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Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

theage.com.au

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Re: Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

#31

Post by workbench »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #15

Nobody dead or sick, yet tens of billions spent decommissioning nuclear reactors around the planet -- with all the environmental costs associated with that. The reason the world continues to pollute more than necessary for the energy we desire has much more to do with the irrationality of people than the physics of energy production.

You've never been to a coal power plant have you?

Go to one and watch the endless trains of coal arriving constantly to power the thing, then come back and rethink what you just posted.

Re: Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

#32

Post by winfred »

JanezStupar wrote: post #26
onli wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And that includes Chernobyl, and uses the worst case scenario for the effects of radiation! I know he writes that, but the numbers used aren't mentioned and not easily to research, as far as i saw. I heavily doubt that statement. An article talking about "two failures" of nuclear plants isn't believable, there were quite a few more.

All the benefits of solar/wind are not easy to research, as far as I saw. I heavily doubt that statement. Can you see what I did there?

The problem is that people will start falling off those windmills. Edit: Can someone provide me with the windmill related death statistics in the US?

Re: Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

#33

Post by reitzensteinm »

onli wrote: post #19
ghshephard wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single statement you made, with the exception of handling radioactive waste, applies more to coal than it does to nuclear power. Coal pollution doesn't "kill outright" - but does so slowly, over many years, and many, many more people than nuclear power. Coal waste continues to leak into the air, and into water systems. I'm not arguing that Nuclear power is "safe" (nothing, is - even solar power kills many peopl…

I always love it when coal is used as a comparision. Because: Coal isn't the alternative, solar and wind are Furthermore: Nuclear energy has a fairly high CO2 output, if you count it all together. So this argument against coal is itself an argument against nuclear energy. Most importantly: We can't manage nuclear waste. There is just no feasible scenario which makes sure for future generations that the nuclear waste…

It's disingenuous to call "solar and wind" an alternative on the same level as nuclear and coal.

For one thing, it's an incomplete alternative; it needs to be paired with some form of country scale battery for when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing.

This is covered in the excellent book Without Hot Air[1] which breaks down power usage and generation potential (using UK figures), primarily to discuss weaning the country off of fossil fuels.

Reading through estimates of what will be required ignoring cost, the sheer scale of what it would really take to power a country off of renewable energy quickly becomes apparent.

And it's written by a physicist who strongly argues for the need to move off of fossil fuels as quickly as possible. He just doesn't have his head in the sand about how difficult that will be.

I tend to agree with that viewpoint but I'm skeptical we'll get there without pairing it with a significant boost in energy efficiency, ala Reinventing Fire[2].

1: http://withouthotair.com/ 2: http://www.rmi.org/rmi/ReinventingFire

Re: Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

#34

Post by [deleted] »

workbench wrote: post #31
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #15

Nobody dead or sick, yet tens of billions spent decommissioning nuclear reactors around the planet -- with all the environmental costs associated with that. The reason the world continues to pollute more than necessary for the energy we desire has much more to do with the irrationality of people than the physics of energy production.

You've never been to a coal power plant have you? Go to one and watch the endless trains of coal arriving constantly to power the thing, then come back and rethink what you just posted.

[deleted]

Re: Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

#35

Post by anon1385 »

workbench wrote: post #31
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #15

Nobody dead or sick, yet tens of billions spent decommissioning nuclear reactors around the planet -- with all the environmental costs associated with that. The reason the world continues to pollute more than necessary for the energy we desire has much more to do with the irrationality of people than the physics of energy production.

You've never been to a coal power plant have you? Go to one and watch the endless trains of coal arriving constantly to power the thing, then come back and rethink what you just posted.

I don't think he was saying what you think he was saying.

My interpretation was that he was bemoaning the political backlash that lead to shutting down nuclear power in various countries, with the related financial cost and environmental cost due to the increase in coal and gas power generation that was required to make up the gap. All because of an incident that hasn't killed anybody.

Re: Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

#36

Post by skrause »

workbench wrote: post #31
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #15

Nobody dead or sick, yet tens of billions spent decommissioning nuclear reactors around the planet -- with all the environmental costs associated with that. The reason the world continues to pollute more than necessary for the energy we desire has much more to do with the irrationality of people than the physics of energy production.

You've never been to a coal power plant have you? Go to one and watch the endless trains of coal arriving constantly to power the thing, then come back and rethink what you just posted.

And your point is? His post was pro-nuclear and suddenly you're arguing against coal?

Re: Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

#37

Post by JanezStupar »

onli wrote: post #29
shawabawa3 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but at the moment, coal is the alternative. Coal provides something like 25% of the world's energy production. Solar and wind more like 2%. The more nuclear plants we build the more coal ones we can shut down. The more wind and solar we build, the more coal we can shut down too, but it will take a lot longer and a lot more money to replace coal with wind and solar than with nuclear.

Look at germany. Alternative energy doesn't have to be used that little. On a worldwide scale, it is even a different thing. You can't simply replace coal with nuclear energy worldwide, even if you were absolutely convinced that nuclear energy is safe when properly used and you have a concept for the nuclear waste produced like shooting it into space. Because many countries are just too instable, poor and iniffecient…

German renewables keep on threatening to collapse European power grid, which is much more advanced than any other power grid on the world.

If other countries would be as aggressive with renewables as German are we would see a lot of Europe wide blackouts.

Re: Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

#38

Post by anon1385 »

onli wrote: post #29
shawabawa3 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but at the moment, coal is the alternative. Coal provides something like 25% of the world's energy production. Solar and wind more like 2%. The more nuclear plants we build the more coal ones we can shut down. The more wind and solar we build, the more coal we can shut down too, but it will take a lot longer and a lot more money to replace coal with wind and solar than with nuclear.

Look at germany. Alternative energy doesn't have to be used that little. On a worldwide scale, it is even a different thing. You can't simply replace coal with nuclear energy worldwide, even if you were absolutely convinced that nuclear energy is safe when properly used and you have a concept for the nuclear waste produced like shooting it into space. Because many countries are just too instable, poor and iniffecient…

>Look at germany.

In Germany, where they are shutting down their nuclear power plants, more than 80% of the shut down nuclear power has been replaced with coal power plants,[26] which release 100 times as much radiation as a nuclear power plant of the same wattage

In 2012, member firms of the Verband der Industriellen Energie- und Kraftwirtschaft (VIK) reported power failures of several seconds duration, combined with a rise in frequency fluctuations. These were reportedly caused by network overloads due to the shutdown of nuclear power plants, and an increase in wind power generation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Germany#Role_...

Re: Japan's radiation disaster toll: none dead, none sick

#39

Post by mje__ »

onli wrote: post #29
shawabawa3 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but at the moment, coal is the alternative. Coal provides something like 25% of the world's energy production. Solar and wind more like 2%. The more nuclear plants we build the more coal ones we can shut down. The more wind and solar we build, the more coal we can shut down too, but it will take a lot longer and a lot more money to replace coal with wind and solar than with nuclear.

Look at germany. Alternative energy doesn't have to be used that little. On a worldwide scale, it is even a different thing. You can't simply replace coal with nuclear energy worldwide, even if you were absolutely convinced that nuclear energy is safe when properly used and you have a concept for the nuclear waste produced like shooting it into space. Because many countries are just too instable, poor and iniffecient…

I think you'll find that Germany isn't replacing nuclear power, just buying it from outside their borders instead of generating it themselves [1].

[1] http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/greenwashing-af...

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