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At the point my solar panel is installed all the death is built in. At the point my coal plant explodes, all the death is built in (no more outgassing, health i

At the point my solar panel is installed all the death is built in. At the point my coal plant explodes, all the death is built in (no more outgassing, health increases going forward in fact). The problem with the death toll of nuclear is that it's deferred.... So no one can agree what the impact of Chernobyl is. For instance, the UN cites a report and claims 4000 dead post accident. The report itself says 9000. Greenpeace says 90,000. IF we grew nuclear to 2000 plants (and that's just to replace coal) the accident rate is going to go UP. More humans more human factors (greed, angry about stuff at home and makes a mistake) and more "acts of god"... The other side of the coin is your either going to have to increase mining nuclear materials... OR your going to need to start a breeder reactor program up again (turn that "used" uranium back into fuel)... and all that uranium, the stuff that's contaminated. It has to go somewhere, for a long time. A timescale that no one can comprehend. https://longnow.org/ideas/the-other-10000-year-project-long-term-thinking-and-nuclear-waste/ https://longnow.org/ideas/the-other-10000-year-project-long-... .... billions of years for the fuel (uranium) 20k years to move the elephants foot out of chrernoble. No one knows what to do with the fuel melted into the ground at Fukushima. Were closer to the pyramids being built than we are to the impacts of these disasters being cleaned up... at that scale there is the potential for "More harm" to happen past the horizon of every nation on earth today (20k years is older than the oldest human construction, but not artifact).

defrost 3y ago
As a pro solar pragmatic engineer response: > At the point my solar panel is installed all the death is built in. No. The toxic waste ponds left after creating your solar panels remain with all the carcinogenic after effects. The large volume of low level radiactive waste from lithium processing for batery banks remains in ponds (again, see Lynas, Malaysia) awaiting possible pond leakages. > no one can agree what the impact of Chernobyl is. For instance, the UN cites a report and claims 4000 dead post accident. The report itself says 9000. Greenpeace says 90,000. So .. how many actual body bags definitive linked then? Once a waste problem hits ANOVA analysis to tease out deaths from other background deaths it's an acedemic exercise not dissimilar to estimating cancer deaths from eWaste (like solar panel production waste bybroducts). > billions of years for the fuel (uranium) So .. hardly breaks down at all, barely radioactive is what you're saying here? Lead has a half life in the billions of years also - anywhere there's granite has uranium .. and it's the daughter products like Radon gas that fill granite valleys and basements that kill (like a packet a day smoking habit). > 20k years to move the elephants foot out of chrernoble. Why move it when it's sufficient to glass it over and stay a few hundred feet back ? > IF we grew nuclear to 2000 plants the accident rate is going to go UP. By how much though? Designs have changed since Chernobyl, lessons were learned from Fukishima (which had fewer deaths than the earthquake events and fewer deaths than serious mining accidents). There are risks everywhere - it's difficult for many to pragmatic assess and compare risk. You appear myopic WRT risk in the sense that some risk appears much larger and other risk isn't seen at all.
- arcticbull 3y ago
  > So .. how many actual body bags definitive linked then? Several hundred, most of them in the days and months immediately following the incident. The remainder are based on the UNSCEAR estimates over the fullness of time including people who commited suicide because they fear they're somehow contaminated. The majority of the deaths are derived the statistical projections of death. They estimate the impact of the fallout using the linear no threshold dose-response model (itself, contested for being too conservative). Suffice it to say Greenpeace is out to lunch with their projections.
  - defrost 3y ago
    > Several hundred. Okay, for Part Two .. is that a high number or a low number when compared to a dam burst or a Bhopal type chemical plant accident? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster Point being, are we globally casual about all manner of destructive events and relatively over sensitive to OMG! nuclear!! accidents?
    - mech422 3y ago
      Wow..Thats a name I haven't seen in ages! I remember when that happened..Horrible and last time I looked (10-15 years ago??) the wells were still contaminated, and people still had to drink the water :-/
    - arcticbull 3y ago
      Sorry, I'm not the person you were replying to, I suspected they wouldn't so I wanted to share the research I did earlier on. I agree with you, and to me these numbers seem rather low relative to the known harms associated with other generation methods. To steelman, it could certainly have been a lot worse, but also, it wasn't, and much was learned that has been incorporated into modern designs.
      - defrost 3y ago
        My apologies if I seemed combative :) I noted at the time that you were another commenter and that you seemed in general agreement, I added further framing to point out that while a large number and that all death is tragic it's not been the case that nuclear power accidents have been worse than other industrial | power accidents in world history.

defrost 3y ago

As a pro solar pragmatic engineer response: > At the point my solar panel is installed all the death is built in. No. The toxic waste ponds left after creating your solar panels remain with all the carcinogenic after effects. The large volume of low level radiactive waste from lithium processing for batery banks remains in ponds (again, see Lynas, Malaysia) awaiting possible pond leakages. > no one can agree what the impact of Chernobyl is. For instance, the UN cites a report and claims 4000 dead post accident. The report itself says 9000. Greenpeace says 90,000. So .. how many actual body bags definitive linked then? Once a waste problem hits ANOVA analysis to tease out deaths from other background deaths it's an acedemic exercise not dissimilar to estimating cancer deaths from eWaste (like solar panel production waste bybroducts). > billions of years for the fuel (uranium) So .. hardly breaks down at all, barely radioactive is what you're saying here? Lead has a half life in the billions of years also - anywhere there's granite has uranium .. and it's the daughter products like Radon gas that fill granite valleys and basements that kill (like a packet a day smoking habit). > 20k years to move the elephants foot out of chrernoble. Why move it when it's sufficient to glass it over and stay a few hundred feet back ? > IF we grew nuclear to 2000 plants the accident rate is going to go UP. By how much though? Designs have changed since Chernobyl, lessons were learned from Fukishima (which had fewer deaths than the earthquake events and fewer deaths than serious mining accidents). There are risks everywhere - it's difficult for many to pragmatic assess and compare risk. You appear myopic WRT risk in the sense that some risk appears much larger and other risk isn't seen at all.

arcticbull 3y ago
> So .. how many actual body bags definitive linked then? Several hundred, most of them in the days and months immediately following the incident. The remainder are based on the UNSCEAR estimates over the fullness of time including people who commited suicide because they fear they're somehow contaminated. The majority of the deaths are derived the statistical projections of death. They estimate the impact of the fallout using the linear no threshold dose-response model (itself, contested for being too conservative). Suffice it to say Greenpeace is out to lunch with their projections.
- defrost 3y ago
  > Several hundred. Okay, for Part Two .. is that a high number or a low number when compared to a dam burst or a Bhopal type chemical plant accident? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster Point being, are we globally casual about all manner of destructive events and relatively over sensitive to OMG! nuclear!! accidents?
  - mech422 3y ago
    Wow..Thats a name I haven't seen in ages! I remember when that happened..Horrible and last time I looked (10-15 years ago??) the wells were still contaminated, and people still had to drink the water :-/
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    Sorry, I'm not the person you were replying to, I suspected they wouldn't so I wanted to share the research I did earlier on. I agree with you, and to me these numbers seem rather low relative to the known harms associated with other generation methods. To steelman, it could certainly have been a lot worse, but also, it wasn't, and much was learned that has been incorporated into modern designs.
    - defrost 3y ago
      My apologies if I seemed combative :) I noted at the time that you were another commenter and that you seemed in general agreement, I added further framing to point out that while a large number and that all death is tragic it's not been the case that nuclear power accidents have been worse than other industrial | power accidents in world history.