[cathartes]

This is my own objection to nuclear energy. It's arguably very safe. It could be made clean, even the by-products.

But a mistake doesn't cost one generation, it costs many. The odds for an incident are supposed to be ridiculously low, yet I've seen two catastrophic meltdowns just in my lifetime. I don't feel any energy need is worth even risking the rightful inheritance of so many descendants, ...

[pdkl95]

> 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.

[cathartes]

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.

[pdkl95]

> 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.

[cathartes]

> 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.

[AstralStorm]

Does it really? Do you have any evidence of it costing more than one generation anything? Not even Chernobyl disaster did that.

[cathartes]

If you were born and raised in Chernobyl city or Pripyat, your prospects for having a normal life in those places would be dashed almost beyond comprehension. Maybe these places are not especially significant to you or me, but is this not "evidence" enough?

(Addendum: And, yes, a good amount of money is still being spent to keep this disaster contained: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_New_Safe_Confinement)

[int_19h]

For 170,000 dead who had the misfortune of living downstream of Banqiao Dam, their prospects got dashed as well. That's, what, 3.5x of Pripyat population?

Yet I don't see a scramble to shut down all hydro plants.

[cathartes]

170k dead, and millions displaced. And, honestly, I think the outcry would be furious if such a dam disaster occurred today in the USA, rather than China in 1975.

Without sounding like I'm belittling the scale of that disaster, I still think of flood recovery as being relatively "short term" (a decade or two) compared to the aftermath of a nuclear meltdown (decades, possibly hundreds of years). That Chernobyl wasn't(/isn't) a bigger problem is partly due to reasonably effective intervention by an international team. The potential here is frightening enough that I don't think we should need high body counts to weigh the consequences.

[pdkl95]

> That Chernobyl wasn't(/isn't) a bigger problem is partly due to reasonably effective intervention by an international team.

Chernobyl wasn't a bigger problem because of the personal sacrifice of the thousands of liquidators that cleaned it up. I strongly recommend watching "Chernobyl 3828"[1], a short (~30min) documentary about that cleanup, by people that were involved in it.

> The potential here is frightening

Which is why the danger - even at Chernobyl - is usually severely overstated. I'm not saying the situation at Chernobyl wasn't a huge problem (see [1]). It just wasn't the insane danger that many believe it to be. For example, many of the liquidators involved in the cleanup are still alive, fighting Russian bureaucracy for the healthcare coverage they were promised in the Soviet era. Cancer is a long term consequence of working as a "bio robot", but modern medicine is making that increasingly survivable.

Fear tends to suppress rationality, so remember to stick to the facts, and remember that reputable sources can be hard to find for any topic.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV45AFCwcUc

[cathartes]

> Chernobyl wasn't a bigger problem because of the personal sacrifice of the thousands of liquidators that cleaned it up.

While slightly clumsy wording on my side, I was trying to say exactly this while trying to encompass the able help of outside experts and agencies that all worked (and still work) to contain this disaster.

>Which is why the danger - even at Chernobyl - is usually severely overstated.

Perhaps by others, but not by me. I was simply saying that the disaster area is still and will likely long remain an unlivable place. I find that an unacceptable risk. You are welcome to disagree.

>Fear tends to suppress rationality, so remember to stick to the facts, and remember that reputable sources can be hard to find for any topic.

This goes both ways. Arguing from the standpoint of reactor designs we're not using and setting arbitrary thresholds for "huge" versus "insane" to decide what's really worthy of our concern and using "modern medicine" as a catchall for improved chances for survival as if it were a solved problem aren't good talking points. The variation in survivorship among the liquidators has as much to do with how much exposure they had working on site. Most of those with larger exposures aren't fighting for healthcare--they're already dead.

Besides, this all stemmed from my original reply about whether there was any evidence for the disaster costing more than one generation. I'll "stick to the facts" by saying it did, it does, and even the very battle against Russian beaucracy for healthcare coverage you mentioned shows that even the care of survivors remain an issue for later generations.