5 ms·

I don't understand why acknowledgment of climate change would lead to nuclear over solar/wind.

PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
There are no "unsolved problems" for nuclear (because the safe storage of fissile waste for 10k years isn't a problem we need to solve, apparently). By contrast, getting solar+wind fully up and running requires totally solving the storage problem. Plus the libs love it. Hence ... nuclear.
- lesuorac 2y ago
  > because the safe storage of fissile waste for 10k years isn't a problem we need to solve, apparently We never solved it for the other material that we dug up and burned (coal). So coal ends up emitting a ton of radioactive waste because uh when you dig up the ground you also dig up radioactive uranium (there's no 100% pure carbon deposits). It's also only a self-inflicted problem. You can technically re-use the waste until it only needs to be stored for ~300 years before it decays to "normal" levels. The US doesn't allow you to do that though while say France does.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
    > We never solved it for the other material that we dug up and burned (coal). Oh yes. Having fucked up this badly with long chain hydrocarbon combustion, lets do it all over again with fission, because ... well, we did it once already, right?
    - tnecio 2y ago
      The orders of magnitude are different here. Replacing something that becomes a huge problem within two hundred years with something that (potentially) becomes a problem in a few thousand years -- really is better than spending valuable time on developing an "ideal" solution
      - Krssst 2y ago
        Nuclear waste is a local problem. They're solid not gaseous. GHGs are a worldwide problem. Years don't matter if climate change puts an end to human civilization.
        throwaway173738 2y ago
        Whose locality bears the brunt of this? Do you mind if we put some where you live?
        PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
        Climate change will not end human civilization, unless by "human civilization" you mean the very specific configuration that habitation patterns, agriculture, national boundaries and numbers of living humans all have at this very moment. Likely hundreds of millions to a few billion will die that need not have died, wars will be fought, relocation and migration will be of unprecedented scope and scale, there will be hunger and disease ... but "human civilization" will persist through all of that. Thats not a reason to celebrate, it's just a reason to describe the risks and outcomes accurately.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
        Neither you, nor I, nor anyone else has any truly authoritative knowledge on when (or if) fissile waste will become a problem, and if it does, just how large (time, space, populations, ecosystems) of a problem it will be.
        defrost 2y ago
        Fissile waste has been a health problem even before first mining uranium in the DRC well before WWII. Hanford has a standing legacy problem of fissile waste from both weapons and energy work. * https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/fuel-recycling/plutonium https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c... * https://www.icanw.org/hanford_s_dirty_secret_and_it_s_not_56_million_gallons_of_nuclear_waste https://www.icanw.org/hanford_s_dirty_secret_and_it_s_not_56... Human activity aside, every valley with a substantial amount of granite rock about the planet pools with radon gas on a daily basis until the wind clears it out. While this is just one of those things that's a risk on the order of a pack a day smoking habit to those who live there, radon is a fission by product from the breakdown of the uranium within the granite.
    - lesuorac 2y ago
      > lets do it all over again with fission You can look at it this way. Or you could can look at it as we reduced radioactive emissions by switching to nuclear from coal. Everything has trade-offs. It's not like solar has no side-effects.
- Krssst 2y ago
  Climate change is a decades-order problem. Worst case is end of human civilization. Waste storage is a problem for once climate change is solved. Worst case is local degradation of environment. A grid powered almost-fully by nuclear and water is proven feasible by France. A grid almost-fully powered by renewables for a full year in an industrialized country is yet to be seen. Renewables do work well when combined to fossil fuels, but we need to get off them. The Republicans programs for electricity is completely insane and renewables is a much better alternative than drilling more fossil fuels. Nuclear is more realistic but the political will is not there unfortunately. > Plus the libs love it. Hence ... nuclear. One can be supportive of Democrats and liberals while not agreeing with one policy point.
  - defrost 2y ago
    * Renewable energy sources collectively produced 81% of Denmark's electricity generation in 2022, and are expected to provide 100% of national electric power production from 2030. * Renewable energy sources collectively produced 75% of South Australia's electricity generation in 2023, and are expected to provide 100% of state electric power production from 2027. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Denmark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Denmark - https://reneweconomy.com.au/from-zero-to-100-pct-renewables-in-just-20-years-south-australias-remarkable-energy-transition/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/from-zero-to-100-pct-renewables-...
    - bluefirebrand 2y ago
      These are very likely misleading stats > Renewable energy sources collectively produced 81% of Denmark's electricity generation in 2022, and are expected to provide 100% of national electric power production from 2030. This doesn't say anything about how much of Denmark's consumption this covers, only their production It turns out they import a bunch of their electricity from neighbors This is a sneaky way to pretend you don't consume fossil fuels
      - defrost 2y ago
        These are locations heading for 100% renewable supply in the very near future. The capital of South Australia is some distance from the border, even further from the Victorian capital (Melbourne) and is weakly linked compared to EU countries. In South Australia, the current connection to Victoria allows for just 25 per cent of its maximum demand to imported or exported. “So what that means for South Australia is we have to be a lot more self reliant. And ultimately, South Australia is the test lab for the whole NEM (National Electricity Market,” Or exported .. SA actually exports a great deal of peak renewable energy, it over produces in the daylight and uses that to charge a battery farm or to feed to the neighbouring state. The stats are no more misleading than the GP claim this is in response to, namely "A grid powered almost-fully by nuclear and water is proven feasible by France." France derives about 70% of its electricity from nuclear energy, due to a long-standing policy based on energy security. ~ https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profil...
- ars 2y ago
  There is no storage problem. A breeder reactor plus reprocessing means there is no waste in the first place, and also gives us 100 to 1000 times as much usable uranium.
- sanderjd 2y ago
  The "unsolved problem" for nuclear is doing it time- and cost- competitively with solar.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > because the safe storage of fissile waste for 10k years isn't a problem we need to solve, apparently It literally isn't. There are two known solutions already. The stupid way, which is to put it in a dry hole in a geologically stable desert, and the smart way, which is to use it as fuel because it isn't actually waste anyway. Neither of these things are currently happening for only one very specific reason: The global fossil fuel industry (including Russia) lobbies against them because they want to retain a piece of political rhetoric to argue against replacing fossil fuels with nuclear. But that's a self-solving problem, because if you actually do replace fossil fuels with nuclear then the fossil fuel industry goes away, stops lobbying against anything, and then you can use either of the known solutions. Which means we'd only have to store the material for a few decades until that happens. The solution to that is what we're already doing at existing reactors, which is largely to keep the spent fuel rods at the power plant. It may also give you some indication of the scale of the problem to realize that you can hold all of the spent fuel ever generated by a reactor that has been in operation for decades on the site of the reactor itself.
matthewdgreen 2y ago
There seems to be a delusional part of the Internet that is convinced that nuclear is the only future, and solar and wind aren’t. To settle this, you basically need to look at what China is doing —- which is to build a lot of nuclear and then exponentially more solar and wind. We’re a huge percentage of the way down the slide to a mostly renewable world with storage, and some nuclear at the edges. But it isn’t a competition. I’d be just as happy if things were going the other way. Having a clear mental model of the world is just useful. https://cleantechnica.com/2024/01/12/nuclear-continues-to-lag-far-behind-renewables-in-china-deployments/amp/ https://cleantechnica.com/2024/01/12/nuclear-continues-to-la...
- cyberax 2y ago
  > There seems to be a delusional part of the Internet that is convinced that nuclear is the only future, and solar and wind aren’t. "Exponentially more" means literally nothing. 1 is also an exponent. China is building literally everything. It's also a geographically diverse country, with wide ranges of different climates. Solar is appropriate for Hainan, but makes little sense for Harbin.
  - tfourb 2y ago
    Have a Look at the statistics, before nitpicking. Solar and wind dwarfs nuclear in China and increasingly so.
    - ForOldHack 2y ago
      "Once again, China's nuclear program barely added any capacity, only 1.2 GW, while wind and solar between them added about 278 GW." Dwarfs is the most apt description. (~250x)
      - cyberax 2y ago
        Nope. The devil is in the details. You're looking at the nameplate capacity. However, for solar the actual capacity factor can be anywhere from 10-25% of that. So you're looking anywhere from ~25-70GW of the average capacity. Nuclear reactors can operate at 90-95% capacity factors. And the unsolved problem is storage. Right now, solar can partially replace natural gas and, to a lesser extent, coal.
qball 2y ago
Because it's the one green solution that actually works as base load (other than hydroelectricity, but that's terrain-dependent), works 24/7 without any other affordances, and doesn't open you up to dependence on other nations to anywhere near the same degree. Solar and wind are only cheap because a foreign nation makes the parts (if they were made domestically they wouldn't be cost-competitive, obviously). So in 20 years, when your PV panels are degrading and your turbines are wearing out, that foreign country's going to be able to charge you a lot more to replace it. And if you want to see the results of cheap industrial inputs becoming expensive one only need look at the post-Nordstream German/European economic forecast. Even the poor should be able to afford to keep the lights on and the A/C running once the sun has set.
- bruce511 2y ago
  One minor counterpoint; Solar panels won't start degrading in 20 years. Their degrading is linear and starts when you install them. As a very rough guide you can think of it as 1% per year. The 20-year horizon therefore is not fixed. It's just a round number. There's a point at which it makes sense to add panels (or replace them if you are space constrained.) Once large numbers of panels start getting replaced you may see them reused in space-available places, or potentially 'reconditioned' to extend their life. Think of it as similar to second-hand cars. Of course if the price keeps dropping these avenues are less attractive. And if you are space constrained there are already space improvements that may make changing desirable well before 20 years. Finally, lots of things we use are made elsewhere. And we make things others use. By trading our excess for their excess we create a trading relationship where both sides operate in good faith because it is in their advantage to do so. The current climate, where the US operates in bad faith, and seems intent on damaging trade relationships, does not encourage other countries to behave well in the future (regardless of the motivations you (project? expect?) from them in the future.
timewizard 2y ago
I don't understand why people think a diversity of power generation options is somehow not something you would desperately want in the first world. Your fashion sense is awesome; however, this is engineering, and we need as many options as we can get. There is zero sense in playing favorites here.
kulahan 2y ago
Because solar and wind are extremely inefficient and dangerous when compared with nuclear. Nuclear and enhanced geothermal are both closing in on their dream forms (fusion and supercritical fluids), and are already sufficient as they are. It’s not necessarily “over” them, it’s that it will get tons of attention because that level of power generation would take wayyyyy too long to build out and take wayyyy too much space before even getting into the fact that neither solution can work anywhere at any time. Nuclear got a bad rap, but it is way too essential to ignore in this problem we’re facing. When the focus shifts, you can tell people are getting serious. Simple as that. Edit: I did not realize this had somehow become a conservative viewpoint? I am a leftist.
- physicles 2y ago
  Gave you an upvote not because I necessarily agree, but to counter the downvotes. I agree that it’s clear we need more nuclear, but could you explain why solar and wind are dangerous compared to nuclear? Did you mean that all the attention on solar and wind, which can’t be scaled fast enough and must be paired with grid storage, has screwed us when it comes to addressing climate change? Also, calling solar and wind inefficient isn’t precise enough. By what metric are you judging them to be inefficient?
  - kulahan 2y ago
    Appreciated. When I say more dangerous, it’s just a pretty simple calculation - per watt of energy, how many people have been injured/killed when producing energy via a given source. Coal is incredibly dangerous, as is gas by this metric. Nuclear is far and above the safest when calculating in this specific way. Solar and wind are inefficient, by my definition, because they require large portions of land and cannot run with highly predictable outputs at all times. As a result, you need other solutions to complete the story - larger farms, more farms, large batteries, grids that easily transfer energy long distances, etc. Nuclear is able to sidestep all of those problems, especially with the relatively recent advent of small modular reactors (SMRs).
- OKRainbowKid 2y ago
  Can you elaborate why you think nuclear is more efficient and safer than solar and wind? As far as I'm aware, the opposite is true: Nuclear energy is far more expensive than e.g. solar, for which costs continue to go down. While I understand that nuclear reactors are safe (if handled correctly), history has proven that freak accidents can and do happen. Also, waste storage mustn't be ignored either. How are solar and wind more dangerous?

There are no "unsolved problems" for nuclear (because the safe storage of fissile waste for 10k years isn't a problem we need to solve, apparently). By contrast, getting solar+wind fully up and running requires totally solving the storage problem. Plus the libs love it. Hence ... nuclear.

lesuorac 2y ago
> because the safe storage of fissile waste for 10k years isn't a problem we need to solve, apparently We never solved it for the other material that we dug up and burned (coal). So coal ends up emitting a ton of radioactive waste because uh when you dig up the ground you also dig up radioactive uranium (there's no 100% pure carbon deposits). It's also only a self-inflicted problem. You can technically re-use the waste until it only needs to be stored for ~300 years before it decays to "normal" levels. The US doesn't allow you to do that though while say France does.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  > We never solved it for the other material that we dug up and burned (coal). Oh yes. Having fucked up this badly with long chain hydrocarbon combustion, lets do it all over again with fission, because ... well, we did it once already, right?
  - tnecio 2y ago
    The orders of magnitude are different here. Replacing something that becomes a huge problem within two hundred years with something that (potentially) becomes a problem in a few thousand years -- really is better than spending valuable time on developing an "ideal" solution
    - Krssst 2y ago
      Nuclear waste is a local problem. They're solid not gaseous. GHGs are a worldwide problem. Years don't matter if climate change puts an end to human civilization.
      - throwaway173738 2y ago
        Whose locality bears the brunt of this? Do you mind if we put some where you live?
      - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
        Climate change will not end human civilization, unless by "human civilization" you mean the very specific configuration that habitation patterns, agriculture, national boundaries and numbers of living humans all have at this very moment. Likely hundreds of millions to a few billion will die that need not have died, wars will be fought, relocation and migration will be of unprecedented scope and scale, there will be hunger and disease ... but "human civilization" will persist through all of that. Thats not a reason to celebrate, it's just a reason to describe the risks and outcomes accurately.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
      Neither you, nor I, nor anyone else has any truly authoritative knowledge on when (or if) fissile waste will become a problem, and if it does, just how large (time, space, populations, ecosystems) of a problem it will be.
      - defrost 2y ago
        Fissile waste has been a health problem even before first mining uranium in the DRC well before WWII. Hanford has a standing legacy problem of fissile waste from both weapons and energy work. * https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/fuel-recycling/plutonium https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c... * https://www.icanw.org/hanford_s_dirty_secret_and_it_s_not_56_million_gallons_of_nuclear_waste https://www.icanw.org/hanford_s_dirty_secret_and_it_s_not_56... Human activity aside, every valley with a substantial amount of granite rock about the planet pools with radon gas on a daily basis until the wind clears it out. While this is just one of those things that's a risk on the order of a pack a day smoking habit to those who live there, radon is a fission by product from the breakdown of the uranium within the granite.
  - lesuorac 2y ago
    > lets do it all over again with fission You can look at it this way. Or you could can look at it as we reduced radioactive emissions by switching to nuclear from coal. Everything has trade-offs. It's not like solar has no side-effects.
Krssst 2y ago
Climate change is a decades-order problem. Worst case is end of human civilization. Waste storage is a problem for once climate change is solved. Worst case is local degradation of environment. A grid powered almost-fully by nuclear and water is proven feasible by France. A grid almost-fully powered by renewables for a full year in an industrialized country is yet to be seen. Renewables do work well when combined to fossil fuels, but we need to get off them. The Republicans programs for electricity is completely insane and renewables is a much better alternative than drilling more fossil fuels. Nuclear is more realistic but the political will is not there unfortunately. > Plus the libs love it. Hence ... nuclear. One can be supportive of Democrats and liberals while not agreeing with one policy point.
- defrost 2y ago
  * Renewable energy sources collectively produced 81% of Denmark's electricity generation in 2022, and are expected to provide 100% of national electric power production from 2030. * Renewable energy sources collectively produced 75% of South Australia's electricity generation in 2023, and are expected to provide 100% of state electric power production from 2027. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Denmark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Denmark - https://reneweconomy.com.au/from-zero-to-100-pct-renewables-in-just-20-years-south-australias-remarkable-energy-transition/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/from-zero-to-100-pct-renewables-...
  - bluefirebrand 2y ago
    These are very likely misleading stats > Renewable energy sources collectively produced 81% of Denmark's electricity generation in 2022, and are expected to provide 100% of national electric power production from 2030. This doesn't say anything about how much of Denmark's consumption this covers, only their production It turns out they import a bunch of their electricity from neighbors This is a sneaky way to pretend you don't consume fossil fuels
    - defrost 2y ago
      These are locations heading for 100% renewable supply in the very near future. The capital of South Australia is some distance from the border, even further from the Victorian capital (Melbourne) and is weakly linked compared to EU countries. In South Australia, the current connection to Victoria allows for just 25 per cent of its maximum demand to imported or exported. “So what that means for South Australia is we have to be a lot more self reliant. And ultimately, South Australia is the test lab for the whole NEM (National Electricity Market,” Or exported .. SA actually exports a great deal of peak renewable energy, it over produces in the daylight and uses that to charge a battery farm or to feed to the neighbouring state. The stats are no more misleading than the GP claim this is in response to, namely "A grid powered almost-fully by nuclear and water is proven feasible by France." France derives about 70% of its electricity from nuclear energy, due to a long-standing policy based on energy security. ~ https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profil...
ars 2y ago
There is no storage problem. A breeder reactor plus reprocessing means there is no waste in the first place, and also gives us 100 to 1000 times as much usable uranium.
sanderjd 2y ago
The "unsolved problem" for nuclear is doing it time- and cost- competitively with solar.
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> because the safe storage of fissile waste for 10k years isn't a problem we need to solve, apparently It literally isn't. There are two known solutions already. The stupid way, which is to put it in a dry hole in a geologically stable desert, and the smart way, which is to use it as fuel because it isn't actually waste anyway. Neither of these things are currently happening for only one very specific reason: The global fossil fuel industry (including Russia) lobbies against them because they want to retain a piece of political rhetoric to argue against replacing fossil fuels with nuclear. But that's a self-solving problem, because if you actually do replace fossil fuels with nuclear then the fossil fuel industry goes away, stops lobbying against anything, and then you can use either of the known solutions. Which means we'd only have to store the material for a few decades until that happens. The solution to that is what we're already doing at existing reactors, which is largely to keep the spent fuel rods at the power plant. It may also give you some indication of the scale of the problem to realize that you can hold all of the spent fuel ever generated by a reactor that has been in operation for decades on the site of the reactor itself.

matthewdgreen 2y ago

There seems to be a delusional part of the Internet that is convinced that nuclear is the only future, and solar and wind aren’t. To settle this, you basically need to look at what China is doing —- which is to build a lot of nuclear and then exponentially more solar and wind. We’re a huge percentage of the way down the slide to a mostly renewable world with storage, and some nuclear at the edges. But it isn’t a competition. I’d be just as happy if things were going the other way. Having a clear mental model of the world is just useful. https://cleantechnica.com/2024/01/12/nuclear-continues-to-lag-far-behind-renewables-in-china-deployments/amp/ https://cleantechnica.com/2024/01/12/nuclear-continues-to-la...

cyberax 2y ago
> There seems to be a delusional part of the Internet that is convinced that nuclear is the only future, and solar and wind aren’t. "Exponentially more" means literally nothing. 1 is also an exponent. China is building literally everything. It's also a geographically diverse country, with wide ranges of different climates. Solar is appropriate for Hainan, but makes little sense for Harbin.
- tfourb 2y ago
  Have a Look at the statistics, before nitpicking. Solar and wind dwarfs nuclear in China and increasingly so.
  - ForOldHack 2y ago
    "Once again, China's nuclear program barely added any capacity, only 1.2 GW, while wind and solar between them added about 278 GW." Dwarfs is the most apt description. (~250x)
    - cyberax 2y ago
      Nope. The devil is in the details. You're looking at the nameplate capacity. However, for solar the actual capacity factor can be anywhere from 10-25% of that. So you're looking anywhere from ~25-70GW of the average capacity. Nuclear reactors can operate at 90-95% capacity factors. And the unsolved problem is storage. Right now, solar can partially replace natural gas and, to a lesser extent, coal.

qball 2y ago

Because it's the one green solution that actually works as base load (other than hydroelectricity, but that's terrain-dependent), works 24/7 without any other affordances, and doesn't open you up to dependence on other nations to anywhere near the same degree. Solar and wind are only cheap because a foreign nation makes the parts (if they were made domestically they wouldn't be cost-competitive, obviously). So in 20 years, when your PV panels are degrading and your turbines are wearing out, that foreign country's going to be able to charge you a lot more to replace it. And if you want to see the results of cheap industrial inputs becoming expensive one only need look at the post-Nordstream German/European economic forecast. Even the poor should be able to afford to keep the lights on and the A/C running once the sun has set.

bruce511 2y ago
One minor counterpoint; Solar panels won't start degrading in 20 years. Their degrading is linear and starts when you install them. As a very rough guide you can think of it as 1% per year. The 20-year horizon therefore is not fixed. It's just a round number. There's a point at which it makes sense to add panels (or replace them if you are space constrained.) Once large numbers of panels start getting replaced you may see them reused in space-available places, or potentially 'reconditioned' to extend their life. Think of it as similar to second-hand cars. Of course if the price keeps dropping these avenues are less attractive. And if you are space constrained there are already space improvements that may make changing desirable well before 20 years. Finally, lots of things we use are made elsewhere. And we make things others use. By trading our excess for their excess we create a trading relationship where both sides operate in good faith because it is in their advantage to do so. The current climate, where the US operates in bad faith, and seems intent on damaging trade relationships, does not encourage other countries to behave well in the future (regardless of the motivations you (project? expect?) from them in the future.

timewizard 2y ago

I don't understand why people think a diversity of power generation options is somehow not something you would desperately want in the first world. Your fashion sense is awesome; however, this is engineering, and we need as many options as we can get. There is zero sense in playing favorites here.

kulahan 2y ago

Because solar and wind are extremely inefficient and dangerous when compared with nuclear. Nuclear and enhanced geothermal are both closing in on their dream forms (fusion and supercritical fluids), and are already sufficient as they are. It’s not necessarily “over” them, it’s that it will get tons of attention because that level of power generation would take wayyyyy too long to build out and take wayyyy too much space before even getting into the fact that neither solution can work anywhere at any time. Nuclear got a bad rap, but it is way too essential to ignore in this problem we’re facing. When the focus shifts, you can tell people are getting serious. Simple as that. Edit: I did not realize this had somehow become a conservative viewpoint? I am a leftist.

physicles 2y ago
Gave you an upvote not because I necessarily agree, but to counter the downvotes. I agree that it’s clear we need more nuclear, but could you explain why solar and wind are dangerous compared to nuclear? Did you mean that all the attention on solar and wind, which can’t be scaled fast enough and must be paired with grid storage, has screwed us when it comes to addressing climate change? Also, calling solar and wind inefficient isn’t precise enough. By what metric are you judging them to be inefficient?
- kulahan 2y ago
  Appreciated. When I say more dangerous, it’s just a pretty simple calculation - per watt of energy, how many people have been injured/killed when producing energy via a given source. Coal is incredibly dangerous, as is gas by this metric. Nuclear is far and above the safest when calculating in this specific way. Solar and wind are inefficient, by my definition, because they require large portions of land and cannot run with highly predictable outputs at all times. As a result, you need other solutions to complete the story - larger farms, more farms, large batteries, grids that easily transfer energy long distances, etc. Nuclear is able to sidestep all of those problems, especially with the relatively recent advent of small modular reactors (SMRs).
OKRainbowKid 2y ago
Can you elaborate why you think nuclear is more efficient and safer than solar and wind? As far as I'm aware, the opposite is true: Nuclear energy is far more expensive than e.g. solar, for which costs continue to go down. While I understand that nuclear reactors are safe (if handled correctly), history has proven that freak accidents can and do happen. Also, waste storage mustn't be ignored either. How are solar and wind more dangerous?