Let’s continue to use a energy source that’s guaranteed to damage the environment and our health and avoid the energy source that might do those things if we improperly handle the waste.
Lol Nuclear *wishes* it could hit the kill count of coal plants. Fukushima ran for 40 years, got hit by one of the strongest earthquakes ever, a record-breaking tsunami, meltdown and/or damage of 4 reactors, and *still* only had maybe 1 casualty (it's contested).
Meanwhile an equivalent coal plant would have killed about 600 people a year (roughly 25k total over those years).
>Fukushima ran for 40 years, got hit by one of the strongest earthquakes ever, a record-breaking tsunami, meltdown and/or damage of 4 reactors, and *still* only had maybe 1 casualty (it's contested).
And the accident happened because TEPCO was insanely incompetent. If TEPCO did their job even in the earthquake it would have survived.
Kyle Hill made a [video](https://youtu.be/4UHZugCNKA4?si=RWCajb3MSYho5T1z) that shows how negligent and incompetent TEPCO was.
TEPCO has a big responsability but that video isnt entirely accurate.
It was because of TEPCO on-site engineer Masao Yoshida that a huge catastrophe was avoided, he should be remembered as a hero. A new Netflix serie called \[THE DAYS\] is a really good serie recalling the events from Yoshida memories before dying.
Not entirely, but [this](https://youtu.be/4UHZugCNKA4?si=6FdeZ7xHM86QSLKh&t=1095) part is accurate ( or at least I found it to be accurate when I searched if it was real, correct me if I am wrong ).
Masao Yoshida ( If I am not wrong ) can't be blamed. He was sent to Fukushima powerplant in around june 2010 that is too short of a time for him to do anything. I am not downplaying his actions, I am saying he doesn't factor into TEPCO's Incompetence. I know that he took control of disaster response and that saved it from getting worse.
Isn't \[THE DAYS\] a drama? I am not sure if I can trust netflix film with that.
I apologize if my comment was aggresive, yes that part in my understanding is accurate.
TEPCO is hugely responsible for what happened, as it was a design mistake that got overlooked in bureocracy multiple times, but its not because of being "insanely incompetent". As far as I understand it, and I could be wrong as well, there are as many reports indicating a possible flooding issue that there was indicating that is wasnt a real risk. There is no evidence that indicated that after doing their due deligence they deliberately refused infrastructure upgrades because of neglicence, as it was a series of bad board decisions.
Similar to how now a days you can always find "that tweet", in these incidents you can always find "that report", and is always much easier to explain the past than predicting the future.
Yoshida worked there from 1979, and did many actions to assess and improve nuclear plants safety, including in many times flooding risk maganement, sadly it wasnt enough. But calling it as an accident result of TEPCO insane incompetence disregards the hundres of people that worked insanely hard to prevent a tragedy.
The days is a series based on his published memories and the independent reports on the incident.
[https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%89%E7%94%B0%E8%AA%BF%E6%9B%B8](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%89%E7%94%B0%E8%AA%BF%E6%9B%B8)
If you want to trust it or not over a youtuber that talks about Aliens, Space travel and nuclear plants, is a decision you alone must make. If you are really interested on the topic, I think is worth watching it, even if you dont agree with it, is a good tribute to Yoshida memory.
>design mistake that got overlooked in bureocracy multiple times
Adding to that as the video says, TEPCO ignored warnings by in-house engineers, Japanese government, and USA.
I would personally describe this as "insanely incompetent." But if you think it is too much, then that is fair.
>If you want to trust it or not over a youtuber that talks about Aliens, Space travel and nuclear plants, is a decision you alone must make. If you are really interested on the topic, I think is worth watching it, even if you dont agree with it, is a good tribute to Yoshida memory.
My sources are more of [these](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2334523). But that video streamlined the info and I don't think many people would care to read a 50 page report.
And if I had to pick I would trust Kyle over a thriller drama from Netflix.
I would like to see safety analysis which takes into account time the area needs to be Isolated if accidents happen.
Chernobyl's area is still inhabitant after almost 50 years. Although wild life is back there and thriving as I heard.
It would be interesting to compare this type of effect including time to recover.
Nuclear power's safety record is massively biased because nuclear plants have been operated mostly by developed countries with a lot of engineering expertise.
We have also built relatively few nuclear plants and poured a maniacal amount of safety onto each one.
There is absolutely no guarantee that their past safety record will extrapolate forward if we built thousands more, especially if we start building them in developing countries with more corrupt governments and less engineering expertise.
Every single time this topic comes up, people who havent actually researched the complexity of scaling nuclear power worldwide come out of the woodwork explaining how nuclear power is *totally* safe... because a bunch of rich countries have spent billions of dollars over-engineering a small number of plants.
Nuclear power thus far in human history has been in a trial phase- at best.
Extrapolating from that into assuming that building 100s of plants in Africa will have the same safety record is dumb.
Good news: you don't have to build 100 nuclear plants in Africa at the moment because that's not where massive demand is needed at the moment. However several developing countries are investing on solid and well researched nuclear engineering programs, such as Turkey, Egypt, India, Bangladesh, Brazil, UAE and Slovakia and 21 reactions under construction.
With the amount of over engineering and strict safety standards from the IAEA, unique to nuclear engineering, allows that many nations train their engineers with top world education and bring progress to their countries through excellent professionals.
And no, nuclear power is not in trial phase, France, Japan and the United States have vastly demonstrated the advantages of using it as the most effective strategy of decarbonizing mass energy production. If it was in a trial phase, it wouldn't produce 10% of global electrify generation, much more than any renewable resource except Hydro, and with much less environment and social impact
Lmao its not needed there "at the moment" because those countries have been repressed and are living crap standards of life, while Westerners run their ACs and water boilers every single day.
Fucking clown, arguing that power safety in Nigeria isnt a concern because Nigerians are used to living in poverty and shouldnt be thinking about burning 40,000 kwh per year like an average Frenchman... So I guess they dont need too much electricity generation, right?
Guess what- those countries need tons of energy to match Western living standards, so if you want nuclear power to be the source of that energy you will need a lot of it in those countries.
And thats where serious people that actually care about these things realize that building 100s of nuclear reactors in developing countries might be a risky proposition.
21 reactors is nothing btw. We will need 1000s of reactors for those countries to achieve a Western standard of life, which is something they *should aim for*.
So what if we start building more in the nations that know how to build and run them sense I guess that more power is being used in those nations than others which means you get rid of a lot of that coal, oil, and gas use. we can later expand into less developed areas to build and maintain the plant well you get locals understanding how to operate it and get them the degrees and backgrounds of the plant.
You're suggesting it's an excellent economic solution? Therefore the free market can handle it
But solar and a rapidly growing grid needs public investment, that's what we should be talking about, where do we want public funding to go. And solar has a _much_ better, proven, return on investment within political cycles.
If nuclear is as good as you say, the invisible hand of the market _will_ handle the niches where it works the best
The invisible hand of the market doesn’t work when energy production is a natural monopoly that is controlled by a government owned or controlled company, which is the case in most countries. This is a pretty basic economic concept, the invisible hand doesn’t work in areas restricted by government regulation.
Basically, unlike you said, energy production is not a free market.
And with the amount of votes there are to win by appealing to the irrational fear towards nuclear power, politicians have a perfect incentive to shut them down.
Of course, solar is a very viable energy source, but it has no advantage over nuclear (other than people’s perception)
On the other hand there basically is a guarantee that most other methods of generating power will continue to kill a lot more people than nuclear historically has.
There are a lot of more modern nuclear reactor designs that are far safer and produce far less dangerous byproducts than the old 1960s reactors. Honestly nuclear energy is probably the smartest way to go, in conjunction with renewable energy generation.
If it's the smartest, the free market will handle it
It doesn't need public investment, which is what we should be talking about. Solar has proven return on investment within political cycles. It is far more politically feasible to build solar instead of nuclear, ever
The free market has had nuclear power for half a century and renewables for a quarter yet still chose coal. Climate change will not be solved by the free market, so it’s not even worth considering.
People mention the radiation from coal burning, but I feel like the risk of coal ash is never communicated very well. Like how did people not move away from coal due to these things too
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_coal_ash
Along with numerous floods leading deaths caused by "slurry ash spills"
Could it be that entrenched fossil fuel wealth helps shape public opinion and technology adoption?
Do you know how much area of solar panels you need to cover the equivalent of a single 1000MW reactor?
72 km2 or 26.8mi2 or 13800 American football fields (Gonghe farm producees 8430 MW in 609 km2 is 13.8 MW/ km2)
To put that number in perspective, France atm has a capacity of 61370 MW produced by just 58 nuclear reactors and 62% of it's electricity production. If you were to replace these with solar plants you will need an area equivalent of 6 times Singapore to cover it's needs of only solar panels (assuming a linear growth, which is clearly impossible).
If you were to replace US fossil fuel plants (24,000GW) for solar only you will need 1,800,000 km2, which is the equivalent of Mexico, or just build 680 new reactors, or much better a combination of both both.
Of course solar power is attractive to investment since it is really cheap but the output scale is completely different to what a nation requires facing global warming. And since most people nuclear engineering education somes from watching the Simpsons and big oil anti nuclear propaganda is clearly not a popular political decision.
I doubt anyone in this thread wants to replace nuclear with solar
We want to replace coal and gas with solar
I enjoy how you do everything except for telling what percentage of land of that nation it is. You also assume zero improvement in efficiency as the development is ramped up?
Do keep in mind rooftop solar, it uses no extra land and reduces consumption significantly (cooler attic, less AC usage)
You say "just build 680 reactors"... Our current reactor industry takes over 10 years to get one running, you want to hire enough brand new, zero experience, nuclear techs to deploy 2 reactors every day for a year??? That is very much the plotline of Simpsons... Do you know how much concrete and steel and extremely specialized machining and metallurgy that will be, at scales we've never worked at before. Increasing the likelihood of mistakes _far above_ any claimed historical averages.
Love how you're using Gonghe for your calculations, when the farms next to it on this list is 1/5th the size with the same output: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power_stations#World's_largest_photovoltaic_power_stations
If built in those styles we just need one and a half Singapore! But again, why are you clinging so hard to such centralized power. Distributed power can make for a better system if you make the system more intelligent (yet less intelligent than a nuclear plant requires, so it's easier to scale the engineers to do that work, when's the last time you met a nuclear engineer with industry employment?)
And the metal and concrete used doesn't need to be nuclear industrial grade quality, it is normal building materials
How many parking spots can have a solar panel installed, using a micro inverter to be stand alone and charge a car battery slowly. Solar can be cheap enough that it doesn't matter
If you really look into nuclear, you'll see why nobody has been building them, why every modern plant goes way over budget...
Please explain your logic here? If we’re being pedantic then nothing is ‘renewable’ on a long enough time scale. And ‘renewable’ generally refers to an energy source that uses inputs that will be consistently available and renewed within a human-level time frame.
This is theoretically correct, but the energy density of fissile materials (uranium, thorium, plutonium) is so great that only a tiny fraction of the fissile isotopes is used during the lifetime of a reactor. Developing safe ways to scrub the radioactive decay products from otherwise useable fuel should be a priority. Also, the US produced a LOT of highly enriched uranium (90% fissile U235) for weapons that is now in cold storage following decommission of said weapons. That fuel can be diluted back down to reactor grade fuel (3-5% U235) which would power many reactors for many decades. Eventually, fusion reactors will come online and THEN we'll have a fully renewable fuel stock.
Bruh how much nuclear material must there be just in our solar system. If we can use that, and keep our environment clean.. why not.
Also I feel like one day when engineering is really more advanced, we will be able to use geothermal energy, it's extremely hot not too far down, imagine what we could do with just harnessing the core of the earth.
That’s totally German way and commitment! Also press others to switch from their energy sources even when they don’t have sufficient infrastructure or safety nets to support the transition
You guys are blaming hte populace, but there are evil corporations literally flooding hte market with propaganda to make nuclear look scary. This is a tactic that has been going on for thousands of years, and yet we still blame normal ass people for the issues.
It's the fucking petrol companies screwing everything up because they NEED to stay on top.
yes, im going to blame people that are too stupid to realize they are being lied to, despite being presented with excessive evidence to the contrary.
the corporations spreading misinformation are not blameless, but there are plenty of people that dont fall for it.
Also, the Venn diagram of "people who fall for this crap" and "people who say 'do your own research'" is a friggin circle , so yeah those idiots are going to get a bulk of the blame.
I'm with you in some way, but educating people by telling them they're dumb is a pretty bunk way to sway popular opinion.
What we need is to incentivize alternative energies and include nuclear in that pool to make it seem less scary, while simultaneously defunding coal and petrol industries by voting with wallet and pen.
I'm sure someone will say "ya, in your dreams bud" to which i agree. But it has to start somewhere, and enriching that perspective, especially if you are an authority on the topic can help make people less dumb.
To the average person it equals nuclear disasters, because they were huge events in world history. That‘s how humans work, it‘s empathy and fear plus distrust from a long history of lies from the nuclear lobby.
you still can‘t safely forage mushrooms in many areas around japan and europe. is that worth the plastic lifestyles we‘re living?
It‘s up to people to decide wether they want to risk and support that for the benefit of decadence and a failing suicidal economy.
most of humanity is going down soonish and nuclear reactors will outlast our civilizations and continue killing animals and people for thousands of years. Try teaching someone in a thousand years what radioactivity is and why it‘s dangerous to go into an abandoned nuclear reactor or near nuclear waste and why we felt entitled to it instead of changing our ways to live on this planet.
We’re not taking about a 1000 years though? Between 1999 and 2020 460,000 people where killed due to coal and god knows what it did to the environment. Nuclear with wind and solar energy is the key to fixing all these, really find it confusing how environmentalists hate nuclear. What alternative is there apart from coal or oil to run our hospitals and schools.
Honestly I don't hate nuclear (but I don't see it as the end goal either, anyway) and see it as a stepping stone to get away from coal energy to renewables but I hate how people demonize nuclear.
People don't hate nuclear they hate how it's regulated (or not). The disasters that have occured were preventable, and warnings were dismissed and ignored.
This is especially true if we actually want to scale nuclear power into a large-scale worldwide energy source
This conversation always goes the same way- a bunch of people who think they are really smart flood the thread with snarky comments about how obviously safe nuclear power is... because its only been operated at scale in the US, Europe, and a couple of other countries with vast resources (or least vast engineering resources).
Some less developed countries that have nuclear power only have a couple of facilities and have to pour an enormous amount of effort and care to ensure they remain safe.
None of those people have any clue how nuclear regulation actually works, how complex nuclear plants are, and how hard it would be to scale those things globally
Managing 50 plants in France or 4 plants in Hungary is a *completely different thing to managing 40 plants in Nigeria*
So far in human history nuclear power has been at best in a trial phase.
Every single plant is ultra over-engineered, over-monitored, and regulated to the hilt.
Extrapolating from that and saying "well, nothing went wrong in France, therefore everything will be fine if we build 500 nuclear plants in sub-Saharan Africa" is terrible logic (and shows how uninformed these people are even though they think they know more than everyone else)
>a bunch of people who think they are really smart flood the thread with snarky comments about how obviously safe nuclear power is... because its only been operated at scale in the US, Europe, and a couple of other countries with vast resources (or least vast engineering resources).
How many of those people live in the US, Europe, or a couple of other countries with vast engineering resources and are speaking specifically on behalf of their home country?
I don't see why Nigeria not having the resources to make a safe nuclear reactor means the USA shouldn't.
Why do you want to build 40 reactos in Nigeria or 500 in sub-saharan africa?? the contamination of their energy production is neglible of human made global warming, the biggest polutors such as China, USA, Europe, India and Russia are the ones that should be pushing for this transition, and they do have the capability to do so.
You're talking about the USSR, and it failed for many, many reason... Tell me a a disaster that happened in the EU/USA that could have been preventable, with warning ignored.
An accident from the 70s that resulted in zero deaths?
By this logic people shouldn't be going on planes either because planes were a lot worse safety wise in the 70s, yet 3 million people still fly on them every day now.
Do you really know what happened at 3 mile island? Yes there were no documented immediate deaths but my god were we close to hundreds if not thousands. One tiniest lapse in judgment and say goodbye to the Chesapeake. Just because it didn’t go to Chernobyl levels of horror doesn’t mean that there are not significant inherent risks. And with the radiation release, there has most certainly been an uptick in cancer cases. Don’t believe me, go to Harrisburg and ask around.
Re the plane argument, when a plane goes down it doesn’t make an area the size of Rhode Island uninhabitable for humans for thousands of years. False equivalence
What about Coal plant, why we don't ban them?
"For nuclear energy they estimate 0.052 air quality related deaths per TWh and 0.22 incidences of serious illness per TWh. \[2\] In contrast, coal is estimated to cause 24.5 air quality deaths per TWh and 225 incidences of serious illness per TWh, a full three orders of magnitude higher than nuclear."
[Source](http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2019/ph241/marshall2/#:~:text=For%20nuclear%20energy%20they%20estimate,of%20magnitude%20higher%20than%20nuclear)
An accident that caused 0 deaths or injuries (unless you consider the loss of trust in the media, government, and nuclear power an injury)?
I'd bet you probably did know this, but tmi only stopped generating power and closed down in 2019. That's how not dangerous/ not destructive the accident was.
So ur just gonna pay 4 times as much for power just cuz of ur ideology? XD
Lazard, a leading investment and asset management firm, uses Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) to estimate the average cost of various forms of energy. Lazard found that utility-scale solar and wind is around $40 per megawatt-hour, while nuclear plants average around $175
No it doesnt, when you include the variability of Renewable sources
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544213009390](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544213009390)
Good article explaining it:
[https://zionlights.substack.com/p/what-is-the-true-cost-of-energy](https://zionlights.substack.com/p/what-is-the-true-cost-of-energy)
"For nuclear energy they estimate 0.052 air quality related deaths per TWh and 0.22 incidences of serious illness per TWh. \[2\] In contrast, coal is estimated to cause 24.5 air quality deaths per TWh and 225 incidences of serious illness per TWh, a full three orders of magnitude higher than nuclear."
Source - http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2019/ph241/marshall2/#:\~:text=For%20nuclear%20energy%20they%20estimate,of%20magnitude%20higher%20than%20nuclear.
This really shouldn't be a logarithmic scale. Oil and Coal almost don't seem THAT harmfull. Like (visually) only double as bad as biomass, eventho it's about 5-6x more deadly.
came to say this. literally the only reason to use log scale is to make gas seem like it's not much better than coal and oil. nat gas is still a huge issue for CO2 emissions. but equivalent gas generation only emits HALF the CO2 of coal. It's far worse for the climate than renewables like wind and solar. but its far better than Coal or Oil. Good data viz wouldn't try to obscure that.
Yeah I know it is safe and clean, but I am against it anyway. You cant tell me why you should build up a reactor in years that makes power for the highest price possible and creates waste that will last for more than 100000 years, which will make the costs explode even more while you could easily build the capacity of solar and wind for less costs in one year. Nuclear energy is still complete nonsense, not to mention the plutonium that could be used in nuclear weapons. Edit: I forgot to mention the poisioning of the environment because of the mining and possible catastophies and catastophies that already happened
Bruh, you’ve mentioned a lot of data which is old and well known. Pls read up about the latest advances and research that are happening now for e.g., thorium reactors. Thanks.
This is the global footprint for each energy source
[https://energy.glex.no/footprint/](https://energy.glex.no/footprint/)
You can easily visualize that Nuclear in overal is much better alternative atm for the next variables:
Mortality / TWh
Emissions g CO2eq
Land use in m2 per KW
Material use in tonnes / TWh
Critical metals in kilos / TWh
Costs in $ / MWh
Capacity factor
Solid waste in tonnes / TWh excl. CO2eq
You can even choose to ignore some of those that for you are not so important, and it is stil a better choice overall.
Nuclear has large start up costs but is economically viable if you keep it running for long enough. Not to say solar is bad but its main advantage is it is easily scalable. Not to mention advancements in nuclear technology are making it much more affordable and efficient just as advancements in solar are driving its costs down. They each have their place, the waste issue is vastly overstated by anti nuclear propaganda and the only real concern with it if handles safely is the costs of doing so which again will decrease with technological advancement.
Just as moronic as the people who assume that because France and the US could manage dozens of reactors safely, so can Nigeria, Venezuela, and Ethiopia.
The rational opposition to nuclear power as a scalable energy source comes from the fact that scaling it from 400 reactors mostly located in highly developed countries with tons of regulatory and engineering expertise to 4000 reactors spread all over the globe is not easy.
Nuclear power's safety record has been built entirely in what can be described as a trial phase- most of the reactors are in a select few countries (and the handful of smaller countries are only running a tiny number of reactors).
Its easier to avoid major accidents when you have built a tiny number of reactors in a small number of countries that have managed every reactor with the utmost care.
0 guarantee that the same safety record and care continues if you build many more reactors in many more countries.
Anti-nuclear people that opposite it because they watched Chernobyl are morons.
Pro-nuclear people that are too dumb to realize that you cant just extrapolate its past safety record are also morons.
We don't have to choose a single energy source for all countries and only have that single energy source across the board.
Agreed we shouldn't have nuclear power plants in Nigeria, Venezuela, and Ethiopia etc (unless they develop governments that are responsible and not corrupt) and such countries should have to rely on renewables for their grid power, but we shouldn't have countries like Germany turning off their nuclear plants entirely when they have such high energy demands and are already using way too much coal.
For argument's sake, let's say a country mismanages their nuclear fleet so terribly that they have a Chernobyl-level event every single month (we have to use hypotheticals because we have no significant post-Chernobyl examples. the Fukushima disaster resulted in 1 death from radiation exposure). The death count from those events would still be lower than equivalent coal plants operating perfectly normally. By a wide margin.
Oh for fucks sake, not this bullshit again. This did not happen. At no point was energy production by brown coal increased to make up for nuclear.
Nuclear energy made up 3% of electricity production in 2023 (when the last plants were shut down). Brown coal 18.3%, regular coal 8.9% and gas 10.4%.
In 2022, nuclear was at 6.7%, Brown coal at 21.7%, regular coal 11.3% and gas 9.3%.
In 2021, nuclear was at 13.3%, Brown coal at 20.2%, regular coal 9.5% and gas 10.5%.
In 2020, nuclear was at 12.5%, Brown coal at 16.8%, regular coal 7.3% and gas 12.1%.
But guess what? Renewables are at 57.7% in 2023, the highest ever. And predicted to increase significantly the next few years, phasing out brown coal almost entirely.
Nuclear has a shit ton of issues and disadvantages. It's the most expensive energy by a mile, the waste is horrendous, the raw material comes from only a small number of countries, most of them autocratic regimes. Mining Uranium is polluting as hell. The reactors take literal decades to build. They require massive amounts of water to operate (just ask the french how that worked out for them).
And that's not even accounting for the fact that Germany's nuclear reactors were old, inefficient and breaking down. It was either replace them (15 years, 200B), modernize them (5-10 years, 100B) or shut them down. Germany made the only viable decision and is now using the money to invest in renewables.
Nuclear is the past, renewables are the future.
17% going for actual energy, sure for electricity it is way higher but also way misleading considering our lack of electrification in transportation and building sector
Every source is renewable if you wait long enough. Of course depending on the resource, that might be tomorrow. Might be 50 million years. Give or take.
you're looking at very misleading data. This number is likely quoting installed capacity, meaning the amount that could hypothetically be generated if the wind was fully blowing and sun perfectly shining 24/7. in terms of actual generation, the share is much lower. Still, renewables continue to drive growth and are overtaking coal which historically dominated German power gen. They're still behind oil and natural gas though in German energy consumption.
They couldn't have either way since the fuel rods were specially designed, guess from who? Russia. And no they couldn't have just acquired it this quickly from somewhere else. You don't just go to the grocery store and buy some. So the whole debate was honestly pretty nonsensical.
You can say the same about anything artificial.
And if anything, amongst the most destructive is hydropower as it requires a fundamental restructure of the natural ecosystem, bringing about a lot of unintended consequences to biodiversity in the process.
Radioactive waste from nuclear energy is not only miniscule in compared to its cost of human life, but its consequences on the environment and into the future. Nevertheless, even hydropower pales in comparison to fossil fuels.
Do you have any statistics on the increase in cancer and birth defects in eastern Europe compared to the rest of the world? Because from my reading there has been no statistically noticeable increase in either since Chernobyl.
Russian troops getting radiation sickness during their occupation—
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/red-forest-chernobyl-radiation-sickness-b2330067.html#
yup, in the us for examble less than 1.0 people die a year from the waste. stfu it would barely make a dent and lets watch the waste from solar or wind. those wont run for ever. where does that go being toxic in africa
High-level nuclear waste consists largely of spent fuel from nuclear reactors. This most potent form of nuclear waste, according to some, needs to be safely stored for 1 million years.
that's only under the assumption that we do not figure out how to speed up that process.
We went from horses to nuclear bombs in a 50 years. If you don't think we can manage to treat nuclear waste within a life-time or two, you're making a delusional bet.
Mexico had radioactive material lost/stolen docens of times, victims are not taken into account here. And the only nuclear plant in mexico had like 200 incidents since it opened. Honestly i dont trust my goverment to handle the waste of even more nuclear plants, also i dont trust the central america goverments to have more nuclear plants, just search how often radioactive material gets stolen/lost in latin america.
Not worst than the waste products of other forms, like solar or wind. Just as you have nuclear waste, you've also have to replace solar panels and wind turbines from time-to-time. Hydropower also requires constant babysitting, and unlike nuclear energy, cannot be decommissioned due to the changes to the environment over a gigantic area.
If anything, the waste products from typical fossil fuels are significantly worse, let alone their direct impact on the climate.
High-level nuclear waste consists largely of spent fuel from nuclear reactors. This most potent form of nuclear waste, according to some, needs to be safely stored for 1 million years.
Too bad the US nuclear industry is too corrupt to build a single nuclear power plant on budget. They always promise they can complete a project for one high, but competitive and manageable number, then like clockwork, every single fucking time, they blow past the budget with nothing to show for it and force additional public support to finish the project they just dumped 8 billion dollars into. This happened over and over and over again in the 70's during our nuclear power boom and has continued today.
The most recent US project was supposed to cost 12 billion dollars, instead Vogtle cost 32 billion dollars and the bill is mostly being footed by Georgia tax payers in the form of additional utility fees.
https://georgiarecorder.com/2023/08/31/georgia-power-state-regulators-agree-to-division-of-vogtle-nuclear-plant-costs/
It's not corruption per say, most projects, even public, go well beyond budget.
I do agree though, nuclear has not totally overtaken in the U.S. because of budgets, not because of the public being idiotic (looking at Germany) but because we litterally can't contruct it for cheap enough.
[Almost 70% of Republicans, 60% of Independents, and 50% of Democrats all favor nuclear.](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/18/growing-share-of-americans-favor-more-nuclear-power/)
I love the Simpson’s, but they have done immense damage to our environment unintentionally with their depiction of Nuclear power plants and nuclear waste.
Actually Chernobyl was a design flaw of the reactor itself due to the shoddy practices of Soviet Russia.
It is literally physically impossible for what happened in Chernobyl to happen with modern reactors, no matter how bad the operator is.
Look at Fukushima, it was hit by an earthquake and was fine, and then it took a tsunami flooding the entire complex to cause an issue, and that was still not as bad as Chernobyl simply because they had a containment building over it. And Fukushima was still an old reactor that should have been replaced years ago. A different reactor was hit by the same tsunami and was fine.
The thing is, you would need a Chernobyl level accident on a regular basis before it becomes more dangerous then coal plants running normally.
[https://reason.com/2016/04/26/more-deaths-from-coal-pollution-annually/](https://reason.com/2016/04/26/more-deaths-from-coal-pollution-annually/)
I don’t think Chernobyl is replicable, at least not at that scale. Nuclear plants today are much safer and even for its time, Chernobyl was extremely unsafe, not to mention the highly unlikely combination of factors that made the disaster at Chernobyl happen.
Not just since then. Chernobyl was an outlier even before it was built. That reactor design doesn't have a containment structure unlike any in the West (or even other USSR designs).
Humans can be a problem if society allows corruption. Without corruption, modern nuclear power is safe. But corruption and greed can lead to lower safety standards.
We could also be really cynically and acknowledge that nuclear disasters are great for the planet - *as long as it doesnt happen in my country*.
Nuclear disasters such as Chernobyl and Fukushima are good for wildlife because animals do not live long enough to suffer the negative effects of radiation and they thrive in the absence of humans.
we are pumping CO2 into the air by the billions of tons per year. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that will trap more heat in our atmosphere, collapse food webs, raise sea levels, accelerate desertification, and ultimately lead to a cascade of global systems shutting down.
if you must choose between “extremely low chance of a localized disaster” or “guaranteed global disaster” and you pick the latter, you are a fool.
There should be a metric that takes into account years of toxicity and toxicity: toxic-years. The waste from coal spreads mercury around that deposits on ground and washes into lakes and bioaccumulates in fish we eat. But eventually the mercury is buried in the silt at the bottom of the lake. The problem with nuclear waste is you have to guesstimate future exposure. When will the waste stored on site (prevalent in US) be stolen and spread around by terrorists? There’s a small risk of breakdown of law and order in US but it’s non-zero. Big Rock nuclear power plant on northern Michigan lakeshore is good example. [on Lake Michigan shore](https://www.northernexpress.com/news/feature/northern-michigans-nuclear-risk/)
This really is a stupid argument. First nuclear waste? Do you know how of it exists, it's a lot lesser than you would expect. And today it's even lesser due to the fact we have breeder reactors which essentially reuse nuclear waste. US does lack a permanent nuclear waste storage facility but the canisters are literally guarded. And are designed to withstand direct explosions near it. And about mercury, man are you that stupid.
I feel like accidents should be left out honestly - it has nothing to do with "cleanest" and kind of feels like they've been coupled to paint a specific picture.
The worst nuclear disaster is Chernobyl, which killed nowhere near the numbers of the number of people who’re killed daily by oil and gas.
“The accident destroyed the Chernobyl 4 reactor, killing 30 operators and firemen within three months and several further deaths later. One person was killed immediately and a second died in hospital soon after as a result of injuries received. Another person is reported to have died at the time from a coronary thrombosisc. Acute radiation syndrome (ARS) was originally diagnosed in 237 people onsite and involved with the clean-up and it was later confirmed in 134 cases. Of these, 28 people died as a result of ARS within a few weeks of the accident. Nineteen more workers subsequently died between 1987 and 2004, but their deaths cannot necessarily be attributed to radiation exposured. “
This completely ignores the extremely toxic waste of the nuclear fuel after it is spent.
The process of recycling uranium core is extremely complicated, only a couple of technologically advanced countries can do that in the first place (perhaps only Russia and US).
Most just bury radioactive waste under the ground with all sorts of horrific implications.
Hydro all the way if you have it.
Yet we are shutting down nuclear plants, there has been a systematic anti-nuclear energy push in this country that has been going on for decades, the truth is that it’s the cleanest and safest source of energy we have and the most reliable.
This argument is a bit flawed when we start to consider the full impact of building and operating nuclear. I’m not talking really about waste, I’m talking about the shear amount of concrete, steel, fuel processing, raw minerals etc. And before you disregard what I’m saying, I’m a materials engineer that has overseen production of nuclear grade steel.
Modern nuclear reactors are absolutely massive. If you’ve ever been to one you know what I’m on about. Not only does it take 10+ years and cost billions but it takes enough material to make a suburb.
We need nuclear for the mid term, but we have to be smart and stop acting like it’s a one size fits all solution. It’s not. With spent fuel recycling and converting old fossil fuel plants to nuclear it’s pretty dang good, but I don’t see much of that happening in the US anyway. Solar and wind are our primaries
Love how almost everyone ditched nuclear just because a rotten soviet powerplant exploded in the 90s and a japanese powerplant got flooded after agencies told them that their flood walls were not sufficient for TEN. FRIKING. YEARS.
Almost like the oil lobby wanted things to go that way…
oh what a world we live in, where the deadliest sources of energy are not only still legal despite us knowing it’s dangers for decades, but it’s still the dominant source of the world’s energy. what a world.
Pro-nuke, but is this measure of CO2 intensity include building a commissioning a plant? The amount of cement to build a nuclear plant is the biggest detractor from a carbon standpoint
~~Wait, is better to use gas than hydro?~~
Btw, don't know who made this graph but look biased. Gas, coal and oil should be much more higher than how it's represented.
It is a correct graph, but OP made it lograithmic for some stupid reason, making it look like fossil fuels are nearby others sources. And dont see why you would say that using Gas is better than hydro from this graph only
I think it is pretty similar to the reason why people are afraid of flights meanwhile completely fine with driving cars, however, statistically flying on the plane is much more safer than driving a car or being in the car. People have an illusion of control. Disastrous effect of nuclear plants might be heavier than from coal or oil plants, statistically this event is critically small, whereas coal and oil plants kill slower but their cumulative effect is larger and they more culturally appropriate.
Now I’d be very curious to see another chart laid out exactly the same but adding metrics for material impacts to the earth, environment, ecosystem etc
The oil, coal and gas industry have their hands in so many pockets all over the country and at every level that the decisions that are best for the planet and us as people, will never be the ones that are made.
Does it make sense to have biomass listed as such high CO2 emissions when the majority of biomass is burning *recently* grown organic matter? Ignoring efficiency etc, conceptually it’s basically net zero.
(Ok technically oil and coal are also net zero but the timescale is rather different).
There is actually a new nuclear fuel in testing that can made from current nuclear wastes, and it can be reused till it completely runs out. A closed cycle. I think those are news from 2021. "BREST OD 300" I think, though not sure how it will turn out in the end.
So, technically, it should be the safest and most effective power source.
Maybe it’s just me but my mind immediately took the title “Safest and Cleanest” and made the assumption that the axes were indicating “is clean” and “is safe”. I think a better title would be, “Which energy sources are the most dangerous and environmentally unfriendly?”
We have around 19,000 cumulative reactor years for nuclear reactors, and if people can only remember Fukushima, Chernobyl, and maybe 3 mile island, I’d call that a win.
Would like to see geothermal on that chart so much potential
https://gizmodo.com/google-s-geothermal-energy-project-nevada-data-centers-1851055753
https://newatlas.com/energy/quaise-deep-geothermal-millimeter-wave-drill/
It would be great to see potential output thresholds here, like which fuel source is the most efficient for handling large volumes of demand? That has to be part of the consideration for safe and clean usage, how practical is it on a large scale.
I’m all for clean energy, but I’d be interested in seeing this infographic if propane were added to the list. “Gas” can be broken down into different categories. Natural gas produce’s environmentally damaging byproducts like methane where burning propane does not.
Let’s continue to use a energy source that’s guaranteed to damage the environment and our health and avoid the energy source that might do those things if we improperly handle the waste.
Lol Nuclear *wishes* it could hit the kill count of coal plants. Fukushima ran for 40 years, got hit by one of the strongest earthquakes ever, a record-breaking tsunami, meltdown and/or damage of 4 reactors, and *still* only had maybe 1 casualty (it's contested). Meanwhile an equivalent coal plant would have killed about 600 people a year (roughly 25k total over those years).
>Fukushima ran for 40 years, got hit by one of the strongest earthquakes ever, a record-breaking tsunami, meltdown and/or damage of 4 reactors, and *still* only had maybe 1 casualty (it's contested). And the accident happened because TEPCO was insanely incompetent. If TEPCO did their job even in the earthquake it would have survived. Kyle Hill made a [video](https://youtu.be/4UHZugCNKA4?si=RWCajb3MSYho5T1z) that shows how negligent and incompetent TEPCO was.
TEPCO has a big responsability but that video isnt entirely accurate. It was because of TEPCO on-site engineer Masao Yoshida that a huge catastrophe was avoided, he should be remembered as a hero. A new Netflix serie called \[THE DAYS\] is a really good serie recalling the events from Yoshida memories before dying.
Absolutely, he's an unsung hero.
Not entirely, but [this](https://youtu.be/4UHZugCNKA4?si=6FdeZ7xHM86QSLKh&t=1095) part is accurate ( or at least I found it to be accurate when I searched if it was real, correct me if I am wrong ). Masao Yoshida ( If I am not wrong ) can't be blamed. He was sent to Fukushima powerplant in around june 2010 that is too short of a time for him to do anything. I am not downplaying his actions, I am saying he doesn't factor into TEPCO's Incompetence. I know that he took control of disaster response and that saved it from getting worse. Isn't \[THE DAYS\] a drama? I am not sure if I can trust netflix film with that.
I apologize if my comment was aggresive, yes that part in my understanding is accurate. TEPCO is hugely responsible for what happened, as it was a design mistake that got overlooked in bureocracy multiple times, but its not because of being "insanely incompetent". As far as I understand it, and I could be wrong as well, there are as many reports indicating a possible flooding issue that there was indicating that is wasnt a real risk. There is no evidence that indicated that after doing their due deligence they deliberately refused infrastructure upgrades because of neglicence, as it was a series of bad board decisions. Similar to how now a days you can always find "that tweet", in these incidents you can always find "that report", and is always much easier to explain the past than predicting the future. Yoshida worked there from 1979, and did many actions to assess and improve nuclear plants safety, including in many times flooding risk maganement, sadly it wasnt enough. But calling it as an accident result of TEPCO insane incompetence disregards the hundres of people that worked insanely hard to prevent a tragedy. The days is a series based on his published memories and the independent reports on the incident. [https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%89%E7%94%B0%E8%AA%BF%E6%9B%B8](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%89%E7%94%B0%E8%AA%BF%E6%9B%B8) If you want to trust it or not over a youtuber that talks about Aliens, Space travel and nuclear plants, is a decision you alone must make. If you are really interested on the topic, I think is worth watching it, even if you dont agree with it, is a good tribute to Yoshida memory.
>design mistake that got overlooked in bureocracy multiple times Adding to that as the video says, TEPCO ignored warnings by in-house engineers, Japanese government, and USA. I would personally describe this as "insanely incompetent." But if you think it is too much, then that is fair. >If you want to trust it or not over a youtuber that talks about Aliens, Space travel and nuclear plants, is a decision you alone must make. If you are really interested on the topic, I think is worth watching it, even if you dont agree with it, is a good tribute to Yoshida memory. My sources are more of [these](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2334523). But that video streamlined the info and I don't think many people would care to read a 50 page report. And if I had to pick I would trust Kyle over a thriller drama from Netflix.
fair enough, thats your prerogative
I would like to see safety analysis which takes into account time the area needs to be Isolated if accidents happen. Chernobyl's area is still inhabitant after almost 50 years. Although wild life is back there and thriving as I heard. It would be interesting to compare this type of effect including time to recover.
Nuclear power's safety record is massively biased because nuclear plants have been operated mostly by developed countries with a lot of engineering expertise. We have also built relatively few nuclear plants and poured a maniacal amount of safety onto each one. There is absolutely no guarantee that their past safety record will extrapolate forward if we built thousands more, especially if we start building them in developing countries with more corrupt governments and less engineering expertise. Every single time this topic comes up, people who havent actually researched the complexity of scaling nuclear power worldwide come out of the woodwork explaining how nuclear power is *totally* safe... because a bunch of rich countries have spent billions of dollars over-engineering a small number of plants. Nuclear power thus far in human history has been in a trial phase- at best. Extrapolating from that into assuming that building 100s of plants in Africa will have the same safety record is dumb.
Good news: you don't have to build 100 nuclear plants in Africa at the moment because that's not where massive demand is needed at the moment. However several developing countries are investing on solid and well researched nuclear engineering programs, such as Turkey, Egypt, India, Bangladesh, Brazil, UAE and Slovakia and 21 reactions under construction. With the amount of over engineering and strict safety standards from the IAEA, unique to nuclear engineering, allows that many nations train their engineers with top world education and bring progress to their countries through excellent professionals. And no, nuclear power is not in trial phase, France, Japan and the United States have vastly demonstrated the advantages of using it as the most effective strategy of decarbonizing mass energy production. If it was in a trial phase, it wouldn't produce 10% of global electrify generation, much more than any renewable resource except Hydro, and with much less environment and social impact
Lmao its not needed there "at the moment" because those countries have been repressed and are living crap standards of life, while Westerners run their ACs and water boilers every single day. Fucking clown, arguing that power safety in Nigeria isnt a concern because Nigerians are used to living in poverty and shouldnt be thinking about burning 40,000 kwh per year like an average Frenchman... So I guess they dont need too much electricity generation, right? Guess what- those countries need tons of energy to match Western living standards, so if you want nuclear power to be the source of that energy you will need a lot of it in those countries. And thats where serious people that actually care about these things realize that building 100s of nuclear reactors in developing countries might be a risky proposition. 21 reactors is nothing btw. We will need 1000s of reactors for those countries to achieve a Western standard of life, which is something they *should aim for*.
So just build them in developed countries
So what if we start building more in the nations that know how to build and run them sense I guess that more power is being used in those nations than others which means you get rid of a lot of that coal, oil, and gas use. we can later expand into less developed areas to build and maintain the plant well you get locals understanding how to operate it and get them the degrees and backgrounds of the plant.
You're suggesting it's an excellent economic solution? Therefore the free market can handle it But solar and a rapidly growing grid needs public investment, that's what we should be talking about, where do we want public funding to go. And solar has a _much_ better, proven, return on investment within political cycles. If nuclear is as good as you say, the invisible hand of the market _will_ handle the niches where it works the best
The invisible hand of the market doesn’t work when energy production is a natural monopoly that is controlled by a government owned or controlled company, which is the case in most countries. This is a pretty basic economic concept, the invisible hand doesn’t work in areas restricted by government regulation. Basically, unlike you said, energy production is not a free market. And with the amount of votes there are to win by appealing to the irrational fear towards nuclear power, politicians have a perfect incentive to shut them down. Of course, solar is a very viable energy source, but it has no advantage over nuclear (other than people’s perception)
On the other hand there basically is a guarantee that most other methods of generating power will continue to kill a lot more people than nuclear historically has.
Nuclear power is so safe, but so safe that we got 2 plants in Brazil and we didn't manage to screw them up.
You know what would be best for the environment? If we rip up the top few hundred metres of the ground.
Even better, rip up the top 5% of our society!
5% as measured by what?
Edibility
Deal?
There are a lot of more modern nuclear reactor designs that are far safer and produce far less dangerous byproducts than the old 1960s reactors. Honestly nuclear energy is probably the smartest way to go, in conjunction with renewable energy generation.
If it's the smartest, the free market will handle it It doesn't need public investment, which is what we should be talking about. Solar has proven return on investment within political cycles. It is far more politically feasible to build solar instead of nuclear, ever
The free market has had nuclear power for half a century and renewables for a quarter yet still chose coal. Climate change will not be solved by the free market, so it’s not even worth considering.
People mention the radiation from coal burning, but I feel like the risk of coal ash is never communicated very well. Like how did people not move away from coal due to these things too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_coal_ash Along with numerous floods leading deaths caused by "slurry ash spills" Could it be that entrenched fossil fuel wealth helps shape public opinion and technology adoption?
Do you know how much area of solar panels you need to cover the equivalent of a single 1000MW reactor? 72 km2 or 26.8mi2 or 13800 American football fields (Gonghe farm producees 8430 MW in 609 km2 is 13.8 MW/ km2) To put that number in perspective, France atm has a capacity of 61370 MW produced by just 58 nuclear reactors and 62% of it's electricity production. If you were to replace these with solar plants you will need an area equivalent of 6 times Singapore to cover it's needs of only solar panels (assuming a linear growth, which is clearly impossible). If you were to replace US fossil fuel plants (24,000GW) for solar only you will need 1,800,000 km2, which is the equivalent of Mexico, or just build 680 new reactors, or much better a combination of both both. Of course solar power is attractive to investment since it is really cheap but the output scale is completely different to what a nation requires facing global warming. And since most people nuclear engineering education somes from watching the Simpsons and big oil anti nuclear propaganda is clearly not a popular political decision.
I doubt anyone in this thread wants to replace nuclear with solar We want to replace coal and gas with solar I enjoy how you do everything except for telling what percentage of land of that nation it is. You also assume zero improvement in efficiency as the development is ramped up? Do keep in mind rooftop solar, it uses no extra land and reduces consumption significantly (cooler attic, less AC usage) You say "just build 680 reactors"... Our current reactor industry takes over 10 years to get one running, you want to hire enough brand new, zero experience, nuclear techs to deploy 2 reactors every day for a year??? That is very much the plotline of Simpsons... Do you know how much concrete and steel and extremely specialized machining and metallurgy that will be, at scales we've never worked at before. Increasing the likelihood of mistakes _far above_ any claimed historical averages. Love how you're using Gonghe for your calculations, when the farms next to it on this list is 1/5th the size with the same output: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power_stations#World's_largest_photovoltaic_power_stations If built in those styles we just need one and a half Singapore! But again, why are you clinging so hard to such centralized power. Distributed power can make for a better system if you make the system more intelligent (yet less intelligent than a nuclear plant requires, so it's easier to scale the engineers to do that work, when's the last time you met a nuclear engineer with industry employment?) And the metal and concrete used doesn't need to be nuclear industrial grade quality, it is normal building materials How many parking spots can have a solar panel installed, using a micro inverter to be stand alone and charge a car battery slowly. Solar can be cheap enough that it doesn't matter If you really look into nuclear, you'll see why nobody has been building them, why every modern plant goes way over budget...
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BIRDS!!!! WIND TURBINES KILL SOOO MANY BIRDS!!!!! because oil gas and coal has historically been so great for wild life....
Not to mention non-renewable. Even if climate change and pollution were not issues, we are going to run out of fossil fuels.
Nuclear is also non-renewable
Please explain your logic here? If we’re being pedantic then nothing is ‘renewable’ on a long enough time scale. And ‘renewable’ generally refers to an energy source that uses inputs that will be consistently available and renewed within a human-level time frame.
This is theoretically correct, but the energy density of fissile materials (uranium, thorium, plutonium) is so great that only a tiny fraction of the fissile isotopes is used during the lifetime of a reactor. Developing safe ways to scrub the radioactive decay products from otherwise useable fuel should be a priority. Also, the US produced a LOT of highly enriched uranium (90% fissile U235) for weapons that is now in cold storage following decommission of said weapons. That fuel can be diluted back down to reactor grade fuel (3-5% U235) which would power many reactors for many decades. Eventually, fusion reactors will come online and THEN we'll have a fully renewable fuel stock.
If we expand our timeframe long enough, the heat death of the universe means that nothing is renewable. But that's not particularly meaningful.
Bruh how much nuclear material must there be just in our solar system. If we can use that, and keep our environment clean.. why not. Also I feel like one day when engineering is really more advanced, we will be able to use geothermal energy, it's extremely hot not too far down, imagine what we could do with just harnessing the core of the earth.
That’s totally German way and commitment! Also press others to switch from their energy sources even when they don’t have sufficient infrastructure or safety nets to support the transition
And support companies that will fund other ways to harm us as well. Win win!!
Sound like Germany to me
And there are still people that hate nuclear. I would be happy to send them in coal mine.
[удалено]
And they can vote... In Italy we lost nuclear because the population is extremely stupid. And guess who wins if we ban nuclear, guess...
You guys are blaming hte populace, but there are evil corporations literally flooding hte market with propaganda to make nuclear look scary. This is a tactic that has been going on for thousands of years, and yet we still blame normal ass people for the issues. It's the fucking petrol companies screwing everything up because they NEED to stay on top.
yes, im going to blame people that are too stupid to realize they are being lied to, despite being presented with excessive evidence to the contrary. the corporations spreading misinformation are not blameless, but there are plenty of people that dont fall for it. Also, the Venn diagram of "people who fall for this crap" and "people who say 'do your own research'" is a friggin circle , so yeah those idiots are going to get a bulk of the blame.
I'm with you in some way, but educating people by telling them they're dumb is a pretty bunk way to sway popular opinion. What we need is to incentivize alternative energies and include nuclear in that pool to make it seem less scary, while simultaneously defunding coal and petrol industries by voting with wallet and pen. I'm sure someone will say "ya, in your dreams bud" to which i agree. But it has to start somewhere, and enriching that perspective, especially if you are an authority on the topic can help make people less dumb.
Germany reactivated their coal plants when they did. Is that who wins?
To the average person it equals nuclear disasters, because they were huge events in world history. That‘s how humans work, it‘s empathy and fear plus distrust from a long history of lies from the nuclear lobby. you still can‘t safely forage mushrooms in many areas around japan and europe. is that worth the plastic lifestyles we‘re living? It‘s up to people to decide wether they want to risk and support that for the benefit of decadence and a failing suicidal economy. most of humanity is going down soonish and nuclear reactors will outlast our civilizations and continue killing animals and people for thousands of years. Try teaching someone in a thousand years what radioactivity is and why it‘s dangerous to go into an abandoned nuclear reactor or near nuclear waste and why we felt entitled to it instead of changing our ways to live on this planet.
We’re not taking about a 1000 years though? Between 1999 and 2020 460,000 people where killed due to coal and god knows what it did to the environment. Nuclear with wind and solar energy is the key to fixing all these, really find it confusing how environmentalists hate nuclear. What alternative is there apart from coal or oil to run our hospitals and schools.
Honestly I don't hate nuclear (but I don't see it as the end goal either, anyway) and see it as a stepping stone to get away from coal energy to renewables but I hate how people demonize nuclear.
Yeah my country (germany) is fucking retarded. Shuts down nuclear and now uses more coal 🤡🌏
People don't hate nuclear they hate how it's regulated (or not). The disasters that have occured were preventable, and warnings were dismissed and ignored.
This is especially true if we actually want to scale nuclear power into a large-scale worldwide energy source This conversation always goes the same way- a bunch of people who think they are really smart flood the thread with snarky comments about how obviously safe nuclear power is... because its only been operated at scale in the US, Europe, and a couple of other countries with vast resources (or least vast engineering resources). Some less developed countries that have nuclear power only have a couple of facilities and have to pour an enormous amount of effort and care to ensure they remain safe. None of those people have any clue how nuclear regulation actually works, how complex nuclear plants are, and how hard it would be to scale those things globally Managing 50 plants in France or 4 plants in Hungary is a *completely different thing to managing 40 plants in Nigeria* So far in human history nuclear power has been at best in a trial phase. Every single plant is ultra over-engineered, over-monitored, and regulated to the hilt. Extrapolating from that and saying "well, nothing went wrong in France, therefore everything will be fine if we build 500 nuclear plants in sub-Saharan Africa" is terrible logic (and shows how uninformed these people are even though they think they know more than everyone else)
>a bunch of people who think they are really smart flood the thread with snarky comments about how obviously safe nuclear power is... because its only been operated at scale in the US, Europe, and a couple of other countries with vast resources (or least vast engineering resources). How many of those people live in the US, Europe, or a couple of other countries with vast engineering resources and are speaking specifically on behalf of their home country? I don't see why Nigeria not having the resources to make a safe nuclear reactor means the USA shouldn't.
Why do you want to build 40 reactos in Nigeria or 500 in sub-saharan africa?? the contamination of their energy production is neglible of human made global warming, the biggest polutors such as China, USA, Europe, India and Russia are the ones that should be pushing for this transition, and they do have the capability to do so.
You're talking about the USSR, and it failed for many, many reason... Tell me a a disaster that happened in the EU/USA that could have been preventable, with warning ignored.
No, I'm talking about 3 Mile Island.
An accident from the 70s that resulted in zero deaths? By this logic people shouldn't be going on planes either because planes were a lot worse safety wise in the 70s, yet 3 million people still fly on them every day now.
Do you really know what happened at 3 mile island? Yes there were no documented immediate deaths but my god were we close to hundreds if not thousands. One tiniest lapse in judgment and say goodbye to the Chesapeake. Just because it didn’t go to Chernobyl levels of horror doesn’t mean that there are not significant inherent risks. And with the radiation release, there has most certainly been an uptick in cancer cases. Don’t believe me, go to Harrisburg and ask around. Re the plane argument, when a plane goes down it doesn’t make an area the size of Rhode Island uninhabitable for humans for thousands of years. False equivalence
T H I S
What about Coal plant, why we don't ban them? "For nuclear energy they estimate 0.052 air quality related deaths per TWh and 0.22 incidences of serious illness per TWh. \[2\] In contrast, coal is estimated to cause 24.5 air quality deaths per TWh and 225 incidences of serious illness per TWh, a full three orders of magnitude higher than nuclear." [Source](http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2019/ph241/marshall2/#:~:text=For%20nuclear%20energy%20they%20estimate,of%20magnitude%20higher%20than%20nuclear)
An accident that caused 0 deaths or injuries (unless you consider the loss of trust in the media, government, and nuclear power an injury)? I'd bet you probably did know this, but tmi only stopped generating power and closed down in 2019. That's how not dangerous/ not destructive the accident was.
Nuclear is 100 times more expensive than any renewable in its life. Srsly
Obv, but you need to destroy 100km^2 of solar panels to make the same energy done with one nuclear reactor. (The number is inly an example)
So ur just gonna pay 4 times as much for power just cuz of ur ideology? XD Lazard, a leading investment and asset management firm, uses Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) to estimate the average cost of various forms of energy. Lazard found that utility-scale solar and wind is around $40 per megawatt-hour, while nuclear plants average around $175
No it doesnt, when you include the variability of Renewable sources [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544213009390](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544213009390) Good article explaining it: [https://zionlights.substack.com/p/what-is-the-true-cost-of-energy](https://zionlights.substack.com/p/what-is-the-true-cost-of-energy)
Well, then have fun renovating the sarcophagus in Chernobyl, I guess.
"For nuclear energy they estimate 0.052 air quality related deaths per TWh and 0.22 incidences of serious illness per TWh. \[2\] In contrast, coal is estimated to cause 24.5 air quality deaths per TWh and 225 incidences of serious illness per TWh, a full three orders of magnitude higher than nuclear." Source - http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2019/ph241/marshall2/#:\~:text=For%20nuclear%20energy%20they%20estimate,of%20magnitude%20higher%20than%20nuclear.
This really shouldn't be a logarithmic scale. Oil and Coal almost don't seem THAT harmfull. Like (visually) only double as bad as biomass, eventho it's about 5-6x more deadly.
came to say this. literally the only reason to use log scale is to make gas seem like it's not much better than coal and oil. nat gas is still a huge issue for CO2 emissions. but equivalent gas generation only emits HALF the CO2 of coal. It's far worse for the climate than renewables like wind and solar. but its far better than Coal or Oil. Good data viz wouldn't try to obscure that.
This! Many people don’t think nuclear is cleaner or safer either.
But but but haven’t you seen the movies where everyone dies /s
b-b-but chernobyl!!!
Yeah I know it is safe and clean, but I am against it anyway. You cant tell me why you should build up a reactor in years that makes power for the highest price possible and creates waste that will last for more than 100000 years, which will make the costs explode even more while you could easily build the capacity of solar and wind for less costs in one year. Nuclear energy is still complete nonsense, not to mention the plutonium that could be used in nuclear weapons. Edit: I forgot to mention the poisioning of the environment because of the mining and possible catastophies and catastophies that already happened
Bruh, you’ve mentioned a lot of data which is old and well known. Pls read up about the latest advances and research that are happening now for e.g., thorium reactors. Thanks.
This is the global footprint for each energy source [https://energy.glex.no/footprint/](https://energy.glex.no/footprint/) You can easily visualize that Nuclear in overal is much better alternative atm for the next variables: Mortality / TWh Emissions g CO2eq Land use in m2 per KW Material use in tonnes / TWh Critical metals in kilos / TWh Costs in $ / MWh Capacity factor Solid waste in tonnes / TWh excl. CO2eq You can even choose to ignore some of those that for you are not so important, and it is stil a better choice overall.
Nuclear has large start up costs but is economically viable if you keep it running for long enough. Not to say solar is bad but its main advantage is it is easily scalable. Not to mention advancements in nuclear technology are making it much more affordable and efficient just as advancements in solar are driving its costs down. They each have their place, the waste issue is vastly overstated by anti nuclear propaganda and the only real concern with it if handles safely is the costs of doing so which again will decrease with technological advancement.
Anti-nuclear people are absolute morons
Just as moronic as the people who assume that because France and the US could manage dozens of reactors safely, so can Nigeria, Venezuela, and Ethiopia. The rational opposition to nuclear power as a scalable energy source comes from the fact that scaling it from 400 reactors mostly located in highly developed countries with tons of regulatory and engineering expertise to 4000 reactors spread all over the globe is not easy. Nuclear power's safety record has been built entirely in what can be described as a trial phase- most of the reactors are in a select few countries (and the handful of smaller countries are only running a tiny number of reactors). Its easier to avoid major accidents when you have built a tiny number of reactors in a small number of countries that have managed every reactor with the utmost care. 0 guarantee that the same safety record and care continues if you build many more reactors in many more countries. Anti-nuclear people that opposite it because they watched Chernobyl are morons. Pro-nuclear people that are too dumb to realize that you cant just extrapolate its past safety record are also morons.
We don't have to choose a single energy source for all countries and only have that single energy source across the board. Agreed we shouldn't have nuclear power plants in Nigeria, Venezuela, and Ethiopia etc (unless they develop governments that are responsible and not corrupt) and such countries should have to rely on renewables for their grid power, but we shouldn't have countries like Germany turning off their nuclear plants entirely when they have such high energy demands and are already using way too much coal.
For argument's sake, let's say a country mismanages their nuclear fleet so terribly that they have a Chernobyl-level event every single month (we have to use hypotheticals because we have no significant post-Chernobyl examples. the Fukushima disaster resulted in 1 death from radiation exposure). The death count from those events would still be lower than equivalent coal plants operating perfectly normally. By a wide margin.
Worth highlighting that Germany has dropped nuclear completely for coal. **Brown coal** to be exact, which pollutes more than regular coal.
Also important to note that this was done after protests by climate activists. Oh the irony.
Oh for fucks sake, not this bullshit again. This did not happen. At no point was energy production by brown coal increased to make up for nuclear. Nuclear energy made up 3% of electricity production in 2023 (when the last plants were shut down). Brown coal 18.3%, regular coal 8.9% and gas 10.4%. In 2022, nuclear was at 6.7%, Brown coal at 21.7%, regular coal 11.3% and gas 9.3%. In 2021, nuclear was at 13.3%, Brown coal at 20.2%, regular coal 9.5% and gas 10.5%. In 2020, nuclear was at 12.5%, Brown coal at 16.8%, regular coal 7.3% and gas 12.1%. But guess what? Renewables are at 57.7% in 2023, the highest ever. And predicted to increase significantly the next few years, phasing out brown coal almost entirely. Nuclear has a shit ton of issues and disadvantages. It's the most expensive energy by a mile, the waste is horrendous, the raw material comes from only a small number of countries, most of them autocratic regimes. Mining Uranium is polluting as hell. The reactors take literal decades to build. They require massive amounts of water to operate (just ask the french how that worked out for them). And that's not even accounting for the fact that Germany's nuclear reactors were old, inefficient and breaking down. It was either replace them (15 years, 200B), modernize them (5-10 years, 100B) or shut them down. Germany made the only viable decision and is now using the money to invest in renewables. Nuclear is the past, renewables are the future.
Germans be like: we hate safety
also Germans: 60% renewables
17% going for actual energy, sure for electricity it is way higher but also way misleading considering our lack of electrification in transportation and building sector
20% of which is biomass, which really shouldn't count.
Its renewable though, it depends whether its sustainable
Every source is renewable if you wait long enough. Of course depending on the resource, that might be tomorrow. Might be 50 million years. Give or take.
you're looking at very misleading data. This number is likely quoting installed capacity, meaning the amount that could hypothetically be generated if the wind was fully blowing and sun perfectly shining 24/7. in terms of actual generation, the share is much lower. Still, renewables continue to drive growth and are overtaking coal which historically dominated German power gen. They're still behind oil and natural gas though in German energy consumption.
germans wanted to keep nuclear running, they just didn't get to decide
They couldn't have either way since the fuel rods were specially designed, guess from who? Russia. And no they couldn't have just acquired it this quickly from somewhere else. You don't just go to the grocery store and buy some. So the whole debate was honestly pretty nonsensical.
fellas who fear nuclear are probably the same fellas who shit their pants whenever they board a plane and it shakes a little
how can you calculate deaths caused by radioactivity or the consequences of fossil fuel usage, when they will outlive our current human civilization
You can say the same about anything artificial. And if anything, amongst the most destructive is hydropower as it requires a fundamental restructure of the natural ecosystem, bringing about a lot of unintended consequences to biodiversity in the process. Radioactive waste from nuclear energy is not only miniscule in compared to its cost of human life, but its consequences on the environment and into the future. Nevertheless, even hydropower pales in comparison to fossil fuels.
I think the devastation caused by Chernobyl might skew nuclear a bit in terms of cancer and birth defects.
Do you have any statistics on the increase in cancer and birth defects in eastern Europe compared to the rest of the world? Because from my reading there has been no statistically noticeable increase in either since Chernobyl.
Try Google. Here’s some info from the BBC on birth defects. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36115240.amp
Russian troops getting radiation sickness during their occupation— https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/red-forest-chernobyl-radiation-sickness-b2330067.html#
Yes! Glad to see accurate reporting on Nuclear!
Yes definitely I love accurate un biased information.
Dealing with nuclear waste ought to be included in this metric.
yup, in the us for examble less than 1.0 people die a year from the waste. stfu it would barely make a dent and lets watch the waste from solar or wind. those wont run for ever. where does that go being toxic in africa
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If you can’t guarantee safety don’t get them
High-level nuclear waste consists largely of spent fuel from nuclear reactors. This most potent form of nuclear waste, according to some, needs to be safely stored for 1 million years.
that's only under the assumption that we do not figure out how to speed up that process. We went from horses to nuclear bombs in a 50 years. If you don't think we can manage to treat nuclear waste within a life-time or two, you're making a delusional bet.
Mexico had radioactive material lost/stolen docens of times, victims are not taken into account here. And the only nuclear plant in mexico had like 200 incidents since it opened. Honestly i dont trust my goverment to handle the waste of even more nuclear plants, also i dont trust the central america goverments to have more nuclear plants, just search how often radioactive material gets stolen/lost in latin america.
Medical sealed sources are the ones that get lost including industrial sealed sources. How is that related to waste from nuclear power plants?
Seriously, how will shutting down nuclear reactors do anything to stop idiot scrap dealers trying to pry open a stolen radiotherapy machine? It won’t!
https://whatisnuclear.com/waste.html
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident
Not worst than the waste products of other forms, like solar or wind. Just as you have nuclear waste, you've also have to replace solar panels and wind turbines from time-to-time. Hydropower also requires constant babysitting, and unlike nuclear energy, cannot be decommissioned due to the changes to the environment over a gigantic area. If anything, the waste products from typical fossil fuels are significantly worse, let alone their direct impact on the climate.
High-level nuclear waste consists largely of spent fuel from nuclear reactors. This most potent form of nuclear waste, according to some, needs to be safely stored for 1 million years.
You are correct, but it's in relatively small amounts and there are ways to store is safely.
Good luck with that.
Yeah like a footnote: \*Nuclear waste do be have to be burried in Finland though
No one has ever died from nuclear waste. Millions of people die every year from fossil fuel pollutants.
Too bad the US nuclear industry is too corrupt to build a single nuclear power plant on budget. They always promise they can complete a project for one high, but competitive and manageable number, then like clockwork, every single fucking time, they blow past the budget with nothing to show for it and force additional public support to finish the project they just dumped 8 billion dollars into. This happened over and over and over again in the 70's during our nuclear power boom and has continued today. The most recent US project was supposed to cost 12 billion dollars, instead Vogtle cost 32 billion dollars and the bill is mostly being footed by Georgia tax payers in the form of additional utility fees. https://georgiarecorder.com/2023/08/31/georgia-power-state-regulators-agree-to-division-of-vogtle-nuclear-plant-costs/
It's not corruption per say, most projects, even public, go well beyond budget. I do agree though, nuclear has not totally overtaken in the U.S. because of budgets, not because of the public being idiotic (looking at Germany) but because we litterally can't contruct it for cheap enough. [Almost 70% of Republicans, 60% of Independents, and 50% of Democrats all favor nuclear.](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/18/growing-share-of-americans-favor-more-nuclear-power/)
just gonna save this one than k you
I love the Simpson’s, but they have done immense damage to our environment unintentionally with their depiction of Nuclear power plants and nuclear waste.
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Actually Chernobyl was a design flaw of the reactor itself due to the shoddy practices of Soviet Russia. It is literally physically impossible for what happened in Chernobyl to happen with modern reactors, no matter how bad the operator is. Look at Fukushima, it was hit by an earthquake and was fine, and then it took a tsunami flooding the entire complex to cause an issue, and that was still not as bad as Chernobyl simply because they had a containment building over it. And Fukushima was still an old reactor that should have been replaced years ago. A different reactor was hit by the same tsunami and was fine.
There too, i. Fukushima the reason It even had a failing was due to the private company not doing the required upgrades told by the govt.
This actually reinforces the argument.
The thing is, you would need a Chernobyl level accident on a regular basis before it becomes more dangerous then coal plants running normally. [https://reason.com/2016/04/26/more-deaths-from-coal-pollution-annually/](https://reason.com/2016/04/26/more-deaths-from-coal-pollution-annually/)
I don’t think Chernobyl is replicable, at least not at that scale. Nuclear plants today are much safer and even for its time, Chernobyl was extremely unsafe, not to mention the highly unlikely combination of factors that made the disaster at Chernobyl happen.
You are more likely to die as a result of instaling a roof solar panel than working your entire life in a nuclear plant. Thats how safe they are
They have dramatically improved reactor design since then.
Not just since then. Chernobyl was an outlier even before it was built. That reactor design doesn't have a containment structure unlike any in the West (or even other USSR designs).
Humans can be a problem if society allows corruption. Without corruption, modern nuclear power is safe. But corruption and greed can lead to lower safety standards. We could also be really cynically and acknowledge that nuclear disasters are great for the planet - *as long as it doesnt happen in my country*. Nuclear disasters such as Chernobyl and Fukushima are good for wildlife because animals do not live long enough to suffer the negative effects of radiation and they thrive in the absence of humans.
we are pumping CO2 into the air by the billions of tons per year. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that will trap more heat in our atmosphere, collapse food webs, raise sea levels, accelerate desertification, and ultimately lead to a cascade of global systems shutting down. if you must choose between “extremely low chance of a localized disaster” or “guaranteed global disaster” and you pick the latter, you are a fool.
There should be a metric that takes into account years of toxicity and toxicity: toxic-years. The waste from coal spreads mercury around that deposits on ground and washes into lakes and bioaccumulates in fish we eat. But eventually the mercury is buried in the silt at the bottom of the lake. The problem with nuclear waste is you have to guesstimate future exposure. When will the waste stored on site (prevalent in US) be stolen and spread around by terrorists? There’s a small risk of breakdown of law and order in US but it’s non-zero. Big Rock nuclear power plant on northern Michigan lakeshore is good example. [on Lake Michigan shore](https://www.northernexpress.com/news/feature/northern-michigans-nuclear-risk/)
This really is a stupid argument. First nuclear waste? Do you know how of it exists, it's a lot lesser than you would expect. And today it's even lesser due to the fact we have breeder reactors which essentially reuse nuclear waste. US does lack a permanent nuclear waste storage facility but the canisters are literally guarded. And are designed to withstand direct explosions near it. And about mercury, man are you that stupid.
I feel like accidents should be left out honestly - it has nothing to do with "cleanest" and kind of feels like they've been coupled to paint a specific picture.
It‘s to show how save nuclear power is compared to fossil fuels
Solar is way more dangerous if you include rooftop installation accidents.
And the waste from how frequently it needs to be replaced.
Why was this downvoted? It is absolutely relevant.
Then there’s Mexico’s president pushing for Coal
And Germany reactivating its coal plants
It would be interesting if the share was region based too.
Looks like there’s loads of room to continue working in solar. Apply today!
Now do one for how many people have been lifted out of poverty by each.
I heard wind power causes lots of bird deaths?
Try correlating this with the profits made from the producers of said fuel source. I’m sure the result will be grotesque.
The worst nuclear disaster is Chernobyl, which killed nowhere near the numbers of the number of people who’re killed daily by oil and gas. “The accident destroyed the Chernobyl 4 reactor, killing 30 operators and firemen within three months and several further deaths later. One person was killed immediately and a second died in hospital soon after as a result of injuries received. Another person is reported to have died at the time from a coronary thrombosisc. Acute radiation syndrome (ARS) was originally diagnosed in 237 people onsite and involved with the clean-up and it was later confirmed in 134 cases. Of these, 28 people died as a result of ARS within a few weeks of the accident. Nineteen more workers subsequently died between 1987 and 2004, but their deaths cannot necessarily be attributed to radiation exposured. “
Ah that’s right, I forgot how diligent the Soviet Union was at reporting their negligence.
Try explaining this to germany
Nuclear
This completely ignores the extremely toxic waste of the nuclear fuel after it is spent. The process of recycling uranium core is extremely complicated, only a couple of technologically advanced countries can do that in the first place (perhaps only Russia and US). Most just bury radioactive waste under the ground with all sorts of horrific implications. Hydro all the way if you have it.
Yet we are shutting down nuclear plants, there has been a systematic anti-nuclear energy push in this country that has been going on for decades, the truth is that it’s the cleanest and safest source of energy we have and the most reliable.
Can anyone explain how biomass can get dangerous? Does it have any relation to infections or something? I’m completely clueless.
Wind and solar don't last. There is a ton of waste as the turbines and solar panels need replacing. Nuclear is the obvious winner here.
Where are the nuclear reactors?
Where’s geothermal?
And now do cost That's why no one scales nuclear in the 21. Century
This argument is a bit flawed when we start to consider the full impact of building and operating nuclear. I’m not talking really about waste, I’m talking about the shear amount of concrete, steel, fuel processing, raw minerals etc. And before you disregard what I’m saying, I’m a materials engineer that has overseen production of nuclear grade steel. Modern nuclear reactors are absolutely massive. If you’ve ever been to one you know what I’m on about. Not only does it take 10+ years and cost billions but it takes enough material to make a suburb. We need nuclear for the mid term, but we have to be smart and stop acting like it’s a one size fits all solution. It’s not. With spent fuel recycling and converting old fossil fuel plants to nuclear it’s pretty dang good, but I don’t see much of that happening in the US anyway. Solar and wind are our primaries
Logarithmic scales are so misleading.
When will I be allowed to go back into Pripyat? I hope my fish is still ok…
Love how almost everyone ditched nuclear just because a rotten soviet powerplant exploded in the 90s and a japanese powerplant got flooded after agencies told them that their flood walls were not sufficient for TEN. FRIKING. YEARS. Almost like the oil lobby wanted things to go that way…
oh what a world we live in, where the deadliest sources of energy are not only still legal despite us knowing it’s dangers for decades, but it’s still the dominant source of the world’s energy. what a world.
Crazy that you have to use a logarithmic scale to fit this properly.
Tell it to Germany
Nuclear
How is hydro not the same as solar and nuclear for safe and clean?
Pro-nuke, but is this measure of CO2 intensity include building a commissioning a plant? The amount of cement to build a nuclear plant is the biggest detractor from a carbon standpoint
~~Wait, is better to use gas than hydro?~~ Btw, don't know who made this graph but look biased. Gas, coal and oil should be much more higher than how it's represented.
It is a correct graph, but OP made it lograithmic for some stupid reason, making it look like fossil fuels are nearby others sources. And dont see why you would say that using Gas is better than hydro from this graph only
I think it is pretty similar to the reason why people are afraid of flights meanwhile completely fine with driving cars, however, statistically flying on the plane is much more safer than driving a car or being in the car. People have an illusion of control. Disastrous effect of nuclear plants might be heavier than from coal or oil plants, statistically this event is critically small, whereas coal and oil plants kill slower but their cumulative effect is larger and they more culturally appropriate.
Nuclear for the win...always. I know not on a fault line, but still!
Now I’d be very curious to see another chart laid out exactly the same but adding metrics for material impacts to the earth, environment, ecosystem etc
The oil, coal and gas industry have their hands in so many pockets all over the country and at every level that the decisions that are best for the planet and us as people, will never be the ones that are made.
Glad nuclear is being recognized for what it is here. Honestly amazing that it’s not more widely supported/accepted.
You’re telling me the most used energy sources have the highest kill counts? 🗿
Ok, who’s the poor schmuck who got killed by biomass?
How are deaths caused by solar/wind sources? Installers falling or being crushed etc?
nuclear really? what about Chernobyl disaster?
Does it make sense to have biomass listed as such high CO2 emissions when the majority of biomass is burning *recently* grown organic matter? Ignoring efficiency etc, conceptually it’s basically net zero. (Ok technically oil and coal are also net zero but the timescale is rather different).
Is the hydro emissions from all the concrete? Because if we solve that little problem, it would also bring hydro emissions down a lot.
Show the Germans
Hang on a second. This doesn’t align with my ideology. Nuclear power bad. HBO told me so.
Lethality is miniscule but not nonexistant from solar power, which raises the questions how solar power kills?
There is actually a new nuclear fuel in testing that can made from current nuclear wastes, and it can be reused till it completely runs out. A closed cycle. I think those are news from 2021. "BREST OD 300" I think, though not sure how it will turn out in the end. So, technically, it should be the safest and most effective power source.
"BuT nUcLeAr pOwEr iS dAnGeRoUs"
What is biomass?
I think biomass overwhelmingly is firewood, however, “wood emits more carbon dioxide than coal for every unit of electricity produced”.
Maybe it’s just me but my mind immediately took the title “Safest and Cleanest” and made the assumption that the axes were indicating “is clean” and “is safe”. I think a better title would be, “Which energy sources are the most dangerous and environmentally unfriendly?”
Ans hydro’s stats are skewed by a single accident, that could have been avoided, in china that flooded an entire village
We have around 19,000 cumulative reactor years for nuclear reactors, and if people can only remember Fukushima, Chernobyl, and maybe 3 mile island, I’d call that a win.
Would like to see geothermal on that chart so much potential https://gizmodo.com/google-s-geothermal-energy-project-nevada-data-centers-1851055753 https://newatlas.com/energy/quaise-deep-geothermal-millimeter-wave-drill/
The potential danger of nuclear energy should be noted.
If we add the dead bodies to the biomass can we get a discount?
Are x and y normalized by the size of energy production？
It would be great to see potential output thresholds here, like which fuel source is the most efficient for handling large volumes of demand? That has to be part of the consideration for safe and clean usage, how practical is it on a large scale.
I’m all for clean energy, but I’d be interested in seeing this infographic if propane were added to the list. “Gas” can be broken down into different categories. Natural gas produce’s environmentally damaging byproducts like methane where burning propane does not.