Comment on 7 reasons why nuclear energy is not the answer to solve climate change
keepthepace@slrpnk.net 4 weeks ago
- delay
- cost
Are mostly political and mostly due to anti-nuclear opposition. France did a oil to nuclear electricity transition in 10 years while increasing (a lot) is total capability.
It was technologically, politically and economically feasible in the 70s. I agree that one should not dismiss the political aspect of the question, but I am unwilling to consider it as a stronger argument than “yes but conservatives are resisting renewables”. If we are having a political discussion, then we should consider that political positions are subject to change.
- Weapons proliferation risks
True. The more nuclear power, the more plutonium out there. That’s the only good argument in the 7 I believe. It is still pretty hard to enrich uranium or plutonium to weapon grade. If you could do that, I don’t think it would be much harder to simply start from uranium ore (which are present in much more places than commercially mined, most nations have deposits).
- Meltdown risk
Dams killed more people than all nuclear plants incidents. Coal mines accidents much much more. The result remains the same whether you count in absolute number or per TWh generated.
Fukushima Dai-ichi, Japan in 2011
Number of death: between 0 and 1. Reminder: it was caused by a tsunami that killed 19000 people, including several during dam failures.
Saint-Laurent France in 1980
Number of death: zero. France is a very nuclear-heavy country, yet the power plants that have killed the most in France are… dams again. 423 deaths.
- Mining Lung Cancer Risk
It says that almost 400 death can be attributed to uranium mining between 1950 and 2000
1950 alone had 643 miners die in coal mines in the US alone. In China it is much more: arlweb.msha.gov/stats/centurystats/coalstats.asp
- Carbon-Equivalent Emissions and Air Pollution
Fun thing about these indirect emissions is that they are made of estimates from electricity used. The more nuclear or sustainable electricity in your mix, the lower willbe used there.
- Waste Risk
Stable solid waste stored under the water bed poses no risk. Here again, the dispersion of waste is mostly due to political opposition to geological storage.
solo@slrpnk.net 4 weeks ago
When you started comparing numbers of deaths you lost me, for several reasons. Comparing deaths of nuclear meltdowns with dams or coal mining seems a bit of a stretch to me, because it’s like forgetting how radiation works. It’s not visible but the toll of radiation on other living beings and the environment is, and should not be neglected imo.
For the comparison of uranium mining and coal mining, I am not sure that talking about these specific numbers of deaths help to get the whole picture. What I mean is that due to coal mining employing more workers than uranium mining, in a way I am not surprised by the numbers you provided. I wanted to find something showing the percentages of mortality rates by mining sector but I didn’t manage to do so. If you or anyone have something, please share.
In relation to nuclear waste, I totally disagree mainly because the ocean is not a dumpster. Apart from that, last time I checked, there were unresolved issues with this technique. Potential leaks (from defective unit, material degradation, earthquakes etc) that endanger marine environment. These are even more concerning because of difficulties of monitoring because they are in the seabed. Out of sight, out of mind does not apply to nuclear waste.
keepthepace@slrpnk.net 4 weeks ago
When I am saying that the death toll from Fukushima is between 0 and 1 it is because the effect of radiation is accounted for and that the level of exposure we are talking about makes it possible that it raises additional deaths by 1. When a zone is declared radioactive, humans tend to avoid it, which does wonders for all other lifeforms.
Oh I think I used a mistranslation, I did not mean to say “water bed” but "water table. I am not talking about using the ocean as a dumpster. It would be a very poor idea. We are talking about geological storage, which means within the rockbed, in geologically stable regions. All the projects I am aware off are land based. And when they are below the water table, there is very little ways for it to raise to the surface.