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Young climate activist tells Greenpeace to drop ‘old-fashioned’ anti-nuclear stance
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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I live less than 2 miles from the last remaining coal power station in England.
I would much rather have nuclear instead of a chimney chucking god knows what into the air (and subsequently into me) for my entire life.
Fun fact, coal plants produce more radiation into their environment than nuclear plants
Modern reactor designs are so damn safe it's insane
That wasn't fun at all.
Fun fact, you are correct
Coal is filthy, but this is a myth and also an attempt at paltering.
Someone compared a poorly filtered coal plant running cherry picked coal to a brand new nuclear plant in the middle of its fuel cycle once decades ago and got the expected result.
When you open it and get the fuel out and when you mine the fuel it's orders of magnitude more. Reprocessing plants like La Hague under normal operation release more of the long lived radiation than fukushima and TMI combined.
If they are so damn safe why i can't build one in my backyard?
Because the radioactive bits need to be handled by trained and trusted personnel because if those bits fall into the wrong hands they can be used for some horrible shit
My biggest concern here is the "wrong hands" part. I absolutely believe that nuclear waste can be stored safely for a very long time, but I know from experience that safety is a distant concern next to minimizing costs for a company. We have companies breach environmental protection rules all the time, and yet some people still see the EPA as too powerful and want to tear it down. How do we ensure that waste is actually stored safely?
By ensuring that said power plants aren't run by corporate interests and investors concerned with the bottom line above all else.
so are you saying that it is not safe?
If I install solar panels and the inverters incorrectly I could potentially harm or kill myself and others. Therefore solar isn't safe.
But then why you can build these in your garden and not nuclear?
with the risk of feeding the troll, maybe this will sway some fence sitters from adopting this argument
because we allow people to shave (some even do it with straight razors, too - dangerous shite) themselves and others with little to no oversight but we don't let them perform surgery without proper training that takes a decade or so to master. should that make surgery illegal?
also, if you want to talk safety for home implements just look at the number of people that die due to carbon monoxide poisoning (or sometimes explosions) because of improperly set up heating at home. did you know it's illegal to operate on your own gas pipes without proper permits? yup, you need to be qualified for that so you don't rig your house into an IED
or if you want to have some fun, play around with some improperly discharged fridge capacitors, and see what that gets you. yet, you still have a fridge, I'd wager. by your logic, if it's allowed in a home, it's safe, right?
My hairdresser was disassociating due to PTSD and stuck her hand into the mower blade because it was gunked up and not moving. She forgot to turn it off and sliced her hand up, and can no longer do her job.
Should we ban mowers?
My uncle in law came off a motorbike and was sliced apart by a guardrail, and died.
Should we ban motorbikes? Guardrails? Both?
Some things come with risk but bring greater reward. We need to weigh risk vs reward, and in the balance, nuclear comes out much further ahead - as long as it built and maintained to a high standard. It's also much, much safer and less harmful than the current options like coal.
Nobody is going to prevent you from performing surgery on yourself at home, neither to play around with fridge capacitors.
Now try to build a nuclear reactor in your garden
I guarantee you if people found out that you were trying to operate on yourself in your home, someone is going ro rightfully try to stop you.
And to think that there is no one telling you not to and not trying to prevent you from electrocution is asinine.
But by all means stick your finger in a light socket, but if the breaker doesn't pop and you drop, you were informed it was a lethal choice.
Because crayon eaters like you would open them up.
The guy above is wrong, but this argument is as bad. Or at least incomplete. Here, I'll fix it for you:
"Because crayon eaters like you would spread dust of nuclear fuel. Or assume fuel is crayon and eat it as well."
Well, I'll go with incomplete, as the second option you describe is what I was alluding to.
Silly me, thinking crayon eaters could extrapolate.
Such a dumb question.
Building a nuclear power plant requires the collaboration of physicists, nuclear + electrical + civil engineers, etc...
Solar requires a certified electrician.
We know how to build nuclear safely, it just requires a lot more effort and oversight, therefore is not something you can build at home.
so if i hire up an elecricial and a civil engineer i can build it in my garden?
Everything can be unsafe if in the wrong hands
There are different degrees of safety associated with all things and we as a society have deemed nuclear power plants and their fuel as something that should only be in the hands of those trained and trusted in how to use it
Have you ever been in a coal fired plant? Or even easier, been around a coal furnace for home heating? What about industrial environments?
That shit isn't safe.
There are different levels of safety, personal reactors are on the other side of a cultural shift.
Because few governments scared about nuclear bombs more
If planes are safer than cars, why can't I fly a Boeing 797-9 Dreamliner?
Chew on that for a while.
Because perhaps they are not
I lived less than 2 miles from a coal power station (until they pulled it down). By the owners own admission, when it was running, it released about 60kg of radioactive material a year from stuff that was in the coal.
It's called fly ash and releases more radioactivity into the environment than a nuclear power plant producing the save amount of electricity. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/
Just because coal is bad doesn't mean that nuclear isn't bad though.
I would rather have a gun pointed at me than a bazooka, that doesn't mean i should have a weapon pointed at me.
We can solve a problem without generating another one. There are better alternatives to nuclear.
There are no alternatives to nuclear.
This isn't true at all, I'm pro nuclear but battery fields and full renewables is still an option, albeit more expensive as it stands
To be honest nuclear power is pretty damn safe, safer than wind and only beat by solar.
Chart comparing sources of electricity per terrawatt hour vs deaths.
Source
Edit: small clarification
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_energy
And that isn't a counter argument.