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Comment on A fossil-fuel plant seeing nuclear coming...

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.

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Lumisal@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

All in all, nuclear is another fossil fuel

Just want to correct it is definitely NOT a fossil fuel.

Unless…

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- db_null@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Hahaha, just NUKE IT!! QUICK!! It’s all perfectly safe.
  
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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

incredibly safe

you might want to reconsider your stance on NPPs.

if one occasionally crashes the death toll is generally limited to the passengers.

And if NPP accidents occur, the death toll is generally limited to the workers.

the list of nuclear and radiation accidents is quite long

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.

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- Zagorath@quokk.au ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  
  that provides base load power
  
  Not necessary.
  
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  - IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.wtf ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    You’d think that some who writes such long arguments for nuclear power would know this.
    
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  - Photonic@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Ooh an opinion piece from 2013. The point is that we used to think that we could all solve it with cool storage ideas. But that hasn’t shown to be the case. Sorry to be the messenger of bad news, please don’t shoot me.
    
    And even this guy admits he doesn’t know what to do in winter except to keep burning methane in gas turbines.
    
    The real challenge is to supply peaks in demand on calm winter evenings following overcast days. That’s when the peak-load power stations, that is, hydro and gas turbines,
    
    Sounds an awful lot like baseload power….
    
    And what about places that have no hydro?
    
    Here’s another opinion piece that says the opposite.
    
    We can keep going for a bit…
    
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    Zagorath@quokk.au ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    You shared an opinion piece written by a self-styled “investor” who proceeds to endorse the forthcoming feasibility of fusion. I shared a piece written by one of the authors of the study he is basing his article on. A study published in a peer-reviewed journal and conducted by a reputable university.
    
    As for the date…renewables have only become more viable since 2013. The price has plummeted, and the feasibility of battery storage has skyrocketed.
    
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- 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.
  
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  - Photonic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    They are either not feasible everywhere (flat terrain) or wildly expensive and take up a lot of space. Nuclear is also actually green.
    
    I’m not ignoring any of your points. They simply aren’t as good as you think and ignoring reality is not the same as making a point. Nuclear is not just great in theory, it’s great in reality. It is the most reliable source of power and we have had functioning nuclear power plants worldwide for decades.
    
    You don’t need to “embrace” nuclear for it to be a good and viable source of energy. It’s okay to admit you think it’s scary, but it’s not based on reality. This is why the airplane analogy works.
    
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