When our living conditions deteriorate gradually, we adapt to these conditions instead of fixing of them. But sudden threats get sorted out immediately.
Coal has done far more damage than nuclear energy ever will, but coal has over 2300 stations worldwide and nuclear has 400.
A perfect example of the ‘Boiling Frog Syndrome’.
I read somewhere that the boiling frog thing is total bullshit. They’ll totally jump out once the water gets too hot.
The frogs only stayed in the water because Friedrich Goltz lobotomized the frogs beforehand. Which makes it a perfect metaphor because the Murdoch media has definitely lobotomized the public.
in this case the boiling frogs can’t jump out except for the ones with the top 1% of the cash in the pot so,
still applies i think
Boiling crab bucket?
rich bastards claiming that windmills would harm them through visual pollution.
you fucking fuckwits, smog is visual pollution. But they don’t care.
you fucking fuckwits, smog is visual pollution.
I’m old enough to remember people losing their shit at China over the 2008 Beijing Olympics drowning in a toxic cloud. The international outcry was such that the state spent a decade cleaning all that shit up (which produced its own wave of “Has Chinese Eco-fascism Gone Woke?!” screamer articles in turn).
But their rate of pollution has been falling steadily for the last two decades, in no small part because the state wasn’t fighting an uphill battle against corporate slobs in white doctor’s coats trying to tell everyone that smog wasn’t happening/was good aktuly.
Meanwhile, US expenditures on lobbying, denialism, and greenwashing stretch into the billions of dollars annually. And its not hard to understand why, when the ROI is $7T/year on the international stage.
ROI is continued existence for some. It’s a similar reason to why the leadership of the west is so against communism and socialism: because the best path forward doesn’t include them.
ROI is continued existence for some.
“Makers” versus the “Takers”
the leadership of the west is so against communism and socialism
That’s far more just a historical boogieman. Nixon spent half his career insisting every institution from Harvard to Hollywood was infested with Communists, then made the high point of his career a photo-op with The Great Helmsman himself. To say “the leadership is against communism” you really need to blinker yourself to decades of amicable international cooperation.
Its only when local communities begin to express a bit of self-determination that western leadership remembers “Communism” is a dirty word.
Windmills are a whole lot better than burning coal, but aren’t perfect. Recyling the blades after their 20 year lifespan is a nightmare.
nothing is perfect. we need imperfect things that don’t emit co2. windmills have many detractors but at the moment represent mostly co2-free power if we’re willing to take it. and recycling industries for solar and wind are coming, they’ll never be perfect either, but when the waste stream becomes lucrative enough they’ll find a way.
but when the waste stream becomes lucrative enough they’ll find a way.
The problem with capitalism in a nutshell.
Because mercantilist wind turbine blades recycle themselves? Or did you mean to imply that communist wind turbines recycle themselves?
I mean to say that when financial incentive is the only incentive then a lot of things that would make this a better world end up on the scrap heap.
Hey keeps me employed. You people keep finding new types of waste and I keep finding ways to deal with it.
Problem is it’s so freaken labor intensive right now. You could tool your way around it but you need serious volume of standardized units. Plus you need people willing to take huge risks which is difficult to justify given that the recycling industry as a whole is a license to print money. Why risk an explosion when you can turn out yet industry specific process? Also you know the tradeoffs. Basically the less chance of an ignition the less material recoved.
So you go the fully automated route or a low income workforce, which to be fair to the Western world, they are working really hard to produce.
I doubt it’s any worse than the other mountains of waste we produce. I’d wager it’d barely even register.
At first yeah, it would be fairly insignificant, but if you ever stood close to these things you know how huge they are… It’s not easy to move them around and I don’t think we’ve found much use for the materials they are made of to recycle them. Also we are supposed to reduce these mountains of waste not use them as a justification to waste even more.
But regardless, I am sure one people will realise how much we already fucked the climate as more and more extreme weather events pop around, we’ll see more focus on renewables or at least carbon neutral sources. I think the most appealing source atm is nuclear which, although not renewable, it has a fairly small CO2 footprint, tiny size, huge and stable output and there are even reactors that can “burn” their waste to further increase their efficiency.
Smog is like vaccines. People don’t see the smog/disease anymore, so they think they don’t need the protections/vaccines.
inb4 comment section full of uncited factoids and personal attacks
ur mom gay
dont need a citation for that one :)
Ha ha your mom suck me good and hard through my jorts
factoids
Factoids are wrong to begin with, just like claims that coal ash is significantly radioactive.
Studies show that ash from coal power plants contains significant quantities of arsenic, lead, thallium, mercury, uranium and thorium[1]. To generate the same amount of electricity, a coal power plant gives off at least ten times more radiation than a nuclear power plant.
The process of burning the coal concentrates contaminants of all kinds tenfold compared to their original concentration. So even if it isn’t significantly radioactive, we shouldn’t be allowing the other shit in there either.
Don’t just tease us with a [1]
My apologies.
D. Grenêche, ‘Déchets radioactifs, la vérité des faits et l’exactitude des chiffres’, Revue nationale du nucléaire, 2019.
I’m not defending coal energy. It’s a repeated and factually wrong claim from nuclear power proponents that trace radiation that is more concentrated in ash is somehow on par or even worse than nuclear waste or catastrophes. Just because that claim is wrong doesn’t automatically result in coal ash being fine and dandy.
Both have a storage problem. But coal has a destroys the atmosphere problem. So, yes, trade-offs.
You’re moving the goalposts after they debunked the first claim.
“debunking” requires a source… otherwise they just put forth a claim
never seen anyone claim that trace radiation from coal is more of a problem, just that it is a problem. cite someone making this “repeated” claim lol otherwise looks like u did a strawman
Arguing that coal ash is less bad than the very rare nuclear disasters is also a bad take IMO.
Both have issues. It doesn’t mean that we should abandon nuclear for coal, nor the other way around.
Personally I’m a fan of nuclear, and I’m against coal, but realistically, there’s too many data points to argue, and bluntly, I don’t have sufficient information at this time, to competently and fully argue either way.
Fact is, green energy, like solar and wind (among others) are better than both nuclear and coal (and even gas and whatnot). I just don’t want to pretend that either nuclear or coal is a better ecological choice than renewables.
Coal energy shouldn’t be used anymore. Recently UK has closed the last coal plant. This is mainly due to renewable energies.
I have a Prius. Not for any stupid “I’m saving the planet despite still driving an ICE car” reasons, because I save a lot on gas.
Doesn’t stop every “rollin’ coal” asshole from doing it when they drive by me because “haw haw dumb librul hippie.” You sure showed me by spending a lot more on gas than I do.
Man I recently got a 2010 Prius off an auction. Very cheap purchase and it works great already getting savings on gas. But I did notice people have the urge to want to pass or take over when I’m in it even though I’m definitely going fast enough. Funny enough it doesn’t happen when I’m in my Miata going the same speed.
Literally children who want big loud vroom vroom trucks with lots of chrome.
my favorite fun fact is that one time that one 16 year tried to roll coal on bicyclists, and then just ran them over and killed them.
You sure showed me by spending a lot more on gas than I do.
The big difference is that trucking generates profit while car use is a personal cost. Rolling coal is negligible to a guy who probably doesn’t even own the rig in an industry where ROI on shipping is well above the cost of the fuel. Meanwhile, we’ve spent a long time dismantling our rail networks in order to profit the automotive industry.
In the end of the day, everything is made deliberately less efficient in order to carve out more and more little profit-centers for middle men and profiteers. It might look stupid and inefficient to you, but to them its just a fringe benefit in an industry with literal money to burn.
Rolling coal generally refers to people who have modified their pickup trucks to intentionally belch out black clouds of smoke.
I’ve seen it most commonly performed by big 18-wheeler trucks. No real modification necessary, when they’re already old and dirty.
That’s probably just their truck being shite, without regular maintenance, and such. As you’ve pointed out, lots of them don’t own their trucks, and “rolling coal” generally refers to the practice of intentionally modifying a diesel truck to shoot out unburnt diesel fuel, usually through a straight pipe, and usually angled to be facing other cars or people they’re hazing or whatever, from what I’ve seen. It’s not unlikely that semi truckers, which is a sector that uses a particularly large amount of diesel compared to the normal car having population, would have a percentage of the fleet at any given time which is falling behind on maintenance to try to eek out more profit. Maybe their engines are just running rich, or probably more likely they have clogged air filters. Dunno what would be causing it to get past the catalytic converter and the rest of the exhaust manifold though, and just blow out straight with black smoke. That all seems like it would probably have to be modified intentionally, to see it with any frequency, ja? I dunno, hard to say.
I dunno I also say you’ve seen it around austin and san antonio, around college campuses, and that checks out to me as a more political kind of phenomenon, then just, say, seeing people running around town and hazing bikers or whatever.
So, I dunno. Does it count as rolling coal if your car is just shite?
That’s probably just their truck being shite, without regular maintenance, and such.
Tons of these shite trucks driving through college towns and having maintenance issues at peculiar moments.
Does it count as rolling coal if your car is just shite?
If you’re belching ash explicitly to harass a motorist you don’t like? Absolutely.
have you ever seen a semi do that intentionally to block the vision of other people driving on the road? Or specifically, just to be an antagonistic force of the road?
have you ever seen a semi do that intentionally to block the vision of other people driving on the road?
Yes. Very common in and around Austin and San Antonio, particularly near the college campuses.
It’s mostly assholes in pickup trucks doing it.
when the fuck were people using their personal vehicles as company vehicles? And when were company vehicles noted for rolling coal and being a general public nuisance, while doing an illegal act? Surely any self respecting company that isn’t committing crimes already is going to reprimand employees for that shit.
If we’re talking about semi trucks, than i don’t know why you even left this comment. Those are a non problem?
And when were company vehicles noted for rolling coal and being a general public nuisance, while doing an illegal act?
Business Expense: Rolling Coal
Its more likely than you’d think.
If we’re talking about semi trucks, than i don’t know why you even left this comment. Those are a non problem?
If you’ve ever had to drive on a highway full of semis and smell all that gross exhaust, I think you’d feel otherwise. When they’re just belching it deliberately (used to be common place when they passed through Austin, TX and wanted to Own The Campus Leftists) its even worse.
that video you linked isn’t being actively malicious or anything.
If you’ve ever had to drive on a highway full of semis and smell all that gross exhaust, I think you’d feel otherwise. When they’re just belching it deliberately (used to be common place when they passed through Austin, TX and wanted to Own The Campus Leftists) its even worse.
that’s kind of just true for all vehicles, the exhaust part at least. I could see that happening in texas though im not gonna lie, texas seems to be full of a bunch of pretty dumb people from time to time. But even then i’m really sure it counts as “rolling coal” as used in common parlance when referring to road rage type incidents. As per the OPs comment.
When its a culture of hate, people only need a little push to become bigotted.
I agree with this. I’m looking at a plug in hybrid for my next car. It’s a bit more costly up front, but day to day, it should save me so much. Hybrids are better, sure, but plugin hybrids can charge overnight, when we have remarkably low electricity costs where I live, especially overnight, so charging it up is trivial in costs, and it can run a good distance on the battery alone.
If I want to go fast, and have fun, ICE cars and race tracks are things still, I can go do that. In the meantime, there’s still a speed limit on the freeway, so while your fuel burning monstrosity can go 200mph+… You can’t.
For commuting/daily chores/errands, a plug in hybrid is easily one of the cheapest options available, especially for me, per mile driven (or kilometer, if you’re not American).
I still want a weekend/fun car, but for daily driving, plug in hybrid is going to get me there for a lot less.
With the prices of everything going up, it’s the only logical choice.
Really depends, had a plugin hybrid.
The use case for phev versus hev is pretty narrow. the added battery weight and space was significant.
Plugin part was great for a daily commute of under 10 miles (had ~20 mile ev range) but with ~50 mpg, that was saving less than a gallon a week.
And on longer trips the added weight was dead weight. That let me take less stuff when i needed to take stuff.
Maybe they engineered the ones your looking at better, but that was my experience. For me its a choice between pure EV or HEV.
Good luck.
The model I’m looking at is ~45 miles (70km) of EV-only range. Electricity where I am drops under 10c/kWh overnight, and the model I’m looking at is a PHEV.
I work from home and only rarely do I have to commute to a job site, 90% of my driving right now is around town and much less than 45 miles total per day. Having the EV charging start when rates drop and stop when they rise again, would be something I would be doing. Since I don’t have to drive every day for work, several nights of fairly slow charging would fill the ~ 17 kWh battery, even at 10A on 120V.
So every time I go out, I’d likely be starting with a full charge, and my first 45 ish miles are basically free.
ok real talk. 3 mile island reportedly had no result on the environment, on account of being fully contained. Chernobyl was significant, obviously.
Fukushima as far as we can tell today, has no significant long lasting effects. Notably i’ve read that rates of certain cancers in areas surrounding the plant did rise, but i’ve also heard that it was still below the nominal expected rate. So nothing of significant concern. The local sea life near to the plant could very well be an issue, but we don’t really have much data on that at the moment. Especially now that they’ve started releasing tritiated water into the ocean for the next 20-50 years or whatever the fuck the plan is supposed to be.
Nuclear energy fucks around sometimes.
certain cancers in areas surrounding the plant did rise
just a note to add that if you start checking the population for something routinely like thyroid cancer… the rate that you find it goes up. This is why the detected cancer rate increasing is not considered a cause for alarm.
yeah, but then again if you did have a significant raise, you would expect it to be outside of what is statistically nominal for the general population, and from what i understand, it was not. So even if it was a result of the radiation. It would still be lower than the average human expectancy throughout one life time. I.E. Not statistically significant to any degree of concern.
Especially now that they’ve started releasing tritiated water into the ocean for the next 20-50 years or whatever the fuck the plan is supposed to be.
the tritiated water is no-more concentrated than what other power plants around the world release. (the latter may be surprising to know) In addition, tritium has a half-life of only 12.3 years and is diluted in a literal sea, which is an extremely good radiation shield.
yeah. This is all very true, but like most dilutions, things take time, and it’ll be interesting to follow the dilution process as it moves forwards. From what i understand the tritiated water is also released farther out form the shore to prevent local pollution, but i believe there are still elevated levels of radiation in sea life surrounding the shore. Though i can’t remember if that was significant or not. Regardless, humans consume fish, it’s something to be weary of to some degree (i believe there are laws around this already though)
Also, last i heard, they were handing out bottles of this tritiated water during a press conference they gave near the plant. Definitely not in accordance with regulations and stipulations recommending how you interact with this type of radiation, but then again, flying in for that press conference is going to expose you to more radiation anyway so.
BTW, fun fact for anyone curious as to why they don’t just “remove the water” It’s because tritiated water is so closely related to your average water molecule, that it’s basically identical from a molecular composition point of view (except for the fact that it has tritium in it) as a result, there is no way of removing it. Or, an easy way of removing it.
Who is doing the control TEPCO ? So we are safe 🙈
i think tepco the government, and the regular suspects in the international agencies.
Japan for what it’s worth has a culture that is pretty strict about these sorts of things, so i can’t imagine they would blunder this one.
The radiation near shore will also have any residual from the initial tsunami.
The part that I’m amazed by is that no civilian seems to know about the TVA meltdown. It’s the only full meltdown we ever had, and the Army Corps of Engineers lost all access to nuclear power because of that incident, as they intentionally melted it down to test China Syndrome. This was in the 50s. They did build the thing inside of a mountain to contain all the radiation, but had the physicist that came up with China Syndrome been right, that wouldn’t have really mattered. They also could have just done the math to figure out that, yet again, the physicist in question understood physics just fine, but lacked in mathematics.
Chernobyl and Fukushima were chemical explosions. Three Mile Island didn’t get to the meltdown stage, just got dangerously close. Seems that running nuclear power as a for profit venture isn’t a good idea.
I looked up TVA meltdown, got no results about it.
It may still be classified. I learned about it in Nuclear Power School in the Navy
It is my understanding that the Three Mile Island incident was a meltdown, that the fuel rods got hot enough to melt themselves and pool in the bottom of the reactor vessel but did not escape containment, unlike Chernobyl whose reactor core is currently a big lump in a sub-basement.
Chernobyl is a big lump in a sub basement, but that was still the result of a chemical explosion, not a meltdown. My point was that the only meltdown incidents have been caused by the US.
TMI is a bit of a sticky wicket, because as you say the rods did melt, but we got it back under control before anything more than some rather radioactive steam escaped containment.
so technically, it wasn’t a chemical explosion at chernobyl, it was a steam explosion, followed by a possible hydrogen explosion, though that would have been due to chemical reactions ultimately iirc.
Also technically, chernobyl is a meltdown incident, meltdown is described as “severe core damage” And considering that core no 4 no longer fucking exists, i think it’s fair to call it a meltdown incident.
You can have severe core damage without any nuclear reactions. A meltdown is severe core damage caused by a nuclear reaction that got out of control. Severe core damage here means that radioactive material or fissile material escaped the containment of the core.
There aren’t “steam explosions” in physics. There are chemical reactions that cause an explosion, pressure buildups that cause an explosion, and nuclear explosions.
The steam was a pressure buildup that caused the incident resulting in an initial pressure explosion. The thing that “melted” the core of Chernobyl was the hydrogen exploding, hence a chemical explosion. Had it been a nuclear event that melted that core, neither Kiev nor Moscow would be inhabitable. The capital of Russia would be St. Petersburg, and Ukraine wouldn’t exist, as well as several other Soviet Oblasts in the area.
Fucking with the literal power of atoms, in a mostly controlled environment, is the closest we’ve ever come to the Icarus myth. I’m fairly certain that fusion power, should it ever come out of the theoretical stage, won’t be nearly as dangerous as fucking around with fission the way that we currently do.
You can have severe core damage without any nuclear reactions.
uh actually, i disagree, because in order for the event of a meltdown to establish any amount of core damage, or damage at all, you need to inflict fission. Otherwise literally nothing will happen, because thats how they generate heat, but i’m no nuclear physicist.
There aren’t “steam explosions” in physics.
yes? there are? Have you ever looked into 19th century steam technology? Do you understand how combustion explosions work? Yes technically it results from a chemical reaction of smokeless powder decaying, but unless you confine that reaction into a space, it just goes woosh. Once you confine it, and allow it to compress itself it can explode. You are literally just pedantically claiming that steam explosions aren’t a specific subset of pressure explosions, the only reason that they are is because steam explosions are so easy to create, and so incredibly dangerous, that them existing in their own field is actually useful to current safety practices.
This is why properly regulated steam boilers can be used to provide steam to a steam engine to pull freight. But the second you get a low water level slosh event, and it sloshes back, the entire thing flashes immediately, blowing up the boiler, and if not immediately killing the crew, scalding them so badly they die shortly after because their lungs no longer function. I suppose you could argue that the burning of wood or coal is a chemical reaction here, but at the end of the day, it’s the heat that turns water into steam, and steam that makes the power.
The steam was a pressure buildup that caused the incident resulting in an initial pressure explosion. The thing that “melted” the core of Chernobyl was the hydrogen exploding, hence a chemical explosion.
or maybe it was just the heat from the fuel and resulting runaway fission chain that caused everything to melt into a pile of nothingness? Nuclear fuel just sitting idly by, allowed to exist as is unmoderated (in significant enough capacity) will literally eat through concrete. That’s why it’s called corium.
Had it been a nuclear event that melted that core
it wouldn’t have been, because that’s not possible, and i never said that was the likely event. I just said that it was a steam explosion, which it was, and a potential hydrogen or secondary steam explosion, of which we aren’t really sure on the source of.
Fucking with the literal power of atoms, in a mostly controlled environment, is the closest we’ve ever come to the Icarus myth.
idk man, maybe fucking castle bravo at bikini atoll? The one time we weren’t sure whether or not a sustained nuclear fission event would ever stop because theoretically it could process the nitrogen in the air into more fuel, causing the entire earth to turn into a nuclear wasteland (it didn’t btw) Nuclear fission as used to generate power is literally the safest possible use case of it. Modern reactor designs are literally incapable of having runaway thermal events. Research reactors use a specific blend of fuel TRISO to be specific, that has a specific formulation, that makes it physically incapable of having a thermal runaway.
I’m fairly certain that fusion power, should it ever come out of the theoretical stage, won’t be nearly as dangerous as fucking around with fission the way that we currently do.
i mean, fusion is likely to be less dangerous, i’ll give you that. But not even that significantly, the main benefit to fusion is that it’s the even more spicy nuclear bomb technology, and therefore, easier to exploit.
What do you think a “meltdown” is?
When the melted bit, caused by an uncontrolled nuclear reaction, escapes containment.
TVA meltdown
Ok so TMI, is actually a cumulation of three primary factors, none of which should’ve happened.
The first was that they had bad/broken gauges and equipment that was hard to read, meaning they didn’t know the state of the reactor exactly like they should have been able to.
Second, they had the auxiliary cooling pumps shutdown for maintenance. Now normally this wouldn’t be a huge problem if you’re following procedure, as procedure dictates (this was also the law btw) that when your reactor core is running, the auxiliary cooling lines need to be active.
And third, the reactor core was operated under only the primary water feed lines. I.E. power generating feed water. Which as i said is not allowed.
Once they had a crew change, the new crew immediately realized everything had melted down, and called for shutdown. Only took like 8 hours or something.
Chernobyl was a little more complicated, because chernobyl wasn’t designed with a PCV (primary containment vessel), technically it had a secondary containment, which would be the building around it, but obviously that didn’t help. It was theorized and believed by the engineers (and the operators, ignoring a certain condition where this wouldn’t be true, which nobody knew about) that it was impossible for the plant to have a meltdown, primarily due to the fact that it was such a spread out core, making it react slower to immediate changes in the power production.
However, during the day when this happened, (i wont go into all the detail because i will be here for hours otherwise.) the plant was in a xenon well, meaning that it was able to produce virtually zero fission (xenon absorbs neutrons) and the operators didn’t realize it, so they pulled out nearly all of the control rods trying to bring it back up (for a loss of power test) only to then have all the xenon start decaying at about that period of time, which meant the power level started to aggressively increase, and since there were no control rods, it sort of hit a runaway condition. Leading to the entire plant fucking exploding, due to a steam explosion specifically. This one was a lot more like a steam boiler explosion in a locomotive than a nuclear explosion or even hydrogen explosion (though that could’ve been the second explosion that happened)
i’ve never heard of it, i would assume it isn’t out there. Technically there is one other meltdown we had though, the SL-1 reactor, killed three people. Caused a bit of a mess, wasn’t super significant though.
Was that a naval/sub reactor? Or was this something else?
That was technically an Army test reactor. The Navy has a spotless record, so far. I say technically because there may have been some minor cross service collaboration in the design of that thing.
ye, i was mostly mentioning it because it is technically another true meltdown of a reactor within the US.
Naval sub reactors i know have a spotless record, across the aisle, amusingly. Ship reactors i would imagine are less of a problem, though im guessing those are just stolen from subs so equally spotless most likely.
He’s back to promote nuclear energy and insult everyone who disagrees!
those are some smooth pits
You still can’t safely eat mushrooms in parts of Germany that got contaminated by Chernobyl.
Removed by mod
It’s not a binary choice between coal (and other fossil fuels) and nuclear. Both are bad for the environment, and we should be looking to renewables instead. I fully agree that the climate crisis is the more pressing issue. I’m personally involved in climate activism. But this post is specifically about radioactivity, not overall impact
Germany is actively closing nuclear plants, one of the safest and cleanest energy sources, and replacing them with coal, the most dangerous and dirty one.
This is not what’s happening. Germany is shutting down both coal and nuclear. Due to the incompetent CDU (the conservatives are ruining everything once again) there was a lot of back and forth on nuclear, and their lobbyist friends delayed the exit from coal. But there finally is a plan to shut down all coal, but build more, and all nuclear plants are shut down and in the process of being dismantled, and turning them back on would not accelerate the shutting down of coal. Building nuclear is a slow and expensive process. Could this have been handled better 20 or even 50 years ago? Absolutely. But in the situation we’re currently in, nuclear is not the solution.
Nuclear is the solution until all coal plants are shut down. Coal kills millions each year (1000x more than coal) in addition to being a massive contributor to global warming. Nuclear is one of the safest power sources in the world and emits no greenhouse gas.
Shutting down nuclear plants while coal plants still exist is a crime against humanity.
You know what, I actually agree on that. Countries that currently have running nuclear plants should keep them running until they’ve eliminated coal (and gas, although their use not really overlaps - base load vs peak), but then shut them down.
Then we can totally agree. It’s not what Germany did though.
replacing them with coal
That’s not what https://www.agora-energiewende.de/daten-tools/ein-jahr-kernkraftausstieg is saying. Lignite (“Braunkohle”) -29TWh, hard coal (“Steinkohle”) -26TWh. A big factor of dealing with the evolved situation are much fewer energy exports (-23TWh).
If you close a nuclear power plant before closing a coal one, you are effectively replacing the nuclear with coal. It makes no sense to shut down nuclear plants before all the coal ones are shut down first.
And coal use has been going up in Germany. So I don’t know where you are getting these ideas from.
If you close a nuclear power plant before closing a coal one, you are effectively replacing the nuclear with coal.
That’s not how words work.
And coal use has been going up in Germany. So I don’t know where you are getting these ideas from.
Your data source is outdated. You’re looking at data up to 2022, whilst his data shows 2023-2024, which is more recent.
2022 also saw problems like the Ukraine war frustrating gas supply, forcing the use of more coal. And there was covid throwing a wrench into things as well.
Nuclear powerplants in Germany were beyond their lifespan and fixing and modernizing them was not economically feasible. Just too expensive compared to other forms of energy.
Germany certainly hasn’t been “replacing nuclear with coal”.
Closing a nuclear plant means you keep a coal plant open. So you are in effect replacing nuclear with coal. If you kept the nuclear plant open you could close the coal plants instead. Idiotic move.
I got this idea from reading (and linking) a recent 2024 source that you clearly didn’t read or ran through a translator. Your 2022 source is outdated.
Mate, they closed the power plants because they have long surpassed their design operating hours. The upkeep alone costs so ridiculously much, no one can pay that kind of shit. Germany has even postponed the closing date due to the immediate crisis the Russians have created.
I’d like to believe that this is true, but after the revelations of how much Merkel and Schroeder were in bed with the oil industry as well as the green party’s role in this, I’m skeptical to say the least.
Bbbeeee aaaafffffrrrraaaiiiiiddddddddddddd!1!!1!!!1!!!1!!1!!!1!!!
C’mon. Chernobyl was like a drunk driver bypassing the blow device, and now you want to ban all cars everywhere for everyone and everything for eternity. Just to replace it with horses that kill even more people.
When I misuse a coal plant, it breaks down and potentially pollutes the vicinity. When I misuse a photovoltaic plant, it might get damaged. If I misuse a nuclear plant, an area becomes uninhabitable for centuries.
But accidents are not the main concern, when there are currently nuclear power plants being held hostage in an ongoing war
See you’re treating all nuclear plants and operation of those plants as the same. It’s not. Just like car designs are not the same as they were in 1950, nuclear plant designs are not the same as they were in the 1950s.
You know Chernobyl was because they threw the operating procedure out the window right? But you want to act as if that’s just the normal operating procedure. And that it could just happen just because, just from normal operating or something. It’s insane.
So you think the US, UK, France, Germany, etc etc etc nuclear plants will be taken hostage by Russians? See you’re on your fear campaign once again. Beee aaafffrraaaaiiiiddd!1!11!! That’s all it is.
*Have to correct “misuse coal”. It’s not misuse, it’s use. Using coal guarantees polluting both locally and the entire planet.
I mean, can you tell for sure that there will not be any war in France or Germany in the next 70 years? I don’t think it’s likely, and I’m clearly of the opinions that we should apply whatever carbon reduction that is most carbon effective, nuclear included, given the current climate emergency, but considering a nuclear power plant could be targeted by an army or terror group is not that far-fetched.
Is everyone afraid yet? Better keep going even though Russia just humiliated themselves by being held off by one of the poorest countries in Europe. Always be aaaffrraaaiiiddd.
Let me throw in my two cents.
We have people in the U.S. who shoot up schools. We have people who stormed the capitol when their great orange godking failed to be made King President.
I, for one, am afraid of what the kind of person who instigates an insurrection could do with a target like a nuclear power plant.
TIL security does not exist. Be afraid!!11!!! JFC.
With the safety features built into all nuclear plants, it would have to be a crazed nuclear engineer and the place would have to be abandoned and yet still somehow functioning. This is real life, not the Simpsons.
Ok, I’m with you on most of your points but you are mistaken in thinking Ukraine is a poor country. They are literally the bread basket of eastern Europe. That’s one of the biggest reasons Putin is so intent on taking it.
Bread basket does not mean rich. Look at the gdp numbers per capita, they are shockingly poor.
Coal plants kill more when they work properly than nuclear plants do when they break. Every coal plant is worse than Chernobyl or Fukushima.
Yet even accounting for all of that, including Chernobyl and Fukushima, nuclear is still 1000x safer than coal and as safe as wind and solar.
That’s fine, I don’t like mushrooms anyways
Fukisima
Unfortunately, due to budget constraints, the editor has been fired and replaced with a stoned dog.
*dawg
deleted by creator
So to make nuclear sound better it’s compared against the most polluting source?
I can’t say I’ve seen much push for more coal power plants.
The fact the nobody on any side likes to bring up (and most aren’t aware of tbh) is that using large amounts of energy that isn’t part of the natural cycle of the planet (i.e. current solar energy), whether that’s fossil energy (solar energy the the past), nuclear fission or fusion, it means the population of our species can grow beyond the carrying capacity (and I’m not speaking of simply making enough food, there are many other limits) and puts us into a race condition where we have to figure out how to colonize space before destroying the planet.
Nothing more nuclear than the sun.
That said, the primary appeal of uranium/thorium fuel is in energy density. Its a cheap way to localize consumption and distribution of electric energy, which has its own ecological costs. Nuclear can and should be comparably efficient to solar and wind. Radioactive decay is as much a part of the natural cycle as solar radiation or lunar tidal force and there’s no shame in harnessing it, so long as we manage the waste efficiently (a thing that molten salt thorium reactors do exceptionally well).
Some states are trailblazing a path towards functional reactor design faster than others
It’s not about shame, it’s about too much energy added to a system causing imbalance. Large scale use of nuclear or fossil energy does the same thing as adding tons of nitrogen to a lake (eutrophication). It’s temporarily great for the few nitrogen lovers but otherwise destroys the ecosystem.
By using nuclear or fossil energy, humans are causing the equivalent of eutrophication of our own environment.
Large scale use of nuclear or fossil energy does the same thing as adding tons of nitrogen to a lake
To my knowledge, electric energy generated by heated water is not producing any kind of effect comparable to nitrogen dumped into a lake or CO2 into the atmosphere. If there’s some source suggesting otherwise, I’d be curious to read it.
By using nuclear or fossil energy, humans are causing the equivalent of eutrophication of our own environment.
I think you’re confusing fossil fuels with fossil fertilizers. And eutrophication just isn’t a major concern in a planet that’s losing biodiversity and biomass to excess heat.
To my knowledge, electric energy generated by heated water is not producing any kind of effect comparable to nitrogen dumped into a lake or CO2 into the atmosphere. If there’s some source suggesting otherwise, I’d be curious to read it.
You’re not understanding my analogy.
Eutrophication is the addition of too much food for one type of living thing in an environment, allowing it’s population to grow too large for the ecosystem to support. This is exactly what the Green Revolution was for humanity.
I think you’re confusing fossil fuels with fossil fertilizers.
I’m talking about fossil energy in general, all forms of it. Fossil fertilizers are one form of fossil energy.
This is exactly what the Green Revolution was for humanity.
I haven’t seen any evidence of this. At best, you could argue its been wheat, rice, and corn undergoing eutrophication. Perhaps pigs, chickens, and cattle. But outside a few exceptionally well-fed western enclaves, we’re operating below the standard intake of our hunter-gatherer predecessors. Blame our sedentary lifestyle or our aging population, but most humans consume below the 2750-3000 calorie diet of our ancestors.
I’m talking about fossil energy in general, all forms of it.
Then you’re talking more on the industrial scale than the physical. And that’s got far more to do with our tolerance for waste than our appetite for raw inputs. For basic needs like light and heat and travel, we’re significantly more efficient thanks to a host of modernizations like insulation and mass transit.
Still not quite getting my analogy. I’m not merely speaking of calories, or how we decide to dispose of waste.
I haven’t seen any evidence of this.
–> I’ve never seen anyone use this terminology before about “human eutrophication”, I made it up. But if you want more info on this topic, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVjhb8Nu1Sk
The evidence is the apparent non-sustainable lifestyle that is only possible by the addition of energy not part of the natural short-term energy cycle of the planet. We are making species go extinct and destroying this planet.
By using fossil/nuclear energy we are able to produce enough food to quadruple the population this planet could sustain without that extra energy. All those extra people need more than food, and in producing all the other needs for this expanded population, we damage the ecosystem. The planet is not ours to use, we are
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=mVjhb8Nu1Sk
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
What?
Do you have any idea how many things we can do with basically free energy? Like for instance, desalinate and clean sea water and pump it back into our exhausted aquifers. Or use electrolysis to split some of that water and oxygen and hydrogen. Or scrub carbon from the atmosphere with gigantic manual filter aways. Or just store excess power in grid scale batteries and cycle plants on and off as needed.
Yes, all of those things make it more likely for human numbers to grow even more, and in the process making more species extinct, and habitats destroyed.
Physics and biology tell us we are living unsustainably. Free energy just makes exploitation of the planet more efficient, wipe out nature even faster with more humans.
If we expect to exist in 100 years, degrowth is the only answer, green energy is a scam.
natural gas is only 40% cleaner than coal. Petroleum is probably about the same, if not worse, due to all the dirty oil we refine on a daily basis.
The fact that nuclear is still significantly better than coal, and it’s comparatively “clean” alternatives, should be a fucking telling statement.
Oh and on the fact of coal power plants, i would recommend you look into australia, clean coal, china, germany (post gas export shenanigans) and steel manufacturing (though that’s not a power plant)
The fact that nuclear is still significantly better than
If you ignore that near everlasting radioactive waste problem we have yet to come with a solution for.
if you ignore the near permanent impact on the human civilization and history that climate change will have on humanity, yeah nuclear power is definitely worse than coal.
Oh and just for the record, we do have a solution for it, you should read up on modern fast reactor designs, they burn significantly more waste, bringing down the waste time to about a thousand years, potentially even lower, while also producing significantly less waste.
There is an intrinsic micro-mort rate for working on a roof. If you take this number and the number of hours that are spent working at height fitting solar panels (I got this from industry data a few years ago) its then fairly easy to put the annual deaths from fitting solar panels far above that of nuclear. These deaths are a ‘tragic accident’, rather than systemic so…
[edit: I can’t find a value for professionals anymore. This link mentions 1micromort per person on a ladder at home] [edit: clarity]
If you do that then count the deaths finding and acquiring nuclear materials, the political tensions nuclear materials cause and any related deaths, the deaths of people building the plant, the engineers that died in car accidents in the decade going back and forth to the office in their gas car in the plant planning stages, etc.
There is no perfect energy source, we should stop looking for “the one”, use the nuclear plants we have as we degrow and use more green energy (which is a scam if sold as a solution for eco problems on it’s own).
me when I am malthusian:
Anyone watch the 3 Mile Island documentary on Netflix? Indeed, Holy Shit! That was close, the cleanup was just as bad, and all for profit. The natural gas lobby killed the coal mining industry.
Most people who are against nuclear power, have the following reasons:
- it’s the most expensive form of energy due to massive regulations
- the power plants take way too long to build
- nuclear waste is a problem, no one wants to have it buried near their homes
- the fissile material is already rare and difficult to come by, mostly sourced from politically difficult regions, such as fucking Russia
Nuclear power is not a solution.
nuclear waste is a problem, no one wants to have it buried near their homes
No one? My basement is available. Go right ahead and pay me and store it. I don’t want to hear a single person make this claim when I am inviting the industry to pay me for my basement.
You jest, but long term nuclear waste storage really is a problem. The public at-large tends to get all NIMBY about it. In the 1980’s, the federal government was working on a long term underground storage facility in rural Nevada, near the Nevada Test Site (aka in the middle of fucking nowhere) and of course the locals threw a giant fit and got the project shut down. As a result, spent nuclear fuel is routinely held at naval shipyards and power plants around the country without a final destination.
Not a good enough reason to not invest in nuclear power, but a problem nonetheless.
I was joking?
I guess that’d work if you live in a very remote area, alone, without neighbors.
I do not. Still the offer stands.
Anywhere that has the proper rock formations is a suitable long-term internment location. But as the other guy suggests, yeah you could stick it in his basement in a nuclear cask short term
it’s the most expensive form of energy due to massive regulations
So deregulate to the same standards Fossil Fuels are regulated at
the power plants take way too long to build
because of all of the red tape from your last point, as well as fossil fuel organized NIMBYS
nuclear waste is a problem, no one wants to have it buried near their homes
Again because disinformation spread by fossil fuel organized NIMBYS
the fissile material is already rare and difficult to come by, mostly sourced from politically difficult regions, such as fucking Russia
Breeder reactor
Russia is 12th in Uranium exports, with 0.001% of global exports. Kazakhstan is first at 59%, but there’s Canada with 30%, France with 8%, and the US with 2%. There’s plenty of politically easy Uranium, especially if people start buying it over Kazakhstan.
India, Brazil, Australia, and the US are also slated to have the most Thorium resources, which could be a more significant nuclear fuel with modern and near-modern reactors.
Also polluted ground water by nuclear waste which we have no way of safely storing and where we just say “let future generations deal with it”
They’re all just clones that say the exact same thing I swear
It centralizes control, power and money.
Rather than fission power choose fusion power delivered wirelessly to you house. Our space based fusion reactor can provide you with clean, reliable and inexpensive power today.
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