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Radioactive material is treated differently because it is dangerous at a distance. You don't need to eat it or even touch it. Simply standing close enough to it

by mantap 6y ago

Radioactive material is treated differently because it is dangerous at a distance. You don't need to eat it or even touch it. Simply standing close enough to it is enough to be harmful. It's just not comparable to anything in a solar panel. After decommissioning a solar farm, at worst the soil might not be suitable for farming but nobody would complain about building a house there. For the same to be true of a nuclear plant a very expensive decommissioning process must be completed.

VBprogrammer 6y ago
The second hand market for decommissioned panels is now strong enough that it has gotten hard to source them by the container load. This used to be a great way of sourcing solar panels for off grid applications where a small drop in efficiency was totally offset by the low cost. I think we can also safely assume used lithium batteries will similarly remain in high demand.
roenxi 6y ago
> Radioactive material is treated differently because it is dangerous at a distance. You don't need to eat it or even touch it. Simply standing close enough to it is enough to be harmful. It's just not comparable to anything in a solar panel. I don't think that is true, the article cites that the majority of the bad cancer cases from Chernobyl were caused by ingestion of tainted milk. Besides, the core of that argument there is you have no evidence ergo there is no problem. That isn't a good argument. There are some horrific substances used in industrial processes (like, eg, the production of solar panels). Just because you want to think about them in nuclear but not elsewhere doesn't mean the problems go away. Industrial waste is industrial waste; humanity has been ignoring this stuff for millennia. It is no reason to block something as measurably environmentally positive as nuclear. The numbers suggest nuclear does less harm. We should be holding all the options to the same safety standards. > After decommissioning a solar farm, at worst the soil might not be suitable for farming but nobody would complain about building a house there. For the same to be true of a nuclear plant a very expensive decommissioning process must be completed. Don't build a house there then. Incidentally it'd be a prime spot for a new nuclear plant. These things are perfectly safe for people to work in, the issue is highly localised. The area of a plant is small. And, again, by the numbers a solar panel farm is going to sterilise a larger area of land. The fact that in theory it could be used doesn't change the fact it is going to be unusable by virtue of being covered in solar panels.

by mantap 6y ago

VBprogrammer 6y ago

The second hand market for decommissioned panels is now strong enough that it has gotten hard to source them by the container load. This used to be a great way of sourcing solar panels for off grid applications where a small drop in efficiency was totally offset by the low cost. I think we can also safely assume used lithium batteries will similarly remain in high demand.

roenxi 6y ago

> Radioactive material is treated differently because it is dangerous at a distance. You don't need to eat it or even touch it. Simply standing close enough to it is enough to be harmful. It's just not comparable to anything in a solar panel. I don't think that is true, the article cites that the majority of the bad cancer cases from Chernobyl were caused by ingestion of tainted milk. Besides, the core of that argument there is you have no evidence ergo there is no problem. That isn't a good argument. There are some horrific substances used in industrial processes (like, eg, the production of solar panels). Just because you want to think about them in nuclear but not elsewhere doesn't mean the problems go away. Industrial waste is industrial waste; humanity has been ignoring this stuff for millennia. It is no reason to block something as measurably environmentally positive as nuclear. The numbers suggest nuclear does less harm. We should be holding all the options to the same safety standards. > After decommissioning a solar farm, at worst the soil might not be suitable for farming but nobody would complain about building a house there. For the same to be true of a nuclear plant a very expensive decommissioning process must be completed. Don't build a house there then. Incidentally it'd be a prime spot for a new nuclear plant. These things are perfectly safe for people to work in, the issue is highly localised. The area of a plant is small. And, again, by the numbers a solar panel farm is going to sterilise a larger area of land. The fact that in theory it could be used doesn't change the fact it is going to be unusable by virtue of being covered in solar panels.