6 ms·

Wasn't all that bad PR mostly caused by the coal/oil industry, doing some serious astroturfing for a decade or so?

by longor1996 10mo ago

toyg 10mo ago
If by "the coal industry" you mean people in charge of Chernobyl and Fukushima...
- Angostura 10mo ago
  And Windscale (now Sellafield) and Three Mile Island
- longor1996 10mo ago
  Oh, sorry! Shouldn't have said "all" there... :'D
lysace 10mo ago
See also: Gazprom, Gerhard Schröder (”Putin’s man in Germany” according to NYT) and the German nuclear power shutdown. https://atomicinsights.com/gazprom-profiting-mightily-from-german-nuclear-exit/ https://atomicinsights.com/gazprom-profiting-mightily-from-g... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/23/world/europe/schroder-germany-russia-gas-ukraine-war-energy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/23/world/europe/schroder-ger...
eucyclos 10mo ago
I think it was mostly caused by fear about nuclear Armageddon during the cold war - it's hard to feel like the world could end at any second due to nuclear bombs while also feeling grateful for nuclear electricity generation. Would be even if there was no overlap between military and civilian nuclear industries, which of course there is.
fundatus 10mo ago
Well, at least for Germany it was the actual nuclear fallout over large areas of the country after Chernobyl. Which is btw still measurable today. [1] That's a pretty scary thing to happen to you and one just has to accept that these are the actual lived experiences of people that form their opinions. [1] https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/environment/foodstuffs/mushrooms-game/mushrooms-game_node.html https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/environment/foodstuffs/mush...
- jabl 10mo ago
  Radiation detectors can detect very low levels of radiation (far below any measurable health effects, for instance), so claiming we can still detect fallout from Chernobyl doesn't really say anything.
  - fundatus 10mo ago
    To quote from the article I linked to: > In the last years values of up to several thousand becquerel per kilogram were measured in wild game and certain edible mushrooms. In Germany it is not permitted to market food with more than 600 becquerel caesium-137 per kilogram.
    - chickenbig 10mo ago
      Another quote from the article is > If wild game or wild growing mushrooms are consumed in usual amounts, the additional radiation exposure is comparatively low. > The consumption of 200 grams of mushrooms with 1,000 becquerel caesium-137 per kilogram results in an exposure of 0.0025 millisievert.
      - fundatus 10mo ago
        The numbers and actual risks don't matter to change regular people's feelings about a technology. All they know is that there was actual nuclear fallout and now the mushrooms in their forests are radioactive.

Wasn't all that bad PR mostly caused by the coal/oil industry, doing some serious astroturfing for a decade or so?

toyg 10mo ago

If by "the coal industry" you mean people in charge of Chernobyl and Fukushima...

Angostura 10mo ago
And Windscale (now Sellafield) and Three Mile Island
longor1996 10mo ago
Oh, sorry! Shouldn't have said "all" there... :'D

lysace 10mo ago

See also: Gazprom, Gerhard Schröder (”Putin’s man in Germany” according to NYT) and the German nuclear power shutdown. https://atomicinsights.com/gazprom-profiting-mightily-from-german-nuclear-exit/ https://atomicinsights.com/gazprom-profiting-mightily-from-g... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/23/world/europe/schroder-germany-russia-gas-ukraine-war-energy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/23/world/europe/schroder-ger...

eucyclos 10mo ago

I think it was mostly caused by fear about nuclear Armageddon during the cold war - it's hard to feel like the world could end at any second due to nuclear bombs while also feeling grateful for nuclear electricity generation. Would be even if there was no overlap between military and civilian nuclear industries, which of course there is.

fundatus 10mo ago

Well, at least for Germany it was the actual nuclear fallout over large areas of the country after Chernobyl. Which is btw still measurable today. [1] That's a pretty scary thing to happen to you and one just has to accept that these are the actual lived experiences of people that form their opinions. [1] https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/environment/foodstuffs/mushrooms-game/mushrooms-game_node.html https://www.bfs.de/EN/topics/ion/environment/foodstuffs/mush...

jabl 10mo ago
Radiation detectors can detect very low levels of radiation (far below any measurable health effects, for instance), so claiming we can still detect fallout from Chernobyl doesn't really say anything.
- fundatus 10mo ago
  To quote from the article I linked to: > In the last years values of up to several thousand becquerel per kilogram were measured in wild game and certain edible mushrooms. In Germany it is not permitted to market food with more than 600 becquerel caesium-137 per kilogram.
  - chickenbig 10mo ago
    Another quote from the article is > If wild game or wild growing mushrooms are consumed in usual amounts, the additional radiation exposure is comparatively low. > The consumption of 200 grams of mushrooms with 1,000 becquerel caesium-137 per kilogram results in an exposure of 0.0025 millisievert.
    - fundatus 10mo ago
      The numbers and actual risks don't matter to change regular people's feelings about a technology. All they know is that there was actual nuclear fallout and now the mushrooms in their forests are radioactive.