141–150 of 264 posts
On that score- the atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki did less overall damage than the Allied's firebombings in other cities- and, IIRC, there were less casualties in the nuked cities as well- the damage was just different.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> One thing I've found interesting in talking about Chernobyl is that advocates of nuclear power are often willing to accept the Soviet numbers as fact, since they confirm the idea that nuclear power is still relatively "safe" even in case of disaster. I believe the IAEA report (which you can read yourself) put together by the United Nations and relevant affected governments in the mid-2000s. It shows that over the e…
Most of those 7.3 million deaths are from people burning local fuels (wood, trash, dung, etc.) for heating and cooking. It's seems unfair to compare subsistence, low-tech energy (dung burning) to nuclear energy. It makes a lot more sense to compare high-tech nuclear energy with high-tech renewables (with storage).
If you really want to compare that, rooftop solar actually has a significant risk of worker death. I am willing to bet that, per TWh, there would be significantly more deaths with solar than nuclear.
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> If you are going to publish a number of the harm of PM by extrapolating from an IER and PM levels, it should be a net effect, which would be staggeringly positive in terms of lives saved and lengthened not shortened. Respectfully I disagree. You've conflated the primary effect and the side-effect. The primary effect is energy is generated and energy is what has improved our lives. The side-effect is PM exposure whi…
I actually agree with you and edited my comment before reading your reply to soften that specific part (should be -> could be useful to consider) I think the interesting thing which the statistic misses is that people are still choosing to light that stove with coal even though the PM it creates is damaging their health, because it’s the least worst option. Outside PM is different because it can come from the factory…
> A makeshift stove can burn coal and cook a meal. You’ll never match that with any non-emitting technology because it will always require some investment where literally none is available.
True, I just hope that cheaper, clean power (whatever that means) allows more people to make the healthy choice.
To be clear, the other points I agreed with in large part.
The train stories in particular made me recall reading Days of War, Nights of Love in a really good way.
5 * 8.34 * 3 = 125.1 lbs
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> One thing I've found interesting in talking about > Chernobyl is that advocates of nuclear power are often > willing to accept the Soviet numbers as fact, since they > confirm the idea that nuclear power is still relatively > "safe" even in case of disaster. I figure it balances out the people who are extremely critical of nuclear power and accept that there could actually have been a 5 megaton explosion. I'm not a…
And even still the remaining 3 reactors at the Chernobyl plant continued to operate safely, the last one closing in the year 2000. There’s a number of RBMK reactors in use today; they learned from the accident and patched up the issues. Not to say the new western reactors aren’t better, the very much are.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And even still the remaining 3 reactors at the Chernobyl plant continued to operate safely, the last one closing in the year 2000. There’s a number of RBMK reactors in use today; they learned from the accident and patched up the issues. Not to say the new western reactors aren’t better, the very much are.
Even the older western reactors were much better. Look up “positive void coefficient” and “passive nuclear safety”.
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Well yes, some consider that the atomic bombs saved lives by ending the war. If the bombs weren't dropped and the ware continued then those fire bombings would have killed even more.
Your comment is based on the myth that the atomic bombs ended the war. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-stone-kuznick-hi... """ The atomic bombings, terrible and inhumane as they were, played little role in Japanese leaders' calculations to quickly surrender. After all, the U.S. had firebombed more than 100 Japanese cities. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just two more cities destroyed; whether the attack requ…
The pictures are lovely and the reflections profound. But much of the cited data here appears wrong. For instance, the article states (italicized): "six hundred helicopter pilots were killed" and yet it was only 600 helicopter pilots who _flew_ liquidator missions[1], two of which were killed in an piloting accident and none were registered killed from immediate radiation exposure[2], though at least one eventually d…
I think there's a lot of uncertainty in talking about Chernobyl, since most of the information published by the Soviet authorities was intentionally incorrect or misleading, designed to downplay the significance of the accident. One thing I've found interesting in talking about Chernobyl is that advocates of nuclear power are often willing to accept the Soviet numbers as fact, since they confirm the idea that nuclear…
Just take the thing we learned in this week's episode: The design flaw on the RBMK reactors that caused the explosion had been observed before, but the report was classified to not put the glorious Soviet nuclear technology in a bad light!!!
In any remotely sane system, security risks are published and compensated for. The operators would have known about this risk, and not pressed the fateful AZ-5 button that caused the explosion
The pictures are lovely and the reflections profound. But much of the cited data here appears wrong. For instance, the article states (italicized): "six hundred helicopter pilots were killed" and yet it was only 600 helicopter pilots who _flew_ liquidator missions[1], two of which were killed in an piloting accident and none were registered killed from immediate radiation exposure[2], though at least one eventually d…
I think there's a lot of uncertainty in talking about Chernobyl, since most of the information published by the Soviet authorities was intentionally incorrect or misleading, designed to downplay the significance of the accident. One thing I've found interesting in talking about Chernobyl is that advocates of nuclear power are often willing to accept the Soviet numbers as fact, since they confirm the idea that nuclear…
There's also the opposite - cold war era propaganda trying to make the Russians seem backwards and primitive. The Soviet Union at the time was also opening up through glasnost.
On top of this, fossil fuel companies had a lot to gain through scaremongering around nuclear energy. It worked as very well as almost all planned nuclear power plants were mothballed.