When our living conditions deteriorate gradually, we adapt to these conditions instead of fixing of them. But sudden threats get sorted out immediately.
Coal has done far more damage than nuclear energy ever will, but coal has over 2300 stations worldwide and nuclear has 400.
A perfect example of the ‘Boiling Frog Syndrome’.
I read somewhere that the boiling frog thing is total bullshit. They’ll totally jump out once the water gets too hot.
The frogs only stayed in the water because Friedrich Goltz lobotomized the frogs beforehand. Which makes it a perfect metaphor because the Murdoch media has definitely lobotomized the public.
in this case the boiling frogs can’t jump out except for the ones with the top 1% of the cash in the pot so,
still applies i think
rich bastards claiming that windmills would harm them through visual pollution.
you fucking fuckwits, smog is visual pollution. But they don’t care.
you fucking fuckwits, smog is visual pollution.
I’m old enough to remember people losing their shit at China over the 2008 Beijing Olympics drowning in a toxic cloud. The international outcry was such that the state spent a decade cleaning all that shit up (which produced its own wave of “Has Chinese Eco-fascism Gone Woke?!” screamer articles in turn).
But their rate of pollution has been falling steadily for the last two decades, in no small part because the state wasn’t fighting an uphill battle against corporate slobs in white doctor’s coats trying to tell everyone that smog wasn’t happening/was good aktuly.
Meanwhile, US expenditures on lobbying, denialism, and greenwashing stretch into the billions of dollars annually. And its not hard to understand why, when the ROI is $7T/year on the international stage.
ROI is continued existence for some. It’s a similar reason to why the leadership of the west is so against communism and socialism: because the best path forward doesn’t include them.
ROI is continued existence for some.
“Makers” versus the “Takers”
the leadership of the west is so against communism and socialism
That’s far more just a historical boogieman. Nixon spent half his career insisting every institution from Harvard to Hollywood was infested with Communists, then made the high point of his career a photo-op with The Great Helmsman himself. To say “the leadership is against communism” you really need to blinker yourself to decades of amicable international cooperation.
Its only when local communities begin to express a bit of self-determination that western leadership remembers “Communism” is a dirty word.
Windmills are a whole lot better than burning coal, but aren’t perfect. Recyling the blades after their 20 year lifespan is a nightmare.
nothing is perfect. we need imperfect things that don’t emit co2. windmills have many detractors but at the moment represent mostly co2-free power if we’re willing to take it. and recycling industries for solar and wind are coming, they’ll never be perfect either, but when the waste stream becomes lucrative enough they’ll find a way.
but when the waste stream becomes lucrative enough they’ll find a way.
The problem with capitalism in a nutshell.
Hey keeps me employed. You people keep finding new types of waste and I keep finding ways to deal with it.
Because mercantilist wind turbine blades recycle themselves? Or did you mean to imply that communist wind turbines recycle themselves?
I mean to say that when financial incentive is the only incentive then a lot of things that would make this a better world end up on the scrap heap.
I doubt it’s any worse than the other mountains of waste we produce. I’d wager it’d barely even register.
Smog is like vaccines. People don’t see the smog/disease anymore, so they think they don’t need the protections/vaccines.
inb4 comment section full of uncited factoids and personal attacks
ur mom gay
dont need a citation for that one :)
Ha ha your mom suck me good and hard through my jorts
factoids
Factoids are wrong to begin with, just like claims that coal ash is significantly radioactive.
Studies show that ash from coal power plants contains significant quantities of arsenic, lead, thallium, mercury, uranium and thorium[1]. To generate the same amount of electricity, a coal power plant gives off at least ten times more radiation than a nuclear power plant.
The process of burning the coal concentrates contaminants of all kinds tenfold compared to their original concentration. So even if it isn’t significantly radioactive, we shouldn’t be allowing the other shit in there either.
Don’t just tease us with a [1]
My apologies.
D. Grenêche, ‘Déchets radioactifs, la vérité des faits et l’exactitude des chiffres’, Revue nationale du nucléaire, 2019.
I’m not defending coal energy. It’s a repeated and factually wrong claim from nuclear power proponents that trace radiation that is more concentrated in ash is somehow on par or even worse than nuclear waste or catastrophes. Just because that claim is wrong doesn’t automatically result in coal ash being fine and dandy.
Both have a storage problem. But coal has a destroys the atmosphere problem. So, yes, trade-offs.
You’re moving the goalposts after they debunked the first claim.
“debunking” requires a source… otherwise they just put forth a claim
never seen anyone claim that trace radiation from coal is more of a problem, just that it is a problem. cite someone making this “repeated” claim lol otherwise looks like u did a strawman
I have a Prius. Not for any stupid “I’m saving the planet despite still driving an ICE car” reasons, because I save a lot on gas.
Doesn’t stop every “rollin’ coal” asshole from doing it when they drive by me because “haw haw dumb librul hippie.” You sure showed me by spending a lot more on gas than I do.
Man I recently got a 2010 Prius off an auction. Very cheap purchase and it works great already getting savings on gas. But I did notice people have the urge to want to pass or take over when I’m in it even though I’m definitely going fast enough. Funny enough it doesn’t happen when I’m in my Miata going the same speed.
Literally children who want big loud vroom vroom trucks with lots of chrome.
my favorite fun fact is that one time that one 16 year tried to roll coal on bicyclists, and then just ran them over and killed them.
You sure showed me by spending a lot more on gas than I do.
The big difference is that trucking generates profit while car use is a personal cost. Rolling coal is negligible to a guy who probably doesn’t even own the rig in an industry where ROI on shipping is well above the cost of the fuel. Meanwhile, we’ve spent a long time dismantling our rail networks in order to profit the automotive industry.
In the end of the day, everything is made deliberately less efficient in order to carve out more and more little profit-centers for middle men and profiteers. It might look stupid and inefficient to you, but to them its just a fringe benefit in an industry with literal money to burn.
Rolling coal generally refers to people who have modified their pickup trucks to intentionally belch out black clouds of smoke.
I’ve seen it most commonly performed by big 18-wheeler trucks. No real modification necessary, when they’re already old and dirty.
have you ever seen a semi do that intentionally to block the vision of other people driving on the road? Or specifically, just to be an antagonistic force of the road?
have you ever seen a semi do that intentionally to block the vision of other people driving on the road?
Yes. Very common in and around Austin and San Antonio, particularly near the college campuses.
That’s probably just their truck being shite, without regular maintenance, and such. As you’ve pointed out, lots of them don’t own their trucks, and “rolling coal” generally refers to the practice of intentionally modifying a diesel truck to shoot out unburnt diesel fuel, usually through a straight pipe, and usually angled to be facing other cars or people they’re hazing or whatever, from what I’ve seen. It’s not unlikely that semi truckers, which is a sector that uses a particularly large amount of diesel compared to the normal car having population, would have a percentage of the fleet at any given time which is falling behind on maintenance to try to eek out more profit. Maybe their engines are just running rich, or probably more likely they have clogged air filters. Dunno what would be causing it to get past the catalytic converter and the rest of the exhaust manifold though, and just blow out straight with black smoke. That all seems like it would probably have to be modified intentionally, to see it with any frequency, ja? I dunno, hard to say.
I dunno I also say you’ve seen it around austin and san antonio, around college campuses, and that checks out to me as a more political kind of phenomenon, then just, say, seeing people running around town and hazing bikers or whatever.
So, I dunno. Does it count as rolling coal if your car is just shite?
That’s probably just their truck being shite, without regular maintenance, and such.
Tons of these shite trucks driving through college towns and having maintenance issues at peculiar moments.
Does it count as rolling coal if your car is just shite?
If you’re belching ash explicitly to harass a motorist you don’t like? Absolutely.
It’s mostly assholes in pickup trucks doing it.
when the fuck were people using their personal vehicles as company vehicles? And when were company vehicles noted for rolling coal and being a general public nuisance, while doing an illegal act? Surely any self respecting company that isn’t committing crimes already is going to reprimand employees for that shit.
If we’re talking about semi trucks, than i don’t know why you even left this comment. Those are a non problem?
And when were company vehicles noted for rolling coal and being a general public nuisance, while doing an illegal act?
Business Expense: Rolling Coal
Its more likely than you’d think.
If we’re talking about semi trucks, than i don’t know why you even left this comment. Those are a non problem?
If you’ve ever had to drive on a highway full of semis and smell all that gross exhaust, I think you’d feel otherwise. When they’re just belching it deliberately (used to be common place when they passed through Austin, TX and wanted to Own The Campus Leftists) its even worse.
He’s back to promote nuclear energy and insult everyone who disagrees!
those are some smooth pits
Fukisima
Unfortunately, due to budget constraints, the editor has been fired and replaced with a stoned dog.
*dawg
deleted by creator
ok real talk. 3 mile island reportedly had no result on the environment, on account of being fully contained. Chernobyl was significant, obviously.
Fukushima as far as we can tell today, has no significant long lasting effects. Notably i’ve read that rates of certain cancers in areas surrounding the plant did rise, but i’ve also heard that it was still below the nominal expected rate. So nothing of significant concern. The local sea life near to the plant could very well be an issue, but we don’t really have much data on that at the moment. Especially now that they’ve started releasing tritiated water into the ocean for the next 20-50 years or whatever the fuck the plan is supposed to be.
Nuclear energy fucks around sometimes.
certain cancers in areas surrounding the plant did rise
just a note to add that if you start checking the population for something routinely like thyroid cancer… the rate that you find it goes up. This is why the detected cancer rate increasing is not considered a cause for alarm.
You still can’t safely eat mushrooms in parts of Germany that got contaminated by Chernobyl.
And there are millions of people who’s homes have been irrevocably changed for the worse by a warming planet. Even those further north are being impacted as they experience floods in some places, droughts in others, and more extreme weather in general.
I don’t give a shit about the mushrooms.
It’s not a binary choice between coal (and other fossil fuels) and nuclear. Both are bad for the environment, and we should be looking to renewables instead. I fully agree that the climate crisis is the more pressing issue. I’m personally involved in climate activism. But this post is specifically about radioactivity, not overall impact
Germany is actively closing nuclear plants, one of the safest and cleanest energy sources, and replacing them with coal, the most dangerous and dirty one.
This is not what’s happening. Germany is shutting down both coal and nuclear. Due to the incompetent CDU (the conservatives are ruining everything once again) there was a lot of back and forth on nuclear, and their lobbyist friends delayed the exit from coal. But there finally is a plan to shut down all coal, but build more, and all nuclear plants are shut down and in the process of being dismantled, and turning them back on would not accelerate the shutting down of coal. Building nuclear is a slow and expensive process. Could this have been handled better 20 or even 50 years ago? Absolutely. But in the situation we’re currently in, nuclear is not the solution.
Nuclear is the solution until all coal plants are shut down. Coal kills millions each year (1000x more than coal) in addition to being a massive contributor to global warming. Nuclear is one of the safest power sources in the world and emits no greenhouse gas.
Shutting down nuclear plants while coal plants still exist is a crime against humanity.
You know what, I actually agree on that. Countries that currently have running nuclear plants should keep them running until they’ve eliminated coal (and gas, although their use not really overlaps - base load vs peak), but then shut them down.
Then we can totally agree. It’s not what Germany did though.
replacing them with coal
That’s not what https://www.agora-energiewende.de/daten-tools/ein-jahr-kernkraftausstieg is saying. Lignite (“Braunkohle”) -29TWh, hard coal (“Steinkohle”) -26TWh. A big factor of dealing with the evolved situation are much fewer energy exports (-23TWh).
If you close a nuclear power plant before closing a coal one, you are effectively replacing the nuclear with coal. It makes no sense to shut down nuclear plants before all the coal ones are shut down first.
And coal use has been going up in Germany. So I don’t know where you are getting these ideas from.
If you close a nuclear power plant before closing a coal one, you are effectively replacing the nuclear with coal.
That’s not how words work.
And coal use has been going up in Germany. So I don’t know where you are getting these ideas from.
Your data source is outdated. You’re looking at data up to 2022, whilst his data shows 2023-2024, which is more recent.
2022 also saw problems like the Ukraine war frustrating gas supply, forcing the use of more coal. And there was covid throwing a wrench into things as well.
Nuclear powerplants in Germany were beyond their lifespan and fixing and modernizing them was not economically feasible. Just too expensive compared to other forms of energy.
Germany certainly hasn’t been “replacing nuclear with coal”.
Closing a nuclear plant means you keep a coal plant open. So you are in effect replacing nuclear with coal. If you kept the nuclear plant open you could close the coal plants instead. Idiotic move.
I got this idea from reading (and linking) a recent 2024 source that you clearly didn’t read or ran through a translator. Your 2022 source is outdated.
Mate, they closed the power plants because they have long surpassed their design operating hours. The upkeep alone costs so ridiculously much, no one can pay that kind of shit. Germany has even postponed the closing date due to the immediate crisis the Russians have created.
Yet even accounting for all of that, including Chernobyl and Fukushima, nuclear is still 1000x safer than coal and as safe as wind and solar.
Bbbeeee aaaafffffrrrraaaiiiiiddddddddddddd!1!!1!!!1!!!1!!1!!!1!!!
C’mon. Chernobyl was like a drunk driver bypassing the blow device, and now you want to ban all cars everywhere for everyone and everything for eternity. Just to replace it with horses that kill even more people.
When I misuse a coal plant, it breaks down and potentially pollutes the vicinity. When I misuse a photovoltaic plant, it might get damaged. If I misuse a nuclear plant, an area becomes uninhabitable for centuries.
But accidents are not the main concern, when there are currently nuclear power plants being held hostage in an ongoing war
Coal plants kill more when they work properly than nuclear plants do when they break. Every coal plant is worse than Chernobyl or Fukushima.
See you’re treating all nuclear plants and operation of those plants as the same. It’s not. Just like car designs are not the same as they were in 1950, nuclear plant designs are not the same as they were in the 1950s.
You know Chernobyl was because they threw the operating procedure out the window right? But you want to act as if that’s just the normal operating procedure. And that it could just happen just because, just from normal operating or something. It’s insane.
So you think the US, UK, France, Germany, etc etc etc nuclear plants will be taken hostage by Russians? See you’re on your fear campaign once again. Beee aaafffrraaaaiiiiddd!1!11!! That’s all it is.
*Have to correct “misuse coal”. It’s not misuse, it’s use. Using coal guarantees polluting both locally and the entire planet.
I mean, can you tell for sure that there will not be any war in France or Germany in the next 70 years? I don’t think it’s likely, and I’m clearly of the opinions that we should apply whatever carbon reduction that is most carbon effective, nuclear included, given the current climate emergency, but considering a nuclear power plant could be targeted by an army or terror group is not that far-fetched.
Is everyone afraid yet? Better keep going even though Russia just humiliated themselves by being held off by one of the poorest countries in Europe. Always be aaaffrraaaiiiddd.
Ok, I’m with you on most of your points but you are mistaken in thinking Ukraine is a poor country. They are literally the bread basket of eastern Europe. That’s one of the biggest reasons Putin is so intent on taking it.
Bread basket does not mean rich. Look at the gdp numbers per capita, they are shockingly poor.
Let me throw in my two cents.
We have people in the U.S. who shoot up schools. We have people who stormed the capitol when their great orange godking failed to be made King President.
I, for one, am afraid of what the kind of person who instigates an insurrection could do with a target like a nuclear power plant.
With the safety features built into all nuclear plants, it would have to be a crazed nuclear engineer and the place would have to be abandoned and yet still somehow functioning. This is real life, not the Simpsons.
TIL security does not exist. Be afraid!!11!!! JFC.
That’s fine, I don’t like mushrooms anyways
It centralizes control, power and money.
So to make nuclear sound better it’s compared against the most polluting source?
I can’t say I’ve seen much push for more coal power plants.
The fact the nobody on any side likes to bring up (and most aren’t aware of tbh) is that using large amounts of energy that isn’t part of the natural cycle of the planet (i.e. current solar energy), whether that’s fossil energy (solar energy the the past), nuclear fission or fusion, it means the population of our species can grow beyond the carrying capacity (and I’m not speaking of simply making enough food, there are many other limits) and puts us into a race condition where we have to figure out how to colonize space before destroying the planet.
Nothing more nuclear than the sun.
That said, the primary appeal of uranium/thorium fuel is in energy density. Its a cheap way to localize consumption and distribution of electric energy, which has its own ecological costs. Nuclear can and should be comparably efficient to solar and wind. Radioactive decay is as much a part of the natural cycle as solar radiation or lunar tidal force and there’s no shame in harnessing it, so long as we manage the waste efficiently (a thing that molten salt thorium reactors do exceptionally well).
Some states are trailblazing a path towards functional reactor design faster than others
It’s not about shame, it’s about too much energy added to a system causing imbalance. Large scale use of nuclear or fossil energy does the same thing as adding tons of nitrogen to a lake (eutrophication). It’s temporarily great for the few nitrogen lovers but otherwise destroys the ecosystem.
By using nuclear or fossil energy, humans are causing the equivalent of eutrophication of our own environment.
Large scale use of nuclear or fossil energy does the same thing as adding tons of nitrogen to a lake
To my knowledge, electric energy generated by heated water is not producing any kind of effect comparable to nitrogen dumped into a lake or CO2 into the atmosphere. If there’s some source suggesting otherwise, I’d be curious to read it.
By using nuclear or fossil energy, humans are causing the equivalent of eutrophication of our own environment.
I think you’re confusing fossil fuels with fossil fertilizers. And eutrophication just isn’t a major concern in a planet that’s losing biodiversity and biomass to excess heat.
To my knowledge, electric energy generated by heated water is not producing any kind of effect comparable to nitrogen dumped into a lake or CO2 into the atmosphere. If there’s some source suggesting otherwise, I’d be curious to read it.
You’re not understanding my analogy.
Eutrophication is the addition of too much food for one type of living thing in an environment, allowing it’s population to grow too large for the ecosystem to support. This is exactly what the Green Revolution was for humanity.
I think you’re confusing fossil fuels with fossil fertilizers.
I’m talking about fossil energy in general, all forms of it. Fossil fertilizers are one form of fossil energy.
This is exactly what the Green Revolution was for humanity.
I haven’t seen any evidence of this. At best, you could argue its been wheat, rice, and corn undergoing eutrophication. Perhaps pigs, chickens, and cattle. But outside a few exceptionally well-fed western enclaves, we’re operating below the standard intake of our hunter-gatherer predecessors. Blame our sedentary lifestyle or our aging population, but most humans consume below the 2750-3000 calorie diet of our ancestors.
I’m talking about fossil energy in general, all forms of it.
Then you’re talking more on the industrial scale than the physical. And that’s got far more to do with our tolerance for waste than our appetite for raw inputs. For basic needs like light and heat and travel, we’re significantly more efficient thanks to a host of modernizations like insulation and mass transit.
What?
Do you have any idea how many things we can do with basically free energy? Like for instance, desalinate and clean sea water and pump it back into our exhausted aquifers. Or use electrolysis to split some of that water and oxygen and hydrogen. Or scrub carbon from the atmosphere with gigantic manual filter aways. Or just store excess power in grid scale batteries and cycle plants on and off as needed.
Yes, all of those things make it more likely for human numbers to grow even more, and in the process making more species extinct, and habitats destroyed.
Physics and biology tell us we are living unsustainably. Free energy just makes exploitation of the planet more efficient, wipe out nature even faster with more humans.
If we expect to exist in 100 years, degrowth is the only answer, green energy is a scam.
There is an intrinsic micro-mort rate for working on a roof. If you take this number and work out how many hours are spent working at height fitting solar panels it’s fairly easy to put the annual deaths from fitting solar panels far above that of nuclear. There’s no centralised collection of this data though so…
[edit: I can’t find a value for professionals anymore. This link mentions 1micromort per person on a ladder at home]
natural gas is only 40% cleaner than coal. Petroleum is probably about the same, if not worse, due to all the dirty oil we refine on a daily basis.
The fact that nuclear is still significantly better than coal, and it’s comparatively “clean” alternatives, should be a fucking telling statement.
Oh and on the fact of coal power plants, i would recommend you look into australia, clean coal, china, germany (post gas export shenanigans) and steel manufacturing (though that’s not a power plant)
me when I am malthusian:
Anyone watch the 3 Mile Island documentary on Netflix? Indeed, Holy Shit! That was close, the cleanup was just as bad, and all for profit. The natural gas lobby killed the coal mining industry.
Also polluted ground water by nuclear waste which we have no way of safely storing and where we just say “let future generations deal with it”
Most people who are against nuclear power, have the following reasons:
- it’s the most expensive form of energy due to massive regulations
- the power plants take way too long to build
- nuclear waste is a problem, no one wants to have it buried near their homes
- the fissile material is already rare and difficult to come by, mostly sourced from politically difficult regions, such as fucking Russia
Nuclear power is not a solution.
nuclear waste is a problem, no one wants to have it buried near their homes
No one? My basement is available. Go right ahead and pay me and store it. I don’t want to hear a single person make this claim when I am inviting the industry to pay me for my basement.
it’s the most expensive form of energy due to massive regulations
So deregulate to the same standards Fossil Fuels are regulated at
the power plants take way too long to build
because of all of the red tape from your last point, as well as fossil fuel organized NIMBYS
nuclear waste is a problem, no one wants to have it buried near their homes
Again because disinformation spread by fossil fuel organized NIMBYS
the fissile material is already rare and difficult to come by, mostly sourced from politically difficult regions, such as fucking Russia
Breeder reactor
Rather than fission power choose fusion power delivered wirelessly to you house. Our space based fusion reactor can provide you with clean, reliable and inexpensive power today.
Your friends at fusion electric
