Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights • Hacker News Board

Re: Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights

#11

Post by wbl » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 6:24 AM UTC

legulere wrote: post #9

xroche wrote: post #3

Closing nuclear power plants and replacing them with coal power plants is simply criminal. In Europe, coal pollution kills ~20,000 people each year ( ), nuclear never killed a single person, and no study could ever provide any mortality increase due to nuclear energy (outside the Tchernobyl accident, which killed between 200 and 4000 people depending on estimations, after 20 years of study) To be clear: nuclear is no…

> (outside the Tchernobyl accident, which killed between 200 and 4000 people depending on estimations, after 20 years of study) Wikipedia seems to give 4000 as an estimate on those exposed to the highest levels of radiation alone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Cancer_proj... On the other hand coal, wind and solar never poisoned our food (wild boars in Germany thousands of km away still often are too…

Really? Have you already forgotten about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly...

If coal plants had the same radiation rules as nuclear plants, they couldn't run.

Re: Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights

#12

Post by foepys » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 6:25 AM UTC

legulere wrote: post #9

xroche wrote: post #3

Closing nuclear power plants and replacing them with coal power plants is simply criminal. In Europe, coal pollution kills ~20,000 people each year ( ), nuclear never killed a single person, and no study could ever provide any mortality increase due to nuclear energy (outside the Tchernobyl accident, which killed between 200 and 4000 people depending on estimations, after 20 years of study) To be clear: nuclear is no…

> (outside the Tchernobyl accident, which killed between 200 and 4000 people depending on estimations, after 20 years of study) Wikipedia seems to give 4000 as an estimate on those exposed to the highest levels of radiation alone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Cancer_proj... On the other hand coal, wind and solar never poisoned our food (wild boars in Germany thousands of km away still often are too…

Also if a terrorist flys a plane into a coal plant they will not make hundreds of km² uninhabitable.

Re: Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights

#13

Post by biehl » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 6:25 AM UTC

legulere wrote: post #9

xroche wrote: post #3

Closing nuclear power plants and replacing them with coal power plants is simply criminal. In Europe, coal pollution kills ~20,000 people each year ( ), nuclear never killed a single person, and no study could ever provide any mortality increase due to nuclear energy (outside the Tchernobyl accident, which killed between 200 and 4000 people depending on estimations, after 20 years of study) To be clear: nuclear is no…

> (outside the Tchernobyl accident, which killed between 200 and 4000 people depending on estimations, after 20 years of study) Wikipedia seems to give 4000 as an estimate on those exposed to the highest levels of radiation alone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Cancer_proj... On the other hand coal, wind and solar never poisoned our food (wild boars in Germany thousands of km away still often are too…

Coal probably does poison our food with mercury and other heavy metals :(

Re: Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights

#14

Post by xroche » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 6:28 AM UTC

legulere wrote: post #5

A very weird way to study the outcome of coal air pollution. It seems like this is not really about air pollution but trying to push nuclear energy. Luckily shutting down nuclear plants does not necessarily mean turning on coal power (e.g. in Germany they were replaced by renewables). Some questions arise though: Which coal power air pollutant is to blame for the birth weight decrease. Which coal pollution mitigation…

> Germany they were replaced by renewables

This is unfortunately inaccurate (http://www.euractiv.com/section/health-consumers/news/report...), and Germany is one of the country where coal is the deadliest in Europe, thanks to anti-nuclear campaign from the green party.

Re: Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights

#15

Post by Maakuth » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 6:29 AM UTC

lemming wrote: post #10

legulere wrote: post #5

A very weird way to study the outcome of coal air pollution. It seems like this is not really about air pollution but trying to push nuclear energy. Luckily shutting down nuclear plants does not necessarily mean turning on coal power (e.g. in Germany they were replaced by renewables). Some questions arise though: Which coal power air pollutant is to blame for the birth weight decrease. Which coal pollution mitigation…

in Germany they were replaced by renewables Do you have a reference for this? Germany has a very aggressive (and highly commendable) plan to move to renewables, but my understanding was that the closing of nuclear plants post-Fukushima was covered by coal. Wikipedia seems to agree ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany ): At the same time, Germany continues to rely heavily on coal power, with usage…

They really are adding renewable production at quite an aggressive pace: https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy-c...

Myself I'd prefer they would use that extra production to phase out coal first before shutting down their NPPs.

Re: Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights

#16

Post by loeg » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 6:30 AM UTC

pdog wrote: post #7

xroche wrote: post #3

Closing nuclear power plants and replacing them with coal power plants is simply criminal. In Europe, coal pollution kills ~20,000 people each year ( ), nuclear never killed a single person, and no study could ever provide any mortality increase due to nuclear energy (outside the Tchernobyl accident, which killed between 200 and 4000 people depending on estimations, after 20 years of study) To be clear: nuclear is no…

Fukushima has demonstrated that humans aren't great at controlling or predicting the real risk of nuclear. The fact is, even if no one dies from acute radiation poisoning, nuclear disasters are costly and devastating.

That can be mitigated in the US because the entire country doesn't run along a fault line. Not so Japan. Yes, don't build your nuclear reactor in western California.

Re: Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights

#17

Post by Taniwha » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 6:30 AM UTC

legulere wrote: post #5

A very weird way to study the outcome of coal air pollution. It seems like this is not really about air pollution but trying to push nuclear energy. Luckily shutting down nuclear plants does not necessarily mean turning on coal power (e.g. in Germany they were replaced by renewables). Some questions arise though: Which coal power air pollutant is to blame for the birth weight decrease. Which coal pollution mitigation…

Yes they could equally say increased use of solar results in increased birth weights.

Really the take away here is simply "coal is bad" - there's correlation between coal plants and lowered birth weights.

Anything that supplants coal (nuclear, solar, wind, hydro, tidal, etc) will result in increased birth weights. Replacing them with coal will result in lowered birth weights.

It's a bit weird their pushing nuclear this way right now, didn't Westinghouse just go belly up?

Re: Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights

#18

Post by kogepathic » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 6:35 AM UTC

wbl wrote: post #11

legulere wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (outside the Tchernobyl accident, which killed between 200 and 4000 people depending on estimations, after 20 years of study) Wikipedia seems to give 4000 as an estimate on those exposed to the highest levels of radiation alone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Cancer_proj... On the other hand coal, wind and solar never poisoned our food (wild boars in Germany thousands of km away still often are too…

Really? Have you already forgotten about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly... If coal plants had the same radiation rules as nuclear plants, they couldn't run.

> If coal plants had the same radiation rules as nuclear plants, they couldn't run.

I think you mean if nuclear plants had the same radiation output as coal plants, they would be required to shut down.

Edit: thanks for the downvotes, I realise now that I'm basically stating the same thing as OP.

Quite the double standard that coal plants are allowed to spew so much radiation when all other forms of power generation are held to a higher standard.

Re: Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights

#19

Post by bpodgursky » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 6:38 AM UTC

pdog wrote: post #7

xroche wrote: post #3

Closing nuclear power plants and replacing them with coal power plants is simply criminal. In Europe, coal pollution kills ~20,000 people each year ( ), nuclear never killed a single person, and no study could ever provide any mortality increase due to nuclear energy (outside the Tchernobyl accident, which killed between 200 and 4000 people depending on estimations, after 20 years of study) To be clear: nuclear is no…

Fukushima has demonstrated that humans aren't great at controlling or predicting the real risk of nuclear. The fact is, even if no one dies from acute radiation poisoning, nuclear disasters are costly and devastating.

Fukushima has demonstrated that relying on 60's technology and refusing to upgrade or invest because of political sensitivities exposes you to disasters 50 years down the line.

It's like if everyone got afraid of airplanes in the 1980's and kept flying the same ones from the 60s through today because people were afraid to build new ones. Would you say air travel was unsafe, or that we made poor technology investments?

Re: Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights

#20

Post by blowski » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 6:40 AM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #8

xroche wrote: post #3

Closing nuclear power plants and replacing them with coal power plants is simply criminal. In Europe, coal pollution kills ~20,000 people each year ( ), nuclear never killed a single person, and no study could ever provide any mortality increase due to nuclear energy (outside the Tchernobyl accident, which killed between 200 and 4000 people depending on estimations, after 20 years of study) To be clear: nuclear is no…

In other words nuclear never killed anybody apart from the ones it killed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_...

I'm no expert on Chernobyl or power generation. But I think Chernobyl was the result of under-investment and poor management, whereas many of the deaths from coal are an unavoidable consequence of burning coal. Hence, you can say nuclear is safer as long as it's managed well.