With climate change looming, it seems so completely backwards to go back to using it again.

Is it coal miners pushing to keep their jobs? Fear of nuclear power? Is purely politically motivated, or are there genuinely people who believe coal is clean?


Edit, I will admit I was ignorant to the usage of coal nowadays.

Now I’m more depressed than when I posted this

  • @Zangoose
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    10 months ago

    Nuclear is probably the safest form of power when proper protocols are put in place but it’s hard to do that when the largest country in Europe (Russia, both by size and population) is currently in a war

      • TheHalc
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        1510 months ago

        Oddly enough, it’s safer than wind.

        Solar’s a little better in that regard, but all three are so much safer than any high-carbon sources of energy that any of them are great options.

        • @TheActualDevil@sffa.community
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          110 months ago

          I can’t look at their sources, so I’m going to believe them, buuut that is death per energy units. And I can’t argue that nuclear isn’t more efficient and generally safe. Presumably though, those injuries from wind are from construction primarily? Nuclear power plants have been out of fashion since the 80s for some reason, so there aren’t really equal opportunities for construction incidents to compare that while wind construction has been on the rise. And I can only assume that after construction, the chance incidents only go down for wind while they can really only go up for nuclear.

          None of that is to say that nuclear is bad and we shouldn’t use it. Statistics like this just always bug me. Globally we receive more energy from wind than nuclear. It stands to reason that there’s more opportunity for deaths. It’s a 1 dimensional stat that can easily be manipulated. it’s per thousand terawatt per hour, including deaths from pollution. So I got curious and did some Googling.

          After sorting through a bunch of sites without quite the information I was looking for, I found some interesting facts. I was wrong in my assertion that wind deaths don’t go up after being built. Turns out, most of those deaths come from maintenance. It does seem to vary by country, and I can’t find it broken down by country like I wanted. It’s possible that safety protections for workers could shift it. But surprisingly, maintenance deaths from nuclear power are virtually non existent from what I can tell. It seems like the main thing putting nuclear on that list at all is including major incidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima. Well, Fukushima has really only been attributed for 4 deaths total. And Chernobyl was obviously preventable. So it looks like you’re right! Statistically, when including context, is definitely the least deadly energy source (if we ignore solar).

      • @Zangoose
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        210 months ago

        I believe so because of construction injuries but idk how well that scales

    • Jakob :lemmy:
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      410 months ago

      What is safe on Nuckear Power Plants?

      It’s enough for hundredthousand of years, if only one time happens a SuperGAU. Only once is enough.

      And the nuclear waste is dangerous as fuck for also hundredthousand of years.

      And you can produce 30, 40 or maybe 50 years electric energy, and it needs the same time to decontaminate and dismantle a nuclear powerplant. And before it takes 20, 30 or mor years, to build such a plant… This is not cheap, not safe and not sustainable.

      • @updawg@lemm.ee
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        510 months ago

        I don’t trust the US Federal government to properly dispose of it. The waste from the Manhattan Project is buried in a landfill, a landfill that’s on fire.

        • @BigNote@lemm.ee
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          210 months ago

          The problem isn’t fire, it’s that the waste at Hanford has leached into the soil and a plume of it is headed towards the Hanford Reach on the Columbia River. There’s a mitigation plan in place and it looks like it’s ultimately going to work, but it’s very expensive and not something that anyone wants to see happen again.

          • @updawg@lemm.ee
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            210 months ago

            I was referring to the Westlake Superfund site in St Louis right next to the Missouri river

            • @BigNote@lemm.ee
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              310 months ago

              Fair play. That said, please do look up Hanford. It’s way bigger than Westlake and is potentially a much bigger problem, though granted, Westlake is problematic as well.

      • @Zangoose
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        410 months ago

        Nuclear waste is not dangerous when handled correctly. I’d recommend checking out Kyle Hill on YouTube about this, but when mixed with cement/sand in large amounts it becomes safe much more quickly than that. A lot of the dangers of nuclear power are actually misconceptions

    • @space@beehaw.org
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      410 months ago

      Russian war has little to do with it. For example Germany had already decided to scrap nuclear for gas, which actually bit them in the ass when the war started.

      • @KzadBhat@feddit.de
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        510 months ago

        You’re right with Germany’s decision.

        The reason why Russia is mentioned might be that Russia (and one of their close allies Kazakhstan) are the source of a good chunk of the Uranium that’s used in Europe’s nuclear power plants.

        • @CybranM@feddit.nu
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          110 months ago

          Sweden has large stores of uranium but the green party has opposed any new mines (uranium or not) on environmental grounds. Ignoring the fact that we then have to import resources from other countries that don’t have regulations which could minimize pollution