Comment on A fossil-fuel plant seeing nuclear coming...
db_null@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Oh no, the sun was too much and Mr Fancy Atom had to go to sleep because there was no water for the thirsty guy. Well, better asleep than leaking or blowing up again. Stupid sun throwing all this energy at the ground, so mean.
Photonic@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Well. This is a science meme community, but a science community nonetheless, so I’ll try to keep it somewhat scientific.
Like airplanes that crash, nuclear power plants get a bad rep, but in reality it’s one of the most reliable and safest forms of energy production. For example looking at deaths from power generation, it currently sits right near the bottom between solar and wind power and well below hydro power and the rest. And that includes the Chernobyl accident.
As for the water: yes, but when Mr. Sun is out the solar panels go vroom, so Mr. Fancy Atom isn’t necessary as much. So they compliment each other nicely. And the current extreme drought in Europe is hopefully a rare occurrence 🤞🏻
db_null@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Airplanes don’t have a bad rep, they are incredibly safe and if one occasionally crashes the death toll is generally limited to the passengers.
My issue with nuclear being presented as perfectly safe is that this is largely theoretical. In practice the list of nuclear and radiation accidents is quite long. If you dig a little into your deaths per terawatt-hour list you can find that they count 433 deaths from Chernobyl. The real death toll remains unknown, but ranges from the 30 officially reported by the Soviet government, the WHO estimate of 4000+, and the 35000 families receiving compensation for “owing to the loss of a breadwinner whose death was deemed to possibly related to the Chernobyl accident.” (en.wikipedia.org/…/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_di…)
My point is, each of these nuclear accidents has the potential to kill tens of thousands and cause long-term increases in cancers and birth defects. And despite all the safety claims, we see a major incident about once a decade.
Additionally, we still don’t know where to store the nuclear waste and enriched uranium continues to bring cash to Russia, as we haven’t been able to shake dependance there either.
All in all, nuclear is another fossil fuel that has risks we can’t seem to manage properly and the price is much higher than most renewables. I’m not saying to shut all nuclear plants down immediately, especially if we then have to use coal or gas to make up for the loss in production. But let’s stop praising it as this amazing alternative by making safety and sustainability claims that are based on propaganda numbers.
Lumisal@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Just want to correct it is definitely NOT a fossil fuel.
Unless…
Image
db_null@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Hahaha, just NUKE IT!! QUICK!! It’s all perfectly safe.
Photonic@lemmy.world 1 day ago
What are you talking about? Airplanes do have a bad rep. More people are scared of getting into them because they think it will crash than there are people scared of getting into cars. It’s the same with nuclear. The events are big when they happen, but it’s overall very safe. What’s more, airplane crashes have killed many, many more people and they have crashed much more often than there have been NPP accidents or deaths. So, if you want to call airplanes
you might want to reconsider your stance on NPPs.
And if NPP accidents occur, the death toll is generally limited to the workers.
The list for NPP accidents is actually not that long, especially when compared to airplane accidents, and it stops at 2011. That’s 15 years ago and Fukushima caused only one possible death. There have been no signs of increased cancer rates in the 15 years afterwards. What’s more, after each major event—after Chernobyl and again after Fukushima—measures have been taken to prevent these events from happening again.
As for Chernobyl, you can debate the numbers, but it doesn’t mean anything for modern nuclear power plants in the west, since the Soviets built a reactor with an inherently unsafe design that isn’t used anywhere in the west. So, using the airplane analogy again, that would be like saying flying on an airplane is unsafe because of the Hindenburg disaster.
As for uranium: Australia and Canada have uranium reserves that dwarf Russia’s. Storage of waste is not as much of an issue either. Old mines go down kilometers into the earth.
So while yes, nuclear powerhas its downsides, nuclear is the only form green energy that provides base load power. If you want to transition away from fossil fuel there is no way to provide base load power without nuclear. Battery storage scales very poorly and we already can’t mine enough lithium and cobalt to power all cars with electricity, let alone having battery storage for all electric grids worldwide.
It may seem scary and accidents happen, but like I said, it just has a bad rep like airplanes do.
The numbers are not propaganda and the only propaganda I am seeing is coming from you. You haven’t made a single valid point and have been fear mongering about deaths and accidents that rarely occur.
Zagorath@quokk.au 1 day ago
Not necessary.
db_null@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Reservoir hydro, geothermal and concentrated solar with thermal storage are actually green and could provide base load energy.
You’re free to continue ignoring my points with linked sources in favour of your airplane tangent and theoretical possibilities. As I also said, nuclear sounds all great in theory, but the human factor of cutting corners and prioritising immediate profits are nor giving me the confidence that I’d like to brace nuclear today.
kossa@feddit.org 1 day ago
Oh boy, do I have news for you.
Photonic@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Maybe you missed the fingers crossed emoji?
SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
aaahahahhahahahahahahahaahahahha
I do love your optimism, tho
Photonic@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Fingers crossed!