meltdowns do not resemble bombs at all. nor are they really possible either.
Comment on nuclear
Don_alForno@feddit.org 4 days agoUntil something goes wrong and it is not safe and controlled anymore. You know, because of the whole exponential chain reaction thing.
Umbrias@beehaw.org 4 days ago
i_love_FFT@jlai.lu 4 days ago
On a world where everybody is effraid of nuclear power, station safety is really overboard, and nuclear is super safe.
If everyone accepted nuclear power the same way we accept cars, then you can be sure capitalism would cut corners on nuclear safety…
(Source: many of my clients are nuclear power plants people)
Umbrias@beehaw.org 4 days ago
sure, like corners are cut in every industry including renewables (which have a higher accident rate even). yes a nationalized nuclear power program is less perversely incentivised. if you look at countries where nuc is accepted more you wont find insane accident rates nor are plants bombs.
i_love_FFT@jlai.lu 4 days ago
I heard that Fukushima was problematic because non-engineers thought it would be easier cheaper?) to put some of the critical infrastructure near the sea rather than on the hill…
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
If everyone accepted nuclear power the same way we accept cars, then you can be sure capitalism would cut corners on nuclear safety…
and yet, cars keep getting safer, and safer every year, they also keep getting larger, and more expensive and harder to repair, but they do get safer.
Interesting.
Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de 4 days ago
To be complete, you can’t ignore the dangers of nuclear power plants in a war setting. It sucks but it is what it is.
i_love_FFT@jlai.lu 4 days ago
To be honest, every large power generation systems is critical is a war setting… Don’t tell them about hydro dams!
Saleh@feddit.org 4 days ago
Station safety is so overboard, that we only had like three meltdowns or so, and only some hundreds of thousands of people killed by premature cancer deaths as a result of them and some million or so permanently displaced.
But surely after the next event we will have learned and then it will be totally safe. Like they said after Three Miles Island. And like they said after Chernobyl. And like they said after Fukushima.
Umbrias@beehaw.org 4 days ago
more like a few thousand ever, if you are really really conservative tens of thousand, though the methodology to get there is unscientific. tmi killed nobody, fukushima will have killed nobody. meanwhile people falling off roofs installing solar or accidents working on wind are much more common. keep doing solar and wind, but your perception about nuclear is wholly irrational and unfounded.
GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
Chernobyl was a ridiculous level of negligence on the part of the technicians working at a plant with a very unsafe design.
Fukushima was a reasonably safe reactor design with terrible (and noted as such decades before the meltdown) site designs which could be described as “designed to fail”.
You could argue that lessons have been learned from both of those, and Three Mile Island, and safer designs are the result. Or you could argue that Fukushima clearly shows that people shouldn’t be involved in such high-risk projects because they will cut corners that will inevitably lead to disasters. If the second is your stance, take a look around. There are plenty of projects with similar risks in other fields all the time.
i_love_FFT@jlai.lu 4 days ago
Coal power plants release more radioactive waste in the environment than nuclear stations.
I’m not sure if this statistics includes meltdowns, but considering their rarity, it may still be true.
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
have we built and RBMK reactors since chernobyl? Have we built and confusing and badly maintained reactors since TMI (that weren’t legally operating btw) have we built any BWR reactors in bad places, with no concern for safety since fukushima?
Don_alForno@feddit.org 4 days ago
That must be why it’s still advised to not collect and eat wild mushrooms in parts of southern Germany.
Umbrias@beehaw.org 4 days ago
did i claim chornobyl didnt have any effects or are you just searching for stuff to argue about?
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
that’s the thing though, the exponential chain reaction isn’t possible.
The problem is that when fuel breaks the strictly controlled fuel rod environment, it stops being cooled properly, and regulating it becomes more interesting (not impossible, there are some clever solutions out there, look at metal cooled reactors for example) and as a result, the spicy particle generation tends to break containment, which is why we have things like PCVs, which contain the corium long enough to at least prevent the elephants foot troll, which is then contained by the secondary containment (the building around it) which is also contained by the rest of the building, surrounding the containment building.
It’s pretty hard to fuck up a reactor. Even harder when the idle state of the reactor is safe, as is with metal cooled reactors. Those are some of the most promising designs, because you can literally just do nothing with them, and nothing bad happens.
theonlytruescotsman@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
So do you still believe in bloodletting to cure colds or the earth being 10,000 years old?
loaExMachina@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
Nuclear plant accidents have happened tho. Remember Fukushima? It was 13 years ago, not that long. It didn’t strait up explode like a nuclear bomb, and neither did Chernobyl, but still; contamination is a pretty big deal. You can argue that the risk isn’t that bad or that fossil energy plants also have risks; but you can’t just dismiss it as a superstition.
kameecoding@lemmy.world 4 days ago
You get much more radiation and excess deaths from Coal and Natural gas plants than Fukushima and Chernobyl, it’s just that it’s not as obvious as it happens slowly over time.
In fact there are more deaths caused by wind energy sources than nuclear energy sources.
wewbull@feddit.uk 4 days ago
There was still 164,000 people who needed to evacuate 230 square miles. The land is contaminated and cleanup is proving difficult. Japan will be dealing with the environmental impact for a century I’d wager.
theonlytruescotsman@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
Modern reactor designs have no such problem, hence the reference to ancient science.
Cethin@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
The idea of an explosion is. That’s what this thread is about. It’s not just about meltdowns, which, like you said, is very low risk, and lower than ever from what we’ve learned in the past.
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
fukushima was a BWR design, put on the coast of a place known for having tsunamis, and wasn’t properly equipped with emergency generators (they flooded, oopsies) which they couldn’t get to, in order to service the reactor, due to the roads being fucking yeeted.
Literally any other plant on earth is going to have a better outcome.
Oneser@lemm.ee 4 days ago
Sure, nuclear energy is valid and all, but you sound like an absolute spanner…
If you want to argue that nuclear energy has its place, maybe don’t ridicule people who remember how much of an issue the last major nuclear meltdown was (and partially is).
LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
Let’s compare it to oil, gas, coal…
The body count and environmental damage doesn’t even compare. The bad examples are just more spectacular and singularly horrifying in the moment. It’s a perception issue.
kameecoding@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Fukushima has barely any fall out though, does it. And the nuclear energy sector is moving towards even safer methods with SMRs that are self contained and just can’t have a runaway reaction AFAIK
Saleh@feddit.org 4 days ago
Can’t have a runaways reaction like the Titanic was unsinkable.
ahornsirup@feddit.org 4 days ago
But Fukushima did render a fairly large area uninhabitable, and the ongoing cleanup is still costing billions every year.
Also, there’s still no solution to nuclear waste beyond burying it and hoping that no one digs it up.
Renewables exist, and, combined with upgrading the grid and adding sufficient storage facilities, can provide for 100% of electricity demand at all times. Without any of the risks associated with nuclear power (low as they may be, they exist), and without kicking a radioactive can down the road for hundreds of generations.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 4 days ago
Humanity, or at least written scripture, is roughly 10,000 years old. So if you take humanity = earth, then yes it’s approximately true. But also, it’s an incredibly egoistic viewpoint because earth is not just humanity.
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
so basically, if you define a leaf as a caterpillar, it’s basically the same thing, got it.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 4 days ago
yeah, you got it!
Don_alForno@feddit.org 4 days ago
My parents have witnessed not one but two nuclear catastrophes in their lifetime. Wtf are you talking about?
KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
how many cancers have the witnessed from the likes of coal power? Or things like asbestos? Shit like arsenic, or worse, lead. They probably have a significant IQ drop from leaded fuel, assuming they’re american.