3 ms·

You would be amazed how dangerous smoke is for human health. Even today burning coal is estimated to kill a few million people per year.

whatshisface 6y ago
I know how bad particulate matter is, but I'm not sure if you've thought through the implications of running a nuclear reactor in biodegradable containment and without any way to safely access the inside. I guess it might make a nice dystopian novel, perhaps the bronze age nuclear power company sends in war captives or something like that.
- njarboe 6y ago
  Yes, it would be very harmful to humans, but so were most industrial processes. We have now eliminated almost all of them in the West (some exported to other countries). I guess my main point is that if nuclear power had been around for as long as steam power then society would have grown up around it. It would be familiar, like fire (fossil fuels) is, and the human race could judge its merits much more rationally in comparison to other power sources. There are many a history book of war captives (slaves) being sent into gold/silver mines for a quick death.
  - whatshisface 6y ago
    A nuclear power plant running on the surface shielded by nothing more than some bricks would be way worse than any other ancient industrial technology. Water would get in and leach away any soluble isotopes, poisoning the surrounding area for millennia. Anything you tried to heat using the nuclear pile would become radioactive, because ancient societies don't have a way to transport heat. (In the modern world we use high pressure pipes and heat exchangers. Then, if anything more than household heating is desired, you need generators to convert the energy into an industrially useful form.) They would have to put whatever they wanted to warm up directly inside the reactor. So, you would quickly end up with uninhabitable cities, and everything made in the "cursed furnaces," would slowly kill the owner. The only reason nuclear power is safe is because engineers have figured out how to contain it.
    - lumost 6y ago
      More than likely such material would be used for primitive siege weapons and for “salting the earth”. There would be a nonzero chance of Bronze Age civilization wiping itself out through environmental catastrophe.

whatshisface 6y ago

I know how bad particulate matter is, but I'm not sure if you've thought through the implications of running a nuclear reactor in biodegradable containment and without any way to safely access the inside. I guess it might make a nice dystopian novel, perhaps the bronze age nuclear power company sends in war captives or something like that.

njarboe 6y ago
Yes, it would be very harmful to humans, but so were most industrial processes. We have now eliminated almost all of them in the West (some exported to other countries). I guess my main point is that if nuclear power had been around for as long as steam power then society would have grown up around it. It would be familiar, like fire (fossil fuels) is, and the human race could judge its merits much more rationally in comparison to other power sources. There are many a history book of war captives (slaves) being sent into gold/silver mines for a quick death.
- whatshisface 6y ago
  A nuclear power plant running on the surface shielded by nothing more than some bricks would be way worse than any other ancient industrial technology. Water would get in and leach away any soluble isotopes, poisoning the surrounding area for millennia. Anything you tried to heat using the nuclear pile would become radioactive, because ancient societies don't have a way to transport heat. (In the modern world we use high pressure pipes and heat exchangers. Then, if anything more than household heating is desired, you need generators to convert the energy into an industrially useful form.) They would have to put whatever they wanted to warm up directly inside the reactor. So, you would quickly end up with uninhabitable cities, and everything made in the "cursed furnaces," would slowly kill the owner. The only reason nuclear power is safe is because engineers have figured out how to contain it.
  - lumost 6y ago
    More than likely such material would be used for primitive siege weapons and for “salting the earth”. There would be a nonzero chance of Bronze Age civilization wiping itself out through environmental catastrophe.