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Not German, but I suspect memories of Fukushima and Chernobyl could be weighing on the minds of some. Perhaps this is an irrational concern but people are not n
by osigurdson 4y ago
Not German, but I suspect memories of Fukushima and Chernobyl could be weighing on the minds of some. Perhaps this is an irrational concern but people are not necessarily rational - particularly when randomly polled on topics they know little about.
- ALittleLight 4y agoPerhaps irrational? It's certainly irrational. Nuclear is among the absolute safest methods of energy production. Looking at Wikipedia one person died and sixteen were injured at Fukushima. That risk should dictate energy policy? "Irrational" is being kind.
- osigurdson 4y agoWhen you think “power plant disaster”, what power plant instantly comes to mind? It’s a powerful “brand” that is quite difficult to displace in people’s minds. That is the problem to solve.
- ALittleLight 4y agoI think of hydroelectric dams which can destroy whole towns. There is a single hydroelectric disaster that has killed many more people than all nuclear incidents put together.
- osigurdson 4y agoOk!
- Cwizard 4y agoWhat I don’t understand is how those two incidents are even relevant. Chernobyl happened because of a faulty design + mismanagement and Fukushima was located on a region prone to earthquakes/tsunami’s caused by earthquakes. The factors do not really apply to Germany. And even if it did, the deaths caused by those accidents were quite low. Meanwhile coal pollution is killing people by the thousands but this is somehow ok? I think the sole reason the west moved away from Nuclear is because it sounds scary and because the oil countries had a strong interest in maintaining the non-nuclear status quo.
- balentio 4y ago> What I don’t understand is how those two incidents are even relevant. Chernobyl happened because of a faulty design + mismanagement and Fukushima was located on a region prone to earthquakes/tsunami’s caused by earthquakes. To use an old phrase, shit happens. When it happens where a Nuclear Power Plant is, the happening continues for a very, very long time. That kind of liability is not worth the risk and of course there are other power solutions than the fossil/fuel nuclear divide.
- p1mrx 4y agoThere are ways to design a nuclear plant that reduce the probability of shit happening by orders of magnitude. We should focus on building plants that can shut down using only passive systems with no human action.
- formerly_proven 4y agoThe irrational fear-factor associated with anything nuclear is highlighted by how much attention Fukushima, the nuclear disaster, which gravely injured like a dozen people, gets relative to the earthquake and tsunami causing it, which killed 20k people and leveled a huge stretch of coast.
- GordonS 4y agoIf you asked 100 random people on the street, I'll bet most would say the Fukushima nuclear disaster killed hundreds or thousands of people. As a single data point, I just asked my wife (who, for background, is well educated and pays close attention to the news), and her guess was "hundreds". The modern mass media has a lot to answer for.
- osigurdson 4y agoDid the media (in 2011) state that 100s or thousands died?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]