Three Mile Island was the worst nuclear accident in US history. Was mainly caused by poor design of human feedback systems which caused operational confusion and lead to a catastrophic failure.

  • @Eximius
    link
    English
    93 months ago
    1. Not poisonous.
    2. Not explodey. Chernobyl destroyed all common sense and support for nuclear power, even though it was mostly terrible terrible management and horrible corrupt (Soviet) government that caused it. Nuclear reactors can’t explode like Chernobyl unless someone purposely flips all the switches to red, does manual overrides aand it was specifically built to ignore all logical safety concerns.

    The number of kille people by coal is orders of magnitude higher over the same period (lets say 60 years) per GW generated.

    Any other arguments?

    • datendefekt
      link
      fedilink
      English
      23 months ago

      Uranium is a heavy metal and of course its poisonous. Just like lead, but radioactive. Why aren’t we using uranium glassware or uranium paint anymore if it’s supposedly not poisonous?

      When was the last time a solar farm or a wind park had a catastrophic accident leading to large parts of land being uninhabitable for decades, even centuries?

      Of course they are explodey. It’s a fission reaction that has to be constantly modulated and cooled to not go critical.

      The other argument is the cost of properly storing waste and decommissioning the plant, which is often conviently ignored. Not much of a NPP can be recycled, unlike solar.

      • @Eximius
        link
        English
        53 months ago

        Wait, so you think nuclear reactors spew out uranium?

        While coal powerplants don’t spew out radioactive coal ash??

        Lets just say only one of these is true… and it is not the former.

        They are not explodey, because they are by design not. The non RBMK (i.e. not cheap Russian, lied-about-safety-by-government) reactors are designed to literally cool off without any power or control, if all went to shit. You can try with all your expertise to make it explode, and short of rebuilding it you will fail. Even if you were to add explosives. At that point, just making your own nuclear bomb is cheaper and faster.

        I think it is quite optimistic to think they will even recycle 5% of a solar powerplant. The silicon is not useful, hard to dismantle from metal. Additives make it unusable without special centrifuge processes. Take the easy metals, scrap the rest, use easy, cheap raw materials for controlled process. Most of the NPP can be recycled if you cared, apart from the irradiated reactor, which is a very tiny part of it. It’s all wires, steel and other useful electric constructions. Nobody cares to recycle concrete.

        I wont talk about storing waste, because I dont know why it is marketed as prohibitively expensive. Apart from it just being lead lined barrels in say an empty mineshaft (which there are an exceptional volume of everywhere). Literally enough space for forever, no need to put anything in the air.

        • datendefekt
          link
          fedilink
          English
          03 months ago

          Wait, so you think nuclear reactors spew out uranium?

          Didn’t say that. But I also don’t think that it magically appears in the plant.

          While coal powerplants don’t spew out radioactive coal ash??

          Please stop this whataboutism.

          Nobody cares to recycle concrete.

          Not true. Making concrete creates huge amounts of CO2 during production. Sand is becoming a valuable resource. Recycling concrete for aggregate absolutely is a thing, but that’s a different topic.

          I wont talk about storing waste, because I dont know why it is marketed as prohibitively expensive.

          Convenient. Then I will because I’m not finished. You have to ensure containment of the barrels for decades, if not centuries. The mine has to be in geologically inactive area, and you have to be certain that no ground water will seep into the mine in the foreseeable future. We don’t want ground water in the mine, its cold and wet and seeps through everywhere.

          And you have to figure out how to keep idiots from breaking into the mine in 150 years and using spent rods to heat their homes. If you think that’s far fetched I encourage you to read about the Goiânia accident , one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters. Some kids found the radioactive source of an abandoned xray machine while playing around.

          • @Eximius
            link
            English
            23 months ago

            It’s not whataboutism: https://www.epa.gov/radtown/radioactive-wastes-coal-fired-power-plants

            You said yourself that concrete is not recycled, and it is upcycled only for aggregate, can use any rocks for that. Nobody is converting cement to cement clinker.

            Keep idiots from breaking in to the mine that has “radioactive” signs is quite far fetched. You dont just accidentally stumble on an opened mineshaft and accidentally have keys to the lift to go down 100m.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              -13 months ago

              It’s worse than stumbling into a mine. Look up RTGs. They’re nuclear batteries that have half lives of ~90 years that the USSR loved to sprinkle all over the woods when they couldn’t be assed to maintain their own infrastructure for more than a few years. They were largely abandoned during the collapse, but hunters and scavengers still find these things and even drag them back to the village from time to time. Kills a few dumb villagers pretty bad every time it happens. There are more than 1000 of these things still out there, mostly unaccounted, and very few if any even have warning signs, let alone high security like a fence.

              • Rhaedas
                link
                fedilink
                23 months ago

                Look up NASA’s versions of RTGs. Just because Russia did everything wrong doesn’t make a technology bad, just mishandled.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        33 months ago

        There is talk about lifting the restrictions on fuel recycling, so that problem (which isn’t as big an issue as folks make it out to be) has the potential to be solved.