Forecasting of energy consumption by G20 countries
nature.com
nature.com
> Nuclear energy is one of the most dangerous forms of energy as one mistake in handling nuclear power can cause loss of many lives and damage for centuries
Fossil fuel consumption is still rising. And we are still actively subsidizing it.
This is bad. But we already knew this.
Global coal usage is predicted to peak in 2024 for industrial use and 2028 for electrical generation.
But, we know how to do better for cheaper, and we've started doing so but we won't actually start reducing fossil fuels usage globally for a few years yet.
A slightly more important metric is carbon intensity, and pollution, so shifting from ICE vehicles to EVs powered by coal is good. And shifting from coal-fired electricity to gas generators is good.
Just looking at 'fossil fuel' usage might hide big changes within that.
Catastrophic solar panel failure: you replace it
Catastrophic wind turbine failure: replace it, clean up debris
Catastrophic gas plant failure: 3 deaths, cleanup, rebuild
Catastrophic nuclear plant failure: hundreds of deaths, thousands of cancer cases, 1000 sq. Km is uninhabitable until the year 25,000
Yes, its true you can detect isotopes from an accident like that (which was a hydrogen explosion) for a very long time, but the way this works, is that isotopes with very long half lives, are basically not dangerous. AKA, if the half life of something is a couple hundred years, its not going to be decaying in your body. The chemical properties are going to have far worse effects. (AKA think about all the lead we blew into the air in every major metropolitan area). Things like Iodine-131, are what you have to worry about, but the half life is roughly 8 days. So its gone in a year. (and in fact its used as a cancer treatment, so...).
Even then, if you compare the atmospheric effects of Chernobyl, they are orders of magnitude less than the atmospheric testing performed by the USA and the Soviets. Which can be detected in every living thing on the planet.
So, 1: Managing to accumulate enough hydrogen for an explosion is something that modern designs avoid, thereby making it basically impossible.
2: Even if you manage to blow up, its actually not that dangerous outside of a very limited area because a couple KG of radioactive elements quickly get to the parts per billion levels of concentration, which can only be re-concentrated by biological processes, which itself is something fairly easy to detect.
3: When Chernobyl melted down, the other reactors at the plant continued to operate for another roughly two decades, and there has been continuous people living and working in the direct area.
So, given the track record of the existing plants, if the entire worlds power came from them, and you had a Chernobyl level event every decade, it would still be an order of magnitude safer than solar/wind, which kills people from falling off roofs and towers.
Never mind, that its 2020, and we have computers, which can monitor and apply fail safes long before humans sitting in a control room need to react if someone designed a plant which aren't mechanically impossible to meltdown. None of these designs from 50 years ago would be built today, for the same reasons we wouldn't build computers with discrete logic. Science and technology have advanced, and there isn't a need. We can build completely safe plants, where the largest problem is worrying about asteroid impacts.
So, knock off the fear mongering.
2021 should be 2027 and 2017 should be 2021.
Otherwise I doesn't make sense to me. Maybe someone wrote by accident 2017 instead of 2027 and then swapped the legend so that it fits the graph's message.
Still, wondering why 6 co-authors, one editor and several peer-reviewers didn't notice it.
Or am I getting the graph wrong?
“Fossil fuel energy is one of the most dangerous forms of energy as zero mistakes in handling and usage still means millions of excess deaths”
but didn't fit HN rules, couldn't find better variation.
I would have gone for 'Forecasting of energy consumption by G20 countries [...via discrete] grey model'. The method is abbreviated as 'DAGM' in the text, "Discrete adjacent grey model". The point seems to be have used a model in systems theory which is deemed suitable for "incomplete or inaccurate data". See article "Grey Systems: Theory and Application" - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/252052256_A_brief_i...
Not that modelling isn't good. More that I think uncertainty in demand is quite large. It may be for central planning the only thing which matters is planning how much to make centrally, but it's a bit like economics: if people never bank it, and don't declare it, how big the grey or black economy is, can be a bit unclear.
What? Can someone send explain the validity of this claim?
Makes zero sense. From the previous sentence also seem the authors can some clear bias…
“Nuclear energy is one of the most dangerous forms of energy as one mistake in handling nuclear power can cause loss of many lives and damage for centuries. Hence, it is a policy by all the United Nations members to reduce the use of nuclear energy. There is no doubt that the development of nuclear energy has a significant effect on coal, oil, and gas. Most G20 countries do not make their nuclear energy consumption data available due to the government policy…”
Sure seeing a lot of negatives with this paper.
I consider Nuclear Energy an insurance policy for the local civilization. As long as a nation runs this things, the people running the gov can not totally detach from the populace and can not go totally insane.
Well, at least I thought so until Zelynsky was elected.