Re:The lesson about the end of nuclear in Germany
by _ph_ on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @07:24AM
(#35712017)
It is not only the death count. Large parts of Bavaria are still contaminated from the Chernobyl accident. They decontaminated most fields, but mushrooms and especial wild boar from the forests (they eat the mushrooms a lot) are only to be eaten with care (and the pigs should be all checked for radiation whether they are safe for eating at all, but of course that doesn't always happen).
Re:The lesson about the end of nuclear in Germany
by rhn_mk1 on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @08:09AM
(#35712418)
I agree that it's not only the death count, but what do you do with contamination caused by fossil fuels? The radioactive isotopes released by burning coal are released gradually and everywhere, not concentrated into a certain region. If you want to eat mushrooms at all, you will eat mushrooms with coal-related contaminants. How much damage is that worth?
At least with Chernobyl, you can escape contamination by avoiding Bavarian mushrooms.
Re:The lesson about the end of nuclear in Germany
by bayesian_horse on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @08:25AM
(#35712579)
You are still assuming that the only alternative to nuclear power is coal power.
That right there is a big fat lie and makes all your arguments worthless.
Re:The lesson about the end of nuclear in Germany
by _ph_ on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @08:39AM
(#35712721)
Right, the alternative are renewables and if the previous governments had not screwed up the transition, coal would play a much minor role now.
Re:The lesson about the end of nuclear in Germany
by bayesian_horse on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @08:24AM
(#35712565)
I'd like to see some sources for the claim that this death toll is so much higher - on a per kW basis. And even that assumes that scaling up the number of nuclear plants scales the risk up linearly, which is probably impossible because regulations, standards and democratic participation would have to be lowered.
Sure nuclear meltdowns making territory unusuable sucks, but the mining does actually present a fair amount of ecological damage itself, and I think there's more metrics than potential territory loss. Notably lignites causes more radiation to enter the atmosphere, but unlike nuclear, this isn't neatly concentrated in one area people can just stay out of, which isn't conducive to people not dying.
I could maybe humour the argument that nuclear waste storage (Even accounting for these being very little of it, there will be very little of it for a very long time) or especially nuclear power plants encouraging nuclear weapons development being fat tail risks, but accidents, no. We're never going to see dramatic nuclear meltdowns even get close to causing the death toll of lignite, it just is way too implausible.