Re:Use of nuclear technology gets green light in Rwanda
by catalogia on Thursday June 18, 2020 @12:44AM
(#23559860)
Dam failures can be truly horrific. When the South Fork Dam failed and flooded Johnstown, the floodwaters smashed a bunch of people, a barbed wire factory and various other debris into a stone bridge (which still stands today.) The debris, a tangle of wood, people (many still alive), and twisted metal, then caught fire and burned for days, killing dozens. They had to use dynamite to clear the wreckage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Bridge_(Johnstown,_Penns...
Re:Use of nuclear technology gets green light in Rwanda
by AnthonyMouse on Thursday June 18, 2020 @12:49AM
(#23559887)
> The only truly safe power utility-scale power source in widespread use is solar.
Apparently a fair number of people die from solar as a result of falling off of roofs.
Re:Use of nuclear technology gets green light in Rwanda
by jiggawatts on Thursday June 18, 2020 @02:20AM
(#23560304)
I'm only considering utility-scale power. Those are ground-level, not rooftop installations.
If you want to include all forms of "home" power generation, including heating and cooking, then wood fireplaces are mass-murderers, killing tens of thousands due to particulate pollution and carbon monoxide poisoning. Not to mention homes burning down and killing the occupants.
Re:Use of nuclear technology gets green light in Rwanda
by redis_mlc on Thursday June 18, 2020 @07:09AM
(#23561932)
> BTW: Fukushima killed 1 person directly due to the nuclear material. Even Chernobyl only killed between 30 to 80 people directly, depending on how you count it.
Only a pedant would write that.
A quarter million Fukushima residents have lived in school gyms for years. How many lived in jail-like conditions until death?
The Machchu-2 dam failure killed 5K people in India.
The South Fork dam failure killed 2K people in the US.
Coal mining directly killed over 100 people annually up until the mid 1980s, and continues to kill 10-30 people annually.
Oil drilling in general kills about 100-110 people annually.
There's not much good data for wind turbines, but generally wind power kills 10+ people annually, either due to fires in the turbine housing or falls.
There have been a number of deaths at various power plants, often due to electrocution or steam boiler explosions.
The only truly safe power utility-scale power source in widespread use is solar.
BTW: Fukushima killed 1 person directly due to the nuclear material. Even Chernobyl only killed between 30 to 80 people directly, depending on how you count it.
If you want to count indirect deaths due to Chernobyl and Fukushima, then you also have to compare that to indirect deaths due to traditional power. You don't want to know how many people diesel, oil, and coal kill annually!