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Nuclear plant shutdowns tied to coal pollution, decreased birth weights

reuters.com

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

#81

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #69
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incredibly myopic. Burning coal for electricity generation has released in to the environment more radiation, heavy metals, and other pollutants than civil nuclear power could ever hope to.

talking about miopic http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-pro... :( fearmongering works wonder against an uneducated population.

Yep. What really astounds me is that, when I was younger I used to associated with a lot of self-proclaimed environmentalists, the sort of people who would go to anti- protests. They were strongly against nuclear.

Ah the irony! It is the environmentalists themselves who are directly to blame for the situation we find ourselves in now. We could have relatively-carbon-free electricity today if they had supported nuclear power.

But, putting my tin-foil hat on for a minute, I am lead to believe that the anti-nuclear movement is actually perpetuated by the fossil-fuel industry. Or maybe my B12 dependant psychosis is playing up again.

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

#82

Post by [deleted] »

blowski wrote: post #20
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#83

Post by wapz »

bhgraham wrote: post #65
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…

Energy Source Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr) Coal – global average 100,000 (41% global electricity) Coal – China 170,000 (75% China’s electricity) Coal – U.S. 10,000 (32% U.S. electricity) Oil 36,000 (33% of energy, 8% of electricity) Natural Gas 4,000 (22% global electricity) Biofuel/Biomass 24,000 (21% global energy) Solar (rooftop) 440 ( Wind 150 (2% global electricity) Hydro – global average 1,400 (16% glob…

How is the mortality rate of wind and hydro calculated? Is it from engineers being killed during maintenance/construction? It feels like those two would have a mortality rate or something similar to "a house."

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

#84

Post by ekianjo »

wapz wrote: post #83
bhgraham wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Energy Source Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr) Coal – global average 100,000 (41% global electricity) Coal – China 170,000 (75% China’s electricity) Coal – U.S. 10,000 (32% U.S. electricity) Oil 36,000 (33% of energy, 8% of electricity) Natural Gas 4,000 (22% global electricity) Biofuel/Biomass 24,000 (21% global energy) Solar (rooftop) 440 ( Wind 150 (2% global electricity) Hydro – global average 1,400 (16% glob…

How is the mortality rate of wind and hydro calculated? Is it from engineers being killed during maintenance/construction? It feels like those two would have a mortality rate or something similar to "a house."

Hydro means dams and dams can cause a number of accidents if they are not properly maintained.

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

#85

Post by ekianjo »

lostlogin wrote: post #63
blowski wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Where is it managed well?

by design already. all recent reactors have containment tanks to prevent radioactive leakage in a meltdown event.

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

#86

Post by lyschoening »

awjr wrote: post #46
lyschoening wrote: post #39

This is research from the 1980s. It is undoubtedly correct, but it does not not apply to today. Today, renewables are competing favorably against coal and nuclear power on price, and they are improving rapidly still. It takes easily 15 years to plan and build a nuclear power plant, while a solar plant can be planned and built in months. The issue of what happens when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine ca…

Is the sun not shining just a transmission problem? Have we been able to create ultra high voltage long range DC transmission systems?

Usually the sun not shining means higher wind speeds, not necessarily at the same location. In general a larger grid means less overhead is required. HVDC is tested and proven, UHVDC links are also being constructed now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current

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

#87

Post by ekianjo »

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.

We are still waiting for Fukushima nuclear event related deaths. The tsunami already killed 15000 people. Yeah, nuclear is super risky.

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

#88

Post by mirimir »

adrianN wrote: post #74
blowski wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Chernobyl was the result of turning off all safety mechanisms and running the reactor outside of its design range to see what would happen.

That was more-or-less my impression.

Edit: See https://www.damninteresting.com/chernobyl/

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

#89

Post by lyschoening »

mpweiher wrote: post #49
lyschoening wrote: post #39

This is research from the 1980s. It is undoubtedly correct, but it does not not apply to today. Today, renewables are competing favorably against coal and nuclear power on price, and they are improving rapidly still. It takes easily 15 years to plan and build a nuclear power plant, while a solar plant can be planned and built in months. The issue of what happens when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine ca…

> This is research from the 1980s Nope, it is research from now, about an event in the 80s. These are long-term effects, so obviously there is a delay.

That is just semantics. I am arguing that a nuclear shutdown event would have different long-term effects today. In the short term of course, fossil fuel plants would still be able to pick up the slack, but there would be a larger share of natural gas than in the 1980s and were the shutdown to last longer it would be less costly to set up renewable energy plants. People in this thread are also using the article to argue about new nuclear development rather than only unplanned shutdowns. I am countering that failing to develop new nuclear energy no longer automatically means more coal pollution.

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

#90

Post by ageofwant »

jacobush wrote: post #30
bpodgursky wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Actually, none of what you said refutes the parent post, rather proves the point. Humans as a group have demonstrated a lack of maturity handling nuclear power.

And demonstrated maturity by burning coal that as part of normal predictable operations kills thousands a year? Humans' continous insistence on burning coal instead of thorium may well be our Fermi filter.
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