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Actually it's the anti-nuclear crowd that frames pro-nuclear people in a way that pretends it's only coal or nuclear. The reality is that we are 80% fossil and

Actually it's the anti-nuclear crowd that frames pro-nuclear people in a way that pretends it's only coal or nuclear. The reality is that we are 80% fossil and biofuel and need everything that is at least 10x better on climate and health, which includes major expansion of wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, geothermal. The amount of energy transition we need is nearly unfathomable. To tie our hand behind our back because we are afraid of nuclear in this race is unwise. Antinuclear scare mongerers are forcing the Fukushima people to purify water so far below the natural radioactivity of seawater (which does contain slightly radioactive potassium and uranium) that it's truly ridiculous. That drives up costs unecessarily. Anyway what's the cost of failing to solve climate change or the cost of killing 8 million people per year with combustion? https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2019/09/12/its-really-ok-if-japan-dumps-radioactive-fukushima-water-into-the-ocean/?sh=68b8d045b298 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2019/09/12/its-reall...

bayesian_horse 4y ago
Now it sounds like "fossil and biofuel" is only coal. Not quite getting this. We should all be afraid of nuclear power. The risks are uncalculateable. Whoever thinks he can calculate the risks is delusional. It's not just that "impossible" accidents have happened a bit too often in the past. The bigger problem is that Humans are not that predictable and any nuclear waste stored is in danger of getting blown up by some army or warlord in the next few milennia. Same for active power plants, though for a shorter period. Ukraine is having this problem right now. What are the chances that Putin causes an incident with one of their plants? You can never say zero, and the situation is very fluid. For any reasonable estimation of risk, you'd have to assume a couple of decades of peace in your region: No war, civil war or major political upheaval. Some are willing to make that bet. I'm not, for any country.
- acidburnNSA 4y ago
  Fossil and biofuel are the ones that kill 8M per year. Not just coal. That nice smell of wood burning in the air is pretty deadly, sadly enough. https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution#tab=tab_2 https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution#tab=tab_2
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    Death tolls aren't the only impact of a nuclear disaster. Denial of land use for tens to hundreds of years, cleanup costs, mutations, denial of water supplies if it reaches ground water (the prevention of which was one of the things that did work out well at Chernobyl). All with cleanup costs a magnitude higher than those of industrial spills. We're all going to die eventually of something and of those 8M many would have died soon after of other causes. Look at how many people still smoke packets full of hazardous fume sticks on a daily basis. That's how much we care about that risk.
    - bayesian_horse 4y ago
      The difference being that smoking is a personal decision and living near a nuclear power plant isn't. Especially if we were to scale it up to replace fossil fuels. which would mean on the order of ten times as much sites and risk.
    - acidburnNSA 4y ago
      This is a good read. The 'wasteland' thing is a bit of a myth. https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/what-about-radioactive-wastelands-a-look-at-chernobyls-effects-on-nature/ https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/what-about-radioactive...
purerandomness 4y ago
> which includes major expansion of wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, geothermal. So why should we invest money into nuclear, which has the downsides of clean-up costs that literally never end, with the burden of having to communicate the risk to every human generation as long as humanity exists? Instead of untying our hand behind our back and simply invest massively in renewables, which have a lifecycle cost profile and risk profile that is much more predictable?
- acidburnNSA 4y ago
  Nuclear is unique due to its physics advantage in being able to run 24/7 on a tiny land and material footprint. A good nuclear fleet doesn't need backup or storage. Nuclear plants can follow load to the tune of 2-5% full power per minute, rain or shine, without depending on regional weather or seasonal rainfall. Furthermore we know the overall risk profile after operating them for 70 years. The numbers are in and they're excellent. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy It's wild to want to not use this.
  - bayesian_horse 4y ago
    Nuclear isn't running 24/7. In theory maybe, but that hasn't worked out in practice. Quite severely not, for some countries.
    - realusername 4y ago
      Even on the worst year of nuclear for France, the renewables still have a worse output than that. This month it's been ~10% of the installed capacity for wind turbines and 3% of the installed capacity for solar. I don't know why it's not on the news either, there's seems to be a massive bias in reporting where nuclear is expected to have a 100% uptime but renewables nobody cares, whatever it produces is ok even single digits is fine.
      - bayesian_horse 4y ago

bayesian_horse 4y ago

Now it sounds like "fossil and biofuel" is only coal. Not quite getting this. We should all be afraid of nuclear power. The risks are uncalculateable. Whoever thinks he can calculate the risks is delusional. It's not just that "impossible" accidents have happened a bit too often in the past. The bigger problem is that Humans are not that predictable and any nuclear waste stored is in danger of getting blown up by some army or warlord in the next few milennia. Same for active power plants, though for a shorter period. Ukraine is having this problem right now. What are the chances that Putin causes an incident with one of their plants? You can never say zero, and the situation is very fluid. For any reasonable estimation of risk, you'd have to assume a couple of decades of peace in your region: No war, civil war or major political upheaval. Some are willing to make that bet. I'm not, for any country.

acidburnNSA 4y ago
Fossil and biofuel are the ones that kill 8M per year. Not just coal. That nice smell of wood burning in the air is pretty deadly, sadly enough. https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution#tab=tab_2 https://www.who.int/health-topics/air-pollution#tab=tab_2
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  Death tolls aren't the only impact of a nuclear disaster. Denial of land use for tens to hundreds of years, cleanup costs, mutations, denial of water supplies if it reaches ground water (the prevention of which was one of the things that did work out well at Chernobyl). All with cleanup costs a magnitude higher than those of industrial spills. We're all going to die eventually of something and of those 8M many would have died soon after of other causes. Look at how many people still smoke packets full of hazardous fume sticks on a daily basis. That's how much we care about that risk.
  - bayesian_horse 4y ago
    The difference being that smoking is a personal decision and living near a nuclear power plant isn't. Especially if we were to scale it up to replace fossil fuels. which would mean on the order of ten times as much sites and risk.
  - acidburnNSA 4y ago
    This is a good read. The 'wasteland' thing is a bit of a myth. https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/what-about-radioactive-wastelands-a-look-at-chernobyls-effects-on-nature/ https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/what-about-radioactive...

purerandomness 4y ago

> which includes major expansion of wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, geothermal. So why should we invest money into nuclear, which has the downsides of clean-up costs that literally never end, with the burden of having to communicate the risk to every human generation as long as humanity exists? Instead of untying our hand behind our back and simply invest massively in renewables, which have a lifecycle cost profile and risk profile that is much more predictable?

acidburnNSA 4y ago
Nuclear is unique due to its physics advantage in being able to run 24/7 on a tiny land and material footprint. A good nuclear fleet doesn't need backup or storage. Nuclear plants can follow load to the tune of 2-5% full power per minute, rain or shine, without depending on regional weather or seasonal rainfall. Furthermore we know the overall risk profile after operating them for 70 years. The numbers are in and they're excellent. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy It's wild to want to not use this.
- bayesian_horse 4y ago
  Nuclear isn't running 24/7. In theory maybe, but that hasn't worked out in practice. Quite severely not, for some countries.
  - realusername 4y ago
    Even on the worst year of nuclear for France, the renewables still have a worse output than that. This month it's been ~10% of the installed capacity for wind turbines and 3% of the installed capacity for solar. I don't know why it's not on the news either, there's seems to be a massive bias in reporting where nuclear is expected to have a 100% uptime but renewables nobody cares, whatever it produces is ok even single digits is fine.
    - bayesian_horse 4y ago