Why are people so anti-nuclear power?

[Wildtree]

Really? Here in Sweden:

However, according to experts the risk for consumers of being exposed to harmful levels of radiation from eating elk, or picking mushrooms or berries in the Swedish forests, is low. Only one percent of radioactive substances most Swedes end up being exposed to in a year can be traced back to Chernobyl.

"If you pick berries and mushrooms and live in these fallout areas, there's still no risk," said Kettil Svensson, toxicologist at Sweden's Food Agency (Livsmedelsverket).

I think you can eat about a couple pounds of mushrooms to be 100% save, in G.

[XDurionX]

I can and I will. It's like the fear of flight. It's irrational. There are higher chances to die on your way to the airport than in the plane crash. But it's the plane crash everyone fears.

People die. A tsunami took thousands. What is a possibility of hundreds dying in the future due to radiation induced cancer? Nothing. Especially when we are really close to curing all the cancers.

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Are you? Fukishima took no lives. Administrative failures caused deaths during the evacuation. Tsunami took plenty of lives. Possible future deaths are irrelevant.

Even if you attribute ALL the deaths to administrative failures, those are the direct consequence of the incident. And possible future deaths may be irrelevant to you, but it's certainly not irrelevant to the victims and their families. The claim that Fukushima caused no deaths is objectively wrong and falsifyable. Your hypothesis that a perfect evacuation wouldn't have caused any deaths is not provable and thus unscientific. Deaths by radiation will ramp up in the future, though.

[OniHouse]

As i said, wake me up once it's running. And running on an industrial scale. New tech can be evaluated. Nuclear power as it is now is not an option.

The problem is that this future tech is hard to actually be realized when its stopped and delayed massively by popular opinion based on old tech. As for now green energy isn't an option for full scale use as sole source of power either, partially due to the fact that we do not posses the means to store sufficient amounts of energy, for a viable cost, in periods of significantly lower power generation.

Also if you could link a source as to why Yucca Mountain isn't a better storage place then the currently being used places that would be great because the lengthy 781-page study conducted by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission concludes that "the Yucca Mountain site would effectively be able to limit the amount of radiation escaping into surrounding air and groundwater while meeting appropriate standards for local population health. Additionally, nuclear waste in the U.S. is currently sitting at scattered storage facilities across the nation, but the need for a consolidated long-term solution is still needed."

I never said Yucca is a permanent solution nor do I think that we should be building antiquated nuclear power plants but progress in the entire field was held back for quite a while due to popular opinion and the more recent designs show a lot of promise that should in my opinion be encouraged.

[Elim Garak]

A Tsunami took the lives of a number of people.. That's tragic, but that was the end of that show..
The fallout from a nuclear disaster however can claim the lives of even more people, for an extended number of time. Even hundreds of years.
That's the difference.

The projected possible future deaths are less than a quarter of a thousand (singular). What are we doing to prevent Tsunamis or reduce the death tolls of future Tsunamis? Interfering with the Earth's circulatory system, eh?

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Even if you attribute ALL the deaths to administrative failures, those are the direct consequence of the incident.

Pff, that's like saying that people die due to big bang. Everything is connected one way or another. The universe consists of cause-effect links. Stop it, just.

[Deleted]

Do they still pump waste into the sea because a pipe is deemed "land based disposal"? I've seen a documentary about Sellafield years ago, don't know whether that still holds true.

Yes they still dump into the sea within a certain so called safe limit also the place is a sieve leaking from every where, You wouldn't want to go for a swim around here put it that way, But people seem oblivious to it they swim eat local fish etc it's madness.

I agree that while in use nuclear energy is clean but places like Sellafield are the result of that so called clean energy.

[Wildtree]

The projected possible future deaths are less than a quarter of a thousand (singular). What are we doing to prevent Tsunamis or reduce the death tolls of future Tsunamis? Interfering with the Earth's circulatory system, eh

You really wanna move the goal posts.
You're fucked, and you know it.
You can masturbate over your love for nuclear power, it won't stick around. It will be replaced since other methods are safer and more efficient.
And if you're so concerned about Tsunamis. A power plant that blows up can cause one too. Just requires the right catastrophe and off the wave goes. A lot of nuclear power plants sit along ocean coasts.

[Biomega]

A Tsunami took the lives of a number of people.. That's tragic, but that was the end of that show..
The fallout from a nuclear disaster however can claim the lives of even more people, for an extended number of time. Even hundreds of years.
That's the difference.

If you're going into the abstract, let's talk about the repercussions of burning fossil fuels, shall we? Coal, oil, and gas are all MAGNITUDES more devastating in the long run than nuclear energy considering global warming etc. You know how many deaths there have been from radiation as a result of spent nuclear fuel storage? Zero. Do you know how many people died as a result of criticality accidents since 1945? Twenty-one. In the entire world. In over 70 years. Nuclear power is RIDICULOUSLY safe compared to most conventional forms of power generation.

That being said, renewable energy is still better, of course. Solar power, wind power, hydroelectric energy generation, tidal power... all are cleaner and safer, for the most part. BUT they're also a lot more inefficient and more expensive. People often tout countries like Norway which basically generates its entire power through hydropower - which is great for a country where that actually works. But Norway has barely over 5 million people and is one of the least densely populated countries int he world. The principles put in place there don't scale well, and are virtually impossible to just carbon copy over for some of the great population centers like e.g. the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolitan area, which is probably the single densest nexus of power consumption on the planet.

Nuclear power remains the best option to meet our energy demands in the foreseeable future. Long term, it could be phased out in favor of even cleaner, even more sustainable alternatives as they become available. But for now, it's ludicrous and irresponsible to just categorically exclude nuclear power, ESPECIALLY if it's replaced with fossil fuels.

[XDurionX]

The problem is that this future tech is hard to actually be realized when its stopped and delayed massively by popular opinion based on old tech. As for now green energy isn't an option for full scale use as sole source of power either, partially due to the fact that we do not posses the means to store sufficient amounts of energy, for a viable cost, in periods of significantly lower power generation.

Also if you could link a source as to why Yucca Mountain isn't a better storage place then the currently being used places that would be great because the lengthy 781-page study conducted by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission concludes that "the Yucca Mountain site would effectively be able to limit the amount of radiation escaping into surrounding air and groundwater while meeting appropriate standards for local population health. Additionally, nuclear waste in the U.S. is currently sitting at scattered storage facilities across the nation, but the need for a consolidated long-term solution is still needed."

I never said Yucca is a permanent solution nor do I think that we should be building antiquated nuclear power plants but progress in the entire field was held back for quite a while due to popular opinion and the more recent designs show a lot of promise that should in my opinion be encouraged.

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/uncertainty-underground

Maybe you never said that Yucca Mountain is a permanent solution, but that is exactly what we need and don't have. And we won't have one, ever.

Yes they still dump into the sea within a certain so called safe limit also the place is a sieve leaking from every where, You wouldn't want to go for a swim around here put it that way, But people seem oblivious to it they swim eat local fish etc it's madness.

I agree that while in use nuclear energy is clean but places like Sellafield are the result of that so called clean energy.

That sounds pretty scary. May i ask how the british public's stance on nuclear is? Haven't read about that in a while.

Pff, that's like saying that people die due to big bang. Everything is connected one way or another. The universe consists of cause-effect links. Stop it, just.

Wow, now you seem desperate. Now we're reaching, aren't we?

[Aggrophobic]

Fukushima incident took no lives. A tsunami that caused it took 15k lives. Administrative failures during evacuation took 1.5k lives.

No, it did not. But it could very well have.

[Jshadowhunter]

Why?

2 words:

Chernobyl, Fukushima.
/thread

[Difuid]

Right... with only the minor problem of reactive nuclear waste for 100 thousand years or so....

Watch this and learn something:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=AAFWeIp8JT0

Reactors could be a lot more efficient, even technically use the depleted fuel cells of the current plants.

[Zan15]

It doesn't matter what actually happened, fact is it showed what COULD happen when things go wrong. Also, Fukushima showed another case of why it's such an issue. When that wind turbine falls in a desolate wind farm nothing happens, but when a nuclear plant goes down it has ramifications for decades.

In the end it's about if the benefits outweigh the risks, and many wouldn't take the risks when something like Chernobyl happens again.

When a oil processing plant explodes.....what HAS happened?


When a damn fails?
one disaster in which Typhoon Nina in 1975 washed out the Shimantan Dam (Henan Province, China) and 171,000 people perished

The Banqiao Dam flooded in the Henan Province of China due to heavy rains and poor construction quality of the dam, which was built during Great Leap Forward. The flood immediately killed over 100,000 people, and another 150,000 died of subsequent epidemic diseases and famine, bringing the total death toll to around 250,000—making it the worst technical disaster ever. In addition, about 5,960,000 buildings collapsed, and 11 million residents were made homeless.


When pipelines explode

With 1,082 deaths attributed to the blast, the 1998 Jesse explosion has the distinction of being the most deadly pipeline explosio


When coal...well is coal....Coal mining accidents resulted in 5,938 immediate deaths in 2005, and 4746 immediate deaths in 2006 in China alone... A coal-dust explosion at Benxihu Colliery in Japanese occupied China killed 1,549 making it the worst disaster in the history of coal mining superseding the 1,099 death toll of the Courrières mine disaster


or how about long term disasters caused like Chernobyl ?? The Centralia, Pennsylvania coal mine fire began, causing the destruction of a highway and forcing the gradual evacuation of the Centralia borough, it is now a ghost town. The fire continues to burn in the abandoned borough.



oil
Piper Alpha disaster. An explosion and resulting fire on a North Sea oil production platform kills 167 men.

1992 Guadalajara explosions in the downtown district of Analco Mexico. Numerous gasoline explosions in the sewer system over four hours destroyed 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) of streets.[25] According to the Lloyd's of London accounting firm, 252 people were killed, nearly 500 injured and 15,000 were left homeles

: The road Ibadan tanker truck explosion kills 100–200 when the petrol/gasoline tanker collides with a traffic jam and bursts into flames.

[Wikiy]

Here's a view from an actual physicist. Let me let you in on something. Fission reactors aren't a thing anymore. When they're built, they're mostly built on decades-old-designs updated to some degree to be more acceptable or efficient by today's standards, but it's still the technology of the 50s and 60s. We in physics don't take baby-step advances, we take leaps. That's why a very large portion of the nuclear branch of physics is focused on realizing the nuclear fusion reactor. And pretty much everyone is sure that this will be done commercially by 2050s-2060s. The problem (in the context of the OP's question) then becomes the fact that people are gonna be suspicious and aggressive towards nuclear fusion even though nuclear fusion reactors have no inherent danger to them. Other than some danger to the staff (that exists in any mechanized facility), there is none other.

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I have no problem with Nuclear Power as long as the plant is 1000 miles away from where I live.

You're an ignoramus.

[Laqweeta]

Did Chernobyl never happen or o.o

Too much risk. Big reward yes, but too much risk.

[Aggrophobic]

You guys have honestly been infected with nuclear waste hysteria. Please do yourselves a favor and read something about how it actually works. Also, byproducts from solar and others are actual concerns as well. http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter11.html



But there is no big risk, that's the misconception. It is so much safer than every other form of power generation, even when you include things like Fukushima and Chernobyl. If you go by just the track record of the US, it is not even comparable; it is orders of magnitude safer than everything else including renewables.

Oh, but I do know what I'm talking about here.
If you do have a solution for this issue that can be applied everywhere then do tell. It would probably make you rich.

The source is somewhat biased by the way. I'm sure there are some good stuff in there but you should probably read more than one book in your life.

[Wikiy]

2 words:

Chernobyl, Fukushima.
/thread

How many people died from that? Like, less than 100? How much energy have we gotten from the hundreds of nuclear reactors that have been built? Whatever the actual number is, I'm pretty sure it was worth it.

Meanwhile, literally 1.25 million people die from cars every year. I highly doubt you're not driving around in cars. That makes you a hypocrite.

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Thanks for your elaborate insight.

Just refer to my above post.

[snplisk]

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/uncertainty-underground

Maybe you never said that Yucca Mountain is a permanent solution, but that is exactly what we need and don't have. And we won't have one, ever.

No such thing as a permanent solution to anything, expecting as such here is just an absurdity. The amount of nuclear waste a reactor produces is incredibly small in comparison to amounts of waste in other industries. You build a repository at Yucca mountain, it lasts a long time. You build another somewhere else, it also lasts a long time. There are also uses for the waste material. Storing nuclear waste is not a big problem right now and will only get easier as time goes on.

[Wildtree]

If you're going into the abstract, let's talk about the repercussions of burning fossil fuels, shall we? Coal, oil, and gas are all MAGNITUDES more devastating in the long run than nuclear energy considering global warming etc. You know how many deaths there have been from radiation as a result of spent nuclear fuel storage? Zero. Do you know how many people died as a result of criticality accidents since 1945? Twenty-one. In the entire world. In over 70 years. Nuclear power is RIDICULOUSLY safe compared to most conventional forms of power generation.

No one here argued so far for the use of coal, oil, gas..
I wouldn't be surprised if someone popped in and would argue.
And yeah, the safety of nuclear power vs those other conventional methods is known and well understood.

That being said, renewable energy is still better, of course. Solar power, wind power, hydroelectric energy generation, tidal power... all are cleaner and safer, for the most part. BUT they're also a lot more inefficient and more expensive.

They were more expensive.
Costs decline.. U know.. Expenses are a moving figure not a static one. Otherwise nuclear energy wouldn't be affordable either. It was horrendously expensive at first, because of the start up investment into the infrastructure. And the same is true for the renewable and alternative energy sources.

People often tout countries like Norway which basically generates its entire power through hydropower - which is great for a country where that actually works. But Norway has barely over 5 million people and is one of the least densely populated countries int he world.
The principles put in place there don't scale well, and are virtually impossible to just carbon copy over for some of the great population centers like e.g. the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolitan area, which is probably the single densest nexus of power consumption on the planet.

Nuclear power remains the best option to meet our energy demands in the foreseeable future. Long term, it could be phased out in favor of even cleaner, even more sustainable alternatives as they become available. But for now, it's ludicrous and irresponsible to just categorically exclude nuclear power, ESPECIALLY if it's replaced with fossil fuels.

Again.. no one wants to replace anything with fossil fuels.
Nuclear power won't be turned off tomorrow, and not next year either. But it will be replaced eventually.

[AeneasBK]

Chernobyl. That's why.

Fukushima too?

[Deleted]

Of course, Chernobyl was entirely human error and entirely preventable, but you knew that, right? Right?

Sure, but does that really matter? The outcome is the same. If the shit hits the fan, it doesn't matter what sent it flying in the first place. All the blame in the world doesn't change the result. As with anything else in life, human error is and will always be a possibility with anything from your hair dryer to a nuclear plant.