5 ms·

Expensive yes. But evil? Why?

acdha 4y ago
Nuclear fission has uniquely long-term risks for mistakes or natural disasters. That doesn’t mean we don’t need to use it but there’s a lot of extra precautions needed around how fuel is refined, transported, used, and disposed of which nothing else has.
- acidburnNSA 4y ago
  Radiation is a little out of the ordinary, sure. But it is not uniquely hazardous or long term. Particulate air pollution from normally operating fossil and biofuel combustion kills 8 million people per year according to the WHO. Climate change from CO2 causes long term ecosystem damage. Radioactive waste uniquely becomes less hazardous with time, unlike forever non-decaying thing like mercury. It's also small and easy to place into 500m of crystalline bedrock or massive salt where it will not impact anything.
  - acdha 4y ago
    Well, fossil fuels aren’t the clean technology we’re talking about but again the thing I was referring to is timeframe: coal plants are nasty but the air pollution stops as soon as you shut them down and ecosystems recover. Not good, but beats the situation around, say, Chernobyl for coming centuries. And, yes, I’ve heard all of the boosters’ claims. Easy is not an accurate description but possible is and as I said before we’re going to need it. We just need to fully accept the responsibility that entails.
    - m4rtink 4y ago
      Wont some of the heavy metals and radioactive particles from burned coal stick around for quite a while in the environment? All thy fly ash is also nasty to handle and store.
      - acdha 4y ago
        Sure, again, I'm not saying everything else is perfect but note that this thread is about the clean energy transition — nuclear is better than burning coal but when you're comparing it to wind/solr/hydro/geothermal none of those have anything like the same need for long-term planning.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      Nuclear waste can be cleaned up Fukushima was cleaned up 11 years after the incident. Since Pripyat and the area around Chernobyl was only built to support the nuclear plant, there was no incentive to clean it up.
      - acdha 4y ago
        Yes, cleanup is possible. Note that I said it wasn't easy. I don't think anyone would describe the Fukushima cleanup as easy.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  > uniquely long-term risks for mistakes or natural disasters. Fossil fuels have unique long term risk WITHOUT mistakes. Hydro has incredibly high risk for long term destruction and has proven it often. Even pro renewable people agree that gas will need to stick around as backup, so gas infrastructure needs to stick around, with incredibly risk of accident and gas leakage. A unique vulcanic event can make solar massively under-produce and if a society doesn't have enough backup it can have incredibly severe long term consequences. Such a volcanic even is probably more likely then a major failure of a nuclear plant causing much risk. An extraordinary storm could do the same for off-shore wind. > That doesn’t mean we don’t need to use it but there’s a lot of extra precautions needed around how fuel is refined, transported, used, and disposed of which nothing else has. And the others have huge AMOUNTS of waste that needs to be refined, transported, used and disposed off. A lot of those are not well captured and there is little regulation to control that. Wind turbines don't exist for that long and when they fail they have a unique disposal situation. Nuclear at least has a fuel that is 100% captured at the end of use. And nuclear reactor itself is tiny in the amount of resources required. A modern next generation reactor isn't much bigger then the next generation off-shore wind plants but produces 100x the energy at higher capacity factors.
  - acdha 4y ago
    Dude, ease up on the sales pitch — you've been spamming this thread with generic copypasta but that shotgun approach isn't very effective. For example, it's not clear to me that you noticed that I said we need nuclear power or that we're talking about green power options so the fact that fossil fuels have downsides is a given.

Nuclear fission has uniquely long-term risks for mistakes or natural disasters. That doesn’t mean we don’t need to use it but there’s a lot of extra precautions needed around how fuel is refined, transported, used, and disposed of which nothing else has.

acidburnNSA 4y ago
Radiation is a little out of the ordinary, sure. But it is not uniquely hazardous or long term. Particulate air pollution from normally operating fossil and biofuel combustion kills 8 million people per year according to the WHO. Climate change from CO2 causes long term ecosystem damage. Radioactive waste uniquely becomes less hazardous with time, unlike forever non-decaying thing like mercury. It's also small and easy to place into 500m of crystalline bedrock or massive salt where it will not impact anything.
- acdha 4y ago
  Well, fossil fuels aren’t the clean technology we’re talking about but again the thing I was referring to is timeframe: coal plants are nasty but the air pollution stops as soon as you shut them down and ecosystems recover. Not good, but beats the situation around, say, Chernobyl for coming centuries. And, yes, I’ve heard all of the boosters’ claims. Easy is not an accurate description but possible is and as I said before we’re going to need it. We just need to fully accept the responsibility that entails.
  - m4rtink 4y ago
    Wont some of the heavy metals and radioactive particles from burned coal stick around for quite a while in the environment? All thy fly ash is also nasty to handle and store.
    - acdha 4y ago
      Sure, again, I'm not saying everything else is perfect but note that this thread is about the clean energy transition — nuclear is better than burning coal but when you're comparing it to wind/solr/hydro/geothermal none of those have anything like the same need for long-term planning.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    Nuclear waste can be cleaned up Fukushima was cleaned up 11 years after the incident. Since Pripyat and the area around Chernobyl was only built to support the nuclear plant, there was no incentive to clean it up.
    - acdha 4y ago
      Yes, cleanup is possible. Note that I said it wasn't easy. I don't think anyone would describe the Fukushima cleanup as easy.
panick21_ 4y ago
> uniquely long-term risks for mistakes or natural disasters. Fossil fuels have unique long term risk WITHOUT mistakes. Hydro has incredibly high risk for long term destruction and has proven it often. Even pro renewable people agree that gas will need to stick around as backup, so gas infrastructure needs to stick around, with incredibly risk of accident and gas leakage. A unique vulcanic event can make solar massively under-produce and if a society doesn't have enough backup it can have incredibly severe long term consequences. Such a volcanic even is probably more likely then a major failure of a nuclear plant causing much risk. An extraordinary storm could do the same for off-shore wind. > That doesn’t mean we don’t need to use it but there’s a lot of extra precautions needed around how fuel is refined, transported, used, and disposed of which nothing else has. And the others have huge AMOUNTS of waste that needs to be refined, transported, used and disposed off. A lot of those are not well captured and there is little regulation to control that. Wind turbines don't exist for that long and when they fail they have a unique disposal situation. Nuclear at least has a fuel that is 100% captured at the end of use. And nuclear reactor itself is tiny in the amount of resources required. A modern next generation reactor isn't much bigger then the next generation off-shore wind plants but produces 100x the energy at higher capacity factors.
- acdha 4y ago
  Dude, ease up on the sales pitch — you've been spamming this thread with generic copypasta but that shotgun approach isn't very effective. For example, it's not clear to me that you noticed that I said we need nuclear power or that we're talking about green power options so the fact that fossil fuels have downsides is a given.