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That's all fine, but for example Fukushima is still not under control, and may still cause enormous harm. That kind of stuff is why we need to get rid of nucle

That's all fine, but for example Fukushima is still not under control, and may still cause enormous harm. That kind of stuff is why we need to get rid of nuclear power altogether. All that's holding us back is politicians and their bribes.. and of course, to a lesser extent, people who rationalize not moving away from nuclear power.

maccard 11y ago
And coal mines, oil/gas rigs have perfect safety records?
- TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  They don't, but when they do go wrong the consequences are less severe.
  - rayiner 11y ago
    Coal irradiates far more people than nuclear even when it's operating properly.
    - kuschku 11y ago
      Yes. Perfectly working coal produces more radiation than perfectly working nuclear. When coal has a major incident, though, it still produces the same pollutants as if it's working correctly. When nuclear has incidents, like the plants of Brunsbüttel and Krümmel that frequently had leaks, you end up with the highest leukemia quote worldwide [1]. Krümmel had major issues, with nuclear fuel being found in the area around the reactor, outside, on the ground, with the power plant leaking coolant frequently, and more incidents. [1] Mismanagement with Nuclear can lead to far more problems than mismanagement with coal. More Info and Links: [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leukämiecluster_Elbmarsch https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leukämiecluster_Elbmarsch (Sadly, only German article available). - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kr%C3%BCmmel_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kr%C3%BCmmel_Nuclear_Power_Pla... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunsb%C3%BCttel_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunsb%C3%BCttel_Nuclear_Power...
      - mpweiher 11y ago
        > When coal has a major incident, though, it still produces the same pollutants as if it's working correctly. Yeah. No. "Coal mining accidents resulted in 5,938 immediate deaths in 2005, and 4746 immediate deaths in 2006 in China alone according to the World Wildlife Fund" So each year more deaths from coal accidents alone than the entire predicted, somewhat speculative and hard to ever prove death toll from Chernobyl over the next 20 or so years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents#Fatalities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents#Fatalities
        sillygeese 11y ago
        What he means to say is that a nuclear meltdown can fuck up a huge area for millenia, but a coal incident can't.
  - Asbostos 11y ago
    That's debatable. Coal is known to cause far more deaths than nuclear. Even Fukushima was nothing compared to the 10's of thousands killed by the tsunami.
    - mikeash 11y ago
      "Far more" is even an understatement. Coal kills more people every year than nuclear ever has, and that still holds true even if you include the two bombs dropped on Japan in "nuclear."
  - iso8859-1 11y ago
    You forget all the people killed through air pollution.
  - mpweiher 11y ago
    While this is how many people feel, the facts say quite the opposite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_...
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
rosser 11y ago
All that's holding us back is politicians and their bribes.. No, unfortunately, that's not all that's holding us back. There are still some pretty substantial, e.g., storage and transmission problems with the renewables. Unless you want us to keep burning coal or some other nonsense like that...
- kuschku 11y ago
  There are no storage or transmission problems. Build hydro-pump-storage plants, and you fixed the storage issues. Build power lines from everywhere to everywhere, and refit transformer stations to be up to the load of users producing more than using, and you fix that, too. (Incidentally, in Germany we’re having a huge debate about a huge powerline currently, NIMBY is one of the worst things that happened)
  - mpweiher 11y ago
    > Build hydro-pump-storage plants, and you fixed the storage issues. You do realize that the largest ever energy-generation accident was a dam failure? 171000 people killed in 1975 when a dam in China failed. And overall, hydroelectric facilities claim 94% of the fatalities of energy-production accidents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents#Fatalities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents#Fatalities
    - kuschku 11y ago
      What you are talking about is hydro-generation. What I am talking about is hydro-pump-storage. That type of storage has no dam that could fail – you take two lakes, one higher than the other, connect them with a tunnel, and place a turbine in the tunnel. Now you can push the water up (store energy) or let it flow down (produce energy).
      - mpweiher 11y ago
        Yes, that was a hydro-generation dam. However, it is simply not true that hydro-pump storage never has a dam. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ffestiniog_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ffestiniog_Power_Station In fact, when you look at the list of pumped storage stations, the vast majority of them have dams: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pumped-storage_hydroelectric_power_stations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pumped-storage_hydroel...
Asbostos 11y ago
Fukushima was an unsafe design. Chernobyl was both an unsafe design and being operated in an obviously risky and neglegent way when it failed. These kinds of disasters won't happen with more modern reactors that already exist. Even if they do, making a few permanent wildlife reserves in the irradiated areas isn't a global catastrophe. The world is full of uninhabited and uninhabitable places.
- kuschku 11y ago
  > Fukushima was an unsafe design Fukushima was a standard design. Built by European and US companies in the same style as dozens of plants in Germany. This is not "Fukushima was unsafe". If you say "Fukushima was unsafe", then half of Germany’s reactors are unsafe. Shutting them down was the only option. > making a few permanent wildlife reserves in the irradiated areas isn't a global catastrophe You are talking about Japan. A country with one of the highest population densities worldwide. Declaring a whole province – and one with lots of history – off-limits is not going to happen. Currently they’ve been digging out the ground in half of the province. ---------- EDIT: Some more info: Fukushima was a Boiling Water Generator built by General Electrics. Reactors of the exact same design are Krümmel (Germany), Brunsbüttel (Germany), Philippsburg (Germany), Isar (Germany). Krümmel and Brunsbüttel had constant issues, including the town next to it having the highest cancer rate on the planet. The same design used by Fukushima is described in Wikipedia as "the second most common type of electricity-generating nuclear reactor". - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_water_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_water_reactor - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunsb%C3%BCttel_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunsb%C3%BCttel_Nuclear_Power... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kr%C3%BCmmel_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kr%C3%BCmmel_Nuclear_Power_Pla... - https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuk%C3%A4miecluster_Elbmarsch https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuk%C3%A4miecluster_Elbmarsch - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Powe...
  - mpweiher 11y ago
    >> Fukushima was an unsafe design > Fukushima was a standard design. The design was unsafe. The company knew this. In fact it had been known for 35 years. It was not unfixably unsafe, and in fact 5 of the 10 reactors had been upgraded. These 5 shut down properly during the Tsunami and survived without problems. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304887904576395580035481822 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023048879045763955... http://www.globalresearch.ca/fukushima-general-electric-knew-its-nuclear-reactor-design-was-unsafe-so-why-isnt-ge-getting-any-heat-for-fukushima/5361300 http://www.globalresearch.ca/fukushima-general-electric-knew... http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/16/fukushima-reactor-flaws-were-predicted-–-35-years-ago/ http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/16/fukushima-reactor-flaws-... The main design flaw was that the vital emergency cooling equipment was sited in an unprotected building outside the protected reactor. This is especially troubling if you site your reactor on a Tsunami-ridden coast. It's less of a problem in the middle of Germany, where there are no Tsunamis. Or to put it another way: if you have a Tsunami reaching the middle of Germany, a meltdown at these powerplants is going to be among the least of your problems.

maccard 11y ago

And coal mines, oil/gas rigs have perfect safety records?

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
They don't, but when they do go wrong the consequences are less severe.
- rayiner 11y ago
  Coal irradiates far more people than nuclear even when it's operating properly.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    Yes. Perfectly working coal produces more radiation than perfectly working nuclear. When coal has a major incident, though, it still produces the same pollutants as if it's working correctly. When nuclear has incidents, like the plants of Brunsbüttel and Krümmel that frequently had leaks, you end up with the highest leukemia quote worldwide [1]. Krümmel had major issues, with nuclear fuel being found in the area around the reactor, outside, on the ground, with the power plant leaking coolant frequently, and more incidents. [1] Mismanagement with Nuclear can lead to far more problems than mismanagement with coal. More Info and Links: [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leukämiecluster_Elbmarsch https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leukämiecluster_Elbmarsch (Sadly, only German article available). - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kr%C3%BCmmel_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kr%C3%BCmmel_Nuclear_Power_Pla... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunsb%C3%BCttel_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunsb%C3%BCttel_Nuclear_Power...
    - mpweiher 11y ago
      > When coal has a major incident, though, it still produces the same pollutants as if it's working correctly. Yeah. No. "Coal mining accidents resulted in 5,938 immediate deaths in 2005, and 4746 immediate deaths in 2006 in China alone according to the World Wildlife Fund" So each year more deaths from coal accidents alone than the entire predicted, somewhat speculative and hard to ever prove death toll from Chernobyl over the next 20 or so years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents#Fatalities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents#Fatalities
      - sillygeese 11y ago
        What he means to say is that a nuclear meltdown can fuck up a huge area for millenia, but a coal incident can't.
- Asbostos 11y ago
  That's debatable. Coal is known to cause far more deaths than nuclear. Even Fukushima was nothing compared to the 10's of thousands killed by the tsunami.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    "Far more" is even an understatement. Coal kills more people every year than nuclear ever has, and that still holds true even if you include the two bombs dropped on Japan in "nuclear."
- iso8859-1 11y ago
  You forget all the people killed through air pollution.
- mpweiher 11y ago
  While this is how many people feel, the facts say quite the opposite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

rosser 11y ago

All that's holding us back is politicians and their bribes.. No, unfortunately, that's not all that's holding us back. There are still some pretty substantial, e.g., storage and transmission problems with the renewables. Unless you want us to keep burning coal or some other nonsense like that...

kuschku 11y ago
There are no storage or transmission problems. Build hydro-pump-storage plants, and you fixed the storage issues. Build power lines from everywhere to everywhere, and refit transformer stations to be up to the load of users producing more than using, and you fix that, too. (Incidentally, in Germany we’re having a huge debate about a huge powerline currently, NIMBY is one of the worst things that happened)
- mpweiher 11y ago
  > Build hydro-pump-storage plants, and you fixed the storage issues. You do realize that the largest ever energy-generation accident was a dam failure? 171000 people killed in 1975 when a dam in China failed. And overall, hydroelectric facilities claim 94% of the fatalities of energy-production accidents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents#Fatalities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents#Fatalities
  - kuschku 11y ago
    What you are talking about is hydro-generation. What I am talking about is hydro-pump-storage. That type of storage has no dam that could fail – you take two lakes, one higher than the other, connect them with a tunnel, and place a turbine in the tunnel. Now you can push the water up (store energy) or let it flow down (produce energy).
    - mpweiher 11y ago
      Yes, that was a hydro-generation dam. However, it is simply not true that hydro-pump storage never has a dam. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ffestiniog_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ffestiniog_Power_Station In fact, when you look at the list of pumped storage stations, the vast majority of them have dams: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pumped-storage_hydroelectric_power_stations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pumped-storage_hydroel...

Asbostos 11y ago

Fukushima was an unsafe design. Chernobyl was both an unsafe design and being operated in an obviously risky and neglegent way when it failed. These kinds of disasters won't happen with more modern reactors that already exist. Even if they do, making a few permanent wildlife reserves in the irradiated areas isn't a global catastrophe. The world is full of uninhabited and uninhabitable places.

kuschku 11y ago
> Fukushima was an unsafe design Fukushima was a standard design. Built by European and US companies in the same style as dozens of plants in Germany. This is not "Fukushima was unsafe". If you say "Fukushima was unsafe", then half of Germany’s reactors are unsafe. Shutting them down was the only option. > making a few permanent wildlife reserves in the irradiated areas isn't a global catastrophe You are talking about Japan. A country with one of the highest population densities worldwide. Declaring a whole province – and one with lots of history – off-limits is not going to happen. Currently they’ve been digging out the ground in half of the province. ---------- EDIT: Some more info: Fukushima was a Boiling Water Generator built by General Electrics. Reactors of the exact same design are Krümmel (Germany), Brunsbüttel (Germany), Philippsburg (Germany), Isar (Germany). Krümmel and Brunsbüttel had constant issues, including the town next to it having the highest cancer rate on the planet. The same design used by Fukushima is described in Wikipedia as "the second most common type of electricity-generating nuclear reactor". - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_water_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_water_reactor - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunsb%C3%BCttel_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunsb%C3%BCttel_Nuclear_Power... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kr%C3%BCmmel_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kr%C3%BCmmel_Nuclear_Power_Pla... - https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuk%C3%A4miecluster_Elbmarsch https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuk%C3%A4miecluster_Elbmarsch - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Powe...
- mpweiher 11y ago
  >> Fukushima was an unsafe design > Fukushima was a standard design. The design was unsafe. The company knew this. In fact it had been known for 35 years. It was not unfixably unsafe, and in fact 5 of the 10 reactors had been upgraded. These 5 shut down properly during the Tsunami and survived without problems. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304887904576395580035481822 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023048879045763955... http://www.globalresearch.ca/fukushima-general-electric-knew-its-nuclear-reactor-design-was-unsafe-so-why-isnt-ge-getting-any-heat-for-fukushima/5361300 http://www.globalresearch.ca/fukushima-general-electric-knew... http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/16/fukushima-reactor-flaws-were-predicted-–-35-years-ago/ http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/16/fukushima-reactor-flaws-... The main design flaw was that the vital emergency cooling equipment was sited in an unprotected building outside the protected reactor. This is especially troubling if you site your reactor on a Tsunami-ridden coast. It's less of a problem in the middle of Germany, where there are no Tsunamis. Or to put it another way: if you have a Tsunami reaching the middle of Germany, a meltdown at these powerplants is going to be among the least of your problems.