Re:Ultra Safe Nuclear
by evgen on Thursday September 17, 2020 @12:21PM
(#24506556)
Since deaths from renewables scale linearly with installations I think that nuclear will continue to win that particular argument. Building more wind turbines and solar installations is not going to reduce the deaths from installation and maintenance.
I wonder what the clean-up costs are long-term for the groundwater contamination from solar panel production and for the dismantling and junking of wind turbines when they reach their EOL? Maybe not as much as nuclear but definitely not free -- right now they are a hidden negative externality just like coal plant fly ash, but eventually someone is going to have to pay the bill.
Re:Ultra Safe Nuclear
by flor1s on Thursday September 17, 2020 @09:44PM
(#24512088)
The type of renewable matters though, it seems like retrofitting existing houses with solar panels is relatively more dangerous than building utility scale solar farms (no roof to fall off from, higher yield).
I wonder what the clean-up costs are long-term for the groundwater contamination from solar panel production and for the dismantling and junking of wind turbines when they reach their EOL? Maybe not as much as nuclear but definitely not free -- right now they are a hidden negative externality just like coal plant fly ash, but eventually someone is going to have to pay the bill.