Comment by pdkl95 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pdkl95 | Hacker News Reader

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> I've seen two catastrophic meltdowns just in my lifetime.

In that same time:

-- Chinese businesses improperly dumped into a of silicon tetrachloride (and other nasty pollutants) waste from photovoltaic production.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/solar-energy-isnt-...

-- Multiple fly ash spills spread heavy metals (arsenic, chromium, mercury, etc) over large areas of land and into major rivers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly...

-- An incredible amount of CO2 was released, leading to accelerating risk of catastrophic climate problems.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14085030

That's just a handful of problems I can find links for in a few minutes. The impact even from nuclear isn't anywhere close to the same scale of damage that other types of power already did to the environment.

> But a mistake doesn't cost one generation, it costs many.

Even if this was a concern - it's not - we're still talking about a temporary problem, that gets much smaller each half-life. The metals from fly ash are a permanent problem.

Your sense of "temporary" is clearly much longer than mine.

No matter, I'm not sure why we're comparing Chernobyl against these and other environmental disasters when they should be lumped together--these are all sins of our species.

> Your sense of "temporary" is clearly much longer than mine.

The point is not how long "temporary" is. It's incredibly hypocritical to complain that nuclear power has some sort of serious "nuclear waste problem" that must have some type of 10,000 year solution while conveniently ignoring the actual problems in other power sources.

There should even be much nuclear waste in modern breeder reactor designs, but even with the older style reactors that currently exist, the waste still tiny thanks to uranium having millions of times higher energy density[1]. That waste gets less dangerous as it decays, so the "temporary" isn't a consistent danger - it's bad initially, but the long tail is significantly safer.

> why we're comparing

deaths / kWh [2]

Far too many people panic about the "dangers" of nuclear power, while conveniently ignoring the larger dangers from other power sources. Even including Chernobyl, nuclear power is still safer than any[3] other source of energy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Energy_densitie...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents#Fatalities

[3] Solar and wind are also very low, although dam failures and the dangers of working on rooftops to install solar cells make them slightly more dangerous than nuclear. We should obviously use these sources as well when possible. I'm sure we can also improve the safety of solar, such as installing during regular building construction instead of retrofitting existing roofs.

> The point is not how long "temporary" is. It's incredibly hypocritical to complain that nuclear power has some sort of serious "nuclear waste problem" that must have some type of 10,000 year solution while conveniently ignoring the actual problems in other power sources.

Yes, it would be hypocritical if that's what I was doing. Except, instead, I was simply submitting what I felt was an important concern with nuclear energy. Similarly, it's disingenuous to talk of breeder reactor designs and their "tiny" amounts of waste when these remain mostly experimental and undeployed. The original links you posted for some other environmental disasters are very real, otoh.

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