4 ms·

Is it not malicious to scream "chernobyl!" willfully deceptively or willfully ignorantly confusing what can and cannot happen? More people die every single yea

Is it not malicious to scream "chernobyl!" willfully deceptively or willfully ignorantly confusing what can and cannot happen? More people die every single year from radiation in coal than have died in the entire history of nuclear power. Replacing all coal with nuclear would save more lives and health than fighting nuclear ever could, even in theory. And delaying coal to nuclear under the banner of "wind and solar maybe one day can help a bit" has blood on its hands. Every year coal is still here, instead of nuclear, is 100 years of death. If building powerplants (of any type) were instant, and solar were one year away, then we should STILL replace all coal with nuclear TODAY, to minimize harm. (in a spherical chickens in a vacuum sort of way) And not only do we not have enough solar, we don't even have a plan for energy storage for solar and wind. We have ideas, not a plan. So solar&wind replacing coal&nuclear is further away than fusion power, by multiples.

AshamedCaptain 4y ago
To exemplify the difference between science and politics: - Nuclear is safer than coal: science (true or not, it's not the point) - We need to go all the way nuclear: politics. There's a million other things to consider, many of them don't even each into the realm of what is falsifiable (e.g international relations, fuel availability, who knows). _Even_ if nuclear was literally the safest method ever, it is literally still politics whether to use nuclear or not; after all, we sacrifice safety for convenience _many_ times, and good luck defining "convenience" in a scientific way. Another example: - Vaccines are safe and effective (scientific; true or not is not the point) - Vaccines are safe enough compared to the risk of catching the disease itself ("social" sciences; caveat emptor) - We should force everyone to vaccinate (politics). It does not matter if vaccines are safe, or not. It is still a political topic, not scientific. There are things like ethics, social vs individual rights, etc. that are hardly quantifiable much less scientific.
- knorker 4y ago
  I don't think this is relevant to my point. Not wrong, just not relevant. Individuals who are anti nuclear have reasons, explicitly stated, that are misinformed. Being anti nuclear because Chernobyl is in fact like being anti airplane because Hindenburg. The criticism is actually (in this analogy) that they claim the hydrogen in a 747 will catch fire. "It's not hydrogen, it's just filled with oxygen and nitrogen" is met with "then what if that spontaneously combusts?!". But in a way you make a good point. "I don't want to have a rational discussion or learn anything" is indeed the anti nuclear stance. "I don't want the truth, i just want to be right" is political. The other things you mention are not really even known to anti nuclear people. Wanting to be right despite facts or ignorance is almost the definition of politics. People say they're anti nuclear because they want to spare us radiation and death, but when you tell them nuclear would reduce both then they just scream louder. You can be factually wrong in politics. When your stated and internal reasons don't align with what your actions will accomplish, then that's wrong.
- bawolff 4y ago
  These are bad examples. "Vaccines are safe and effective" is not scientific because science can deal with comparisons, it cannot deal with absolutes. You can scientificly say something is safe compared to something else, or define safe in some way (less then 1 in X chance of something happening statistically). But there is no such thing as 100% absolute safety. Even an injection with saline is not safe in the absolute. E.g. if there is a 1 in a trillion chance of a side effect, you will never see it, because there arent a trillion people on earth.
  - AshamedCaptain 4y ago
    You are completely right. I actually wanted to write "vaccinates are this safe and effective".
cure 4y ago
> Every year coal is still here, instead of nuclear, is 100 years of death. If > building powerplants (of any type) were instant, and solar were one year away, > then we should STILL replace all coal with nuclear TODAY, to minimize harm. (in > a spherical chickens in a vacuum sort of way) But... we all know that it takes a lot longer to build a nuclear plant (on the order of 10-20 years) than it does to build (large) solar or wind farms (on the order of 1-5 years). So.... yeah, if it was magically possible to replace all coal with nuclear right now, that would be a net improvement in terms of carbon output and general pollution. But we live in the real world, and that is not possible, so I'm not sure what point you are trying to make, to be honest. I'm pretty sure that enough solar/wind + storage can be built to replace a significant percentage (30%? 50%?) of the remaining coal plants, before the first new nuclear plant's plans and siting are even finalized, let alone before a new nuclear plant is fully operational. And it's going to be a lot cheaper, too.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > it takes a lot longer to build a nuclear plant (on the order of 10-20 years) Because of the red tape the mob has strung up. China builds these in two years [1]. France does it in five [2]. [1] https://interestingengineering.com/china-moves-toward-nuclear-energy https://interestingengineering.com/china-moves-toward-nuclea... [2] https://lemielleux.com/how-long-does-it-take-france-to-build-a-nuclear-power-plant/ https://lemielleux.com/how-long-does-it-take-france-to-build...
  - switchbak 4y ago
    That red tape was installed (in North America) post-Five Mile Island however. South Korea is also very capable at building these quickly, though I've heard concerns raised about their safety (grain of salt, I have no opinion myself).
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      I’m not suggesting we strike all the rules. But they’ve metastasised. Korea and France aren’t insensitive to popular concern.
credit_guy 4y ago
> More people die every single year from radiation in coal than have died in the entire history of nuclear power. I’m as pro-nuclear as they come, but this is simply not true. No people die from radiation from coal.
- knorker 4y ago
  A quick Googling gives this quote: When coal is burned, all the uranium daughters accumulated by disintegration—radium, radon, polonium—are also released. The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation evaluates the radiation exposure to the population from this source.2 Per gigawattyear (GWe-yr) of electrical energy produced by coal, using the current mix of technology throughout the world, the population exposure is estimated to be about 0.8 lethal cancers per plant-year distributed over the affected population. Table 7.2 summarizes these data. With 400 GWe of coal-fired power plants in the world, this amounts to some 320 deaths per year https://rlg.fas.org/mwmt-p233.pdf https://rlg.fas.org/mwmt-p233.pdf
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    This estimate uses the Linear No Threshold (LNT) model [1], which is unsupported by science. The organization you mentioned, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation no longer uses this model. The relevant wikipedia quote is One of the organizations for establishing recommendations on radiation protection guidelines internationally, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) that previously supported the LNT model, no longer supports the model for very low radiation doses. The actual UNSCEAR paper is [2]. The relevant quote is on page 33: Projections of the absolute number of cancer cases in a population have less and less information value and can be increasingly misleading at lower and lower doses. As a matter of general practice, the Committee does not use the risks inferred from studies of populations following radiation exposure at moderate and high doses to project absolute numbers of radiation-induced cancers following exposure at low and very low doses. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model [2] https://www.unscear.org/docs/publications/2012/UNSCEAR_2012_Report.pdf https://www.unscear.org/docs/publications/2012/UNSCEAR_2012_...

AshamedCaptain 4y ago

To exemplify the difference between science and politics: - Nuclear is safer than coal: science (true or not, it's not the point) - We need to go all the way nuclear: politics. There's a million other things to consider, many of them don't even each into the realm of what is falsifiable (e.g international relations, fuel availability, who knows). _Even_ if nuclear was literally the safest method ever, it is literally still politics whether to use nuclear or not; after all, we sacrifice safety for convenience _many_ times, and good luck defining "convenience" in a scientific way. Another example: - Vaccines are safe and effective (scientific; true or not is not the point) - Vaccines are safe enough compared to the risk of catching the disease itself ("social" sciences; caveat emptor) - We should force everyone to vaccinate (politics). It does not matter if vaccines are safe, or not. It is still a political topic, not scientific. There are things like ethics, social vs individual rights, etc. that are hardly quantifiable much less scientific.

knorker 4y ago
I don't think this is relevant to my point. Not wrong, just not relevant. Individuals who are anti nuclear have reasons, explicitly stated, that are misinformed. Being anti nuclear because Chernobyl is in fact like being anti airplane because Hindenburg. The criticism is actually (in this analogy) that they claim the hydrogen in a 747 will catch fire. "It's not hydrogen, it's just filled with oxygen and nitrogen" is met with "then what if that spontaneously combusts?!". But in a way you make a good point. "I don't want to have a rational discussion or learn anything" is indeed the anti nuclear stance. "I don't want the truth, i just want to be right" is political. The other things you mention are not really even known to anti nuclear people. Wanting to be right despite facts or ignorance is almost the definition of politics. People say they're anti nuclear because they want to spare us radiation and death, but when you tell them nuclear would reduce both then they just scream louder. You can be factually wrong in politics. When your stated and internal reasons don't align with what your actions will accomplish, then that's wrong.
bawolff 4y ago
These are bad examples. "Vaccines are safe and effective" is not scientific because science can deal with comparisons, it cannot deal with absolutes. You can scientificly say something is safe compared to something else, or define safe in some way (less then 1 in X chance of something happening statistically). But there is no such thing as 100% absolute safety. Even an injection with saline is not safe in the absolute. E.g. if there is a 1 in a trillion chance of a side effect, you will never see it, because there arent a trillion people on earth.
- AshamedCaptain 4y ago
  You are completely right. I actually wanted to write "vaccinates are this safe and effective".

cure 4y ago

> Every year coal is still here, instead of nuclear, is 100 years of death. If > building powerplants (of any type) were instant, and solar were one year away, > then we should STILL replace all coal with nuclear TODAY, to minimize harm. (in > a spherical chickens in a vacuum sort of way) But... we all know that it takes a lot longer to build a nuclear plant (on the order of 10-20 years) than it does to build (large) solar or wind farms (on the order of 1-5 years). So.... yeah, if it was magically possible to replace all coal with nuclear right now, that would be a net improvement in terms of carbon output and general pollution. But we live in the real world, and that is not possible, so I'm not sure what point you are trying to make, to be honest. I'm pretty sure that enough solar/wind + storage can be built to replace a significant percentage (30%? 50%?) of the remaining coal plants, before the first new nuclear plant's plans and siting are even finalized, let alone before a new nuclear plant is fully operational. And it's going to be a lot cheaper, too.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> it takes a lot longer to build a nuclear plant (on the order of 10-20 years) Because of the red tape the mob has strung up. China builds these in two years [1]. France does it in five [2]. [1] https://interestingengineering.com/china-moves-toward-nuclear-energy https://interestingengineering.com/china-moves-toward-nuclea... [2] https://lemielleux.com/how-long-does-it-take-france-to-build-a-nuclear-power-plant/ https://lemielleux.com/how-long-does-it-take-france-to-build...
- switchbak 4y ago
  That red tape was installed (in North America) post-Five Mile Island however. South Korea is also very capable at building these quickly, though I've heard concerns raised about their safety (grain of salt, I have no opinion myself).
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    I’m not suggesting we strike all the rules. But they’ve metastasised. Korea and France aren’t insensitive to popular concern.

credit_guy 4y ago

> More people die every single year from radiation in coal than have died in the entire history of nuclear power. I’m as pro-nuclear as they come, but this is simply not true. No people die from radiation from coal.

knorker 4y ago
A quick Googling gives this quote: When coal is burned, all the uranium daughters accumulated by disintegration—radium, radon, polonium—are also released. The United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation evaluates the radiation exposure to the population from this source.2 Per gigawattyear (GWe-yr) of electrical energy produced by coal, using the current mix of technology throughout the world, the population exposure is estimated to be about 0.8 lethal cancers per plant-year distributed over the affected population. Table 7.2 summarizes these data. With 400 GWe of coal-fired power plants in the world, this amounts to some 320 deaths per year https://rlg.fas.org/mwmt-p233.pdf https://rlg.fas.org/mwmt-p233.pdf
- credit_guy 4y ago
  This estimate uses the Linear No Threshold (LNT) model [1], which is unsupported by science. The organization you mentioned, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation no longer uses this model. The relevant wikipedia quote is One of the organizations for establishing recommendations on radiation protection guidelines internationally, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) that previously supported the LNT model, no longer supports the model for very low radiation doses. The actual UNSCEAR paper is [2]. The relevant quote is on page 33: Projections of the absolute number of cancer cases in a population have less and less information value and can be increasingly misleading at lower and lower doses. As a matter of general practice, the Committee does not use the risks inferred from studies of populations following radiation exposure at moderate and high doses to project absolute numbers of radiation-induced cancers following exposure at low and very low doses. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model [2] https://www.unscear.org/docs/publications/2012/UNSCEAR_2012_Report.pdf https://www.unscear.org/docs/publications/2012/UNSCEAR_2012_...