3 ms·

> Then I guess we're effed then. After all, if we can't trust non-government entities like Equifax with private records, why even go as far as trusting some oth

by nuerow 5y ago

> Then I guess we're effed then. After all, if we can't trust non-government entities like Equifax with private records, why even go as far as trusting some other non-government entities to handle nuclear reactors? The point is that the drawbacks of Nuclear far out weight it's benefits, and it's simply better all around to invest into energy sources which aren't as reliant on flawless management or execution to avoid catastrophic failure modes.

zepto 5y ago
> The point is that the drawbacks of Nuclear far out weight it's benefits The evidence so far points to the opposite.
- nuerow 5y ago
  > The evidence so far points to the opposite. No, not really. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident... And keep in mind that the whole world, which is migrating away from nuclear, also disagrees with that personal assertion.
  - ravenstine 5y ago
    Thereby no one should rightfully speculate or disagree? That's pretty fallacious. Also, that Wikipedia page you just looked up doesn't really make a good case for your assertion. > [...] although nobody has died or is expected to die from radiation effects [of Fukishima]. The number of deaths related to Nuclear accidents doesn't even exceed the single-digit thousands, and after Chernobyl the number of deaths related to other accidents doesn't even exceed 20. On the other hand, virtually every globalist governmental entity (if we're gonna go by appeals to authority and majority here) believes that climate change will soon be related to hundreds of thousands of deaths per year. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-cha... > Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths per year, from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress. So no, the migration away from nuclear doesn't close the case on why places like California moved away from nuclear. There could be a Chernobyl every year and, if we are to believe the likes of the WHO and the UN, it still wouldn't approach the number of deaths resulting from climate change.
    - nuerow 5y ago
      > Thereby no one should rightfully speculate or disagree? That's pretty fallacious. It's one thing to state that you personally believe in something. It's an entirely different thing to try to pass off a personal opinion and baseless assertions as some kind of established consensus, particluarly as they fly in the face of reality. > Also, that Wikipedia page you just looked up doesn't really make a good case for your assertion. It presents solid enough cases to motivate the current global phase-out of Nuclear power. And, unlike the GP's personal assertion, it does provide a rationale based on facts and real-world experience assessed and considered by decision-makers. If you have a genuine curiosity about the subject and you're interested in getting up to speed on the topic, you may start by reading up on this as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out
      - zepto 5y ago
        That page simply describes how the environmental case against nuclear power was made before climate change began to be taken seriously. If we didn’t have to worry about the impacts of climate change, I’d agree with phasing out nuclear. But we do. “These pieces of criticism have however largely been quelled by the IPCC which indicated in 2014 that nuclear energy was a low carbon energy production technology, comparable to wind and lower than solar in that regard.[135]”
      - ravenstine 5y ago
        > It's one thing to state that you personally believe in something. It's an entirely different thing to try to pass off a personal opinion and baseless assertions as some kind of established consensus, particluarly as they fly in the face of reality. That's exactly what you are doing. To be honest, I can't tell if you're serious because all you are doing is making statements and then just linking to pages without citing any particular fact. > If you have a genuine curiosity about the subject and you're interested in getting up to speed on the topic, you may start by reading up on this as well. If you had a point to make, it wouldn't take someone reading a whole page to compare what is essentially two arguments around quantitative figures. You'd be able to state a counterargument with some form of rationale. Just linking to a page and telling me to "get started" by "reading up" doesn't cut it. This is a discussion forum, and it's really not polite to just tell people they are wrong and not explain why. Nobody has time to read an entire encyclopedia entry to figure out why you are right and everyone else is wrong.
  - The_Colonel 5y ago
    It's like with cars vs. airplanes. Most people learned to live with the comparatively high risk of driving a car, yet often have a (silent) fear of flying Boeing/Airbus even though they are much safer. Psychological effect of high-profile airplane accidents vs. small scale (but much more numerous) car deaths. The list of e.g. hydroelectric accidents is very long and deadly, but they are not as "spectacular". How many people are aware of Banqiao Dam failure, which killed 250 000 people and with that single-handedly exceeded the death toll of all nuclear accidents combined? There's actually several studies of energy sources and their "deaths per TWh" and nuclear usually comes out as the safest.
    - nuerow 5y ago
      > It's like with cars vs. airplanes. Most people learned to live with the comparatively high risk of driving a car, yet often have a (silent) fear of flying Boeing/Airbus even though they are much safer. I don't feel this is a serious comparison, let alone conveys the tradeoffs that need to be considered. The risk on the table is pretty much the NIMBY rationale: if you're arguing about risks and given that it's unthinkable to presume that there is zero chance of experiencing problems on any type of power plant, do you prefer to deal with a technology whose failure mode does not have any significant impact or do you wish to deal with a technology whose failure modes involve the need to create and manage exclusion zones with a radius of dozens of km which persist for decades on end? This is particularly relevant as we consider that the bulk of energy demands come from densely occupied urban regions. And regarding safety, this sort of risk assessment stats used to push Nuclear as a safe alternative fails to take into account the strategic importance of a power plant and how they are automatically targets in any national security scenario. Thus extrapolating peace time statistics, which are already quite bad, also fails to adequately classify the full risks of relying on nuclear.
      - visarga 5y ago
        Let me spell it out: more people will die and suffer if we don't support nuclear. There is no way to fix it with renewables. It would just waste the time and amplify the damages.
- cute_boi 5y ago
  At the point in time I think I am really ambivalent about nuclear Energy. Its not just Chernobyl but Fukushima incident that illustrates how minuscule error in our calculation can create a debacle. As more countries starts to enjoy nuclear energy the risk will further increas. And Imo the main problem is we can't even control the nuclear meltdown waste and whole world might have to suffer the consequence which can be problematic (One example I can remember is how China was complaining when Japan decided to release those waste nuclear water). Is there guarantee way to construct safe nuclear plant? I am asking because I don't know the state of arts regarding nuclear power plant (I have started to hear about Thorium and don't know about safety and google is not the friend here unfortunately). If there are natural disasters etc., is nuclear plant robust against meltdown? Can we calculate the risk before hand?
rsj_hn 5y ago
A blanket assertion that "drawbacks far outweigh benefits" with no rational argument behind it is not helpful in this discussion. The article you are replying to makes the case that it is, and while you have a right to disagree, and are even welcome to go ahead and make your case, you are not adding any value to this discussion by saying "clearly this is wrong" and just leaving it at that.

by nuerow 5y ago

zepto 5y ago

> The point is that the drawbacks of Nuclear far out weight it's benefits The evidence so far points to the opposite.

nuerow 5y ago
> The evidence so far points to the opposite. No, not really. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident... And keep in mind that the whole world, which is migrating away from nuclear, also disagrees with that personal assertion.
- ravenstine 5y ago
  Thereby no one should rightfully speculate or disagree? That's pretty fallacious. Also, that Wikipedia page you just looked up doesn't really make a good case for your assertion. > [...] although nobody has died or is expected to die from radiation effects [of Fukishima]. The number of deaths related to Nuclear accidents doesn't even exceed the single-digit thousands, and after Chernobyl the number of deaths related to other accidents doesn't even exceed 20. On the other hand, virtually every globalist governmental entity (if we're gonna go by appeals to authority and majority here) believes that climate change will soon be related to hundreds of thousands of deaths per year. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-cha... > Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths per year, from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress. So no, the migration away from nuclear doesn't close the case on why places like California moved away from nuclear. There could be a Chernobyl every year and, if we are to believe the likes of the WHO and the UN, it still wouldn't approach the number of deaths resulting from climate change.
  - nuerow 5y ago
    > Thereby no one should rightfully speculate or disagree? That's pretty fallacious. It's one thing to state that you personally believe in something. It's an entirely different thing to try to pass off a personal opinion and baseless assertions as some kind of established consensus, particluarly as they fly in the face of reality. > Also, that Wikipedia page you just looked up doesn't really make a good case for your assertion. It presents solid enough cases to motivate the current global phase-out of Nuclear power. And, unlike the GP's personal assertion, it does provide a rationale based on facts and real-world experience assessed and considered by decision-makers. If you have a genuine curiosity about the subject and you're interested in getting up to speed on the topic, you may start by reading up on this as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out
    - zepto 5y ago
      That page simply describes how the environmental case against nuclear power was made before climate change began to be taken seriously. If we didn’t have to worry about the impacts of climate change, I’d agree with phasing out nuclear. But we do. “These pieces of criticism have however largely been quelled by the IPCC which indicated in 2014 that nuclear energy was a low carbon energy production technology, comparable to wind and lower than solar in that regard.[135]”
    - ravenstine 5y ago
      > It's one thing to state that you personally believe in something. It's an entirely different thing to try to pass off a personal opinion and baseless assertions as some kind of established consensus, particluarly as they fly in the face of reality. That's exactly what you are doing. To be honest, I can't tell if you're serious because all you are doing is making statements and then just linking to pages without citing any particular fact. > If you have a genuine curiosity about the subject and you're interested in getting up to speed on the topic, you may start by reading up on this as well. If you had a point to make, it wouldn't take someone reading a whole page to compare what is essentially two arguments around quantitative figures. You'd be able to state a counterargument with some form of rationale. Just linking to a page and telling me to "get started" by "reading up" doesn't cut it. This is a discussion forum, and it's really not polite to just tell people they are wrong and not explain why. Nobody has time to read an entire encyclopedia entry to figure out why you are right and everyone else is wrong.
- The_Colonel 5y ago
  It's like with cars vs. airplanes. Most people learned to live with the comparatively high risk of driving a car, yet often have a (silent) fear of flying Boeing/Airbus even though they are much safer. Psychological effect of high-profile airplane accidents vs. small scale (but much more numerous) car deaths. The list of e.g. hydroelectric accidents is very long and deadly, but they are not as "spectacular". How many people are aware of Banqiao Dam failure, which killed 250 000 people and with that single-handedly exceeded the death toll of all nuclear accidents combined? There's actually several studies of energy sources and their "deaths per TWh" and nuclear usually comes out as the safest.
  - nuerow 5y ago
    > It's like with cars vs. airplanes. Most people learned to live with the comparatively high risk of driving a car, yet often have a (silent) fear of flying Boeing/Airbus even though they are much safer. I don't feel this is a serious comparison, let alone conveys the tradeoffs that need to be considered. The risk on the table is pretty much the NIMBY rationale: if you're arguing about risks and given that it's unthinkable to presume that there is zero chance of experiencing problems on any type of power plant, do you prefer to deal with a technology whose failure mode does not have any significant impact or do you wish to deal with a technology whose failure modes involve the need to create and manage exclusion zones with a radius of dozens of km which persist for decades on end? This is particularly relevant as we consider that the bulk of energy demands come from densely occupied urban regions. And regarding safety, this sort of risk assessment stats used to push Nuclear as a safe alternative fails to take into account the strategic importance of a power plant and how they are automatically targets in any national security scenario. Thus extrapolating peace time statistics, which are already quite bad, also fails to adequately classify the full risks of relying on nuclear.
    - visarga 5y ago
      Let me spell it out: more people will die and suffer if we don't support nuclear. There is no way to fix it with renewables. It would just waste the time and amplify the damages.
cute_boi 5y ago
At the point in time I think I am really ambivalent about nuclear Energy. Its not just Chernobyl but Fukushima incident that illustrates how minuscule error in our calculation can create a debacle. As more countries starts to enjoy nuclear energy the risk will further increas. And Imo the main problem is we can't even control the nuclear meltdown waste and whole world might have to suffer the consequence which can be problematic (One example I can remember is how China was complaining when Japan decided to release those waste nuclear water). Is there guarantee way to construct safe nuclear plant? I am asking because I don't know the state of arts regarding nuclear power plant (I have started to hear about Thorium and don't know about safety and google is not the friend here unfortunately). If there are natural disasters etc., is nuclear plant robust against meltdown? Can we calculate the risk before hand?

rsj_hn 5y ago

A blanket assertion that "drawbacks far outweigh benefits" with no rational argument behind it is not helpful in this discussion. The article you are replying to makes the case that it is, and while you have a right to disagree, and are even welcome to go ahead and make your case, you are not adding any value to this discussion by saying "clearly this is wrong" and just leaving it at that.