FaeTaleDream t1_is78wej wrote
Reply to comment by CloudiusWhite in Ethics of Nuclear Energy in Times of Climate Change: Escaping the Collective Action Problem by CartesianClosedCat
Yes nuclear waste is a big deal You can have multiple oil disasters and we can clean it up, cities will still be livable.
All it takes is one time, just one time for radiation to seep into underground water from whatever source, not properly contained sources, earthquakes, war (such as ukraine which proves it's always a possibility). Technology will never take away all chance of risk of our current nuclear energy there is always a way it can go wrong.
And the whole point is if it does go wrong now you've just doomed how many hundreds of miles to a nuclear wasteland. It's not worth the risk. Fusion if I recall and was not lied to is safe but until Fusion becomes a thing we shouldn't use Nuclear and certainly shouldn't promote it's use in developing countries that are cutting corners.
DrarenThiralas t1_is7bpyt wrote
It is absolutely worth the risk. You can do the math on it, and find that statistically, oil kills a lot more people per kWh than nuclear, even when counting the nuclear accidents. Just because it kills by slowly poisoning the environment, and not with extremely rare but flashy meltdowns, doesn't mean that it's any safer. And that is without even going into the fact that modern reactors have gotten a lot safer over the last couple decades, and Chernobyl-style meltdowns aren't even remotely likely anymore - but even if they were, nuclear would still be safer than fossil fuels.
FaeTaleDream t1_is7cb0u wrote
That is such a bad faith argument.
Of course oil kills more we use it more and used it more and are more careless with it.
The data doesn't exist on this because we've only had one "major" nuclear disaster.
So you can't use data to math this out. You use logic, you know what it does, you know the effects radiation has, you know how hard it is to clean that's what matters.
NotACockroach t1_is7eqz0 wrote
The deaths statistic is power kWh so it's not significantly biased by the amount used.
I get what you're saying about the one big nuclear disaster, one more disaster would effectively double those numbers. However in that regard nuclear power is a victim of its own success. It's not some niche power source, it's been producing ~10% of the world's power for decades so it's not a question of small sample size. I think it's a bit silly to suggest that the lack of disasters is evidence of it's danger when it's been used so much.
FaeTaleDream t1_is7fsd6 wrote
No one is looking at the prospect of say that Ukrainian reactor melting down from Russia sabotage the same as oil spills.
And again it's not about numbers, you can say one disaster would double it, that's not the issue, the issue is that's it. it's done, you can't fix nuclear fallout.
Imagine if enough contamination got into the ground water around New York. What then? It's not just "oh the numbers are going to increase" no it's your done. That's it.
Planes are safer statically than cars but if you put half the worlds population on a plane and said planes almost never crash so it's fine. That's not a good bet.
NotACockroach t1_is7i2uu wrote
I don't think your listing plausible disasters for nuclear disasters. How would a nuclear power plant contaminate the new york water supply? On the other hand I can think of a different source of energy that has contaminated the water supply in real life. Nobody is cleaning the air pollution that's responsible for so many deaths worldwide out of fossil exhausts either, and that's another worldwide disaster that's already happening and responsible for so many deaths.
It seems like a number of your "it's over, that's it" scenarios that you speculate could happen for nuclear have already happened because of fossil fuels.
Not to mention global warming, you'd need a lot of meltdowns to get anywhere near the kind of long term damage that's going to do to us.
FaeTaleDream t1_is7ir1k wrote
The reason I said underground water is because that isn't set in stone, ironically.
Fault lines happen, drilling happens, erosion happens. And this isn't taking into account air currents if it goes that way, or if misplaced waste just sits in an area. I wonder how much was dumped in the ocean honestly.
Talking about the disaster that's already happening to justify turning the other way for the potential world ending disaster of radiation is just as bad as when they did the same for Oil, Lead, Coal etc.
NotACockroach t1_is7ljlw wrote
Speaking of bad faith arguments, we're in a thread discussing the safety and deaths and disasters of different energy sources, and when you I do exactly that you tell me I'm justifying turning the other way from world ending disasters. I'm not here telling you that you think global warming is ok because your concerned about nuclear. It must be possible to discuss the comparative risks of energy sources without trying to twist each other's words to have a go at each other.
Unless we go without energy it has to come from somewhere. If not generating energy is not an option, then the risks and harms of the alternative energy sources is relevant to any discussion of the risks and harms of nuclear.
VitriolicViolet t1_is865l9 wrote
>No one is looking at the prospect of say that Ukrainian reactor melting down from Russia sabotage the same as oil spills.
because they are not rational.
humans are fucking horrid at accurate risk assessment: more people fear planes then cars, more people fear terrorists then police, more people fear weed then alcohol, more people fear the China then the US.
in all 4 cases the one people fear is less deadly then the other but more psychologically impactful.
we have little to no ability to actually gauge risk, its why you look at statistics not peoples feelings.
Keepersofthearcane t1_is7e6zp wrote
This is such a bad faith argument.
There has only been one major nuclear disaster because you can engineer your way out of releasing nuclear waste into the environment, not because we dont use enough nuclear. Nuclear is the only form of power generation with enough capacity where you can contain the pollution. Solar, wind, natural gas, oil, coal(or the production of) all pollute the enviroment in normal operation. Nice try though.
brobeanzhitler t1_is7f7aa wrote
Two.. but the second involved large-scale engineering to contain it, along with world-wide cooperation and fact sharing which was notably absent from the first incident
Keepersofthearcane t1_is7lolc wrote
Ya I just repeating what the person said that I was commenting on. Your correct, there have been 2. There has also been breaches of nuclear waste containment(Washington State is the only one I know of but there could be more). Again, all these things can be mitigated with proper funding, engineering and oversight.
DrarenThiralas t1_is9ktpz wrote
This argument would work, in a world where the deaths caused by oil didn't amount to, by the most conservative estimate, 38 Chernobyl disasters every year. Even if we built 7 times more nuclear plants (which is how many we would need to cover the energy currently generated by oil), do you think that would result in over 38 Chernobyl-style disasters per year? And that's just oil - coal is even deadlier than that.
FaeTaleDream t1_is9m2p7 wrote
How do so many of you people not understand those comparisons make zero sense, you WANT this to be the case.
DrarenThiralas t1_is9p3bg wrote
This comparison is based on reliable data - the data about the deaths caused by oil-based energy, and the data about the death toll of the Chernobyl disaster. It shows that, while you can certainly question the available data on the frequency with which nuclear disasters occur, that data would have to be off by a factor of more than a hundred before it would indicate the opposite conclusion. If that was the case, we would expect to see 2-3 Chernobyl-scale events every year with the amount of nuclear plants we have right now. It is technically possible that we've just been insanely lucky for the past 50+ years, but that's not really a possibility worthy of serious consideration.
FaeTaleDream t1_is9rnce wrote
YEA you can certainly question it because it's bullshit. Here is the actual comparison you guys are giving.
World ending asteroids rarely ever hit the planet, so they are actually safer than fossil fuels cause less people have died to them.
THAT is the data legalism bullshit you people keep telling me.
Your data is ether wrong, politically driven and or probably done by companies who have their hands in the energy sector.
We can have multiple oil spills and disasters with fossil fuels all of that is fixable, you arn't playing with fire with radiation because burns heal. How is this hard to understand Chernobyl is SMALL compared to the Reactors we have now, what France has like a hundred of them too. Imagine if a World War actually happened.
We wouldn't need nukes to fuck the planet because our energy would do that for us once it starts getting targeted with strikes.
DrarenThiralas t1_is9sknw wrote
> World ending asteroids rarely ever hit the planet, so they are actually safer than fossil fuels cause less people have died to them.
> THAT is the data legalism bullshit you people keep telling me.
That is not what I'm saying.
To keep going with your analogy, we are in a situation where an asteroid (actually two, for Chernobyl and Fukushima) has already hit the planet, and we have calculated how many people have died as a result of the impact. That calculation shows that oil use kills as many people as 38 asteroid impacts a year would.
Now, the probability of an asteroid impact is difficult to estimate, but we can say for certain that it's absolutely nowhere near 38 world-ending asteroids a year. This allows us to conclude that asteroid impacts are indeed safer than fossil fuels, even without knowing the precise frequency with which they occur.
Again, it's possible that the data we have is off by a factor of 2 or 3 or so, but it's not possible that nuclear disasters on the scale of Chernobyl actually occur every couple of months, and we have somehow failed to notice for 50+ years.
FaeTaleDream t1_is9utgu wrote
Ukraine is definitive proof that as long as conflict is a possibility, nuclear reactors aren't safe because they will always be targets. And all those safety measures aren't guaranteed against direct attack or sabotage.
It doesn't have to occur constantly just once in one thousand years in a worse enough way is all it takes to make a country unlivable. That isn't worth the risk, no data represents this. It's common sense.
But common sense flies out the window when political and social narratives go against it.
DrarenThiralas t1_isa310b wrote
Keep in mind that there has, of yet, been no actual nuclear incidents connected with the Ukraine war, only threats. Just like with nuclear weapons, nobody wants to open the Pandora's box of turning nuclear plants into military targets, because that may very well backfire on them. Russia has its own nuclear plants that it doesn't want to see sabotaged either. This doesn't mean it won't happen, of course, but the risk is much lower than you present it to be.
Besides, in a thousand years it is very likely that we will have much better technology for containing and cleaning up radioactive fallout than we do now - and what we have now is already miles ahead of what we had during Chernobyl, as was made apparent during the Fukushima incident.
CloudiusWhite t1_is7cn2b wrote
> And the whole point is if it does go wrong now you've just doomed how many hundreds of miles to a nuclear wasteland.
Chernobyl didnt result in this except for short term. People literally tour all but the very worst of remaining hotspots. The fact is all the problems and disasters we have had happen in history have been the result of human failure to remain vigilant. Back in the day, we could somewhat forgive this because we didnt know what we do now, but today we should be far more strict in nuclear plant operations and not have things like that even occur. Its called stop trying to push the boundaries with the production model and take the testing to the lab where it belongs.
Nuclear is also going to be key for our future development off world, to sit there and pretend otherwise is foolish. I won't even regard the argument of fusion because it isnt possible yet, and until it is its no more real than Jesus coming back and just snapping his fingers and giving everyone magical powered batteries. and even then fusion research will only increase as nuclear fission tech is researched.
Living in fear of some possibility is the same as never going outside because that sunlight could be the little bit which creates cancer in you and kills you.
FaeTaleDream t1_is7g0ab wrote
The city is unlivable.....
You people can not be comparing the sun to possible radiation contamination.
CloudiusWhite t1_is7h8z5 wrote
Stalkers literally live there and people have lived in the exclusion zone since the 90s and are alive and old as fuck. I know three such people who before the war lived there more often than outside of the zone personally, two of them were going to take me exploring there when I did my trip across the pond.
FaeTaleDream t1_is7i0iw wrote
And people can live on top an active volcano, that doesn't make it livable for a nation.
CloudiusWhite t1_is7lgzf wrote
The thousands or possibly millions of people living on islands across the planet with active volcanos being what formed them would disagree, but okay.
VitriolicViolet t1_is871yt wrote
dont bother, most people hear nuclear and think of the simpsons or the intentionally misleading propaganda show, Chernobyl.
what i find funny is nuclear is the lowest profit option of all power generation, taking 10+ years for ROI (even if you build them in 6 years its takes a decade to make money) and somehow it is the 'evil' form of power generation.
its almost like renewables were chosen, not because they were better, because they are just as profitable as fossil fuels (if we went 100% nuclear the energy industry would lose more then half its profits)
VitriolicViolet t1_is86i5i wrote
some people have done enough chemistry and physics to know how radiation works and thus do not fear it.
Coal has killed more people via radiation than all nuclear technologies and accidents combined.
once waste hits 100+ years old its comparable to getting an x-ray ffs.
anti-nuclear activists have harmed the environment as much as fossil fuels lobbyists have, hell they teamed up in the 90s to kill nuclear.
FaeTaleDream t1_is8qnrs wrote
Bad faith argument ignoring reality.
NathanTPS t1_is7c7nt wrote
But like I stated before, nuclear waste isn't always going to be the outcome of nuclear energy. We are steadily moving away from hot waste and modern techniques are considerably cleaner. Not perfect, but a resounding improvement. And if we ever get to cold fusion then there will no longer be nuclear waste or mining issues for that matter.
FaeTaleDream t1_is7ge1z wrote
And Fusion is good, not the Nuclear we have now. I feel like people who advocate for Nuclear don't understand those are two very different things.
So because of politics they get wrapped up together when they should be seperate.
We have Hydro, Solar, Air, we can use those with Oil and Gas until Fusion is figured out.
Makes no sense to risk the world by putting hundreds of Nuclear Reactors everywhere.
palland0 t1_is7ywx5 wrote
We currently do not have the technology to provide a baseline for energy without nuclear or fossil. Hydro cannot grow, while solar and air depend on weather/time of day. There are risks with nuclear, but they're not as dramatic as what you seem to think.
VitriolicViolet t1_is85m6v wrote
>for one radiation is either dangerous or lasts for 10,000 years never both. due to how decay works the most dangerous half lives are in seconds minutes and hours, by the time you are hitting 2 hundred years its not much worse then background radiation.
>
>next pyro-processing allows for recycling a good percentage of that total waste and does so by removing the shorter more dangerous half lives to re-use as fuel.
>
>finally coal alone has released more radiation then all nuclear reactors, weapons, tests and accidents combined.
>
>anyone who is afraid of nuclear but not oil or coal isn't rational enough to be part of the discussion.
>
>i love that environmentalists are so ideological they chose to hurt the environment over using nuclear .
>
>all accidents combined have killed less people and released less radiation than coal so what are you afraid of exactly?
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