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"We basically don't have a choice but to use some form of power generation" Humans seem to have done well for thousands of years without electricity. Just sayi

by Tichy 16y ago

"We basically don't have a choice but to use some form of power generation" Humans seem to have done well for thousands of years without electricity. Just saying. Don't bother to reply with death rates and so on - it is a complex subject, but your generalization is definitely too simple. The fact is, there are lots of alternatives. Maybe we need nuclear power to sustain three TVs per household, though. Is it worth the price? As for fertilizer, I can produce you some fertilizer without any help of nuclear power, too. I do it every day.

Natsu 16y ago
> Humans seem to have done well for thousands of years without electricity. The problem is one of scale. There's no way you can produce enough so that people won't starve without some form of power (coal, natural gas, etc. work too, nuclear isn't the only option, just one of the better ones, and costs fewer lives than the alternatives). For those thousands of years, we had a much, MUCH smaller population. Notice the spike in the world population graph: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/World_population https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/World_populat... Also look under the "Forecast" section, where it lists estimated world population back to 70k BC. Which people should we permit to starve in order to reduce world population to that which is more readily sustainable? I mean, that's basically our only other option. We wouldn't have gotten even this far without the Green revolution: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Green_revolution https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Green_revolut... If we suppose that the 1750s levels are considered sustainable, then they had 791 million people, while the 2008 estimate is 6,707 million. Thus, we have to get rid of just under 6 billion? That's, very roughly, 6 out of every 7 people. Ouch. Or we can choose which types of power generation to use as best we can based on the risk: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-so... That said, I agree very much with the reply to this: http://www.quora.com/Does-who-dies-matter-morally-when-assessing-energy-options http://www.quora.com/Does-who-dies-matter-morally-when-asses... Our goal should always be zero deaths. It's an impossible standard, but we still have to try. But please give the engineers some credit for trying.
- Tichy 16y ago
  So what do you reckon, what perecentage of current nuclear power output is used to feed people? Have you researched that, or are you just making broad statements? I did not say that we should reduce population levels, just that there are always options (like reducing population levels). It is also an entirely differnent subject if whe should aim to maximize the amount of humans living on earth (not saying we shouldn't, but I don't think we can simply assume the answer is yes, there are pros and cons). I haven't researched this, but aren't the majority of the current 6 Billion people in regions of the earth with bad infrastructure? If so, it seems likely that they are able to survive without nuclear power, just saying. In any case I am not yet convinced by your argument. I also don't think most power is directly used for saving people's lives. It is used to power factories for building SUVs and stuff like that. In any case, population control is probably inevitable - no matter what cures or food sources or energy sources we'll find, humans will always outgrow them.
  - Natsu 16y ago
    The nuclear power is used to take away demand from the power derived from oil & gas. You should be plenty aware of the problems, political and otherwise, with oil (Deepwater Horizon, that whole middle-east thing, etc.). Most food is produced in places like the USA, which have good infrastructure. There are other issues there where Matthew's law comes into effect (specifically, the "poor get poorer" part of it) in undeveloped countries.
    - Tichy 16y ago
      "The nuclear power is used to take away demand from the power derived from oil & gas." That's not an answer as to what the power is used for. Your claim was that the nuclear power is necessary to sustain earth's population. Is that the case or not?
      - Natsu 16y ago
        You appear to be confused. The argument is that power in general (rather than nuclear, specifically) is required to feed the world. I thought that obvious from the part I quoted (i.e. the statement that we could get by with no electricity), but it seems that you misunderstood. Once "nothing" has been eliminated as an option for where we get power from, we move from there to the fact that nuclear is one of the safest options. Reducing our demand for the less safe power sources saves lives, but there are always tradeoffs. Who dies, for example. Probably one of the best things we could do would be to reduce coal usage with an increase in nuclear power. Several thousand people die each year in coal mine accidents alone. But they're mostly poor people in China, so the non-human costs (political, economic, etc.) have so far dominated. The whole point is that we ought to do the best we can to make the most realistic tradeoffs possible and to avoid taking worthwhile options off of the table, especially when the largest risks are political.

by Tichy 16y ago

Natsu 16y ago

> Humans seem to have done well for thousands of years without electricity. The problem is one of scale. There's no way you can produce enough so that people won't starve without some form of power (coal, natural gas, etc. work too, nuclear isn't the only option, just one of the better ones, and costs fewer lives than the alternatives). For those thousands of years, we had a much, MUCH smaller population. Notice the spike in the world population graph: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/World_population https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/World_populat... Also look under the "Forecast" section, where it lists estimated world population back to 70k BC. Which people should we permit to starve in order to reduce world population to that which is more readily sustainable? I mean, that's basically our only other option. We wouldn't have gotten even this far without the Green revolution: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Green_revolution https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Green_revolut... If we suppose that the 1750s levels are considered sustainable, then they had 791 million people, while the 2008 estimate is 6,707 million. Thus, we have to get rid of just under 6 billion? That's, very roughly, 6 out of every 7 people. Ouch. Or we can choose which types of power generation to use as best we can based on the risk: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-so... That said, I agree very much with the reply to this: http://www.quora.com/Does-who-dies-matter-morally-when-assessing-energy-options http://www.quora.com/Does-who-dies-matter-morally-when-asses... Our goal should always be zero deaths. It's an impossible standard, but we still have to try. But please give the engineers some credit for trying.

Tichy 16y ago
So what do you reckon, what perecentage of current nuclear power output is used to feed people? Have you researched that, or are you just making broad statements? I did not say that we should reduce population levels, just that there are always options (like reducing population levels). It is also an entirely differnent subject if whe should aim to maximize the amount of humans living on earth (not saying we shouldn't, but I don't think we can simply assume the answer is yes, there are pros and cons). I haven't researched this, but aren't the majority of the current 6 Billion people in regions of the earth with bad infrastructure? If so, it seems likely that they are able to survive without nuclear power, just saying. In any case I am not yet convinced by your argument. I also don't think most power is directly used for saving people's lives. It is used to power factories for building SUVs and stuff like that. In any case, population control is probably inevitable - no matter what cures or food sources or energy sources we'll find, humans will always outgrow them.
- Natsu 16y ago
  The nuclear power is used to take away demand from the power derived from oil & gas. You should be plenty aware of the problems, political and otherwise, with oil (Deepwater Horizon, that whole middle-east thing, etc.). Most food is produced in places like the USA, which have good infrastructure. There are other issues there where Matthew's law comes into effect (specifically, the "poor get poorer" part of it) in undeveloped countries.
  - Tichy 16y ago
    "The nuclear power is used to take away demand from the power derived from oil & gas." That's not an answer as to what the power is used for. Your claim was that the nuclear power is necessary to sustain earth's population. Is that the case or not?
    - Natsu 16y ago
      You appear to be confused. The argument is that power in general (rather than nuclear, specifically) is required to feed the world. I thought that obvious from the part I quoted (i.e. the statement that we could get by with no electricity), but it seems that you misunderstood. Once "nothing" has been eliminated as an option for where we get power from, we move from there to the fact that nuclear is one of the safest options. Reducing our demand for the less safe power sources saves lives, but there are always tradeoffs. Who dies, for example. Probably one of the best things we could do would be to reduce coal usage with an increase in nuclear power. Several thousand people die each year in coal mine accidents alone. But they're mostly poor people in China, so the non-human costs (political, economic, etc.) have so far dominated. The whole point is that we ought to do the best we can to make the most realistic tradeoffs possible and to avoid taking worthwhile options off of the table, especially when the largest risks are political.