Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear
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Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear
#2Title doesn't seem to match the article's contents. It concludes:
> If there was a meltdown tomorrow in the UK, France, US or elsewhere, it’s likely that our failure to adjust our thinking in light of the experiences at Fukushima and Chernobyl would mean we evacuate too many people for too long. People would die as a result.
Indeed, evacuate too many. The "learning about the risk of nuclear" we did "for the first time" is a study about the effects of the evacuation versus if they had stayed. In both nuclear disasters we ever had, the overreaction was apparently huge and it cost many thousands of lives in direct and indirect consequences. It might be a bit too soon to say, but in a way, the long-term repercussions of overreacting (expanding fossil fuel burning in favor of nuclear, the public reputation of nuclear) will likely be felt for generations. I'm not sure we'd ever have made 1.5°C, but now we definitely won't. (We have to still limit by how much we go over, of course, but it would have been great if we could avoid the tipping point.)
Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear
#3Not sure what to make of this article. Nuclear power is by far the cleanest and safest way of generating energy for both humankind and nature. Chernobyl was ancient and outdated, which caused issues. And Fukushima had to withstand an earthquake and tsunami. And even then the radiation only killed 1 person.
Even wind-turbines cause more damage by killing many, many birds. They aren't as reliable and they certainly cause a lot of noise pollution. And they aren't all that pretty, either.
The risk of nuclear is low to none, barring any unforeseen freak accidents.
Yes, if a tsunami hits the nuclear plant, it might break down. If a meteor hits it, it might break down.
By that logic we shouldn't build cities. After all, if a tsunami hits a city many people will die.
I wish politics around the world would just leave the decision-making up to smart people instead of vote-gatherers.
Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear
#4The US Navy has trained thousands of 18-25 year old men and women to operate hundreds of reactors around the world safety for over 60 years. I was one of them. I have not been an operator for many years, but the latest reactor designs are amazingly safe and reliable. The world needs more safe, clean, cheap and reliable power. Nuclear power is one of the answers.
Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear
#5Not sure what to make of this article. Nuclear power is by far the cleanest and safest way of generating energy for both humankind and nature. Chernobyl was ancient and outdated, which caused issues. And Fukushima had to withstand an earthquake and tsunami. And even then the radiation only killed 1 person. Even wind-turbines cause more damage by killing many, many birds. They aren't as reliable and they certainly cau…
Are you accounting for costs of mining the source material? As I understand it the cost to acquire and safely handle the nuclear material is significant.
Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear
#6Ah yes, decidedly pro-nuclear stance here.
The first obvious omissions that come to mind are:
1. The evacuations took place while the meltdown was ongoing, evacuating was the sane choice given the available knowledge at the time.
2. There is no data on how not evacuating would have affected the people, since that was not done, making that comparison with such certainty seems a bit overconfident.
Nuclear in general:
How about showing me a sound final (100k yr) storage for nuclear waste, built and ready, before you operate any more nuclear reactors?
I'm not totally against the technology, but storing all the nuclear waste in metal cans on parking lots (yes, thats where a majority of nuclear waste resides) is not a valid solution.
The trend of externalizing cost to future generations is something that pisses me off to no end.
Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear
#7I just skimmed, but they seem to be comparing stress of evacuating vs health risk of staying. What about the stress of knowing you live on nuclear contaminated land. Surely that must be stresful enough to be comparable to the stress of evacuating?
Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear
#8The US Navy has trained thousands of 18-25 year old men and women to operate hundreds of reactors around the world safety for over 60 years. I was one of them. I have not been an operator for many years, but the latest reactor designs are amazingly safe and reliable. The world needs more safe, clean, cheap and reliable power. Nuclear power is one of the answers.
Did they teach you where the nuclear waste goes too?
Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear
#9Ah yes, decidedly pro-nuclear stance here. The first obvious omissions that come to mind are: 1. The evacuations took place while the meltdown was ongoing, evacuating was the sane choice given the available knowledge at the time. 2. There is no data on how not evacuating would have affected the people, since that was not done, making that comparison with such certainty seems a bit overconfident. Nuclear in general: H…
> How about showing me a sound final (100k yr) storage for nuclear waste, built and ready, before you operate any more nuclear reactors?
"Nuclear waste" is an artificial problem. It is possible to build reactors that use the "nuclear waste" from existing reactors as fuel, which destroys it forever. We haven't done this primarily because people keep refusing to build new reactors that do this until we figure out what to do with the nuclear waste. Which obviously doesn't make any sense.
Re: Data from Chernobyl and Fukushima provide answers about the risks of nuclear
#10[deleted]