California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms • Hacker News Board

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#211

Post by blunte » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 12:38 AM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #193

blunte wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any human activity had an impact on the earth. At some point even the most well-intentioned of us have to accept that some big benefits may come at some (ideally lesser) costs. I would ask those locals if they are ok with having no electricity other than what they can generate themselves on their own houses. Desert may be a fragile area, but what is the real impact of its disruption? Everywhere there are tradeoffs.

Phosphorous from Saharan desert sands fertilizes the Amazon. Messing with ecosystems on a large scale will probably have serious side effects which we haven’t investigated; better to err on the side of caution.

Define large scale...

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#212

Post by door5 » Sat, Mar 02, 2019, 1:23 AM UTC

yostrovs wrote: post #209

trissi wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just plain wrong. Although only one person has died from radiation YET, over 2000 died during/from evacuation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...

It's obviously poor evacuation or, more likely, the evacuation was unnecessary. The fault is of bureaucrats not nuclear technology.

Well unfortunately we live in a world of imperfect bureaucrats instead of perfect ones.

If someone tells you there's a 1% chance that if you don't evacuate millions of people would be exposed to dangerous radiation, would you give the order? 10%? 50%? these are not easy questions

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#213

Post by Arn_Thor » Mon, Mar 04, 2019, 2:40 AM UTC

yostrovs wrote: post #181

door5 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Fukushima disaster almost got to the point where they had to evacuate Tokyo . I support nuclear power, but to say that it is without risks and the public is just irrational is disingenuous.

Nobody has nor anyone will die from Fukushima. Tokyo wasn't evacuated. I didn't say nuclear is without risks, but it is safer than other methods of producing lots of electricity

One worker HAS already died from radiation exposure: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45423575 , and many more face increased cancer risk. And that's not to mention the cost of disaster response and cleanup in terms of money, manpower and opportunity costs. The cleanup cost will be more than US$187bn by an official estimate a few years back.

Furthermore, with Fukushima we got lucky! Had it not been for the rapid response nuclear pollution could have affected one of the biggest metropolitan areas and economic engines in the world, and vital fish stocks. The tail risk was real, and the consequences would have been earth-shattering for Japan. In any calculation like this, it's not only the odds of an event occurring that needs to be taken into account, it's the impact of that low-odds event too

Re: California's San Bernardino County restricts construction of solar, wind farms

#214

Post by zenexer » Wed, Mar 06, 2019, 4:36 AM UTC

nradov wrote: post #69

zenexer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re just reporting what each side is saying without arguing against their claims. They leave it to the reader to make of it what they will. In my personal opinion, this is how reporting should be. Don’t do my thinking for me and don’t lead me in a particular direction. I doubt most people actually believe dust has anything to do with it. They don’t want these infrastructure projects near them, plain and simple.

That's not how journalism is supposed to work. One of the first lessons in Journalism 101 is if one source says the weather is sunny and another source says it's raining then a competent reporter should look out the window! https://amp.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2012/08/08/th...

I’d far rather read journalism that tells me what each side claims, regardless of how crazy it may sound, and allow me to decide for myself. I’m not an expert on journalism—it’s just my personal preference.