News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Europe Is Losing Nuclear Power Just When It Needs Energy by Aeolun on Tuesday February 01, 2022 @09:31AM (#30162870)
> has been responsible for smallest number of deaths of any form of energy generation

So far. The spent fuel will be around for another 10k years to potentially cause further deaths.

If we have a few more Fukushimas, we might ruin the ocean forever.

Re:Europe Is Losing Nuclear Power Just When It Needs Energy by tablespoon on Tuesday February 01, 2022 @10:04AM (#30163375)
> If we have a few more Fukushimas, we might ruin the ocean forever.

I could be wrong, but, IIRC, coal power has actually created more radioactive pollution than nuclear energy. It's just a far, far larger volume of less concentrated pollution.

Also, Fukushima-style pollution isn't "forever." The most radioactive stuff also decays the quickest, so it disappears relatively quickly. It looks like most of the pollution from Fukushima was caesium-137, which has a half-life of 30 years.

Re:Europe Is Losing Nuclear Power Just When It Needs Energy by DrBazza on Tuesday February 01, 2022 @12:31PM (#30166021)
There's no small irony that after Chernobyl, all evidence is that animal life has actually thrived in spite of the radiation, and if anything, the most sensitive species to radiation is us. Another commenter has already pointed out that there is vastly more radioactivity in the sea than anything we can add.

A few million gallons of nuclear contaminated water into the ocean is nothing, it'll dilute to next to nothing, Nuclear homeopathy, if you prefer.

Re:Europe Is Losing Nuclear Power Just When It Needs Energy by WithinReason on Tuesday February 01, 2022 @09:48AM (#30163142)
There's 4.5 Billion metric tons of uranium in the ocean already.

https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6191296