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I used to think nuclear was the way forward, and I kind of still do, but it's understandable why it isn't prevalent. It's all about magnitude of loss/failure. T
by VoodooJuJu 5y ago
I used to think nuclear was the way forward, and I kind of still do, but it's understandable why it isn't prevalent. It's all about magnitude of loss/failure. Traditional power plants are much safer and failure isn't nearly as catastrophic as with nuclear. If a nuclear plant fails, look at what can happen - you can lose an entire city indefinitely - Chernobyl.
The potential for loss is much higher with nuclear power.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- gsliepen 5y agoThere are certainly high risks with nuclear power, but accidents with a large loss of life also happen with other energy production methods. Also, a big accident like Chernobyl sounds horrible, but people forget that burning coal produces a lot of pollution (including radiation!) that over time kills much more people. To get a perspective of how nuclear accidents compare with those of other energy production methods, have a look at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents
- Ekaros 5y agoI wonder if we were to count total loss of life in maintenance and installation of solar, wind and hydro. How much worse would nuclear do. At least per energy produced. The worst case for hydro at least is immense, possibly multiple millions death in some cases.
- masklinn 5y agoAs of 2020, nuclear energy's death toll (including Chernobyl and Fukushima) was roughly the same as the combined death toll of solar and wind (resp. 0.07, 0.02, and 0.04 deaths per TWh): https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy Hydro is also surprisingly low at 0.02, though failures are absolutely catastrophic I guess they tend to be out of the way and fairly local: so a dam failure will take out a village at once, and do extensive geological-scale damage, but not much more.
- Manuel_D 5y agoHydroelectricity has inflicted orders of magnitude more damage. Yet nobody seriously proposes removing hydroelectric plants, they are by far the most effective form of renewables. Nuclear contamination can be cleaned. The majority of the Fukushima exclusion zone has been cleaned and reopened. There's no motivation to do this in Chernobyl because the town of Chernobyl only existed to support the nuclear power plant.
- masklinn 5y ago> Nuclear contamination can be cleaned. The majority of the Fukushima exclusion zone has been cleaned and reopened. There's no motivation to do this in Chernobyl because the town of Chernobyl only existed to support the nuclear power plant. And somewhat oddly he Chernobyl Exclusion Zone literally shows that nuclear accidents are good for the environment, as human activity turns out to be way worse for wildlife than elevated radiations.
- drran 5y agoHow many Chornobyl`s we need to save wild nature?
- drran 5y agoNot electricity, but water. We should ban water for raining from the sky to save lives.
- dtech 5y ago> The potential for loss is much higher with nuclear power. This isn't true. Fossil fuels kill much, much more people per Kwh than nuclear [1]. But much like airplanes vs car accidents, fossil fuels kill constantly and widespread in small amounts, while nuclear kills very rarely in high amounts. [1] https://youtu.be/Jzfpyo-q-RM?t=376 https://youtu.be/Jzfpyo-q-RM?t=376