6 ms·

> But a ton of the "clean" power isn't clean. Emphasis on a ton — not all. Nuclear basically is. And as of this millennium at the latest it’s been safe. The nu

> But a ton of the "clean" power isn't clean. Emphasis on a ton — not all. Nuclear basically is. And as of this millennium at the latest it’s been safe. The nuclear deaths in the US add up to a grand total of 0 (zero). That’s better than eg. wind can say — at least one turbine has burst into flame during maintenance, forcing the workers to choose between burning or leaping to death. Google’s Ivanpah solar plant has also killed thousands of birds by burning them so they plummet out of the sky (not to mention the endangered desert tortoises who lose their habitats when land is bulldozed for solar, or human injuries from falling of roofs while installing solar panels). And of course CO₂ danger is exaggerated, most scientists from the American Meteorological Society or the American Geophysical Union for the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) don’t believe there will be catastrophic effects of global warming (including from more potent greenhouse gasses like methane) in the next 50-100 years. And deaths from natural disasters are declining.

shadowgovt 6y ago
Both Fukushima and Chernobyl raise serious questions about the safety of nuclear power, unfortunately. > And of course CO₂ danger is exaggerated, most scientists from the American Meteorological Society or the American Geophysical Union for the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) don’t believe there will be catastrophic effects of global warming (including from more potent greenhouse gasses like methane) in the next 50-100 years. Have they looked into what's going on in the west coast of the US right now?
- boogies 6y ago
  Again, as of the last millenium at the latest. Chernobyl was last millenium. Fukushima was a tsunami. There were 0 (zero) deaths from radiation there (and ironically, perhaps there were deaths from irrational fear of it — from the rushed evacuation — perhaps it would be better named FUDushima). And tsunamis don’t happen in the US. The west coast has had catastrophic human intervention in the natural fire cycle, piling up fuel year after year until it was too big of a hazard for humans to handle. https://www.wsj.com/articles/californias-paradise-lost-1542068600 https://www.wsj.com/articles/californias-paradise-lost-15420...
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    > Fukushima was a tsunami Tsunamis, by themselves, don't contaminate ocean-water with radioactive material to a density high enough to create a 10-km no-fish-zone. https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00664/fukushima-fishing-industry-still-far-from-recovery.html https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00664/fukushima-fishin... And while Chernobyl didn't happen in the past 20 years, I think it's naive to consider nuclear power safe when a continent-threatening disaster occurred in the past 40 years. "One massive disaster per generation" makes people justifiably leery. Personally, I think the grand calculus may tilt slightly in nuclear's favor over fossil fuels, but the risk can't be swept under the rug. > The west coast has had catastrophic human intervention in the natural fire cycle, piling up fuel year after year until it was too big of a hazard for humans to handle This is a concern, but I think we shouldn't discount that the hottest years recorded in California history of record-keeping have been, with only a couple exceptions, the most recent years (https://www.climatesignals.org/sites/default/files/resources/ca_annual_average_1895-2016.png https://www.climatesignals.org/sites/default/files/resources...). The "natural" fire cycle will get further and further from its historical nature as ambient temperatures climb and rainfall diminishes.
    - boogies 6y ago
      > Tsunamis, by themselves, don't contaminate ocean-water with radioactive material to a density high enough to create a 10-km no-fish-zone OK, fair enough, I think it may be a good idea not to build nuclear reactors in potential direct paths of tsunamis, or at least not on the seashore <20 meters above sea level, when there’s a local fishing industry, to minimize economic risk. But if the fact that the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, the fourth most powerful earthquake in the recorded history of the world, causing the only nuclear “disaster” to share the same maximum classification as Chernobyl, killed at maximum one person singular, a thousand times less than an average year of rooftop solar https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all... § The safety issues with Rooftop solar installations / http://www.osha.gov/Publications/Construction_Fatalities/Confat.pdf http://www.osha.gov/Publications/Construction_Fatalities/Con..., “raise[s] serious questions about the safety of nuclear power,” I don’t know an appropriate adjective to describe the questions raised by one form of solar killing 3 orders of magnitude more yearly. (Edit: On fires) Heat may exacerbate fires, but it doesn’t change the fact that you can’t burn what isn’t there, and there simply wouldn’t be anywhere near as much flammable undergrowth, etc. if firefighters didn’t fight to prevent nature from removing it in smaller, safer quantities. The number of deaths from natural disasters relative to population is decreasing and there’s no reason for the west coast to be an exception (other than blaming the weather and ignoring inconvenient facts and logic).
- djsumdog 6y ago
  > Have they looked into what's going on in the west coast of the US right now? Despite the current fires, wildfires are down and have been for decades. A lot of the current wild fires stem from reducing the number of controlled burns we use to do. Also there is quite a significant amount of arson: https://archive.is/GWLYq https://archive.is/GWLYq, https://archive.is/cFPbd https://archive.is/cFPbd, https://archive.is/xHiFO https://archive.is/xHiFO, https://archive.is/mhKtG https://archive.is/mhKtG, https://archive.is/US23e https://archive.is/US23e, https://archive.is/JyfJe https://archive.is/JyfJe, https://archive.is/owMeD https://archive.is/owMeD, https://archive.is/rl2cm https://archive.is/rl2cm (and there are a ton more)
  - shadowgovt 6y ago
    > wildfires are down 14 of the 20 worst wildfires have occurred in the past 15 years, and the size of fire season is growing. https://laist.com/2019/10/28/california-fires-explained-why-they-are-getting-worse.php https://laist.com/2019/10/28/california-fires-explained-why-...
icebraining 6y ago
> don’t believe Didn't, in thirteen years ago, when that survey was conducted.
- boogies 6y ago
  Please do provide a more recent survey of comparable experts if it’s possible.

shadowgovt 6y ago

Both Fukushima and Chernobyl raise serious questions about the safety of nuclear power, unfortunately. > And of course CO₂ danger is exaggerated, most scientists from the American Meteorological Society or the American Geophysical Union for the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) don’t believe there will be catastrophic effects of global warming (including from more potent greenhouse gasses like methane) in the next 50-100 years. Have they looked into what's going on in the west coast of the US right now?

boogies 6y ago
Again, as of the last millenium at the latest. Chernobyl was last millenium. Fukushima was a tsunami. There were 0 (zero) deaths from radiation there (and ironically, perhaps there were deaths from irrational fear of it — from the rushed evacuation — perhaps it would be better named FUDushima). And tsunamis don’t happen in the US. The west coast has had catastrophic human intervention in the natural fire cycle, piling up fuel year after year until it was too big of a hazard for humans to handle. https://www.wsj.com/articles/californias-paradise-lost-1542068600 https://www.wsj.com/articles/californias-paradise-lost-15420...
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  > Fukushima was a tsunami Tsunamis, by themselves, don't contaminate ocean-water with radioactive material to a density high enough to create a 10-km no-fish-zone. https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00664/fukushima-fishing-industry-still-far-from-recovery.html https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00664/fukushima-fishin... And while Chernobyl didn't happen in the past 20 years, I think it's naive to consider nuclear power safe when a continent-threatening disaster occurred in the past 40 years. "One massive disaster per generation" makes people justifiably leery. Personally, I think the grand calculus may tilt slightly in nuclear's favor over fossil fuels, but the risk can't be swept under the rug. > The west coast has had catastrophic human intervention in the natural fire cycle, piling up fuel year after year until it was too big of a hazard for humans to handle This is a concern, but I think we shouldn't discount that the hottest years recorded in California history of record-keeping have been, with only a couple exceptions, the most recent years (https://www.climatesignals.org/sites/default/files/resources/ca_annual_average_1895-2016.png https://www.climatesignals.org/sites/default/files/resources...). The "natural" fire cycle will get further and further from its historical nature as ambient temperatures climb and rainfall diminishes.
  - boogies 6y ago
    > Tsunamis, by themselves, don't contaminate ocean-water with radioactive material to a density high enough to create a 10-km no-fish-zone OK, fair enough, I think it may be a good idea not to build nuclear reactors in potential direct paths of tsunamis, or at least not on the seashore <20 meters above sea level, when there’s a local fishing industry, to minimize economic risk. But if the fact that the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, the fourth most powerful earthquake in the recorded history of the world, causing the only nuclear “disaster” to share the same maximum classification as Chernobyl, killed at maximum one person singular, a thousand times less than an average year of rooftop solar https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all... § The safety issues with Rooftop solar installations / http://www.osha.gov/Publications/Construction_Fatalities/Confat.pdf http://www.osha.gov/Publications/Construction_Fatalities/Con..., “raise[s] serious questions about the safety of nuclear power,” I don’t know an appropriate adjective to describe the questions raised by one form of solar killing 3 orders of magnitude more yearly. (Edit: On fires) Heat may exacerbate fires, but it doesn’t change the fact that you can’t burn what isn’t there, and there simply wouldn’t be anywhere near as much flammable undergrowth, etc. if firefighters didn’t fight to prevent nature from removing it in smaller, safer quantities. The number of deaths from natural disasters relative to population is decreasing and there’s no reason for the west coast to be an exception (other than blaming the weather and ignoring inconvenient facts and logic).
djsumdog 6y ago
> Have they looked into what's going on in the west coast of the US right now? Despite the current fires, wildfires are down and have been for decades. A lot of the current wild fires stem from reducing the number of controlled burns we use to do. Also there is quite a significant amount of arson: https://archive.is/GWLYq https://archive.is/GWLYq, https://archive.is/cFPbd https://archive.is/cFPbd, https://archive.is/xHiFO https://archive.is/xHiFO, https://archive.is/mhKtG https://archive.is/mhKtG, https://archive.is/US23e https://archive.is/US23e, https://archive.is/JyfJe https://archive.is/JyfJe, https://archive.is/owMeD https://archive.is/owMeD, https://archive.is/rl2cm https://archive.is/rl2cm (and there are a ton more)
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  > wildfires are down 14 of the 20 worst wildfires have occurred in the past 15 years, and the size of fire season is growing. https://laist.com/2019/10/28/california-fires-explained-why-they-are-getting-worse.php https://laist.com/2019/10/28/california-fires-explained-why-...

icebraining 6y ago

> don’t believe Didn't, in thirteen years ago, when that survey was conducted.

boogies 6y ago
Please do provide a more recent survey of comparable experts if it’s possible.