5 ms·

The so-called "green parties" have caused a lot of environmental damage to Europe and the earth. Instead of relatively speaking quite safe nuclear power, in man

The so-called "green parties" have caused a lot of environmental damage to Europe and the earth. Instead of relatively speaking quite safe nuclear power, in many places we are getting quite dangerous coal power. Pretty much just out of ignorance.

rimantas 11y ago
I think nuclear power is safest even in absolute terms not only relatively.
- dekhn 11y ago
  solar would seem to be safer, presuming you can manufacture the cells without causing environmental degradation.
  - gjm11 11y ago
    Nope, at least not according to the figures I've seen (e.g., http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/2/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-de...). I think the main reason is that installing solar panels isn't perfectly safe. Nuclear comes out a long way ahead of solar -- but both are vastly ahead of coal.
- witty_username 11y ago
  Why? This cursory Google search https://www.google.co.in/search?q=death+per+terawatt https://www.google.co.in/search?q=death+per+terawatt seems to say nuclear has less kills per terawatt-hour than coal, though obviously quantifying deaths from all these power sources is hard.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    The issue with this is how it calculates deaths per terrawatt. Nuclear has the whole waste storage (and, in some places, drinking water contamination) issue, while coal has the whole climate change issue. Both are bad, but just saying that one of them has less short-term, but more long-term deaths isn’t a good argument.
    - ethbro 11y ago
      Imho, "the whole climate change issue" is a waste storage issue as well. Except it doesn't kill people quite as quickly, so we're okay with it just being released into our atmosphere.
    - yellowapple 11y ago
      Have there been any documented cases of nuclear waste storage causing mortal danger, and if so, how do they compare to coal's waste storage (or, more precisely, the lack thereof)? I don't know any details on either, but I'd suspect that the latter is a much greater threat than the former, and that the more we transition from coal to nuclear fission (and, alongside that, the more we develop ways to use nuclear waste more productively), the better.
- pjc50 11y ago
  The worst case is rather nasty though: the rendering of a large area uninhabitable and unusable for agriculture. There aren't a lot of sites in Europe where you can site a nuclear reactor far enough away to avoid either evacuating a major city or losing an agricultural region. There is no "away", as people like to say about rubbish.
  - lmm 11y ago
    Compare that large area to that consumed by business-as-usual for the alternatives though. E.g. the area rendered uninhabitable/unusable for hydro power is larger (per kwh). (Of course many people find a reservoir more attractive than a radioactive zone, but both are equally unusable for habitation or agriculture)
    - pjc50 11y ago
      area rendered uninhabitable/unusable for hydro power is larger That can be true of reservoirs (Lake Mead is huge) but isn't necessarily. UK's largest reservoir is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielder_Water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielder_Water at a mere 2 miles by <6 miles, supporting a piddly 6MW (yes, megawatts not gigawatts, I had to double check that). But that's subject to planning permission in a way that radioactive exclusion zones aren't. The UK suffered from Chernobyl fallout for years: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1514492/20-years-on-Britain-still-feels-the-effects-of-Chernobyl.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1514492/20-years-on-B... It's not that nuclear power is bad on average, it's just that the worst case scenarios affect potentially huge areas.
      - NLips 11y ago
        A clarification to the point about Kielder's power generation: Kielder reservoir is primarily for regulating the water supply, rather than power generation. There are many hydro-electric plants in the UK generating much more power.
EdwardDiego 11y ago
Germany's wind turbines and solar farms disagree. 30% of its energy is renewable.
- areyousure 11y ago
  (This is not technically a reply to you, but just some context in case anyone else is interested.) For my own benefit, I have attempted to interpret the statistics in this relatively authoritative source: http://www.erneuerbare-energien.de/EE/Navigation/DE/Service/Erneuerbare_Energien_in_Zahlen/Zeitreihen/zeitreihen.html http://www.erneuerbare-energien.de/EE/Navigation/DE/Service/... As far as I can tell, for the year of 2014, Germany's primary energy consumption breaks down approximately 15/35/20/30 for electricity generation, heating, transportation, and other [p.10]. Approximately 30% of the electricity generation is from renewable sources [p.5], which is split approximately 35/25/20/20 between wind, biofuels, solar, and other (including hydro) [p.6]. Nearly all of the contribution of renewable sources to heating and transportation is from biofuels [p.8--9]. tl;dr: Renewable energy accounts for approximately 30% of electricity generation in Germany. Overall, renewable energy accounts for approximately 11% of primary energy consumption.
- ars 11y ago
  That's a misleading number. Those devices embody a huge amount energy, which China supplied in the form of coal. It'll be decades before they pay it back, in the meantime they just caused more CO2 in the air. Nuclear would have been better.
  - blkhawk 11y ago
    Not that again. No it does not take decades to pay back the energy cost of the production of Wind Turbines or Solar Panels. Win turbines have an average payback time of 2-8 Months. Solar panels are far worse but even there the payback time for the complete System (Panel, Inverter, Installation, Transport) is between 2.5 Years to 1 Year depending on the panel technology [1]. These numbers are from a Frauenhofer Study from 2009 so one can assume that today's payback times are better than that due to slightly increased efficiency. [1] http://c1cleantechnicacom.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/2013/12/energy-payback-solar-germany.png http://c1cleantechnicacom.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/2013...

rimantas 11y ago

I think nuclear power is safest even in absolute terms not only relatively.

dekhn 11y ago
solar would seem to be safer, presuming you can manufacture the cells without causing environmental degradation.
- gjm11 11y ago
  Nope, at least not according to the figures I've seen (e.g., http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/2/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-de...). I think the main reason is that installing solar panels isn't perfectly safe. Nuclear comes out a long way ahead of solar -- but both are vastly ahead of coal.
witty_username 11y ago
Why? This cursory Google search https://www.google.co.in/search?q=death+per+terawatt https://www.google.co.in/search?q=death+per+terawatt seems to say nuclear has less kills per terawatt-hour than coal, though obviously quantifying deaths from all these power sources is hard.
- kuschku 11y ago
  The issue with this is how it calculates deaths per terrawatt. Nuclear has the whole waste storage (and, in some places, drinking water contamination) issue, while coal has the whole climate change issue. Both are bad, but just saying that one of them has less short-term, but more long-term deaths isn’t a good argument.
  - ethbro 11y ago
    Imho, "the whole climate change issue" is a waste storage issue as well. Except it doesn't kill people quite as quickly, so we're okay with it just being released into our atmosphere.
  - yellowapple 11y ago
    Have there been any documented cases of nuclear waste storage causing mortal danger, and if so, how do they compare to coal's waste storage (or, more precisely, the lack thereof)? I don't know any details on either, but I'd suspect that the latter is a much greater threat than the former, and that the more we transition from coal to nuclear fission (and, alongside that, the more we develop ways to use nuclear waste more productively), the better.
pjc50 11y ago
The worst case is rather nasty though: the rendering of a large area uninhabitable and unusable for agriculture. There aren't a lot of sites in Europe where you can site a nuclear reactor far enough away to avoid either evacuating a major city or losing an agricultural region. There is no "away", as people like to say about rubbish.
- lmm 11y ago
  Compare that large area to that consumed by business-as-usual for the alternatives though. E.g. the area rendered uninhabitable/unusable for hydro power is larger (per kwh). (Of course many people find a reservoir more attractive than a radioactive zone, but both are equally unusable for habitation or agriculture)
  - pjc50 11y ago
    area rendered uninhabitable/unusable for hydro power is larger That can be true of reservoirs (Lake Mead is huge) but isn't necessarily. UK's largest reservoir is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielder_Water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielder_Water at a mere 2 miles by <6 miles, supporting a piddly 6MW (yes, megawatts not gigawatts, I had to double check that). But that's subject to planning permission in a way that radioactive exclusion zones aren't. The UK suffered from Chernobyl fallout for years: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1514492/20-years-on-Britain-still-feels-the-effects-of-Chernobyl.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1514492/20-years-on-B... It's not that nuclear power is bad on average, it's just that the worst case scenarios affect potentially huge areas.
    - NLips 11y ago
      A clarification to the point about Kielder's power generation: Kielder reservoir is primarily for regulating the water supply, rather than power generation. There are many hydro-electric plants in the UK generating much more power.

EdwardDiego 11y ago

Germany's wind turbines and solar farms disagree. 30% of its energy is renewable.

areyousure 11y ago
(This is not technically a reply to you, but just some context in case anyone else is interested.) For my own benefit, I have attempted to interpret the statistics in this relatively authoritative source: http://www.erneuerbare-energien.de/EE/Navigation/DE/Service/Erneuerbare_Energien_in_Zahlen/Zeitreihen/zeitreihen.html http://www.erneuerbare-energien.de/EE/Navigation/DE/Service/... As far as I can tell, for the year of 2014, Germany's primary energy consumption breaks down approximately 15/35/20/30 for electricity generation, heating, transportation, and other [p.10]. Approximately 30% of the electricity generation is from renewable sources [p.5], which is split approximately 35/25/20/20 between wind, biofuels, solar, and other (including hydro) [p.6]. Nearly all of the contribution of renewable sources to heating and transportation is from biofuels [p.8--9]. tl;dr: Renewable energy accounts for approximately 30% of electricity generation in Germany. Overall, renewable energy accounts for approximately 11% of primary energy consumption.
ars 11y ago
That's a misleading number. Those devices embody a huge amount energy, which China supplied in the form of coal. It'll be decades before they pay it back, in the meantime they just caused more CO2 in the air. Nuclear would have been better.
- blkhawk 11y ago
  Not that again. No it does not take decades to pay back the energy cost of the production of Wind Turbines or Solar Panels. Win turbines have an average payback time of 2-8 Months. Solar panels are far worse but even there the payback time for the complete System (Panel, Inverter, Installation, Transport) is between 2.5 Years to 1 Year depending on the panel technology [1]. These numbers are from a Frauenhofer Study from 2009 so one can assume that today's payback times are better than that due to slightly increased efficiency. [1] http://c1cleantechnicacom.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/2013/12/energy-payback-solar-germany.png http://c1cleantechnicacom.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/2013...