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The problem is who is affected by the accidents. For solar and wind the general public generally can’t be affected by any accidents so the deaths are general w
by ViewTrick1002 2y ago
The problem is who is affected by the accidents.
For solar and wind the general public generally can’t be affected by any accidents so the deaths are general work place hazards coming from working aloft with heavy equipment.
For nuclear power the public is on the hook for cleanup fees from hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars and the large scale accidents we have seen caused hundreds of thousands to get evacuated.
It is not even comparable. If I chose to not work in the solar and wind industry my chance of harm is as near zero as it gets. Meanwhile about all consequences from nuclear power afflicts the general public. Both in terms of costs, injuries and life changing evacuations.
The playbook of trying to equate nuclear safety problems with the competition is quite sad to see because it relies on people only seeing a number. Not the real world implications of it.
- roenxi 2y ago> Not the real world implications of it. What real-world implications? One of my favourite lines of questioning in nuclear debates is trying to figure out what exactly the anti-nuclear crowd are worried about in terms of real-world implications. The real world implications seem to be minor enough that nobody can point them out. Even your comment, deploring real world implications, doesn't articulate what they are. The only real world implications I've seen are people panicking over negligible issues. And I'm happy to believe there are actual problems, but it'd be fantastic if someone knew what they were.
- ViewTrick1002 2y agoI love how the multiple hydrogen explosions when the reactors were going through uncontrolled meltdowns in Fukushima now are “negligible issues”. Everything to frame nuclear in a positive light.
- roenxi 2y agoAre you going to run through what the problem with that was that makes it internationally important? Industrial explosions are an common event. Usually they make local news or whatever then people move on. We don't usually ban technologies because they can explode. Fertiliser explodes. Did these kill anyone? Did they harm anyone? If the evacuations didn't happen what was the risk?
- beej71 2y agoTMI, Fukushima, Chernobyl. Those are the problems and "minor" real-world implications. That's why no one wants a nuclear plant in their backyard. If those never happened, I suspect we'd have far more nuclear energy today.
- plorkyeran 2y agoIf you could choose to live next to TMI with the knowledge that the TMI accident would happen at some point while you were living there or next to a coal power plant, TMI would be the correct choice.
- ViewTrick1002 2y agoThe great thing is that coal plants are not the alternative in 2024. It is renewables. Thus no need to compare with coal, compare against your neighbor’s rooftop solar.
- pfdietz 2y agoThe first nuclear build out in the US was already running into serious problems before TMI. Its collapse is due more to cost problems and the unleashing of market forces on the grid via PURPA than it was to TMI. Fukushima had little to do with the collapse of the Nuclear Renaissance; it was the advent of cheap natural gas from fracking. New nuclear made absolutely no sense in an environment where NG was under $3/GJ and combined cycle power plants with a thermal efficiency of 60% could be built for $1/W(e). Cheap gas is also a big part of why everyone stopped building new coal power plants in the US. The last large (> 100 MW) coal power plant to come online in the US was in 2013.