Like burning coal which releases uncontrolled and unmeasured quantities of radiation and heavy metals like Mercury.
burning of coal are environmentally and biologically toxic elements, such as lead, mercury, nickel, tin, cadmium, antimony, and arsenic, as well as radio isotopes of thorium and strontium.
SolOrion@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
No shit.
The solution there is that ideally no human is allowed to make a mistake significant enough to have any impact.
If Bob the nuclear engineer does something fucking stupid, but there’s an automated failsafe that resolves the problem… was there really that big of a problem?
This issue is… that stuff gets expensive quick.
NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Sure. The idea is plausible. They have tried such strategies, and improved them for several decades, and they seriously believed that all would be good enough. But Chernobyl and Fukushima have taught us that it is not possible to do it without super terrible accidents that cost simply too much (money, lives, health etc). So, we know now that mankind is not able.
jasory@programming.dev 11 months ago
“super terrible accidents”
Yes. Super terrible accidents that result in fewer deaths than any other power source per kilowatt/hr. (Even factoring in generous increases in cancer rates).