[ziotom78]

What strikes me is the fact that nuclear power has received an incredible amount of backslash after the Chernobyl incident (a few thousands deaths) and the Fukushima incident (one disputed death), but hydroelectric power is considered a "good" source of energy despite a few incredibly deadly incidents:

- Banquiao (China, 1975): between 26.000 and 240.000 [1]

- Derna (Lybia, 2023): between 6000 and 20.000 deaths [2]

- Machchu (India, 1979): 5000 deaths [3]

- Vajont (Italy, 1963): 2000 deaths [4]

- Möhne dam (Germany, 1943): 1500 deaths [5]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Derna_dam_collapse

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morvi_dam_failure

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajont_Dam

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6hne_Reservoir

[ViewTrick1002]

I think this line of thinking comes from a westernized world where all water is controlled.

Many dams have been built around the world not for power generation, but to control flooding. The power generation is a secondary concern.

In aggregate dams have saved far more lives, by managing flood waters.

The great thing in 2025 is that we don’t need either the dam or nuclear risk for our electricity needs.

Just build renewables and storage and the risk for the general public is as close to zero as we can get. The only people involved in accidents are those that chose to work in the industry installing and maintaining the gear.

We should of course continue to focus on work place safety but for the general public the risk of a life changing evacuation, radiation exposure or flood from dam failure does not exist.

[madaxe_again]

As you say, dams are a net positive, and while failures do happen, these days we tend to be wiser about where we put PHES in particular.

I guess I’m surprised it isn’t more of an option for California - the U.K. uses Snowdonia as a giant battery, and afaik there’s been one failure of a dam that wiped half of trefriw off the map a century ago - which wasn’t hard as it’s a speck of a place. Since then the lakes have pretty reliably and safely provided somewhere to stick excess energy, and now are largely pumped by the offshore wind arrays nearby.

California has big mountains, but I’m not sure if the geology or terrain is right for PHES.

[rkomorn]

And the environmental impact up and downstream (both for failure cases and regular operation).

[hylaride]

In Quebec, most of the dams are in the middle of nowhere, but your point still stands.

There are costs/risks for most forms of power. If you're in an environment where wind and solar can make economical sense, go for it. For reliable base loads, I still think order of preference should be:

- geothermal (very rare and hard to do at scale, though) - hydro

- nuclear

- natural gas

- oil/diesel (at very small, localized levels eg remote villages)

- burning live babies and cute animals

- coal

[disentanglement]

Did you really just attribute the deaths from a bombing raid on a dam during WW2 to a hydropower incident?

[kakacik]

If a nuclear reactor was bombed during the war, would the resulting deaths be counted as a nuclear disaster and used as argument against it, or just another war crime? Depends who you ask I'd say.

[mpweiher]

Is Fukushima generally attributed to the Tsunami or to nuclear power?

[ViewTrick1002]

Does that really matter? The cleanup costs are still socialized.

It is time we move on from the fossil tradition of socialized losses on private profits [1] and instead let the nuclear industry bear their true insurance cost.

No externalizing of costs like today.

[1]: https://www.imo.org/en/about/conventions/pages/international...

[mpweiher]

It does if you complain that a hydropower disaster had a different proximate cause, which the person I replied to did.

The whole intermittent renewables scam is private profits and socialized losses.

[ViewTrick1002]

Not sure why you got so worked up?

Then I suppose nuclear power is also a scam given thant 45% of the capacity in Sweden was out last week and we all know how it went for the French during the energy crisis. [1]

The electricity grid is fundamentally running on marginal cost. How will you force everyone with rooftop solar and home batteries to buy horrendously expensive new built nuclear power when they can supply their own electricity?

[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/15/business/nuclear-power-fra...

[mpweiher]

Who is worked up? You seem to be. Why?

I am just correcting misinformation and disinformation.

And no, you suppose incorrectly.

Intermittent renewables are a scam, because they get to privately reap benefits and socialize their costs, particularly their intermittency.

They can be useful, as long as they have to bear the costs of being intermittent. That means at minimum no feed-in priority and no fixed and/or guaranteed feed-in prices. Ideally, they would be required either (a) provide guaranteed power or (b) only be allowed to feed in after all the reliable plants.

Well, (b) would imply (a), so let's go with that.

[ziotom78]

I was going to reply, but kakacik already said what I wanted.