8 ms·

Also it worth mentioning deaths caused by respiratory diseases from coal power plant pollution. This goes in millions

leonidasrup 6d ago
Death rates per unit of electricity production " Death rates are measured based on deaths from accidents and air pollution per terawatt-hour of electricity. " https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...
- Kon5ole 5d ago
  That chart needs a companion chart showing “amount of effort needed to prevent deaths”. Since that is missing lots of people think nuclear is safe when it’s actually by far the most dangerous.
  - defrost 5d ago
    Such charts exist - they're the "costs per unit" charts; perhaps broken down into (say) capital upfront plant costs, ongoing running costs per unit generated, and decommissioning costs. It's the decommissioning costs for both nuclear and fossil fuel plants that are most often missing or overlooked.
    - Kon5ole 5d ago
      True enough but there's an order of magnitude difference in those costs. For nuclear the costs extend beyond out ability to predict the future, and they simply can't be ignored whatever they amount to. A fossil plant can simply be abandoned, and the damage will be minimal compared to abandoning a nuclear plant. Without this information the chart is repeatedly used as an argument that nuclear power is safe, which is of course the direct opposite of the truth. It is the option that requires the most money and effort to keep safe and nothing is even a close second.
      - leonidasrup 4d ago
        Nuclear power plant after removal of nuclear fuel and decontamination is inert as abandoned fossil plant. Such cleaning at end of life has to be done also for many kinds of chemical plants, chemical storage tanks, otherwise you get a catastrophe like in Bhopal, India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster If you are looking for long term storage of spend nuclear fuel, it's mostly a political issue, not technical issue. In U.S. there is WIPP, in New Mexico, a deep geological repository licensed to store transuranic radioactive waste for 10,000 years. But this is only licensed to store military nuclear waste, not civilian nuclear waste. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant Finland is building Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo... There is also hazardeus chemical waste which is stored in underground. The Herfa-Neurode underground landfill ( UTD Herfa-Neurode ) is the world's largest underground landfill for hazardous waste, includes 690,000 tons of waste containing dioxins and furans , 220,000 tons of waste containing mercury , 127,000 tons of waste containing cyanide , and 83,000 tons of toxic waste containing arsenic. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untertagedeponie_Herfa-Neurode https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untertagedeponie_Herfa-Neurode
        Kon5ole 4d ago
        >Nuclear power plant after removal of nuclear fuel and decontamination is inert as abandoned fossil plant. The site itself sure, but the "removal" just moves the remaining cost somewhere else, it doesn't /re/move it. The remaining costs for "decommissioned" power plants usually end up with the military. Sellafield in the UK, INL in the US for example. The problem with the idea of a multi-century stable solution is that we make mistakes. The WIPP facility in the US had a similar cousin in Germany, the Asse II mine. Also planned to be permanent storage until they had to empty it because water found a way in. Several new billions of euros will now be drawn from taxpayers to pay for "decommissioned" plants. It can be argued that so far, there has been no fully decommissioned, as in "stopped costing any money" nuclear plants, anywhere. Fossil plants however can be fully decommissioned with 0 remaining costs. Thank god, because that's what we should do of course!

Death rates per unit of electricity production " Death rates are measured based on deaths from accidents and air pollution per terawatt-hour of electricity. " https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...

Kon5ole 5d ago
That chart needs a companion chart showing “amount of effort needed to prevent deaths”. Since that is missing lots of people think nuclear is safe when it’s actually by far the most dangerous.
- defrost 5d ago
  Such charts exist - they're the "costs per unit" charts; perhaps broken down into (say) capital upfront plant costs, ongoing running costs per unit generated, and decommissioning costs. It's the decommissioning costs for both nuclear and fossil fuel plants that are most often missing or overlooked.
  - Kon5ole 5d ago
    True enough but there's an order of magnitude difference in those costs. For nuclear the costs extend beyond out ability to predict the future, and they simply can't be ignored whatever they amount to. A fossil plant can simply be abandoned, and the damage will be minimal compared to abandoning a nuclear plant. Without this information the chart is repeatedly used as an argument that nuclear power is safe, which is of course the direct opposite of the truth. It is the option that requires the most money and effort to keep safe and nothing is even a close second.
    - leonidasrup 4d ago
      Nuclear power plant after removal of nuclear fuel and decontamination is inert as abandoned fossil plant. Such cleaning at end of life has to be done also for many kinds of chemical plants, chemical storage tanks, otherwise you get a catastrophe like in Bhopal, India. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster If you are looking for long term storage of spend nuclear fuel, it's mostly a political issue, not technical issue. In U.S. there is WIPP, in New Mexico, a deep geological repository licensed to store transuranic radioactive waste for 10,000 years. But this is only licensed to store military nuclear waste, not civilian nuclear waste. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant Finland is building Onkalo spent nuclear fuel repository. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repository https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_spent_nuclear_fuel_repo... There is also hazardeus chemical waste which is stored in underground. The Herfa-Neurode underground landfill ( UTD Herfa-Neurode ) is the world's largest underground landfill for hazardous waste, includes 690,000 tons of waste containing dioxins and furans , 220,000 tons of waste containing mercury , 127,000 tons of waste containing cyanide , and 83,000 tons of toxic waste containing arsenic. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untertagedeponie_Herfa-Neurode https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untertagedeponie_Herfa-Neurode
      - Kon5ole 4d ago
        >Nuclear power plant after removal of nuclear fuel and decontamination is inert as abandoned fossil plant. The site itself sure, but the "removal" just moves the remaining cost somewhere else, it doesn't /re/move it. The remaining costs for "decommissioned" power plants usually end up with the military. Sellafield in the UK, INL in the US for example. The problem with the idea of a multi-century stable solution is that we make mistakes. The WIPP facility in the US had a similar cousin in Germany, the Asse II mine. Also planned to be permanent storage until they had to empty it because water found a way in. Several new billions of euros will now be drawn from taxpayers to pay for "decommissioned" plants. It can be argued that so far, there has been no fully decommissioned, as in "stopped costing any money" nuclear plants, anywhere. Fossil plants however can be fully decommissioned with 0 remaining costs. Thank god, because that's what we should do of course!