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1,000 upvotes. Nuclear power is inherently UNSAFE. It takes a lot of hubris to claim otherwise. It harnesses intense fundamental forces of nature that we can n
by danenania 16y ago
1,000 upvotes.
Nuclear power is inherently UNSAFE. It takes a lot of hubris to claim otherwise. It harnesses intense fundamental forces of nature that we can never control without a small but inevitable risk of horrible damage and harm to unlucky populations. In controlling power of this magnitude, it is inevitable that there will be mistakes or freak events that allow this power to seep out of whatever is the latest in fundamental-forces-of-nature-containment technology. Coal plants may cause awful air pollution, but there is no chance of radioactively poisoning an entire city. There's a reason no coal power plant has ever been paid quite as much attention as Fukushima, isn't there?
- michaelchisari 16y agoWhat is that reason, exactly? When Banqauio kills 171,000, Bhopal kills 10,000, and 30,000 people die every year from coal pollution, why exactly don't we give energy production methods like that the kind of scrutiny we're giving Fukushima?
- waterlesscloud 16y agoBecause Bhopal had nothing to do with energy production? And are you claiming Bhopal didn't get massive media coverage? Because it did.
- michaelchisari 16y agoI know, Bhopal was a chemical processing plant. But it was a massive disaster, that killed thousands, and nobody came out of that saying we should never process chemicals.
- danenania 16y agoPerhaps we shouldn't mass produce deadly environmentally destructive pesticides either? Would that be a bold statement? Why do you keep changing the subject? Quit talking about coal and pesticides and explain why it's okay to risk the lives of entire cities of people for the sake of extra electric output? Edit: I never disagreed with the article's title. I was agreeing with the parent post's sentiment that regardless of the numbers, downplaying the suffering of the people in Fukushima and the risks they still face is wrong. Nuclear power is dangerous and can have terrible costs. It's entirely reasonable not to view it as a praiseworthy technology.
- burgerbrain 16y ago"Nuclear Power is Safest Way to Make Electricity" In case you are unversed in the nuanced English being used here, "safe" != "safest", nor are their meanings equivalent. So why do you keep changing the subject? Nuclear isn't 'safe', but it is the 'safest'. Modern society assumes some amount of risk, get over it.
- michaelchisari 16y agowhy it's okay to risk the lives of entire cities of people for the sake of extra electric output? Do you not understand, that's the exact reason why people are bringing up coal. If we were to switch off of coal and onto nuclear, scores less people would die and get sick. A massive amount. Not to mention the benefits of halting climate change. That doesn't mean nuclear is all sunshine and rainbows, and nobody who reasonably supports nuclear over coal thinks that.
- eliasmacpherson 16y agoYou don't know enough to make that statement. If you replace coal with PWR nuclear reactors, you still have potential problems. You are projecting past performance into the future which is extremely foolish.
- Natsu 16y agoDeepwater Horizon would have made a much better example, I think.
- danenania 16y agoUh, maybe we ought to give them both a lot more scrutiny? I'm not trying to champion coal power here. Fuck coal power. I'm just pointing out the obvious: nuclear power is dangerous.
- jarek 16y agoDo you operate a fridge?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- GFischer 16y agoI had to look up the Banquiao dam disaster: "the 1975 Banqiauo Dam collapse in China killed 171000 people" "The dam failure killed an estimated 171,000 people; 11 million people lost their homes" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam I did remember the Bhopal gas disaster: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster
- lukeqsee 16y ago> There's a reason no coal power plant has ever been paid quite as much attention as Fukushima, isn't there? Yes. There is a reason: sensationalism.
- burgerbrain 16y agoExactly. The only coal incident that has gotten anywhere near the amount of attention it deserves is Centralia Pennsylvania. (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Centralia,_Pe...) That's just a dramatic case that makes for good soundbites though, unbelievable more places have been rendered effectively uninhabitable by coal mining, to say nothing of the damage it does to local food sources (acid rivers anyone?) The thought that nuclear is more dangerous, or has done more damage, than coal, comes from nothing but ignorance of the coal industry and it's history.
- danenania 16y agoSo now the point is that coal disasters aren't being talked about? I thought we were discussing whether nuclear power is safe. Are you actually going to stand up and on the record proclaim that in general, free of context, nuclear energy is safe. Just that one sentence: nuclear energy is safe. No it isn't. It's fucking dangerous. Air pollution killing lots of people doesn't change this. Radiation kills people too.
- michaelchisari 16y agoThe title of this article is that nuclear power is the safest, relative to other sources of power currently capable of scaling to needs. That's a very important distinction, so I would ask you to please consider that.
- nextparadigms 16y agoSafer than wind and solar? I don't think so. Those stats that we saw a while ago that people die from solar too because they fall off the roof are pretty ridiculous. 10 years from now all new homes will come with solar panels pre-installed, so people won't have to set them up themselves. Plus, you could always hire someone else to do it for you. In my country we're building giant wind turbines that will generate twice as much energy as our nuclear plant. I'm not saying we should ban nuclear power forever, but it shouldn't become the main source of energy either, at least not until we're researched it enough to be 100x safer than it is today, and when it will deliver 100x more energy than solar and wind can, through actual fusion or whatever. Until then, I don't see why we should blindly keep building them when there are perfectly viable clean energy alternatives out there already, or just slightly behind, and just need a little push capital wise to become more advanced.
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- nitrogen 16y agoEverything we humans do is inherently unsafe. Using the phrase "fundamental force of nature" as though it has a sort of supernatural power behind it isn't going to change that. Gravity and inertia are also fundamental elements of nature, which kill far more people than radiation. Do we refer to automobiles as "fundamental force of nature containment technology"? The main problem with radiation is that it's invisible and poorly understood by the public, and has been overused in movies as a fear device. Why are people seemingly more afraid of radiation maybe killing a few people than a tsunami killing many thousands? Consider if Fukushima had been a nerve gas plant, which may not have as stringent of regulations as nuclear power.
- varjag 16y agoNobody advocates building more nerve gas plants.