5 ms·

> like they're the only ones who can cause an industrial accident. But what about Fukushima? One is an accident, the other is a natural disaster. Most countrie

> like they're the only ones who can cause an industrial accident. But what about Fukushima? One is an accident, the other is a natural disaster. Most countries don’t have earthquakes and tsunamis, so it’s not relevant. But more to your point, if we paid fair compensation to everyone harmed by fossil fuels, I doubt would it cost any less.

natmaka 2y ago
All accidents are due to some error (human). A tsunami isn't the sole way to trigger an accident as there is an infinity potential human errors enabling a series of minor incidents leading to a disaster, nor will it always trigger one: another nuclear plant, closer to the tsunami epicenter than Fukushima was, didn't suffer much ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant#2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant#20... ). Therefore the challenge is: "don't let any room for any human error: design, build, exploit and maintain perfectly" and this is clearly impossible. Another way is: use an approach (wind, solar...) not letting any room for a disaster.
- ClumsyPilot 2y ago
  > All accidents are due to some error (human) This is not socially accepted (Act of God in law). It cannot even logically be true - an asteroid falls on your head, whose fault is that? In this particular case, the powerplant was designed to withstand a certain height of tsunami and this tsunami was larger, breached the sea wall and flooded the generators. By the way the tsunami also killed 20,000 people, that’s a colossal death talk but for some reason no one talks about it. This entire hand-wringing about how no-one should die from nuclear feel disingenuous. We could have had zero-carbon grid 50 years ago, in the 70’s just like France. Renewables weren’t ready at the time. Now millions of people will be displaced or dead by climate change and that could have been prevented.
  - natmaka 2y ago
    By 'all accidents' I was referring to industrial accident. I should have specified, please excuse me. May 'Act of God' qualify an industrial accident? Even in such a case (asteroid falling on a nuclear plant?) there is a pertinent comparison: if the very same cause (asteroid?) falls on a field of wind turbines or solar panels the net effect will no be a disaster. Therefore the cause for a major nuclear accident is the sheer human decision to build a nuclear plant instead of wind turbines or solar panels. > the powerplant was designed to withstand a certain height of tsunami Human error: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant#2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant#20... > the tsunami also killed 20,000 people > no one talks about it 'Act of God'... The evacuation triggered by the nuclear accident made more than 2,200 victims. > This entire hand-wringing about how no-one should die from nuclear feel disingenuous This is a way (granted: inelegant) to state that the effect of the worst possible accident triggered by renewable sources is less daunting than its nuclear counterpart, underlining a reason to prefer renewable sources. > We could have had zero-carbon grid 50 years ago, in the 70’s Nope. Nuclear never produced (worldwide) more than ~17% of the electricity and now produces about 9% of it ( https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source ) and there is just enough known exploitable (at current conditions) uranium to feed existing reactors for approximately 130 years ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining#Peak_uranium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining#Peak_uranium ). With ~10 times more reactors about 40 years ago we would be in a severe crisis or even stuck. At the time experts knew it (since the 1950's) and planned to industrialize breeder reactors (dividing the need for uranium by about 2 orders of magnitude), but it failed. > just like France Nope. France never enjoyed a zero-carbon grid: each year between 6% and 12% of electricity is produced by burning fossil fuel ( https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?Metric=Share+of+total+generation&Total+or+Breakdown=Select+a+source&Energy+or+Electricity=Electricity+only&Select+a+source=Fossil+fuels&tab=chart&country=~FRA https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?Metric=Share+of+... ) because exploiting enough reactors to cope with the mandatory load-following and also with the peak load would be way to expensive. > Now millions of people will be displaced or dead by climate change and that could have been prevented Nope. You are confusing 'electricity' with 'energy consumed'. Even in France about fossil fuels produce ~48% ( https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-energy-source-sub?country=~FRA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-energy-source-sub?c... ). Right now nuclear produces less than 4% ( https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-energy-source-sub https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-energy-source-sub ).

natmaka 2y ago

All accidents are due to some error (human). A tsunami isn't the sole way to trigger an accident as there is an infinity potential human errors enabling a series of minor incidents leading to a disaster, nor will it always trigger one: another nuclear plant, closer to the tsunami epicenter than Fukushima was, didn't suffer much ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant#2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant#20... ). Therefore the challenge is: "don't let any room for any human error: design, build, exploit and maintain perfectly" and this is clearly impossible. Another way is: use an approach (wind, solar...) not letting any room for a disaster.

ClumsyPilot 2y ago
> All accidents are due to some error (human) This is not socially accepted (Act of God in law). It cannot even logically be true - an asteroid falls on your head, whose fault is that? In this particular case, the powerplant was designed to withstand a certain height of tsunami and this tsunami was larger, breached the sea wall and flooded the generators. By the way the tsunami also killed 20,000 people, that’s a colossal death talk but for some reason no one talks about it. This entire hand-wringing about how no-one should die from nuclear feel disingenuous. We could have had zero-carbon grid 50 years ago, in the 70’s just like France. Renewables weren’t ready at the time. Now millions of people will be displaced or dead by climate change and that could have been prevented.
- natmaka 2y ago
  By 'all accidents' I was referring to industrial accident. I should have specified, please excuse me. May 'Act of God' qualify an industrial accident? Even in such a case (asteroid falling on a nuclear plant?) there is a pertinent comparison: if the very same cause (asteroid?) falls on a field of wind turbines or solar panels the net effect will no be a disaster. Therefore the cause for a major nuclear accident is the sheer human decision to build a nuclear plant instead of wind turbines or solar panels. > the powerplant was designed to withstand a certain height of tsunami Human error: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant#2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant#20... > the tsunami also killed 20,000 people > no one talks about it 'Act of God'... The evacuation triggered by the nuclear accident made more than 2,200 victims. > This entire hand-wringing about how no-one should die from nuclear feel disingenuous This is a way (granted: inelegant) to state that the effect of the worst possible accident triggered by renewable sources is less daunting than its nuclear counterpart, underlining a reason to prefer renewable sources. > We could have had zero-carbon grid 50 years ago, in the 70’s Nope. Nuclear never produced (worldwide) more than ~17% of the electricity and now produces about 9% of it ( https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source ) and there is just enough known exploitable (at current conditions) uranium to feed existing reactors for approximately 130 years ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining#Peak_uranium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_mining#Peak_uranium ). With ~10 times more reactors about 40 years ago we would be in a severe crisis or even stuck. At the time experts knew it (since the 1950's) and planned to industrialize breeder reactors (dividing the need for uranium by about 2 orders of magnitude), but it failed. > just like France Nope. France never enjoyed a zero-carbon grid: each year between 6% and 12% of electricity is produced by burning fossil fuel ( https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?Metric=Share+of+total+generation&Total+or+Breakdown=Select+a+source&Energy+or+Electricity=Electricity+only&Select+a+source=Fossil+fuels&tab=chart&country=~FRA https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy?Metric=Share+of+... ) because exploiting enough reactors to cope with the mandatory load-following and also with the peak load would be way to expensive. > Now millions of people will be displaced or dead by climate change and that could have been prevented Nope. You are confusing 'electricity' with 'energy consumed'. Even in France about fossil fuels produce ~48% ( https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-energy-source-sub?country=~FRA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-energy-source-sub?c... ). Right now nuclear produces less than 4% ( https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-energy-source-sub https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-energy-source-sub ).