7 ms·

> a testament to the potential dangers of nuclear power. A list to remind us of the real dangers of coal power: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_minin

> a testament to the potential dangers of nuclear power. A list to remind us of the real dangers of coal power: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mining_accidents_in_China http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mining_accidents_i...

afterburner 12y ago
Ditch both.
- chii 12y ago
  and freeze to death in winter? not cook your food and eat it raw? walk/cycle for 3 hours to commute to work?
  - andyjdavis 12y ago
    >and freeze to death in winter? This is off topic but I always find statements like the above rather bizarre. Why must humans insist on living in places where the environment is hostile to human life? I guess its because I grew up in a place where heating is very rarely necessary, without cooling of any kind and have spent most of the last three years traveling around countries where you could theoretically walk around naked all year if you so desired but I increasingly find it bizarre how attached people are to living in locations that are ill-suited to humans.
    - guard-of-terra 12y ago
      Most of Eurasia is like that with several hundred million people living in regions with harsh winters. Where would you re-settle four hundred million people? Would they want to be unwelcome guests anywhere else? As a species we lack fur, so we are really vulnerable to cold.
      - andyjdavis 12y ago
        >Where would you re-settle four hundred million people? No one is talking about resettling anyone. My question was just about why people individually choose to remain in places that feature temperatures well outside of the range compatible with our species. Others have covered it pretty well. Some combination of habituation, laziness and disliking hot summers basically.
        dasil003 12y ago
        The cockroaches tend to be smaller.
        guard-of-terra 12y ago
        An individual might move but that doesn't affect the topic we're talking about. Also, moving is not easy: you have to learn new languages, acquire skills you did not have use for previously, and get a work permit. (And for the hilarious part, we often see people from warm countries moving to more temperate ones because those are economically and politically better off)
        Thimothy 12y ago
        People have been living in those cold climates long, LONG, before modern heating systems. More than "laziness and disliking hot summers" I would say that humans will settle wherever are resources that can support them, period. An example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_people
        Dylan16807 12y ago
        How bizarre that you think hot summers are fine but cold winters are ill-suited to humans. If we only lived in locations that are a good temperature year-round we would barely live anywhere.
    - vidarh 12y ago
      Because we can. Because we grew up there and it's familiar. Because many of us prefers cold winters to summers we find too hot.
    - pfortuny 12y ago
      Well, first of all just "moving" is a hassle. Then people, for whatever reason, tend to be attached to what they call "home." And third, probably, because we like it.
    - KMag 12y ago
      I grew up a bit farther than 45 degrees north of the Equator. I've been living in the tropics, about 22 degrees north, for 3 years now. I love my life here, but I still prefer the weather back home. You can always put on more clothes and/or walk more quickly, but you can't wear negative clothes.
    - Xylakant 12y ago
      > This is off topic but I always find statements like the above rather bizarre. Why must humans insist on living in places where the environment is hostile to human life? Because by an unlucky twist of nature (physics and chemistry combined) the richest soils are found in temperate regions, so the lands that historically were capable of sustaining a high population density are in the colder regions, the ones where you need heating at least in winter. Even now, with advances chemistry and fertilizers we'd not be able to sustain the worlds population if we all moved closer to the equator and gave up on regions that require heating at least in winter.
      - andyjdavis 12y ago
        That is really interesting :)
    - mikeash 12y ago
      Does it matter why? Humans have been living in harsh environments since long before the beginning of written history, and I doubt it'll stop any time soon.
  - demallien 12y ago
    Actually, for anyone living in an actual city, bikes and cars are generally roughly equivalent in terms of trip time. For example, I have an 8km commute on the outskirts of Paris - it takes about 45mins, regardless of whether I run, ride a bike, take public transport, or drive a car. (Ok, to be more precise, in includi the time to change into sports gear for the bike / running. Without this the bike takes about 30mins. Running does actually take 45 mins run time.)
    - pluma 12y ago
      I think the biggest difference in mindsets between the US and Europe (other than the isolationism/socialism divide and religion) arises from their different scales. Europe is far more densely populated. The cities are generally much closer to each other. There often isn't the equivalent of American "suburbs", instead there are more (and smaller) cities. Most people living in cities get around by walking or use the public transit.
      - demallien 12y ago
        Well, for what it's worth, I'm actually Australian, and our cities are very similar to those in the US. What I said holds as much for Perth or Sydney as it does for Paris and London. The key is that traffic congestion reduces average car speed to something roughly equivalent to what you do on a bike, ie 15-20km/hr...
- vidarh 12y ago
  For what magically safe alternative? (no, you don't avoid all deaths with hydro, wind or solar either; in fact hydro has historically been one of the deadliest power sources thanks to the Banqiao accident where a dam failure killed 171,000 - even excluding that, though, hydro is far from free of deaths) EDIT: Since I was being a bit snarky: The point is last I heard the number of deaths from installation of rooftop solar is higher than the number of deaths from nuclear power plants for equivalent amount of energy. Nuclear gets the headlines because the nuclear incidents we hear about are big and scary and rare and get hyped up. You don't get massive worldwide news coverage because some guy fell off a roof while mounting solar panels and died. But he's just as dead, and it adds up. You can't ignore the small incidents if their rate is high enough. Overall, you could have meltdowns on a regular basis and nuclear would still be one of our safest alternatives. Chances are it will also be one of the alternatives with the lowest environmental impact: Less radioactivity released than coal, by orders of magnitude; far less land area affected by development than hydro, wind and solar.
  - Zardoz84 12y ago
    Fusion. Every ten years, plasma physics say that we would have fusion on the next ten years. :D
    - HCIdivision17 12y ago
      I had always heard it as thirty years. The ten year estimate seems to be a newer development! (My guess is that fusion is becoming less theoretical and shifting into an engineering problem; still hard, but a bit more deterministic.)
    - adrianN 12y ago
      Maybe if we funded it appropriately. Actual funding has been really low: https://imgur.com/sjH5r https://imgur.com/sjH5r
      - emp_zealoth 12y ago
        It is quite depressing. The other day I've been reading an article about MRAP vehicle program - Wiki said the cost was estimated to be 50 BILLION
throwawayaway 12y ago
ah so china has a cavalier attitude to safety in coal mines. this also happens to make up a large percentage of the deaths worldwide attributable to coal. china is now rolling out nuke plants. as we've seen previously with high speed rail and coal mines, there will be a cavalier attitude to safety. my prediction is the outcome will be an increase in the number of deaths due to nuclear power.

afterburner 12y ago

Ditch both.

chii 12y ago
and freeze to death in winter? not cook your food and eat it raw? walk/cycle for 3 hours to commute to work?
- andyjdavis 12y ago
  >and freeze to death in winter? This is off topic but I always find statements like the above rather bizarre. Why must humans insist on living in places where the environment is hostile to human life? I guess its because I grew up in a place where heating is very rarely necessary, without cooling of any kind and have spent most of the last three years traveling around countries where you could theoretically walk around naked all year if you so desired but I increasingly find it bizarre how attached people are to living in locations that are ill-suited to humans.
  - guard-of-terra 12y ago
    Most of Eurasia is like that with several hundred million people living in regions with harsh winters. Where would you re-settle four hundred million people? Would they want to be unwelcome guests anywhere else? As a species we lack fur, so we are really vulnerable to cold.
    - andyjdavis 12y ago
      >Where would you re-settle four hundred million people? No one is talking about resettling anyone. My question was just about why people individually choose to remain in places that feature temperatures well outside of the range compatible with our species. Others have covered it pretty well. Some combination of habituation, laziness and disliking hot summers basically.
      - dasil003 12y ago
        The cockroaches tend to be smaller.
      - guard-of-terra 12y ago
        An individual might move but that doesn't affect the topic we're talking about. Also, moving is not easy: you have to learn new languages, acquire skills you did not have use for previously, and get a work permit. (And for the hilarious part, we often see people from warm countries moving to more temperate ones because those are economically and politically better off)
      - Thimothy 12y ago
        People have been living in those cold climates long, LONG, before modern heating systems. More than "laziness and disliking hot summers" I would say that humans will settle wherever are resources that can support them, period. An example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_people
      - Dylan16807 12y ago
        How bizarre that you think hot summers are fine but cold winters are ill-suited to humans. If we only lived in locations that are a good temperature year-round we would barely live anywhere.
  - vidarh 12y ago
    Because we can. Because we grew up there and it's familiar. Because many of us prefers cold winters to summers we find too hot.
  - pfortuny 12y ago
    Well, first of all just "moving" is a hassle. Then people, for whatever reason, tend to be attached to what they call "home." And third, probably, because we like it.
  - KMag 12y ago
    I grew up a bit farther than 45 degrees north of the Equator. I've been living in the tropics, about 22 degrees north, for 3 years now. I love my life here, but I still prefer the weather back home. You can always put on more clothes and/or walk more quickly, but you can't wear negative clothes.
  - Xylakant 12y ago
    > This is off topic but I always find statements like the above rather bizarre. Why must humans insist on living in places where the environment is hostile to human life? Because by an unlucky twist of nature (physics and chemistry combined) the richest soils are found in temperate regions, so the lands that historically were capable of sustaining a high population density are in the colder regions, the ones where you need heating at least in winter. Even now, with advances chemistry and fertilizers we'd not be able to sustain the worlds population if we all moved closer to the equator and gave up on regions that require heating at least in winter.
    - andyjdavis 12y ago
      That is really interesting :)
  - mikeash 12y ago
    Does it matter why? Humans have been living in harsh environments since long before the beginning of written history, and I doubt it'll stop any time soon.
- demallien 12y ago
  Actually, for anyone living in an actual city, bikes and cars are generally roughly equivalent in terms of trip time. For example, I have an 8km commute on the outskirts of Paris - it takes about 45mins, regardless of whether I run, ride a bike, take public transport, or drive a car. (Ok, to be more precise, in includi the time to change into sports gear for the bike / running. Without this the bike takes about 30mins. Running does actually take 45 mins run time.)
  - pluma 12y ago
    I think the biggest difference in mindsets between the US and Europe (other than the isolationism/socialism divide and religion) arises from their different scales. Europe is far more densely populated. The cities are generally much closer to each other. There often isn't the equivalent of American "suburbs", instead there are more (and smaller) cities. Most people living in cities get around by walking or use the public transit.
    - demallien 12y ago
      Well, for what it's worth, I'm actually Australian, and our cities are very similar to those in the US. What I said holds as much for Perth or Sydney as it does for Paris and London. The key is that traffic congestion reduces average car speed to something roughly equivalent to what you do on a bike, ie 15-20km/hr...
vidarh 12y ago
For what magically safe alternative? (no, you don't avoid all deaths with hydro, wind or solar either; in fact hydro has historically been one of the deadliest power sources thanks to the Banqiao accident where a dam failure killed 171,000 - even excluding that, though, hydro is far from free of deaths) EDIT: Since I was being a bit snarky: The point is last I heard the number of deaths from installation of rooftop solar is higher than the number of deaths from nuclear power plants for equivalent amount of energy. Nuclear gets the headlines because the nuclear incidents we hear about are big and scary and rare and get hyped up. You don't get massive worldwide news coverage because some guy fell off a roof while mounting solar panels and died. But he's just as dead, and it adds up. You can't ignore the small incidents if their rate is high enough. Overall, you could have meltdowns on a regular basis and nuclear would still be one of our safest alternatives. Chances are it will also be one of the alternatives with the lowest environmental impact: Less radioactivity released than coal, by orders of magnitude; far less land area affected by development than hydro, wind and solar.
- Zardoz84 12y ago
  Fusion. Every ten years, plasma physics say that we would have fusion on the next ten years. :D
  - HCIdivision17 12y ago
    I had always heard it as thirty years. The ten year estimate seems to be a newer development! (My guess is that fusion is becoming less theoretical and shifting into an engineering problem; still hard, but a bit more deterministic.)
  - adrianN 12y ago
    Maybe if we funded it appropriately. Actual funding has been really low: https://imgur.com/sjH5r https://imgur.com/sjH5r
    - emp_zealoth 12y ago
      It is quite depressing. The other day I've been reading an article about MRAP vehicle program - Wiki said the cost was estimated to be 50 BILLION

throwawayaway 12y ago

ah so china has a cavalier attitude to safety in coal mines. this also happens to make up a large percentage of the deaths worldwide attributable to coal. china is now rolling out nuke plants. as we've seen previously with high speed rail and coal mines, there will be a cavalier attitude to safety. my prediction is the outcome will be an increase in the number of deaths due to nuclear power.