61–70 of 142 posts
Future generations will equate this logic to that of the people who healed all ailments with leeches.
A disaster. I'm opposed to the construction of new nuclear plants (still open to possibility of new fusion plants at some in the future) but from an environmental standpoint it makes far more sense to maintain the existing nuclear plants - at least for now. The biggest drawbacks of nuclear power (expensive and slow plant construction) are off the table with existing plants! Hardening existing plants against possible…
> maintain the existing nuclear plants In Japan and wait for the next major earthquakes? > Hardening existing plants against possible future catastrophe is probably far cheaper Probably not. That's the case in Japan where several reactors will never be restarted again.
A tsunami that killed over 10,000 people caused some minor problems. That’s like saying you got a puncture in a multi car pileup.
Nuclear seems like the best hope for humanity, really a shame people are so afraid of it. Although, I guess the fear is justified given how many disasters there have been.
https://phys.org/news/2011-05-nuclear-power-world-energy.htm... casts doubt on the future of Nuclear growing anywhere near enough to be a best-hope; scaling it up to world energy production of 15TW seems infeasible - burning through the available Uranium supplies in ~5 years - even scaling it up to 1TW would stretch many resources used in nuclear reactor construction such as rare elements.
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Here are numbers: Renewables 2019: 46% Renewables 2000: 6% Coal + Gas 2019 40% Coal + Gas 2000 59%
Are the obnoxious wood pellets that spread fine dust included in the renewables? Give me nuclear any day.
A meltdown is terrible, burning coal which intensifies climate change is spelling the end of civilization.
I don’t really think it’s optional anymore. Shut the coal down, move with other technologies.
But when good is the enemy of perfect this is what you get. So let’s raise our glasses to the next decade of coal energy in Japan. Congratulations environmentalists, you won! You killed nuclear!
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> maintain the existing nuclear plants In Japan and wait for the next major earthquakes? > Hardening existing plants against possible future catastrophe is probably far cheaper Probably not. That's the case in Japan where several reactors will never be restarted again.
Earthquake hasn’t caused any problems in nuclear plants in Japan A tsunami that killed over 10,000 people caused some minor problems. That’s like saying you got a puncture in a multi car pileup.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/clearing-the-radi...
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No energy source is 100% safe. People die when working on windmills and hydroelectric disasters are way more deadly than nuclear disasters. I think 100% safe is an unreasonable requirement.
Coal pollution kills more people per day globally[1] than all nuclear disasters combined[2] ever have. Pollution kills between 7500 and 52000 annually just in USA. The range is wide because it's hard to measure. That's 20/day dead from pollution just in USA. Nuclear disasters are verified at about 2400 deaths over 41 years. Around 1/week. Yeah ... crazy hard to make a safe energy source. 1: https://www.scientificamer…
20 / day are not killed in coal plant explosions ever day.
Yet the numbers you compare are from nuclear disasters. As far as I know, there are no numbers for the number of people killed in coal plant explosions and they certainly would not be 20/day
Now, how to count the number of people impacted by Chernobyl.
Do the numbers include the increase in cancer deaths in the north of Norway? The radiation in the moss that reindeer eat meant the meat could not be eaten for quite a long time and it is still not over.
I think that is more like comparing apples to apples, than explosions vs long term exposure.
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The graph shows 36% coal and 13% natural gas for 2016, meaning coal and gas for 2016 is 49%. There is the question of what this would look like if they didn't shut off their nuclear plants. It's my expectation that the nuclear would have replaced coal and natural gas. EDIT: Changed incorrect 2019 reference to 2016.
https://strom-report.de/strom/ Share of electricity production in Germany in 2019: Coal 19.5% + 9.5% Gas 10.5% 19.8 + 9.5 + 10.5 = 39.8%
EDIT: I see my mistake. I did not add both brown (~135 TWh) and black coal (~100 TWh) together (surprised to see those broken out, but it's a valid difference). In that case, the numbers still do not agree, but at least they are comparable.
[0] https://strom-report.de/strom/#stromerzeugung-deutschland-20...