5 ms·

Air quality will improve, just not CO2

ceejayoz 7mo ago
Somehow that’s an often missed aspect of this. Yeah, ditching coal has a wide array of nice side effects. It has killed many, many more than the world’s nuclear accidents.
- nixass 7mo ago
  Coal probably kills more people in a single day than all nuclear accidents ever combined
  - wolvoleo 7mo ago
    Probably but damage from nuclear accidents isn't only measured in deaths. No coal plant accident has caused an exclusion zone for 40 years.
    - woodruffw 7mo ago
      I think that depends on where you draw the line around the term "coal plant." There have been plenty of coal ash disasters that result in years of exclusion (for purposes of habitation, drinking water, fishing, etc.)[1][2][3][4] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly_ash_slurry_spill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Creek_flood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Creek_flood [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_County_coal_slurry_spill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_County_coal_slurry_spil... [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_County_water_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_County_water_crisis
    - brynnbee 7mo ago
      If you look at net damage to the planet, fossil fuel burning energy sources kill literally 8 million+ people a year. Coal plants are vastly more radioactive than nuclear plants, and the effects of burning coal will have a vastly outsized share of damage to the planet in the long than nuclear. Its effects are just less concentrated to a single area.
    - panick21_ 7mo ago
      Most of the exclusion zone is political nonsense. And overall coal has made much more areas much worse to live in. I rather live in the exclusion zone then next many coal plants. Also there is a single case that happened from a non-western design. When looking at western countries like France, it shows how incredibly safe the whole industry is end to end.
      - ben_w 7mo ago
        Chernobyl's political nonsense was mostly down to the USSR wanting to deny that anything had, or possibly could, go wrong; if anything, the exclusion zone is the opposite of the western nonsense about nuclear power. It's our unique freedom-themed nonsense, not the Soviet dictatorial-nonsense, which means we have radiation standards strict enough that it's not possible to convert a coal plant into a nuclear plant without first performing a nuclear decontamination process due to all the radioisotopes in the coal. That said, perhaps that's actually a problem with the coal plants rather than nuclear standards: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-69285-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-69285-4 > When looking at western countries like France, it shows how incredibly safe the whole industry is end to end. Relative to coal, absolutely. But don't assume western countries are immune to propaganda on these things, nuclear reactors are there for the spicy atoms, not the price tag or public safety.
        panick21_ 7mo ago
        Nuclear plans have objectively made power generation save and clean. When they were built in the 1960-1990s the were objectively the best and cleanest energy that saved a gigantic amount of lives. The exclusion zone is nonsense because many that live in that zone has lower cancer rates then those outside. The idea is based on a invalid assumption about radiation an a linear relationship between radiation and harm. An I do think the standards we apply are to extreme in many cases mostly dating back to this misunderstanding about radiation. As for the locality to nuclear plants and cancer, this is as far as I know been shown in many countries and as far as I know at least can mostly be explained by nuclear plants usually being built in industrial areas that often used to have coal plants and other industry going on. > nuclear reactors are there for the spicy atoms, not the price tag or public safety. Not sure what 'spicy' means in this context. In terms of price tag they are objectively a fantastic deal if built in larger numbers. Even in places where they were not built in the numbers they did in France, they are good life time deal, and give relativity stable long term prices. And they don't have to be 'there' for public safety, they just need a good record on public safety and they do. In places like Austria and Germany we have many known cases where a nuclear plant was planned and was prevented by activists, only to be replaced by coal, in both cases impacting 10000s of lives being worse financially in the long term.
    - catlifeonmars 7mo ago
      And not all nuclear plants are the same. I don’t think it’s reasonable at all to compare Chernobyl to modern reactor designs, just because they both use the word “nuclear”. Apso not sure if you are including coal mining, and all of the deaths and negative health outcomes as a result of the industry
    - happosai 7mo ago
      Exclusion zones are great for nature: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/how-chernobyl-has-become-unexpected-haven-wildlife https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/how-chernobyl-ha... So The "worst case scenario" for nuclear power is creating a new wildlife park free from human interference.
      - robotresearcher 7mo ago
        Nature would enjoy that. The economy not so much, depending on location. Around San Onofre (decommissioned now), a 30 mile Chernobyl-size exclusion zone would cover big chunks of Orange County and San Diego County. The US government recommended a 50 mile exclusion zone around Fukushima. 50 miles would cover southern Los Angeles and millions of people. So The "worst case scenario" for nuclear power is creating a new wildlife park free from human interference [and emptying out half of Los Angeles]
        GoblinSlayer 7mo ago
        I wonder what is nuclear equivalent of pollution in Los Angeles.
    - wat10000 7mo ago
      Only because the damage is more diffuse. Have you ever seen the common medical advice that pregnant women should avoid eating more than a few servings of seafood every week, and avoid certain kinds entirely, because they’re all contaminated with mercury? A huge portion of that mercury comes from burning coal. How’s that for an exclusion zone?
      - ceejayoz 7mo ago
        Or for a big long list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites
  - brynnbee 7mo ago
    It's worse than that, it's every 3 to 7 hours of fossil fuel pollution roughly equaling the total death toll of all nuclear power accidents in history (around 4000 indirectly, most from cancer resulting from Chernobyl - but there's only around 100 total in a direct way).
- sunaookami 7mo ago
  Why even make it about nuclears vs coal? Both are bad, both are hazards and both are not green energy.
  - ceejayoz 7mo ago
    Because people are petrified of nuclear but fine with coal. The opposite should be true. I don’t think nuclear is the answer to things. But replacing every ounce of coal used for fuel with nuclear would still be a win.
    - Imustaskforhelp 7mo ago
      Nuclear energy can be used to generate 24x7 energy as the grid-power to supply energy to a country whereas Solar and Wind require batteries. I think that the last time I checked, when you take into factor the CO2 emissions and everything, Nuclear is the best source of Energy. > I don’t think nuclear is the answer to things I think that I am interested in seeing thorium based reactors or development with that too. That being said, Nuclear feels like the answer to me. Feel free to correct me if you think I am wrong but I don't think that there is any better form of energy source than nuclear when you factor in everything.
      - ceejayoz 7mo ago
        Batteries are cheaper and faster to make in large quantities. No economy on the planet needs 24/7 peak power production. The times humans work correspond nicely with the times the sun is out.
        Imustaskforhelp 7mo ago
        > Batteries are cheaper and faster to make in large quantities. Yes I agree but their extraction at scale is still very C02 Expensive. > No economy on the planet needs 24/7 peak power production. The times humans work correspond nicely with the times the sun is out. With Nuclear energy, let's face it. If you have a nuclear plant running, the input is just some uranium which we have plenty of. Thereotically we have no problem with running at peak power production. You are also forgetting that Sun can be blocked during times of rains and Wind is unpredictable as well. If you can work with solar panels only that's really really great. Unfortunately that's not how the world works or how I see it function :( You are forgetting that markets operate after work and the late night culture and so many other things. You need lights at energy and quite a decent bit. You are also forgetting that if we ever get Electric vehicles then we would need energy during late night as well. A lot of energy in general is still needed during nights and would we be still burning coal for that? With all of this, I am not sure why you'd not like Nuclear?
- sh34r 7mo ago
  Coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste, too.
- opo 7mo ago
  >It has killed many, many more than the world’s nuclear accidents. For that matter, it has killed many, many more than the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan!
s_dev 7mo ago
Also the fact that it greatly lessens energy dependence should not be understated.
p0w3n3d 7mo ago
Overall Result (Typical Modern Coal Plant) When multiple systems are combined the percentage of things filtered out is: Pollutant Typical removal Dust / particulate matter 99–99.9%+ Sulfur dioxide (SO₂) 90–98% Nitrogen oxides (NOx) 70–90% Mercury 80–95%

Somehow that’s an often missed aspect of this. Yeah, ditching coal has a wide array of nice side effects. It has killed many, many more than the world’s nuclear accidents.

nixass 7mo ago
Coal probably kills more people in a single day than all nuclear accidents ever combined
- wolvoleo 7mo ago
  Probably but damage from nuclear accidents isn't only measured in deaths. No coal plant accident has caused an exclusion zone for 40 years.
  - woodruffw 7mo ago
    I think that depends on where you draw the line around the term "coal plant." There have been plenty of coal ash disasters that result in years of exclusion (for purposes of habitation, drinking water, fishing, etc.)[1][2][3][4] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly_ash_slurry_spill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Creek_flood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Creek_flood [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_County_coal_slurry_spill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_County_coal_slurry_spil... [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_County_water_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_County_water_crisis
  - brynnbee 7mo ago
    If you look at net damage to the planet, fossil fuel burning energy sources kill literally 8 million+ people a year. Coal plants are vastly more radioactive than nuclear plants, and the effects of burning coal will have a vastly outsized share of damage to the planet in the long than nuclear. Its effects are just less concentrated to a single area.
  - panick21_ 7mo ago
    Most of the exclusion zone is political nonsense. And overall coal has made much more areas much worse to live in. I rather live in the exclusion zone then next many coal plants. Also there is a single case that happened from a non-western design. When looking at western countries like France, it shows how incredibly safe the whole industry is end to end.
    - ben_w 7mo ago
      Chernobyl's political nonsense was mostly down to the USSR wanting to deny that anything had, or possibly could, go wrong; if anything, the exclusion zone is the opposite of the western nonsense about nuclear power. It's our unique freedom-themed nonsense, not the Soviet dictatorial-nonsense, which means we have radiation standards strict enough that it's not possible to convert a coal plant into a nuclear plant without first performing a nuclear decontamination process due to all the radioisotopes in the coal. That said, perhaps that's actually a problem with the coal plants rather than nuclear standards: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-69285-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-69285-4 > When looking at western countries like France, it shows how incredibly safe the whole industry is end to end. Relative to coal, absolutely. But don't assume western countries are immune to propaganda on these things, nuclear reactors are there for the spicy atoms, not the price tag or public safety.
      - panick21_ 7mo ago
        Nuclear plans have objectively made power generation save and clean. When they were built in the 1960-1990s the were objectively the best and cleanest energy that saved a gigantic amount of lives. The exclusion zone is nonsense because many that live in that zone has lower cancer rates then those outside. The idea is based on a invalid assumption about radiation an a linear relationship between radiation and harm. An I do think the standards we apply are to extreme in many cases mostly dating back to this misunderstanding about radiation. As for the locality to nuclear plants and cancer, this is as far as I know been shown in many countries and as far as I know at least can mostly be explained by nuclear plants usually being built in industrial areas that often used to have coal plants and other industry going on. > nuclear reactors are there for the spicy atoms, not the price tag or public safety. Not sure what 'spicy' means in this context. In terms of price tag they are objectively a fantastic deal if built in larger numbers. Even in places where they were not built in the numbers they did in France, they are good life time deal, and give relativity stable long term prices. And they don't have to be 'there' for public safety, they just need a good record on public safety and they do. In places like Austria and Germany we have many known cases where a nuclear plant was planned and was prevented by activists, only to be replaced by coal, in both cases impacting 10000s of lives being worse financially in the long term.
  - catlifeonmars 7mo ago
    And not all nuclear plants are the same. I don’t think it’s reasonable at all to compare Chernobyl to modern reactor designs, just because they both use the word “nuclear”. Apso not sure if you are including coal mining, and all of the deaths and negative health outcomes as a result of the industry
  - happosai 7mo ago
    Exclusion zones are great for nature: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/how-chernobyl-has-become-unexpected-haven-wildlife https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/how-chernobyl-ha... So The "worst case scenario" for nuclear power is creating a new wildlife park free from human interference.
    - robotresearcher 7mo ago
      Nature would enjoy that. The economy not so much, depending on location. Around San Onofre (decommissioned now), a 30 mile Chernobyl-size exclusion zone would cover big chunks of Orange County and San Diego County. The US government recommended a 50 mile exclusion zone around Fukushima. 50 miles would cover southern Los Angeles and millions of people. So The "worst case scenario" for nuclear power is creating a new wildlife park free from human interference [and emptying out half of Los Angeles]
      - GoblinSlayer 7mo ago
        I wonder what is nuclear equivalent of pollution in Los Angeles.
  - wat10000 7mo ago
    Only because the damage is more diffuse. Have you ever seen the common medical advice that pregnant women should avoid eating more than a few servings of seafood every week, and avoid certain kinds entirely, because they’re all contaminated with mercury? A huge portion of that mercury comes from burning coal. How’s that for an exclusion zone?
    - ceejayoz 7mo ago
      Or for a big long list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Superfund_sites
- brynnbee 7mo ago
  It's worse than that, it's every 3 to 7 hours of fossil fuel pollution roughly equaling the total death toll of all nuclear power accidents in history (around 4000 indirectly, most from cancer resulting from Chernobyl - but there's only around 100 total in a direct way).
sunaookami 7mo ago
Why even make it about nuclears vs coal? Both are bad, both are hazards and both are not green energy.
- ceejayoz 7mo ago
  Because people are petrified of nuclear but fine with coal. The opposite should be true. I don’t think nuclear is the answer to things. But replacing every ounce of coal used for fuel with nuclear would still be a win.
  - Imustaskforhelp 7mo ago
    Nuclear energy can be used to generate 24x7 energy as the grid-power to supply energy to a country whereas Solar and Wind require batteries. I think that the last time I checked, when you take into factor the CO2 emissions and everything, Nuclear is the best source of Energy. > I don’t think nuclear is the answer to things I think that I am interested in seeing thorium based reactors or development with that too. That being said, Nuclear feels like the answer to me. Feel free to correct me if you think I am wrong but I don't think that there is any better form of energy source than nuclear when you factor in everything.
    - ceejayoz 7mo ago
      Batteries are cheaper and faster to make in large quantities. No economy on the planet needs 24/7 peak power production. The times humans work correspond nicely with the times the sun is out.
      - Imustaskforhelp 7mo ago
        > Batteries are cheaper and faster to make in large quantities. Yes I agree but their extraction at scale is still very C02 Expensive. > No economy on the planet needs 24/7 peak power production. The times humans work correspond nicely with the times the sun is out. With Nuclear energy, let's face it. If you have a nuclear plant running, the input is just some uranium which we have plenty of. Thereotically we have no problem with running at peak power production. You are also forgetting that Sun can be blocked during times of rains and Wind is unpredictable as well. If you can work with solar panels only that's really really great. Unfortunately that's not how the world works or how I see it function :( You are forgetting that markets operate after work and the late night culture and so many other things. You need lights at energy and quite a decent bit. You are also forgetting that if we ever get Electric vehicles then we would need energy during late night as well. A lot of energy in general is still needed during nights and would we be still burning coal for that? With all of this, I am not sure why you'd not like Nuclear?
sh34r 7mo ago
Coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste, too.
opo 7mo ago
>It has killed many, many more than the world’s nuclear accidents. For that matter, it has killed many, many more than the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan!

s_dev 7mo ago

Also the fact that it greatly lessens energy dependence should not be understated.

p0w3n3d 7mo ago

Overall Result (Typical Modern Coal Plant) When multiple systems are combined the percentage of things filtered out is: Pollutant Typical removal Dust / particulate matter 99–99.9%+ Sulfur dioxide (SO₂) 90–98% Nitrogen oxides (NOx) 70–90% Mercury 80–95%