this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago (22 children)

This feels like one of those “heres a speech to make me look like the good guy” when in reality they have some ulterior motive. I am hoping the ulterior motive is that this dudes company has heavily invested in renewables and forcing a transition will help them financially and help the world.

To his point that we need to explore all options, nuclear included, i can not agree more. Nuclear is the safest and cleanest option that can power much more than wind or solar on a site by site basis. It just sucks that the general public has no understanding of nuclear tech and how much better and safer it is than in the past.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (15 children)

In theory, nuclear power generation may be safe. In practice it is not. There were two major catastrophes that killed thousands, first in Chernobyl and then in Fukushima. Fukushima wasn't that long ago either. In practice, one should not underestimate the irrational greed of managers. There are calculations of how much damage insurance for nuclear power plants would cost. Since the risk, which can be calculated from the damage multiplied by the probability of occurrence, is very high because the damage in an accident would be so incredibly great that companies cannot afford it and always taxpayers have to save them, which shows the risk the taxpayers bear with nuclear power plants. Many nuclear power plants are very old and extremely expensive to maintain. So you would have to build new power plants in order to install the latest safety technology. Incidentally, the new security technology does not help against invaders either, as can be seen in the Ukraine. This super great security technology is enormously expensive. Renewable energy sources are simply unbeatably cheap because you get the energy from the earth and the sun as a gift. It is already the case that countries with many renewable energy sources, such as Denmark, are depressing the European energy market with their cheap electricity, and conventional energy sources are not getting prices that low. Then there is the biggest problem, nuclear waste. Uranium 235 and its fission isotopes are harmless after 1 million years. So the nuclear waste has to be guarded for 1 million years. Labor costs are bigger than money in the world exists and most countries don't have repositories because it's impossible to find a safe place for the next 1 million years. From the generated energy one also has to subtract the large amount of energy that is consumed firstly by the enrichment of uranium in gigantic centrifuges and secondly by the creation of uranium in mining. Only vehicles with combustion engines are used for this and the mining itself emits a lot of CO2. In addition, the uranium deposits are not that large given our high energy consumption. That is why India is researching thorium reactors, but none of them are productive yet. I think fusion reactors are a much better way to spend research money. Nuclear power plants need a lot of water for cooling. In view of the climate change, there were big problems in France last year to cool the nuclear power plants because the rivers did not deliver enough water due to little rain. As a result, many power plants had to be shut down and electricity had to be imported at great expense. By importing uranium from abroad, one also becomes extremely dependent on other countries and on their uranium prices. As you can see, given the huge advances in renewable energy sources, I think nuclear power plants are very poor options for generating energy.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)

Your premise is specious

There were two major catastrophes that killed thousands, first in Chernobyl and then in Fukushima.

  1. Chernobyl was a flawed test which deliberately ignored documented safety protocols on an RBMK-1000 high-power channel-type reactor. There are still 10 chernobyl-style reactors operating across russia, but the test method is the primary cause of that disaster.
  2. Precisely ONE of those 15,000 people killed in Fukushima and neighboring areas were due to destruction of the reactors at Fukushima. Here's more information.
[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Firstly you are just picking up on my first point and secondly no one would have been harmed in either disaster if a wind farm had been set up.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Does that mean wind power kills fewer people per kWh than nuclear?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And on which timeline? Nuclear power has come a LONG way since 3MI, let alone Chernobyl.

One human has died from failures of a modern nuclear plant in the last 15 years.

I don't know the stats, but it's quite likely that a non-zero number techs have died servicing and installing the wind facilities.

In which case, they're about even - or wind is worse. But in the grand scheme, it's a non issue either way.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In your argument as to when a nuclear power plant kills people, as I see it, you consider the period too short. It may be that few or no one dies from the direct explosion, but the worst thing about the accidents is the immense amount of gamma radiation. Radiation deaths often do not occur immediately, but only after some time. It is therefore difficult to estimate how many deaths are due to radiation from nuclear catastrophes, but to estimate it with one death is definitely too low in my opinion. The number of deaths from nuclear power is certainly not comparable to solar or wind power due to its magnitude.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

"Overall, based on statistical modelling of the radiation doses received by workers and local residents, a total of 4000 deaths will eventually be attributable to the Chernobyl accident"(Pflugbeil, S. (2006). Chernobyl – Looking back to go forwards: the September 2005 IAEA Conference. Medicine, Conflict and Survival, 22(4), 299–309. https://doi.org/10.1080/13623690600945230) "Environmental fallout from the accident affected cropland, forests, rivers, fish and wildlife, and urban centres. In the three countries most affected, nearly 800 000 ha of agricultural land was removed from service, and timber production was halted on nearly 700 000 ha of forest."(Pflugbeil, S. (2006). Chernobyl – Looking back to go forwards: the September 2005 IAEA Conference. Medicine, Conflict and Survival, 22(4), 299–309. https://doi.org/10.1080/13623690600945230) "Studies have found that exposed populations had anxiety levels twice as high as normal, with a greater incidence of depression and stress symptoms."(Pflugbeil, S. (2006). Chernobyl – Looking back to go forwards: the September 2005 IAEA Conference. Medicine, Conflict and Survival, 22(4), 299–309. https://doi.org/10.1080/13623690600945230)

I'm sorry but I didn't have the time to find the values for Fukushima as well. There are a lot of different numbers, but I think these are also validated by the UN and WHO and are pretty informative

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

You're not arguing in good faith. Full stop.

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