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Comment by Bancakes | Hacker News Reader

It's nuclear or nothing at all. It's nuclear or upper middle class gets energy. It's nuclear or "stoneage-with-smartphones".

It's nuclear or we need thousands of 24/7 on-call maintenance jobs for all the renewables, and the landfills they will produce.

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Well, I suspect you just feel obliged to post hyperbole for some reason. But if you actually believe any of that then I hate to break it to you, you've been fooled in that case. None of your statements are true.

Because talking about “laying the continent barren” was not hyperbole.

I must assume you are uniformed about the effects of most or all of Europes nuclear reactors losing their cooling. The relative limited catastrophe in Chernobyl is still rendering wild game in Sweden unfit for human consumption. Maybe you weren't aware?

All the nuclear reactors losing their cooling is less likely than global thermonuclear war. Actually, one nuclear reactor in the middle of war losing its cooling and going off is less likely than global thermonuclear war.

Source: recent events. Putin is out of control and has made numerous threats of global-scale retaliation. Zaporizhzhia NPP has made no threats, and is under control and ready to take offline.

What wild game is unfit for human consumption in Sweden because of Chernobyl?

Not the person you were asking but wild boars in Southern Germany are still considered unfit for human consumption because of soil contamination in forests.

The reason I’m asking is because hunting wild game in Sweden is very common and the parent poster made it sound like the consequences of the radiation fallout is a lot worse than it actually is.

Edit: It seems the case is similar in Sweden. Wild boar in the regions hit hardest by the fallout is not safe to eat.

https://www.stralsakerhetsmyndigheten.se/press/nyheter/2021/...

For those unaware: the reason boar are singled out is that they forage by digging up the ground, so they're more likely to be directly affected by contaminated soil, even if the contamination would normally be underground at this point.

I'm not sure what the situation is with burrowing animals like rabbits but I'd wager the problem with boar is also that they are more likely to actually ingest contaminated soil in addition to simply being covered in it.

Chernobyl is still rendering wild game in Sweden unfit for human consumption.

Not really true. Yes you can still measure heightened Cesium levels in wild game, as well a fish and mushrooms. However Those levels are consistently below the levels set as safe for human consumption in basically all game. The only exception are the levels in wild mushrooms and animals that eat a lot of wild mushrooms (like wild boar in certain areas)

This was even true 10 years ago [0]

[0] https://svenskjakt.se/uncategorized/sparen-efter-tjernobyl-f...

They're not? So how come nuclear reactors keep ticking for decades while photovoltaic properties whither away, wind turbines are taken offline for maintenance, and hydropower plants are a geographic rarity?

Most importantly, an NPP does not depend on constant and timely supply chains. You don't care if Asia embargos the west or any scenario like that.

> You don't care if Asia embargos the west or any scenario like that.

You wouldn't?

Russia and Russian allies control close to 70% of the world's uranium exports (2018) [0]

"Only a handful of facilities in the world convert milled uranium into uranium hexafluoride; Russia produced approximately one-third of the 2020 supply, much of it made with uranium from Kazakhstan. Russia also has 43% of the global enrichment capacity" [1]

"The Biden administration reportedly is considering nuclear sanctions on Russia. U.S. utilities oppose this step for fear that it would make uranium fuel scarcer and more expensive. Many U.S. nuclear plants are already struggling economically." [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_p...

[1] https://theconversation.com/russias-energy-clout-doesnt-just...

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