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Nuclear power has been in use in the United States for over 70 years without a single fatality to a member of the general public. Better than any other energy s

Nuclear power has been in use in the United States for over 70 years without a single fatality to a member of the general public. Better than any other energy source. A few plant and supply chain workers have been killed, but again, fewer than with any other source (mining coal and climbing on roofs and towers to install wind and solar is dangerous, yo). Since I've been muzzled again: > Climbing on the roof of a two story house to install solar panels is considerably less dangerous than building a nuclear power plant. Yo. In terms of workers killed per watt-hour generated? No, it isn't. It's not even close. Yo.

tchaffee 4y ago
The claim was not "relatively safe compared to other forms of energy". The claim was bug free. Which -- if you want to use past history -- is false. > climbing on roofs and towers to install wind and solar is dangerous, yo Climbing on the roof of a two story house to install solar panels is considerably less dangerous than building a nuclear power plant. Yo. > without a single fatality to a member of the general public. No immediate fatality is the only accurate claim you can make. Over 150,000 people were evacuated from the Three-Mile Island disaster. Due to the stress, there were some increases in consumption of alcohol, cigarettes, and tranquilizers immediately following the accident. The eventual long term effects of those behaviors surely resulted in shorter life spans for at least some of the people. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0038012184900181?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/003801... > for over 70 years That's a short time. Unless you can show the US is somehow exceptional in its quality controls compared to Japan, then a huge disaster like Fukushima is inevitable, and life will be lost. No one complains about the dangers of the neighbors who use solar energy. No one wants a reactor in their backyard. And it has fair reasoning behind it. You'll never have to evacuate 150,000 people due to your neighbors' solar panels failing.
tchaffee 4y ago
> In terms of workers killed per watt-hour generated? > No, it isn't. It's not even close. Yo. This source says you are wrong. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p... What source were you using when making your claim?
- philipkglass 4y ago
  The rate used to be higher for solar, because it used to be the case that most solar modules were installed in small rooftop systems. Now most solar power comes from large ground level solar farms. In 2020, 68% of US solar generation came from utility-scale farms [1]. Over time the solar PV deaths-per-TWh ratio has decreased in 3 ways: 1) Ground level installations have a greatly diminished risk of dangerous falls during construction/maintenance and have come to account for more wattage than rooftop systems. 2) Installing a solar panel in a large farm instead of on a roof yields more energy output per year, since it usually has mechanical sun tracking [2] and will be oriented for optimum output even if installed with a fixed tilt. 3) Newer panels generate more annual energy output per panel, per kilogram, and per square meter. That means that the same number of full time solar installation workers now produce more energy over the system's lifetime than in the past. The information from OurWorldInData that you linked is more up to date and therefore shows low deaths-per-TWh for solar. Probably Turing_Machine was remembering an older report like this one from 10 years ago: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d... [1] https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy22osti/81325.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy22osti/81325.pdf page 9 [2] https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2017/09/20/trackers-dominate-u-s-utility-scale-solar-wcharts/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2017/09/20/trackers-dominate-u-s...
  - Turing_Machine 4y ago
    > Probably Turing_Machine was remembering an older report No, I was talking about the United States. Not Chernobyl.
    - tchaffee 4y ago
      So you've cherry picked the data to fit your narrative. You're simultaneously claiming that the US can somehow safely build the tall and complex structures for a nuclear plant but cannot safely install solar panels on a 2 story building. That doesn't speak to the safety of nuclear. That speaks to different safety regulations on different types of construction sites or something similar. You need to look at causation, not correlation. There is nothing less safe about solar (even if we cherry pick the US) when compared to nuclear once you look at actual causes.

tchaffee 4y ago

The claim was not "relatively safe compared to other forms of energy". The claim was bug free. Which -- if you want to use past history -- is false. > climbing on roofs and towers to install wind and solar is dangerous, yo Climbing on the roof of a two story house to install solar panels is considerably less dangerous than building a nuclear power plant. Yo. > without a single fatality to a member of the general public. No immediate fatality is the only accurate claim you can make. Over 150,000 people were evacuated from the Three-Mile Island disaster. Due to the stress, there were some increases in consumption of alcohol, cigarettes, and tranquilizers immediately following the accident. The eventual long term effects of those behaviors surely resulted in shorter life spans for at least some of the people. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0038012184900181?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/003801... > for over 70 years That's a short time. Unless you can show the US is somehow exceptional in its quality controls compared to Japan, then a huge disaster like Fukushima is inevitable, and life will be lost. No one complains about the dangers of the neighbors who use solar energy. No one wants a reactor in their backyard. And it has fair reasoning behind it. You'll never have to evacuate 150,000 people due to your neighbors' solar panels failing.

tchaffee 4y ago

> In terms of workers killed per watt-hour generated? > No, it isn't. It's not even close. Yo. This source says you are wrong. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p... What source were you using when making your claim?

philipkglass 4y ago
The rate used to be higher for solar, because it used to be the case that most solar modules were installed in small rooftop systems. Now most solar power comes from large ground level solar farms. In 2020, 68% of US solar generation came from utility-scale farms [1]. Over time the solar PV deaths-per-TWh ratio has decreased in 3 ways: 1) Ground level installations have a greatly diminished risk of dangerous falls during construction/maintenance and have come to account for more wattage than rooftop systems. 2) Installing a solar panel in a large farm instead of on a roof yields more energy output per year, since it usually has mechanical sun tracking [2] and will be oriented for optimum output even if installed with a fixed tilt. 3) Newer panels generate more annual energy output per panel, per kilogram, and per square meter. That means that the same number of full time solar installation workers now produce more energy over the system's lifetime than in the past. The information from OurWorldInData that you linked is more up to date and therefore shows low deaths-per-TWh for solar. Probably Turing_Machine was remembering an older report like this one from 10 years ago: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d... [1] https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy22osti/81325.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy22osti/81325.pdf page 9 [2] https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2017/09/20/trackers-dominate-u-s-utility-scale-solar-wcharts/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2017/09/20/trackers-dominate-u-s...
- Turing_Machine 4y ago
  > Probably Turing_Machine was remembering an older report No, I was talking about the United States. Not Chernobyl.
  - tchaffee 4y ago
    So you've cherry picked the data to fit your narrative. You're simultaneously claiming that the US can somehow safely build the tall and complex structures for a nuclear plant but cannot safely install solar panels on a 2 story building. That doesn't speak to the safety of nuclear. That speaks to different safety regulations on different types of construction sites or something similar. You need to look at causation, not correlation. There is nothing less safe about solar (even if we cherry pick the US) when compared to nuclear once you look at actual causes.