5 ms·
Even when we think things can't go wrong, and we think that we've thought of all the ways they could go wrong if they did, they still manage to go wrong. Everyt
by spark3k 6y ago
Even when we think things can't go wrong, and we think that we've thought of all the ways they could go wrong if they did, they still manage to go wrong. Everything goes wrong. Why do we need to pick a mind-bogglingly expensive technology where going wrong means catastrophe?
You can set your watch by the regularity at which the nuclear lobbies throw a "for the sake of climate change" article in a respected publication.
- mpweiher 6y agoBecause in practice/empirically it is safer than the alternatives even when things do go wrong. And they go wrong very rarely.
- Krasnol 6y agoStatistics won't help you if one of those "every 20 years" disasters hit a highly populated area like Europe. The technology will still look "safe" on paper but you'd have depopulated a huge area and maybe even killed people or keep on killing through cancer.
- mpweiher 6y agoThis is not "statistics" it is simple facts. Japan is highly populated.
- spark3k 6y ago"Very rarely" is not enough to justify thousands of years of uninhabitable square kilometres.
- Mrdarknezz 6y agoThat's not really true. Nuclear kills about as many as RE https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoBut those numbers are essentially cherry-picked. They include just production of energy, like falling into the furnace? Consider about externalities. Mining, shipping. Then add in environmental erosion resulting in lower lifespans around the globe. Then failure/interruptions that endanger folks during cold snaps/heat waves. That's a big one - petrochemical plants can be down 30% of the time (nuclear < 2%) leaving grids endangered. And of course its per-terawatt deaths that are interesting, not totals. Other wise you just have (literally) a heat map!
- Mrdarknezz 6y agoMining and shipping is required for all forms of energy. Of course it's gonna be per twh because that is the only way to measure that makes any sense. Kurzgesagt has a great video explaining everything here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzfpyo-q-RM
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoMining and shipping are very, very different by source - every watt of coal is shipped. Only the machinery for solar is shipped. Nuclear fuel is shipped in pounds not megatons, but they are fantastically dangerous pounds. Etc. Utterly different in effect on risk. The linked chart seemed to list totals. Did it have per TWHr? I missed that.
- Mrdarknezz 6y agoIf you want to talkt about emissions instead here is a great summary from the Swedish Life cycle analysis by energy source: Nuclear: 6g CO2/kwh Hydro: 9g CO2/kwh Wind: 13g CO2/kwh Solar: 24g CO2/kwh This includes everything from construction to mining. The data comes from Swedens state run energy company Vattenfall LCA report https://www.vattenfall.se/foretag/miljo/epd/ https://www.vattenfall.se/foretag/miljo/epd/ and here is a an article that summarizes it https://blog.karnfull.se/blog/kaernkraftslogik-1-klimatsmart https://blog.karnfull.se/blog/kaernkraftslogik-1-klimatsmart