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Should Japan Restart More Nuclear Power Plants? (thebulletin.org)
Lasrick writes: Seth Baum, executive director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, writes in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that Japan should restart more of its nuclear reactors (the Sendai nuclear plant was restarted in August). The reason is simple, writes Baum: "Japan is now building 45 new coal power plants, but if it turned its nuclear power plants back on... it could cut coal consumption in half. And coal poses more health and climate change dangers than nuclear power."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania
Between direct deaths (ie people who die immediately in accidents) and indirect deaths (ie people who die of cancer or pollution) I think coal has more deaths than nuclear by quite a bit. Interestingly hydroelectric dominates for direct deaths as shown here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents
Germany [..] replaced all their nuclear power plants
Except they didn't.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
What? A nuclear powerplant is not a potential teraton explosion waiting to happen...
Since there's nowhere near a teraton of water in the cooling system? No.
Nuclear plant explosions have more in common with a bursting water heater than they do with a nuclear bomb.
Now, don't get me wrong. A high pressure steam explosion is a nasty thing too. But it's NOT a nuclear explosion.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
You seem to forget that the US dropped NUCLEAR FUCKING BOMBS on two Japanese cities only 70 odd years ago, and both are thriving cities these days.
What goes on for so long is the bs paranoia that is so deeply ingrained that people refuse to look at the scientific facts that low levels of radiation are not lethal, and in fact are quite common naturally.
Or perhaps you suggest we should require people to block up all basements in bedrock due to the natural radon levels?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radon
Not to mention banning bananas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose
People living in Ramsir, Iran of course must be dead by now, but somehow they have been surviving for centuries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Mazandaran
But dont let actual facts get in the way of your cold war radiation terror..
Nuclear and Coal are as bad as each other and Nuclear is worse in ways we still don't fully comprehend.
I'd argue that Coal is worse, and worse in ways that we still don't fully comprehend. We understand the problems with nuclear power pretty well, including that it kills fewer people per MWh than solar.
Remember, most of the dangerous byproducts from a coal plant don't break down, and aren't all that well contained. Nuclear power waste is at least contained.
I don't read AC A human right
every coal fire plant is a disaster that is occurring every single day and are continuing to affect the human race in ways we still don't fully comprehend long after everyone here is dead.
You are arguing that having two problems is the solution, instead of getting rid of both problems. Nuclear and Coal are as bad as each other and Nuclear is worse in ways we still don't fully comprehend.
No, I am arguing coal is a KNOWN far worse problem right here and now, we don't have to wait for an accident, it doesn't have some "chance" of being an issue. It has far reaching known issues and probably just as many unknown.
They are 100% importers of their coal. However they have very good coal supply contracts with Australia which provide them with a cheap and reliable supply.
The simple reason is that wind does not generate enough power. If they were to build out their entire wind potential they would have a max generating potential of 752gw. If we assumed favourable wind conditions you might get to 30% of that figure (that would make it one of the best performing in the world) so 225GW. Currently Japan has C250GW of installed generating capacity so there is basically no overhead if they went all wind and there would be a monumental capital cost to achieve it as 600GW is offshore.
As for tidal there isn't currently a working production level tech that I am aware of. Hydro sits at around 6.6% of their electricity generation but it has been expensive, hence they are not building any more. And they have 18 geothermal plants currently but their contribution to the power grid is almost noise level.
I beg to differ, too: although the local wildlife population is devastatingly healthy thanks to less people around . This is thirty years after the catastrophe, nearly 40 even!
The first ten years after the incident you only had misscariages there and deformed birthes.
The animals living there now are not decendents of the survivors of the catastrophe, but animals that migrated over the last 20 years into that area.
Depending where they set up their "base of living" they survived the immigration or died quite soon on problems with the radiation, e.g. mushrooms are contaminated enough that you get cancer for sure if you eat more than one or two dishes with them.
Even in south Germany you still can not eat wild boar or mushrooms.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
This is pretty much it.
Coal? Greenhouse gases, soot, ash and lots of other fun things (Note: not fun at all. Very dangerous.). Also, said not-very-fun stuff is (in part) radioactive.
Natural gas? Greenhouse gases. It's better, I guess, but it still screws us over. Efficiency might be better, than coal, too.
Solar Thermal or PV? Sure, let's take advantage of it on structures and stuff. Using it on an industrial scale isn't quite practical, though, considering the massive areas required. Large scale thermal installations are also hazardous to birds. Doesn't work all the time, either.
Wind? Wind can be unpredictable, and it's supposedly a very big hazard for birds.
Nuclear? Complex, expensive designs that produce highly radioactive materials - however, they're confined and easily handled (compared to exhaust from a boiler or turbine) and just have to be stored away until they decay or new reactors can use them as fuel.
Hydro? Apparently, pretty bad for local ecosystems, otherwise a good solution. Probably going to be necessary for large-scale storage whatever happens.