11 ms·

Honestly, I don't think it's that hand-wavey when nuclear has killed less people ever than coal does every year.

by ZoFreX 14y ago

anigbrowl 14y ago
People are more frightened of things they don't understand, so effective advocacy of nuclear power requires making the effort to bridge the information gap. Also, people find concentrated acute harm more scary than dispersed chronic harm, which is why the idea of a plane crash is more disturbing than the larger number of people killed in road accidents.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- prawks 14y ago
  If you've read Normal Accidents by Perrow, how would you respond to someone who said that a good reason is because of the extreme complexity of nuclear power coupled with our relatively new understanding of it? I think that's a pretty good criticism of nuclear power.
  - anigbrowl 14y ago
    I haven't read that book, but I get the point about the critique. I think it's important to acknowledge the many errors that have resulted from both ignorance and negligence, but also to consider how scientific rigor and engineering methodologies like redundancy and planning for failure mean that we don't have to fly blind; also, the more we postpone implementation of alternative designs (such as those for thorium reactors), the greater the risks from maintaining outdated reactors become. There are many reactors that I'd like to see shut down for either design or geographic reasons, and the best argument for decommissioning them is that we can produce the same amount of power at lower cost and risk.
  - jlarocco 14y ago
    I would ask them if they feared computers, which are more complex, more recent, and used to control almost everything.
    - baq 14y ago
      when computers break down, they don't kill people for the next hundred years.
- baq 14y ago
  i think that the biggest problem is the potential for making places on our planet unsuitable to live in forever (for all practical purposes). people look at chernobyl and see a place that will be dangerous to all life long after they're dead. they don't want that to happen again. fukushima is potentially the next such place, albeit on a lower scale. the fact that radiation doesn't hurt doesn't help either. if our civilization ever falls, chernobyl will be a place cursed by gods.
  - rbanffy 14y ago
    I don't think there are any Chernobyl-like reactors in operation today. Even if the design of reactors like ones at the Fukushima plant may be considered horribly flawed (they should be able to cool themselves passively, with no external power input whatsoever, after someone hits the scram button) the magnitude of the disaster is much smaller. An article posted here a couple days back mentions the hot zones around Fukushima are 3x less radioactive than downtown Denver. This is something to think about. Also, we must consider what other options we have for power generation. Can solar, wind and hydro generate all the power we need? How long until we can build economically viable fusion plants?
    - wazoox 14y ago
      > An article posted here a couple days back mentions the hot zones around Fukushima are 3x less radioactive than downtown Denver. This is something to think about. Radiation is like cancer: one word to describe many different, related phenomenons. Denver radioactivity comes from radon, which is a relatively harmless gas as long as you allow it to disperse rapidly. OTOH pollution from nuclear accidents mainly comes from caesium which mimics calcium and get fixated on bones, thus provoking long, continuous, deep exposition to radiation.
      - DennisP 14y ago
        True, but the decay products of radon are solid alpha-emitters that get lodged in people's lungs. And the comparisons to Fukushima are generally in terms of rem, which is already adjusted for biological effect.
rogerbinns 14y ago
And it turns out that radiation from coal plants is a problem - some claim it is more radioactive that nuclear waste! http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is...
justin66 14y ago
The risks of both nuclear and coal tend to be treated in hand-wavey ways. It's very unfortunate in either case.

Honestly, I don't think it's that hand-wavey when nuclear has killed less people ever than coal does every year.

by ZoFreX 14y ago

Honestly, I don't think it's that hand-wavey when nuclear has killed less people ever than coal does every year.

People are more frightened of things they don't understand, so effective advocacy of nuclear power requires making the effort to bridge the information gap. Also, people find concentrated acute harm more scary than dispersed chronic harm, which is why the idea of a plane crash is more disturbing than the larger number of people killed in road accidents.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
prawks 14y ago
If you've read Normal Accidents by Perrow, how would you respond to someone who said that a good reason is because of the extreme complexity of nuclear power coupled with our relatively new understanding of it? I think that's a pretty good criticism of nuclear power.
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  I haven't read that book, but I get the point about the critique. I think it's important to acknowledge the many errors that have resulted from both ignorance and negligence, but also to consider how scientific rigor and engineering methodologies like redundancy and planning for failure mean that we don't have to fly blind; also, the more we postpone implementation of alternative designs (such as those for thorium reactors), the greater the risks from maintaining outdated reactors become. There are many reactors that I'd like to see shut down for either design or geographic reasons, and the best argument for decommissioning them is that we can produce the same amount of power at lower cost and risk.
- jlarocco 14y ago
  I would ask them if they feared computers, which are more complex, more recent, and used to control almost everything.
  - baq 14y ago
    when computers break down, they don't kill people for the next hundred years.
baq 14y ago
i think that the biggest problem is the potential for making places on our planet unsuitable to live in forever (for all practical purposes). people look at chernobyl and see a place that will be dangerous to all life long after they're dead. they don't want that to happen again. fukushima is potentially the next such place, albeit on a lower scale. the fact that radiation doesn't hurt doesn't help either. if our civilization ever falls, chernobyl will be a place cursed by gods.
- rbanffy 14y ago
  I don't think there are any Chernobyl-like reactors in operation today. Even if the design of reactors like ones at the Fukushima plant may be considered horribly flawed (they should be able to cool themselves passively, with no external power input whatsoever, after someone hits the scram button) the magnitude of the disaster is much smaller. An article posted here a couple days back mentions the hot zones around Fukushima are 3x less radioactive than downtown Denver. This is something to think about. Also, we must consider what other options we have for power generation. Can solar, wind and hydro generate all the power we need? How long until we can build economically viable fusion plants?
  - wazoox 14y ago
    > An article posted here a couple days back mentions the hot zones around Fukushima are 3x less radioactive than downtown Denver. This is something to think about. Radiation is like cancer: one word to describe many different, related phenomenons. Denver radioactivity comes from radon, which is a relatively harmless gas as long as you allow it to disperse rapidly. OTOH pollution from nuclear accidents mainly comes from caesium which mimics calcium and get fixated on bones, thus provoking long, continuous, deep exposition to radiation.
    - DennisP 14y ago
      True, but the decay products of radon are solid alpha-emitters that get lodged in people's lungs. And the comparisons to Fukushima are generally in terms of rem, which is already adjusted for biological effect.

rogerbinns 14y ago

And it turns out that radiation from coal plants is a problem - some claim it is more radioactive that nuclear waste! http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is...

justin66 14y ago

The risks of both nuclear and coal tend to be treated in hand-wavey ways. It's very unfortunate in either case.