4 ms·

both are bad and scary? why even bring them up together? there is no need to bet because both are stupid so why should nuclear power be defended here? do you k

by merb 5y ago

both are bad and scary? why even bring them up together? there is no need to bet because both are stupid so why should nuclear power be defended here? do you know why there is no article how bad coal is? because everybody knows but unfortunatly most people do not understand how fucking bad fukushima even is, people like you that try to make nuclear look cool just because there exists something worse does not make nuclear look cooler.

nindalf 5y ago
> why even bring them up together Because reams of news articles are written about one but not the other, feeding the incorrect perception that one is vastly more dangerous than the other.
- olliej 5y ago
  Here's the problem with coal power, the damage is not equatable to nuclear plants: There is no way to control the impact to the environment - areas immediately surrounding a coal plant have much higher cancer rates, the ground & streams becomes toxic, wider areas have heightened acid rain risks. Then you get to impact on the global climate. All this in a perfectly operated idealized plant. In a nuclear plant that is run properly, not even perfectly, produces radioactive waste. No atmospheric pollution, no water pollution. Major "normal" failures cause radiation leaks. These are so rare that the events are individually named. Accidents that result in atypical operation that don't even harm the plant, let alone cause external impact are all recorded, and systems are updated to prevent recurrence. Even major events like three mile island have not caused any excess deaths or cancers. Catastrophic failures have basically be down to understood design flaws: Chernobyl had an RBMK reactor with know flaws, Fukushima had emergency generators in the basement despite being advised to place them higher up. Precisely because of flooding concerns. As for waste: Nuclear waste is of course hard to manage, with most "solutions" being "bury it". Whatever the end solution is, we know it won't be as horrific as a coal plants solution: aerosolizing it and pumping it into the atmosphere. A lot of noise is made about decommissioning a nuclear plant. Decommission a nuclear plant means deconstruction of the reactor and removing the remaining waste. There is no need to remediate the land itself. No one talks about decommissioning coal plants as they simply don't: the land on and around the site is left permanently toxic.
  - sascha_sl 5y ago
    Not to deter from your point, but said basement was far far above the water line and even above the flood wall. And different placement would have been more risky for earthquake damage. The failing was the insufficient flood wall, which TEPCO very definitely knew about, with almost exactly this scenario predicted, not the placement of backup generators.
bsder 5y ago
> do you know why there is no article how bad coal is? because everybody knows but unfortunatly most people do not understand how fucking bad fukushima even is And most people have zero idea how bad coal is. How many lakes and streams has nuclear destroyed? Nowhere near the number that coal has between both acid rain and mine runoff. The Monongahela river and its tributaries still have enormous sulfate loads. How many people have died of nuclear radioactivity? Nowhere near the amount that have died of black lung. And this is before we start talking about just how bad the pollution in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, etc. used to be and how many people died from that. People don't understand even the tiniest fraction of how bad coal is. Nuclear power, even with accidents, is a saint compared to coal.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  Don't forget about decades-long fires burning underground due to mining accidents. Not small ones either, miles long: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire
- CruelJohn 5y ago
shawnz 5y ago
They should be brought up together because coal is in common use today, nuclear is well equipped to replace it, and nuclear uses about one million times less fuel than coal does to fulfill the same demand.

by merb 5y ago

nindalf 5y ago

> why even bring them up together Because reams of news articles are written about one but not the other, feeding the incorrect perception that one is vastly more dangerous than the other.

olliej 5y ago
Here's the problem with coal power, the damage is not equatable to nuclear plants: There is no way to control the impact to the environment - areas immediately surrounding a coal plant have much higher cancer rates, the ground & streams becomes toxic, wider areas have heightened acid rain risks. Then you get to impact on the global climate. All this in a perfectly operated idealized plant. In a nuclear plant that is run properly, not even perfectly, produces radioactive waste. No atmospheric pollution, no water pollution. Major "normal" failures cause radiation leaks. These are so rare that the events are individually named. Accidents that result in atypical operation that don't even harm the plant, let alone cause external impact are all recorded, and systems are updated to prevent recurrence. Even major events like three mile island have not caused any excess deaths or cancers. Catastrophic failures have basically be down to understood design flaws: Chernobyl had an RBMK reactor with know flaws, Fukushima had emergency generators in the basement despite being advised to place them higher up. Precisely because of flooding concerns. As for waste: Nuclear waste is of course hard to manage, with most "solutions" being "bury it". Whatever the end solution is, we know it won't be as horrific as a coal plants solution: aerosolizing it and pumping it into the atmosphere. A lot of noise is made about decommissioning a nuclear plant. Decommission a nuclear plant means deconstruction of the reactor and removing the remaining waste. There is no need to remediate the land itself. No one talks about decommissioning coal plants as they simply don't: the land on and around the site is left permanently toxic.
- sascha_sl 5y ago
  Not to deter from your point, but said basement was far far above the water line and even above the flood wall. And different placement would have been more risky for earthquake damage. The failing was the insufficient flood wall, which TEPCO very definitely knew about, with almost exactly this scenario predicted, not the placement of backup generators.

bsder 5y ago

> do you know why there is no article how bad coal is? because everybody knows but unfortunatly most people do not understand how fucking bad fukushima even is And most people have zero idea how bad coal is. How many lakes and streams has nuclear destroyed? Nowhere near the number that coal has between both acid rain and mine runoff. The Monongahela river and its tributaries still have enormous sulfate loads. How many people have died of nuclear radioactivity? Nowhere near the amount that have died of black lung. And this is before we start talking about just how bad the pollution in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, etc. used to be and how many people died from that. People don't understand even the tiniest fraction of how bad coal is. Nuclear power, even with accidents, is a saint compared to coal.

ineedasername 5y ago
Don't forget about decades-long fires burning underground due to mining accidents. Not small ones either, miles long: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire
CruelJohn 5y ago

shawnz 5y ago

They should be brought up together because coal is in common use today, nuclear is well equipped to replace it, and nuclear uses about one million times less fuel than coal does to fulfill the same demand.