5 ms·

Or… we can just do nuclear, which is SAFER than solar/wind energy, and not have any issues with needing to build giant batteries.

chess_buster 4y ago
No it's not.
- e2le 4y ago
  How so?
- SECProto 4y ago
  Nuclear is safer than wind, on par with solar[1]. Got a source that says otherwise? https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
  - simon_000666 4y ago
    I call bs. This article claims that only 100 people ‘died’ from Chernobyl. https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-cher... It pretty much totally discounts the insanely large number of thyroid cancer cases in children. Then comes up with a very optimistic scenario of survival rates based on western medical interventions. So maybe they didn’t die per say but had significantly reduced quality of life and mutations. This is a classic example of taking one vanity metric and making absolute conclusions from it rather than taking a range of data points to paint a more accurate story. I find Wikipedia shows a range of numbers that are far more likely to give a realistic picture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disaster https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_dis...
    - zackees 4y ago
      Yes, chernobyl was fairly harmless, just like Fukushima. Wild life in both is thriving despite the fact that the mainstream media said the radiation was so bad nothing would be able to live there. Reality doesn’t back up any of those assertions at all. Villages near fukushima ignored the dire warnings and are just fine. If this is surprising then you need to diversify your media news consumption. Rooftop solar is more deadly than nuclear when you count people falling off of roofs during solar installation as “solar deaths”, otherwise it’s safer. source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/amp/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d...
      - Elyra 4y ago
        This feels like a variation of the trolly problem where currently we're on one that's killing millions (fossil fuels), and everyone is afraid to pull the lever for one that kills a handful because it has the unreasonable requirement of needing to be perfect (nuclear).
        zackees 4y ago
        Yes, and the media companies exploited it to prevent Nuclear energy thus precipitating the CO2 crisis being reported by the media today.
    - SECProto 4y ago
      Note that they don't use 100 as the Chernobyl deaths estimate, they use 433. While I think that is very optimistic, there are very valid concerns with estimates made using the linear no-threshold model (which they discuss). And they used 2314 for Fukushima, which Wikipedia [1] agrees with and ascribes largely to the evacuation efforts. I'm not claiming it as a 100% accurate source, as it was just what I found with a quick google - I agree using a range of data points for each energy source would be more rigorous. Do you have a better source that uses ranges for the different energy options? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
      - simon_000666 4y ago
        I think the gotcha here is they are saying : safer === less deaths. If you purely want the safety of power sources at a minimum you have to look at deaths, unnecessary human suffering and also potential for long term deaths & suffering. I think another thing that I find missing from the article is acknowledgement of the long term challenge of safely storing nuclear waste and the potential loss of life/suffering it could cause in the future. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster
        SECProto 4y ago
        Seeing how debatable the issue of deaths caused by actual nuclear disasters is (varying from 400 to 60000 for Chernobyl), I can't imagine how little agreement two parties could have on the comparative amounts of human suffering caused by different energy sources. You would have to encompass land use changes, air quality, long term statistical health outcomes, respiratory illness, wildlife impacts, the list goes on ad infinitum.. I don't think that Mayak is relevant, as it is a secretive, poorly regulated nuclear weapons production facility. Similarly, the impacts of Therac-25 [1] patients or the Goiania Incident[2] don't get counted against nuclear energy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    Your source says: > People often focus on the marginal differences at the bottom of the chart – between nuclear, solar, and wind. This comparison is misguided: the uncertainties around these values mean they are likely to overlap. > The key insight is that they are all much, much safer than fossil fuels. > Nuclear energy, for example, results in 99.9% fewer deaths than brown coal; 99.8% fewer than coal; 99.7% fewer than oil; and 97.6% fewer than gas. Wind and solar are just as safe.
    - SECProto 4y ago
      Right. I didn't mean to focus on it being safer, but rather just the blanket statement "no it's not" that I was replying to. It doesn't really matter to me, we just need to get off fossil fuels now
elzbardico 4y ago
bryanlarsen 4y ago
Safer, but not cheaper. Even with batteries.
- zackees 4y ago
  It’s only more expensive due to extremely absurd regulation.
  - bryanlarsen 4y ago
    Nuclear is more expensive than solar + batteries even in China.
    - zackees 4y ago
      Please cite your sources, here's mine: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2020/09/chinas-nuclear-energy-is-still-less-expensive-than-solar-and-wind.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2020/09/chinas-nuclear-energy-...
      - bryanlarsen 4y ago
        Your source says 6 cents per kilowatt hour. That's pretty expensive energy compared to new renewable projects in the US, let alone China.
      - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        Your source is a man who helped plan the Chinese Nuclear rollout. What do the men who planned the solar and wind rollouts think?
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  And, it's not safer. It's roughly as safe as renewables, and they're both much safer than fossil fuels, particularly coal, but you have to use obviously out of date stats to suggest anything else regarding renewables vs nuclear and the trend is clearly in renewables favor, even if it wasn't continuing to get cheaper, which it is, which gives you more safety-per-buck too.
freemint 4y ago
We do want to electrify the world, don't we? This using nuclear leaves us with three options: - every country runs it's own homegrown nuclear power plants - a few first world companies run power plants in every country, making them dependent and complaint - nuclear plants are in "safe" countries (which hopefully remain safe) and their electricity gets distributed to dependent "unsafe" countries via a global power grid Which of those solutions do you prefer?
- zackees 4y ago

chess_buster 4y ago

No it's not.

e2le 4y ago
How so?
SECProto 4y ago
Nuclear is safer than wind, on par with solar[1]. Got a source that says otherwise? https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
- simon_000666 4y ago
  I call bs. This article claims that only 100 people ‘died’ from Chernobyl. https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-cher... It pretty much totally discounts the insanely large number of thyroid cancer cases in children. Then comes up with a very optimistic scenario of survival rates based on western medical interventions. So maybe they didn’t die per say but had significantly reduced quality of life and mutations. This is a classic example of taking one vanity metric and making absolute conclusions from it rather than taking a range of data points to paint a more accurate story. I find Wikipedia shows a range of numbers that are far more likely to give a realistic picture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_disaster https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_dis...
  - zackees 4y ago
    Yes, chernobyl was fairly harmless, just like Fukushima. Wild life in both is thriving despite the fact that the mainstream media said the radiation was so bad nothing would be able to live there. Reality doesn’t back up any of those assertions at all. Villages near fukushima ignored the dire warnings and are just fine. If this is surprising then you need to diversify your media news consumption. Rooftop solar is more deadly than nuclear when you count people falling off of roofs during solar installation as “solar deaths”, otherwise it’s safer. source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/amp/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d...
    - Elyra 4y ago
      This feels like a variation of the trolly problem where currently we're on one that's killing millions (fossil fuels), and everyone is afraid to pull the lever for one that kills a handful because it has the unreasonable requirement of needing to be perfect (nuclear).
      - zackees 4y ago
        Yes, and the media companies exploited it to prevent Nuclear energy thus precipitating the CO2 crisis being reported by the media today.
  - SECProto 4y ago
    Note that they don't use 100 as the Chernobyl deaths estimate, they use 433. While I think that is very optimistic, there are very valid concerns with estimates made using the linear no-threshold model (which they discuss). And they used 2314 for Fukushima, which Wikipedia [1] agrees with and ascribes largely to the evacuation efforts. I'm not claiming it as a 100% accurate source, as it was just what I found with a quick google - I agree using a range of data points for each energy source would be more rigorous. Do you have a better source that uses ranges for the different energy options? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...
    - simon_000666 4y ago
      I think the gotcha here is they are saying : safer === less deaths. If you purely want the safety of power sources at a minimum you have to look at deaths, unnecessary human suffering and also potential for long term deaths & suffering. I think another thing that I find missing from the article is acknowledgement of the long term challenge of safely storing nuclear waste and the potential loss of life/suffering it could cause in the future. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyshtym_disaster
      - SECProto 4y ago
        Seeing how debatable the issue of deaths caused by actual nuclear disasters is (varying from 400 to 60000 for Chernobyl), I can't imagine how little agreement two parties could have on the comparative amounts of human suffering caused by different energy sources. You would have to encompass land use changes, air quality, long term statistical health outcomes, respiratory illness, wildlife impacts, the list goes on ad infinitum.. I don't think that Mayak is relevant, as it is a secretive, poorly regulated nuclear weapons production facility. Similarly, the impacts of Therac-25 [1] patients or the Goiania Incident[2] don't get counted against nuclear energy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Your source says: > People often focus on the marginal differences at the bottom of the chart – between nuclear, solar, and wind. This comparison is misguided: the uncertainties around these values mean they are likely to overlap. > The key insight is that they are all much, much safer than fossil fuels. > Nuclear energy, for example, results in 99.9% fewer deaths than brown coal; 99.8% fewer than coal; 99.7% fewer than oil; and 97.6% fewer than gas. Wind and solar are just as safe.
  - SECProto 4y ago
    Right. I didn't mean to focus on it being safer, but rather just the blanket statement "no it's not" that I was replying to. It doesn't really matter to me, we just need to get off fossil fuels now

elzbardico 4y ago

bryanlarsen 4y ago

Safer, but not cheaper. Even with batteries.

zackees 4y ago
It’s only more expensive due to extremely absurd regulation.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  Nuclear is more expensive than solar + batteries even in China.
  - zackees 4y ago
    Please cite your sources, here's mine: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2020/09/chinas-nuclear-energy-is-still-less-expensive-than-solar-and-wind.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2020/09/chinas-nuclear-energy-...
    - bryanlarsen 4y ago
      Your source says 6 cents per kilowatt hour. That's pretty expensive energy compared to new renewable projects in the US, let alone China.
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      Your source is a man who helped plan the Chinese Nuclear rollout. What do the men who planned the solar and wind rollouts think?
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
And, it's not safer. It's roughly as safe as renewables, and they're both much safer than fossil fuels, particularly coal, but you have to use obviously out of date stats to suggest anything else regarding renewables vs nuclear and the trend is clearly in renewables favor, even if it wasn't continuing to get cheaper, which it is, which gives you more safety-per-buck too.

freemint 4y ago

We do want to electrify the world, don't we? This using nuclear leaves us with three options: - every country runs it's own homegrown nuclear power plants - a few first world companies run power plants in every country, making them dependent and complaint - nuclear plants are in "safe" countries (which hopefully remain safe) and their electricity gets distributed to dependent "unsafe" countries via a global power grid Which of those solutions do you prefer?

zackees 4y ago