KilroywasNOTHere
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Tl:dr Nuclear related deaths are miniscule compared to "Green energy" and even fossil fuels. Seriously what the heck is society doing?
Science We need a new nuclear age
- Thread starter KilroywasNOTHere
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Tl:dr Nuclear related deaths are miniscule compared to "Green energy" and even fossil fuels. Seriously what the heck is society doing?
Honestly, I'm partially convinced that the Greens demonized Nuclear energy because it actually does solve climate and pollution issues for electrical energy production, and can be scaled up dramatically over time, which means that more power is available to people thus improving their standards of living... which many in the Green movement seem to see as a negative, since there's a fairly anti-human strain to much of their thinking.
KilroywasNOTHere
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eh, the anti-human pro desolation party just doesin't role off the tongue as well.
KilroywasNOTHere
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it's sad that somthing akin to The CORE from undertale is entirely obtainable, but for whatever reason we just won't do it. If we embraced nuclear and a free market we might just see a new industrial revolution.
It's mostly thanks to propaganda from anti-nuclear lefties. Thanks to the various accidents, nothing can ever get off the ground anymore, and they're convinced that solar and wind will somehow solve everything, and ignore completely how toxic to the environment they love so much the production of these "green" power generators are - and I'm actually generally pro-solar because it actually makes sense for your average consumers in off-the-grid locations/applications, and in desert regions. But I would love to build some new reactors that can actually recycle the old spent fuel from the old reactors (forget what they are called), as well as make some new thorium-based reactors.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
There's also probably a certain element of short-sighted self-preservation to it; because once the environment is saved, what are the Greens going to do for a living? Better to maintain the status quo, so that we'll keep giving them money.
There's some interesting sources looking into it all, especially the breakdown of deaths per so much electricity generated.
www.nextbigfuture.com
It's important to point out, unlike the Kurzesagt video, the article above points out that Coal Power can limit a large amount of air pollution by installing "electrostatic precipatators" for an estimated $20 billion dollars across America's many coal plants and that would reduce 99.5% of the coal plants particulate matter pumping into the atmosphere. Coal would still be less safe then other alternatives but it would still massively reduce deaths apparently and other associated costs.
And from that video source there's some interesting tidbits about disposing nuclear waste safely.
www.world-nuclear.org
https://www.boell.de/sites/default/files/2019-11/World_Nuclear_Waste_Report_2019_Focus_Europe_0.pdf (warning PDF)
Deaths per TWH by energy source | NextBigFuture.com
I wrote this back in 2008 and with one new death that is somewhat nuclear energy related (a death at one of the japanese nuclear plants following the 8.9
www.nextbigfuture.com
It's important to point out, unlike the Kurzesagt video, the article above points out that Coal Power can limit a large amount of air pollution by installing "electrostatic precipatators" for an estimated $20 billion dollars across America's many coal plants and that would reduce 99.5% of the coal plants particulate matter pumping into the atmosphere. Coal would still be less safe then other alternatives but it would still massively reduce deaths apparently and other associated costs.
And from that video source there's some interesting tidbits about disposing nuclear waste safely.
Radioactive Wastes - Myths and Realities : World Nuclear Association - World Nuclear Association
News and information on nuclear power, nuclear energy, nuclear energy for sustainable development, uranium mining, uranium enrichment, nuclear generation of electricity, used fuel management, recycling and disposal, nuclear policies, new nuclear plant, nuclear energy development and climate...
www.world-nuclear.org
https://www.boell.de/sites/default/files/2019-11/World_Nuclear_Waste_Report_2019_Focus_Europe_0.pdf (warning PDF)
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Chaos Marine
Well-known member
Nuclear power is the only reasonable source of green energy. Anyone says otherwise they're fear mongering, invested in other energies or just plain idiots.
LindyAF
Well-known member
From that perspective everything is Nuclear power. It's not a very useful or meaningful categorization, though.
Abhishekm
Well-known member
Embrace the Atomic? I mean in the end what even is electricity if not a atomic process. All this hoopla about man-made fission, few. Jk.
The scaremongering fostered in the late 20th basically poisoned the idea of nuclear power in culture.
The piss-poor management of Soviet Chernobyl didn't help things, nor did the few other accidents throughout the century (such as Fukushima).
And new systems today are far superior and less prone to issues from poor management.
I think it's more accurate to say that nuclear power is the only viable long term source of base load energy, period. The fact that it's reasonable and that it's green are merely the frosting on top -- in the long term, humanity's need for power continues to grow exponentially and nuclear power is literally the *only conceivable source that can keep up*.
If nuclear power was unreasonable, that would just be tough shit. We'd still have to use it, sooner or later. If nuclear power wasn't green, again tough shit. We'd still have to use it, only we'd have to pray we could find something else before the damage caught up to us.
The world WILL run on nuclear power with solar (i.e. long distance nuclear) as an auxiliary for daytime peaks. All other known sources of power are innately non-scalable and will trend towards irrelevance in the long term. The only question is who will have and control the nuclear plants, and how much damage will be done before people accept this inevitability?
Chaos Marine
Well-known member
The very notion of this tickles my funny bone. We can't have nuclear power because of isolated instances of corruption and/or incompetence. The Soviets built a nuclear reactor, cutting corners in a fashion that would have a Chinese firm raising their eyebrows in surprise and an instance of corruption that had people punished for it. But look at Fukushima! Yes, a modern facility that suffered a catastrophic act of nature that had manageable consequences and the media hype of nuclear fallout devastating the western seaboard of the US never happened. Compared to the rest of the nuclear reactors across the planet, the only other one that jumps to mind is Sellafield. A plant for producing isotopes for nuclear warheads near the very start of nuclear proliferation. Try to imagine a nuclear power plant being built today without the most strict of safety measures.
Agreed. The sooner we get stuck in the better. At worst, a new means of power generation may be discovered down the line that may make nuclear obsolete but there's as much of a chance that that doesn't happen till well into the future. If we're going to see large scale efforts to reduce petrol or diesal driven cars to electric, power demands are going to skyrocket but people don't seem to realize that power isn't just some universal thing you can plug and use. Voltage rates, AC/DC aren't important. Juts plug it in and it'll be fine.