks due to non-radioactive pollution. But who is advocating for coal in lieu of Nuclear, other than say China? This is such a red herring, that no one in their right mind is trying to use coal as alternative, I mean even Texas with a dreadful position on environmental damage (see examples like COVID) and is swimming in oil--they had 99 cent gasoline before the pandemic--is moving towards wind farms. Even the Gulf States see the writing on the wall and are moving on to other investments in Aerospace and mining asteroids in space.
- loeg 6y ago
  > But who is advocating for coal in lieu of Nuclear, other than say China? Germany, for example, is literally dismantling their nuclear energy program and the slack is taken up with coal. Due to self-named "green" advocacy. Or anyone arguing against nuclear in the developing world, for example. The status quo is coal.
  - dispat0r 6y ago
    It gets a lot crazier than that. Germany is also closing coal plants. If not enough power is available we are importing from France(nuclear) or Poland(coal) for a premium of course. Germany's energy policy is a complete fail and should never be praised.
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    The US has built just one new coal power plant in the last five years (a tiny one in Alaska). Coal is not the status quo; coal is collapsing here. Neither nuclear nor coal is the way forward.
    - loeg 6y ago
      You've taken that statement completely out of context: "in the developing world."
      - pfdietz 6y ago
        Granted. However, even in the poorer countries coal is struggling. Look at India -- there is great risk of stranded coal assets there as solar crashes the price of electricity.
- yongjik 6y ago
  > But who is advocating for coal in lieu of Nuclear, other than say China? As of 2016, Germany generated ~40% of its electricity from coal [1]. At the same time, France generated 72.3% of its electricity from nuclear (2016) [2], and 1.18% from coal [3]. Yet you will see people straight-up praising Germany for its anti-nuclear stance. People who advocate against nuclear, yet stay silent on coal, are contributing to our coal-burning world, whether they realize it or not. Actions speak louder than words. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#Electricity_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#Electricity_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_France [3] https://www.climatescorecard.org/2020/04/france-aims-at-clearing-its-electricity-production-of-fossil-fuels/ https://www.climatescorecard.org/2020/04/france-aims-at-clea...
  - Melting_Harps 6y ago
    > Yet you will see people straight-up praising Germany for its anti-nuclear stance. I don't, and I wore the 'Atomkraft, nein danke' patch too while I lived there and installed solar on several sites for the Farm owners I worked for; the State may have subsidized solar a lot, but as you said they have gaps and they just import the energy from France's Nuclear behemoth despite this policy. I lived and worked in Southern Germany 30 Km away from the border of France near Alsace and this was common knowledge when I lived there. The mother of my friend who I worked for was a politician of the Green Party, and this was one of the point of contentions she and I would argue over; the facade of doing something while only externalizing the issue. This was the same in my hometown with the nuclear plant in Orange County, we ended up paying Mitusbishi Heavy Industries for a f'd re-design, paid Edison more for electricity, and had our lives impacted with the radiation leak and our surf spots closed off so that we could subsidize and help offset the energy needs of the greater San Diego region; specifically Camp Pendelton Military base, which was/is the biggest domestic concentration of Marines on US soil for a mobilization point into the Pacific region where Obama had placed his military focus on early into this administration. Turns out the grid could handle it without the need of SONGS as its been shutdown, and they restarted natural gas plants in OC as result. > People who advocate against nuclear, yet stay silent on coal, are contributing to our coal-burning world, whether they realize it or not. Actions speak louder than words. Agreed but this is portraying things in a false dichotomy, I'm for advocating the use of all renewable in conjunction of having fossil fuels be the (limited) back up for when its needed to fill the gaps. I really do not think we will 100% remove ourselves on fossil fuel, airplanes will likely never be EV, nor cargo crafts for Sea Freight, neither will propellants for rockets go away either. In fact I see it going up in fact as SpaceX makes progress with Starship and increases its manifest, and at the tail end of the consumer market motorsports people like myself will always have a need for it. There are far too many variables to realistically think Fossil fuel will go away 100% in any of our Lifetimes, my friend is finishing his BSc in renewable energy/EE and just got accepted to a Masters program in Iceland focused on geothermal and even he says the same thing. Albeit incredibly reluctantly.
mpalczewski 6y ago
I'm very much in favor of nuclear, but if you want to advocate for it, you should know what the strongest arguments against it are. It's very easy to beat down the strawman of pollution. The risks of living next to a coal plant are rather well understood. The worst case scenario of living next to a coal plant is very different from the worst case scenario of living next to a nuke.