4 ms·

Pumped storage depends on geography, and it is not viable in most places. Hence, your claim that it is cheaper than nuclear is unreasonable. > minus its free c

Pumped storage depends on geography, and it is not viable in most places. Hence, your claim that it is cheaper than nuclear is unreasonable. > minus its free catastrophe insurance Many more people have died from dam collapses in the last fifty years than nuclear accidents. > Every kwh of solar and wind produced electricity right now > is a kwh not produced by gas and will be for some time > almost everywhere. We don't have a general-purpose solution to storage. As a result there is waste overproduction of solar and wind at some times, and under-production at other times. Those under-production windows need to be covered by base-load forms of energy production such as gas and nuclear.

natmaka 4y ago
No, even with low estimations of the amount of nuclear victims (those published by UN's Word Health Organization) solar/wind/hydro are the safest ones and any new major nuclear disaster may further imbalance: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- korantu 4y ago
  Hydro is very terrain-dependent, solar and wind can't do baseload, so for baseload nuclear is still best applicable in most parts of the world. Nuclear saves a lot of lives by displacing other, way more dangerous baseload operations. [0] [0] https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy#contrary-to-popular-belief-nuclear-power-has-saved-lives-by-displacing-fossil-fuels https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy#contrary...
  - natmaka 4y ago
    > solar and wind can't do baseload Not really, as we know how, at continental scale, adequately use wind and solar: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31557422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31557422
- cyphar 4y ago
  The data used by that study is actually based on the pessimistic estimates from the older WHO analysis. If you use the more modern estimates by the UNSCEAR (the United Nations body dealing with effects of radiation), nuclear power is safer than any other kind of power on a per-TWh basis. It's not really honest to say that an already pessimistic estimate (which is now considered by at least some scientists -- including the UN body dealing with the topic -- to be incorrect) might be underestimating total deaths from Chernobyl.
  - natmaka 4y ago
    There is no universally accepted way to estimate the amount of victims. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the_Catastrophe_for_People_and_the_Environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the...
    - cyphar 4y ago
      The Wikipedia article you linked to says that work was not peer-reviewed and four academic reviews were published criticising it (with only one positive review which still said it had shortcomings). You can choose to believe that Chernobyl killed just shy of 1 million people but that's at odds with all peer-reviewed research on the topic (which projects it will reach the mid-to-low thousands in total, with the current death toll in the hundreds at most).
      - natmaka 4y ago
        Everybody can read about the authors and methods, abut the critics and their answer to it. > mid-to-low thousands in total, with the current death toll in the hundreds at most ... isn't exactly summarizing the (quite large) spectrum of estimations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disaster#/media/File:Estimated_number_of_deaths_from_the_Chernobyl_nuclear_disaster,_OWID.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disas...
  - trashtester 4y ago
    Chernobyl killed millions or tens of millions of people: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/09/fossil-fuels-pollution-deaths-research https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/09/fossil-f... Let's say Chernobyl didn't happen, then I would guess around 10% of those fossil fuel deaths would have been prevented. Quick calculation 8.7mill/year * 10 % * 30 years = 26.1 million. So, lets say that the pessimistic side of "mainstream" research on number of deaths from Chernobyl is 26000, the "nuclear scare" effect still caused maybe 1000x as many deaths. Even if I'm off by an order of magnitude, that's still 100x.
pydry 4y ago
>Pumped storage depends on geography It does but unlike for dams that geography is extremely common: https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-spot-530-000-potential-pumped-hydro-sites-to-meet-all-our-renewable-energy-needs https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-spot-530-000-potenti... >We don't have a general-purpose solution to storage We're already building this general purpose solution at large scale. Snowy 2, fengning, coire glas. The cheap, safe mass produced nuclear reactor, meanwhile, remains just as vaporware as it was 20 years ago.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
revertmean 4y ago
> More more people have died from dam collapses in the last fifty years than nuclear accidents. And vastly more lives have been saved by dams preventing flooding (something nuclear isn't particularly good at) and providing a stable water supply (again, nuclear doesn't do so well here). People seem to forget that dams aren't just built for electricity generation.
- bigfudge 4y ago
  Also, a lot of the dam/flood deaths are horrible corporate mining bund collapsing etc, not high end public power infra. Would be interesting to see the numbers on 1) first world countries and 2) first world countries excluding the US which seems to have such a dysfunctional attitude to public works. I very much doubt scandi countries or Germany are killing many people this way.

natmaka 4y ago

No, even with low estimations of the amount of nuclear victims (those published by UN's Word Health Organization) solar/wind/hydro are the safest ones and any new major nuclear disaster may further imbalance: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
korantu 4y ago
Hydro is very terrain-dependent, solar and wind can't do baseload, so for baseload nuclear is still best applicable in most parts of the world. Nuclear saves a lot of lives by displacing other, way more dangerous baseload operations. [0] [0] https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy#contrary-to-popular-belief-nuclear-power-has-saved-lives-by-displacing-fossil-fuels https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy#contrary...
- natmaka 4y ago
  > solar and wind can't do baseload Not really, as we know how, at continental scale, adequately use wind and solar: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31557422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31557422
cyphar 4y ago
The data used by that study is actually based on the pessimistic estimates from the older WHO analysis. If you use the more modern estimates by the UNSCEAR (the United Nations body dealing with effects of radiation), nuclear power is safer than any other kind of power on a per-TWh basis. It's not really honest to say that an already pessimistic estimate (which is now considered by at least some scientists -- including the UN body dealing with the topic -- to be incorrect) might be underestimating total deaths from Chernobyl.
- natmaka 4y ago
  There is no universally accepted way to estimate the amount of victims. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the_Catastrophe_for_People_and_the_Environment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the...
  - cyphar 4y ago
    The Wikipedia article you linked to says that work was not peer-reviewed and four academic reviews were published criticising it (with only one positive review which still said it had shortcomings). You can choose to believe that Chernobyl killed just shy of 1 million people but that's at odds with all peer-reviewed research on the topic (which projects it will reach the mid-to-low thousands in total, with the current death toll in the hundreds at most).
    - natmaka 4y ago
      Everybody can read about the authors and methods, abut the critics and their answer to it. > mid-to-low thousands in total, with the current death toll in the hundreds at most ... isn't exactly summarizing the (quite large) spectrum of estimations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disaster#/media/File:Estimated_number_of_deaths_from_the_Chernobyl_nuclear_disaster,_OWID.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disas...
- trashtester 4y ago
  Chernobyl killed millions or tens of millions of people: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/09/fossil-fuels-pollution-deaths-research https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/09/fossil-f... Let's say Chernobyl didn't happen, then I would guess around 10% of those fossil fuel deaths would have been prevented. Quick calculation 8.7mill/year * 10 % * 30 years = 26.1 million. So, lets say that the pessimistic side of "mainstream" research on number of deaths from Chernobyl is 26000, the "nuclear scare" effect still caused maybe 1000x as many deaths. Even if I'm off by an order of magnitude, that's still 100x.

pydry 4y ago

>Pumped storage depends on geography It does but unlike for dams that geography is extremely common: https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-spot-530-000-potential-pumped-hydro-sites-to-meet-all-our-renewable-energy-needs https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-spot-530-000-potenti... >We don't have a general-purpose solution to storage We're already building this general purpose solution at large scale. Snowy 2, fengning, coire glas. The cheap, safe mass produced nuclear reactor, meanwhile, remains just as vaporware as it was 20 years ago.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

revertmean 4y ago

> More more people have died from dam collapses in the last fifty years than nuclear accidents. And vastly more lives have been saved by dams preventing flooding (something nuclear isn't particularly good at) and providing a stable water supply (again, nuclear doesn't do so well here). People seem to forget that dams aren't just built for electricity generation.

bigfudge 4y ago
Also, a lot of the dam/flood deaths are horrible corporate mining bund collapsing etc, not high end public power infra. Would be interesting to see the numbers on 1) first world countries and 2) first world countries excluding the US which seems to have such a dysfunctional attitude to public works. I very much doubt scandi countries or Germany are killing many people this way.