tyr_13
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2008
- Messages
- 18,095
How long before you're drawn back only every other year? I'd like to do the math and figure out the half life.
Merged nuclear power safe?
- Thread starter Nosi
- Start date
How long before you're drawn back only every other year? I'd like to do the math and figure out the half life.
Number of deaths due to radiation effects of Fukushima in 3 years - 0
Number of deaths due to radiation effects of Chernobyl in 28 years - at least 62, maybe as much as 100,000.
Number of deaths due to some of the effects of fossil fuels and wood burning in 1 year - 7 million.
Yep, it's definitely nuclear power that we should be worried about.
Number of deaths due to radiation effects of Chernobyl in 28 years - at least 62, maybe as much as 100,000.
Number of deaths due to some of the effects of fossil fuels and wood burning in 1 year - 7 million.
Yep, it's definitely nuclear power that we should be worried about.
dudalb
Penultimate Amazing
IMHO the Enviormental Movement made a huge mistake back in the 70's when they adapted a Anti Nuclear Power Policy.
Belz...
Fiend God
That last number is an extrapolation into the future based on a faulty premise, so we're stuck with 62.
devnull
Philosopher
Modern nuclear reactors are safe. Old, 1950s designed reactors with poor maintenance are not.
Dr.Sid
Philosopher
Define modern, define safe. All existing commercial reactors I'm aware of are susceptible for example to catastrophic loss of power as happened in Fukushima. While sure, in Fukushima there was no loss of life directly related to radiation, there was loss of life related to the accident, and some related to fear of radiation (like few hospital patients dying during area evacuation). Also the material damages are astronomical.
Nuclear power is quite safe, but there are still areas to be improved. It is still not 'safe enough' IMHO. I have no problem visiting NPP, but I wouldn't like to live near one, that's for sure.
Sadly fear of radiation limits new technology research. Like for example air cooled reactors researched in Germany .. all stopped, all closed.
Belz...
Fiend God
Fukushima wasn't modern. Furthermore, everything went well until the coolant power was ripped out. Protecting the generators for that would've done the job.
And it's safe relative to the alternatives, and safe when properly regulated. Chernobyl aside (it wasn't properly built by any stretch of the imagination), there hasn't been any loss of life due to nuclear power. Ever.
No. There are studies that claim far more people have died already. Greenpeace claim as many as 200,000 thousand could have died up to 2004, while the New York Academy of Sciences claims nearly a million. See here. Those claims are what is known in the business as "utter bollocks", but they still exist. Not all claims with high numbers are predictions for the future. Actual predictions for future deaths range from around 10,000 up to lots, although they face the slight problem that we should have seen more deaths by now if the predictions were correct.
But all of that is beside the point. Even taking the absolute worst case scenario, the effects of Chernobyl over the entire time it could have any effect are orders of magnitude less than the effects of fossil fuels in a single year. For Fukushima, it barely even makes sense to do such a comparison because it hasn't actually had any effect at all.
But this is exactly the point that we keep pointing out is incredibly silly - nuclear power is much safer than the alternatives, so how can it possibly make sense to claim it's not safe enough? Is it as safe as it possibly could be? Of course not. No-one here is arguing that there's no way to improve things at all. But it makes absolutely no sense to say "It's not quite perfect, therefore we should ignore it entirely and just stick with things that are much worse and by their very nature can never really improve".
Why not? Because one accident 30 years ago killed fewer people than coal power does every day? That hardly seems like a rational decision.
Would you like to live near a coal power plant? Would you like to live upstream of a proposed hydroelectric dam? How about downstream? It's not a choice of nuclear power or nothing, it's a choice of nuclear power or something else. And pretty much all of those something elses have a significantly worse safety record than nuclear power.
Fukushima management operated as if the original engineers had thought of everything. They didn't look for potential failure scenarios and modify emergency plans to deal with them.
US nuclear plants have contingency plans for dealing with the loss of a generator. For example, Diablo plant in California keeps a spare generator nearby that can be hauled to the site and operational in a couple of hours.
Belz...
Fiend God
Which is ridiculous. It's based on earlier projections. Where is the hard data about actual people dying, here ?
No, it isn't. Assuming, for instance, that 62 is our number, it's ridiculously small. I don't think it's going to be 62, but I think it's nigh-impossible to determine how many people will die as a result of Chernobyl, simply because their exposure was relatively low, and studies of the effect of low-level radiation exposure are scarse.
Indeed.
Prometheus
Acolyte of Víðarr
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2007
- Messages
- 50,595
I do live within the official evacuation zone for an old NPP that's coming up for re-licensing soon. I'm not worried about radiation at all, but the political atmosphere here is certainly polluted.
Steve
Penultimate Amazing
Dr.Sid
Philosopher
I just mean nuclear power still needs improvements of safety. There is still a condition of catastrophic failure, which can threaten wide areas and lots of people. Fossil fuel plants don't have that. Sure they kill people in long term, but you will never have to evacuate from coal power plant.
And such improvements to NPPs are possible .. like molten salts reactors .. and just a step from common usage. But at the moment, nuclear power is just not popular, and any investments into it are frozen in many countries. Which is sad ..
And such improvements to NPPs are possible .. like molten salts reactors .. and just a step from common usage. But at the moment, nuclear power is just not popular, and any investments into it are frozen in many countries. Which is sad ..
Christian Klippel
Master Poster
I think that this is basically a non-argument at best, and a complete disregard for the reality at worst.
Take a coal plant. What do you think where the coal comes from? Surface mining for coal renders massive chunks of land uninhabitable for rather long times, whole villages get destroyed and people have to move.
Underground mining often has nasty consequences as well, as anyone living in my area can tell you. For example, lots of the area i live in is now below sea level, but used to be at or above it. Due to underground mining, whole large areas have sunken down. One consequence is that many buildings are damaged, and that large holes in the ground can literally open up out of nothing. Another consequene is that water pumps have to be operated 24/7 in these old mine shafts, to avoid flooding the area. Turn off the pumps, and it will become uninhabitable.
Then consider the pollution. In the rare case that a nuke power plant goes havoc, only a confined area is affected the most. However, with fossil fuel power plants a constant stream pollution is inherent, only that it it spread out to a far, far larger area, if not globally.
Greetings,
Chris
Belz...
Fiend God
Well, that's entirely not true. In fact, it's like a bizarro truth.
Dr.Sid
Philosopher
Chill out people .. I'm just saying it's not black and white. It's not coal is bad, and nuke is nice and smells like flowers. Coal is obsolete and criminal act .. nuke is the way to go .. I'm just saying it still needs improving. Coal doesn't need improving .. it needs replacing, that's for sure.
Belz...
Fiend God
No, it's coal is bad, nuke is better.
Cleon
King of the Pod People
The problem with nuclear power is that when things go catastrophically wrong, incredible environmental damage can occur, causing a large number of people to get sick and die.
The problem with coal is that when everything works perfectly, incredible environmental damage occurs, causing a large number of people to get sick and die..
The problem with coal is that when everything works perfectly, incredible environmental damage occurs, causing a large number of people to get sick and die..
Christian Klippel
Master Poster
[nitpick]
I would add that the last part is optional (there can be environmental damage, but no people get hurt), and that if people get hurt, it can be only a few or a lot, or anything inbetween.
[/nitpick]
Greetings,
Chris