"Just stop oil"

[GreatAuk]

Is it safer compared to solar/wind/tidal? I doubt it

From having a quick Google I can't find actual numbers of fatalities and potentially serious incidents, but feel like they should be around somewhere. I would like to find a breakdown of safety cases and estimated risks too, but expect they won't be publically available for either wind or nuclear.

However, I wouldn't be surprised if it is safer, or very close. People have occasionally died from exposure, electric shock, and falling from height in the course of working in turbines, and have all the various risks associated with travel too. Not sure if anyone's died from fire here, but there was a story about a couple of workers dying in a fire in Denmark a little while ago. Same sort of risks that nuclear power plant workers face (an example of one of the worst incidents I remember hearing about being this one (luckily no fatalities in this case): https://www.shponline.co.uk/headlin...kers-injured-in-nuclear-power-plant-incident/), except nuclear power plants tend to be better set up for controlled and safe access to parts that need servicing etc - especially the new designs. I'm sure new designs of wind turbines are better than old ones too, but the nature of them requiring working at height and in confined spaces, often in remote and hard to reach areas, and requiring significant road travel to reach them means some of those risks are hard to design out and control...

As for the more external risks such as a release of radioactive gas or liquid leading to rediation exposure of people nearby, or a wind turbine falling over and hitting someone in a storm they're both going to be extremely low for new designs (and existing designs too to be fair).

I stopped as I found a better alternative. Why take the risk when you can avoid it?

Presumably taking the vast majority of journeys by plane, train, or bus now, given then they are the only mainstream modes of transport safer than driving? Walking and cycling being orders of magnitude more dangerous...

 

[ver01@]

We are talking about civilian casualties not workers.

 

[Angilion]

They are available for decades. In France since the 60s and producing 600MW. This is from a single, "old" power station.

Your statement is untrue in three key ways:

1) No tidal power station is claimed to produce 600MW. That tidal power station in France that you refer to produces 57MW. 57 isn't 600. Also, generation is intermittant.
2) Since the stated generating capability of any renewables power station other than some implementations of geothermal is effectively a lie, it wouldn't be true even if was claimed to be true (which it isn't).
3) Even if it produced 600MW (which it doesn't and it isn't claimed to do) it would be highly variable and thus the core problem of intermittancy still exists and still has no solution. Which is presumably why you're so determined to pretend it doesn't exist.

Test facilities demonstrate what is feasible.

A test facility demonstrated controlled nuclear fusion over 60 years ago. Should we have turned all the power off 60 years ago in the hope that doing so would automatically somehow make it possible to power everything from nuclear fusion?

Test facilities demonstrate what's possible on a test scale in a test facility. There's a long way from that to sustainable production on a national or global scale. And you're ignoring intermittancy again.

The estimate is that a single barrage could supply 7% of total UK energy needs.

Another untrue statement. You're probably referring to the idea of a Severn barrage as that would be by far the biggest one in the UK. Which is theoretically possibly capable of sometimes (and only sometimes) supplying less than 1% of the total UK energy needs. If we had unlimited money and were willing to ruin a sizable area of ecosystems. And assuming it worked as well as the best case hypothetical scenario claims.

The claim was as much as 5% of the UK electricity use. The UK energy use is about 6 times higher than that. And there's the thing you keep ignoring - intermittancy.

What are these different options? I assume you are not referring to nuclear as a lower cost alternative to tidal power?

Given that your approach would collapse society and cause the death of billions, nuclear fission has a vastly lower cost in terms of lives even if it is more expensive in terms of money.

You ignored me the last time I outlined my preferred choice. Why should I think you'd do anything different this time?

Impossible is not something that should be used as an argument. I guess you are more like people that did not believe that ships made out of iron would float

I'm more like people who do not believe that aliens will inevitably save us with dilithium crystals and a TARDIS. Maybe they will. But we shouldn't bet everything on it happening very soon.

An analogy:

There's a canyon ahead and we need to get across to the other side. I think we should build a bridge using materials and techniques known to work for building a bridge. You're arguing that we should jump off the edge and trust that the bouncy castle someone has claimed to have built at the bottom would safely sproing us safely up to the other side.

I've been hearing about the bouncy castle for a long time. I go back as far as Salter's ducks, which were supposedly going to provide vast amounts of very cheap electricity soon. Cheap was the main selling point then as that was long before environmentalism became politically powerful and even longer before the phrase "climate change" existed. I've probably been reading about alternative energy sources for longer than you've been alive. I'm not as gullible now. The last claim I believed without evidence was the STAIR battery, which was over 10 years ago. Nowadays I don't simply accept the most extraordinary claim made up by anyone as the absolute truth.

 

[Angilion]

Because it has happened.

Once. And to some extent because of people like you. If it hadn't been for political pressure from anti-nuclear people, a reactor built to an old design wouldn't have been running well past its intended lifespan. A new one would have been built instead. And the dangerous failure wouldn't have happened.

The dangerous failure at Fukushima daiichi occurred after it was hit by a massive earthquake and then a massive tidal wave. Neither of which could occur in the UK. Yes, we have earthquakes. Yes, we have tidal waves (extremely rarely). But not big enough ones. Maybe one tidal wave big enough about 8000 years ago, at least for the northeast of Scotland.

Fukushima daiichi didn't fail because it was a nuclear power station. It failed because of cost-cutting, specifically on the seawall. We know this is the case because the identical Fukushima oniichi power station was subjected to the same thing and didn't fail. Because the size of its seawall was determined by engineers rather than by accountants.

Even then, that wouldn't have been enough by itself. The backup system was wrongly positioned and the backup backup system was inadequate in the situation of a major country-wide disaster.

None of those things would apply to a modern nuclear power station, even assuming we were cautious and used only well proven designs. There are even safer designs that are proven to a lesser extent. It's entirely possible to build a completely failsafe nuclear fission power station. For example, a molten salt reactor can be built with an entirely gravity driven failsafe system. Gravity always works. It would even be possible to build one that didn't need active cooling at all because the unstoppable failsafe system would isolate the radioactive material not just into subcritical masses but into masses low enough for passive cooling to be adequate.

Also, the confirmed deaths from the Fukushima dangerous failure is one. And that person died of a heart attack brought on by the shock of it. Several more people died as a result of the evacuation. Nobody died from the nuclear aspect of it. EDIT: Much more recently, one death of a person working at the plant has been attributed to cancer probably caused by the dangerous failure.

On the other hand, the worst "renewables" dangerous failure killed ~240,000 people, left ~11,000,000 people homeless and devastated a huge area of land. So why aren't you far more vehemently opposed to hydroelectric? Banqiao was obviously vastly worse than Fukushima.

 

[Angilion]

From having a quick Google I can't find actual numbers of fatalities and potentially serious incidents, but feel like they should be around somewhere. [..]

I found a report a few years back. If you include the highest estimates for fatalities possibly caused by Chernobyl, nuclear comes out as a bit more dangerous than wind and solar in terms of deaths per amount of electricity generated. Tidal wasn't included as it has never produced enough electricity to be relevant. Hydroelectric was much higher, though nowhere near as high as the most dangerous (which was, unsurprisingly, coal).

With modern nuclear fission power stations, it would be the safest way. Chernobyl was an arsebrained design that was rapidly fail-dangerous (is that a term? It should be), obsolete even before it was built, ran for far longer than it should have been, built with a nonsensical and stupidly inadequate and dangerous layout for providing (or, more accurately, failing to provide) key information to workers and then deliberately run with the safeties disabled (which shouldn't even be possible in a sensibly designed power station) under completely wrong circumstances by people not adequately trained for the job. It's a whole catalogue of what not to do that can't be repeated and is irrelevant to modern nuclear power stations.

 

[Angilion]

I've found a more recent report (2021), which might be more accurate as a result of having had longer to assess the most likely range of the number of people killed by Chernobyl. That report covers deaths between 1965 and 2021. The summary chart is here:

Death rates per unit of electricity production

Death rates are measured based on deaths from accidents and air pollution per terawatt-hour of electricity.

ourworldindata.org

To summarise the summary;

Nuclear: 0.03 deaths per TWh
Wind: 0.04 deaths per TWh
Solar: 0.02 deaths per TWh
Hydro: 1.3 deaths per TWh

There are other reports from different years and using different sources, but the overall picture is the same - nuclear fission is generally roughly on a par with wind and solar and hydro is significantly worse. Although some reports put nuclear fission as significantly safer than wind or solar. In all cases, it's all about Chernobyl. If you look at ongoing deaths per TWh, nuclear fission is much safer than wind or solar. Although they're all safe enough.

 

[ver01@]

Your statement is untrue in three key ways:

1) No tidal power station is claimed to produce 600MW. That tidal power station in France that you refer to produces 57MW. 57 isn't 600. Also, generation is intermittant.

That's still much more than the UK station you mentioned as an example.

2) Since the stated generating capability of any renewables power station other than some implementations of geothermal is effectively a lie, it wouldn't be true even if was claimed to be true (which it isn't).
3) Even if it produced 600MW (which it doesn't and it isn't claimed to do) it would be highly variable and thus the core problem of intermittancy still exists and still has no solution. Which is presumably why you're so determined to pretend it doesn't exist.

They have already explained that tides do not happen at the sime time all over the UK. But what you forget is that if you can store energy intermittency is not an issue

The claim was as much as 5% of the UK electricity use. The UK energy use is about 6 times higher than that. And there's the thing you keep ignoring - intermittancy.

Explained above. Intermittency is not an issue when you can store energy.

I'm more like people who do not believe that aliens will inevitably save us with dilithium crystals and a TARDIS. Maybe they will. But we shouldn't bet everything on it happening very soon.

If I had seen an alien I would believe that. As for my iron ship analogy, it stands.

I've probably been reading about alternative energy sources for longer than you've been alive. I'm not as gullible now.

I probably have done more than reading and have seen the benefits in practice.

 

[ver01@]

I've found a more recent report (2021), which might be more accurate as a result of having had longer to assess the most likely range of the number of people killed by Chernobyl. That report covers deaths between 1965 and 2021. The summary chart is here:

Death rates per unit of electricity production

Death rates are measured based on deaths from accidents and air pollution per terawatt-hour of electricity.

ourworldindata.org

To summarise the summary;

Nuclear: 0.03 deaths per TWh
Wind: 0.04 deaths per TWh
Solar: 0.02 deaths per TWh
Hydro: 1.3 deaths per TWh

Are you sure these are civilian (members of public) and not worker deaths from accidents etc?

 

[ver01@]

Once.

That's enough as it just proves that it can happen again.

The dangerous failure at Fukushima daiichi occurred after it was hit by a massive earthquake and then a massive tidal wave. Neither of which could occur in the UK. Yes, we have earthquakes. Yes, we have tidal waves (extremely rarely). But not big enough ones. Maybe one tidal wave big enough about 8000 years ago, at least for the northeast of Scotland.

It is always unprecedented events that cause disasters.

Also, the confirmed deaths from the Fukushima dangerous failure is one.

Is Fukushima inhabitable? Deaths is not the only consequence.

On the other hand, the worst "renewables" dangerous failure killed ~240,000 people, left ~11,000,000 people homeless and devastated a huge area of land. So why aren't you far more vehemently opposed to hydroelectric? Banqiao was obviously vastly worse than Fukushima.

First, I've been talking about tidal power, solar, wind. Second, I am opposed to any structure that can cause a disaster (life, environmental) when it fails so that includes megastructures like dams.
Third, that huge area left behind is inhabitable.

I am sure Fukushima and Chernobyl are inhabitable, aren't they?

 

[Angilion]

That's still much more than the UK station you mentioned as an example.

And it's much less than your claims. You're consistently making claims that are untrue and easily proven so. You're a completely unreliable source.

I mentioned the UK because I was interpreting "this country" as being the UK on a UK forum. I didn't realise you were French.

They have already explained that tides do not happen at the sime time all over the UK. But what you forget is that if you can store energy intermittency is not an issue

Explained above. Intermittency is not an issue when you can store energy.

And pollution isn't an issue when you can use dilithium crystals and a warp drive. But we can't, just like we can't store anywhere near enough energy. Feel free to mention Dinorwig. I'll then explain why being able to store less than a minute's worth at vast expense and a non-trivial risk and only in very rare locations with very specific geography isn't a solution. Dinorwig wasn't even intended to be used for load balancing because people who are experts in the field know better. It's now being used that way because excessive use of renewables has destabilised the grid, but that's not what it's built for and it's a matter of rushing around trying to plug the holes.

If I had seen an alien I would believe that. As for my iron ship analogy, it stands.

No more than the rest of your claims, i.e. not at all.

I probably have done more than reading and have seen the benefits in practice.

Then why are you consistently making easily provable false claims?

Are you sure these are civilian and not worker deaths from accidents etc?

Just because you don't care about worker deaths doesn't mean I'm forbidden to do so.

That's enough as it just proves that it can happen again.

Except that it can't, for the reasons that have been explained already. Certainly not in the UK.

It is always unprecedented events that cause disasters.

Not always, no. Although removing the only functioning system of energy generation in the hope that an alternative will immediately appear somehow would be unprecedented and would be a disaster.

Is Fukushima inhabitable? Deaths is not the only consequence.

Actually yes, Fukushima is inhabitable (and inhabited). Even the exclusion zone is inhabitable. There are some inhabited places where the natural background radiation is higher than the radiation level in the Fukushima exclusion zone. Cornwall isn't much lower. Should we consider Cornwall uninhabitable?

First, I've been talking about tidal power, solar, wind. Second, I am opposed to any structure that can cause a disaster (life, environmental) when it fails so that includes megastructures like dams.

It also includes the others. Mining the required resources causes more harm, both environmental and human life, than nuclear fission power. But even if nuclear fission power was more harmful (which it isn't), it would still be necessary because going renewables-only now (or in the known future) would cause unprecedented harm to humanity by rendering modern civilisation impossible, resulting in the death of billions of people and possibly the extinction of humanity.

Third, that huge area left behind is inhabitable.

I am sure Fukushima and Chernobyl are inhabitable, aren't they?

1 out of 2 ain't bad. But 1 out of the entire world is.

If the causes of the Chernobyl disaster weren't clearly known I'd be considering the possibility of it being caused by anti-nuclear campaigners. It's a godsend for them, the only real thing they have.

 

[ver01@]

And it's much less than your claims. You're consistently making claims that are untrue and easily proven so. You're a completely unreliable source.
I mentioned the UK because I was interpreting "this country" as being the UK on a UK forum. I didn't realise you were French.

I thought that tides happen here too.

And pollution isn't an issue when you can use dilithium crystals and a warp drive. But we can't, just like we can't store anywhere near enough energy. Feel free to mention Dinorwig.

Who mentioned Dinorwig?

Just because you don't care about worker deaths doesn't mean I'm forbidden to do so.

So, are those deaths you used to support your claim that nuclear is as safe as solar/wind civilian deaths or not?

Actually yes, Fukushima is inhabitable (and inhabited). Even the exclusion zone is inhabitable. There are some inhabited places where the natural background radiation is higher than the radiation level in the Fukushima exclusion zone. Cornwall isn't much lower. Should we consider Cornwall uninhabitable?

After more than a decade and after removing millions of tons of topsoil there are exclusion zones extending to a 20 mile radius. The towns in close proximity to the power station are not safe to live. I am not sure why you are downplaying what is so obvious.

 

[Feek]

I see one of the little darlings who climbed an M25 gantry isn't happy about how his life "has been ruined" since being arrested and being held in custody for weeks.

Perhaps he now understands that actions have consequences.

 

[Angilion]

I thought that tides happen here too.

You claim that I addressed wasn't that tides happen in the UK. Your claim that I addressed was that "this country" had been using tidal power for decades:

I am sure you are aware we have been using tidal power for decades in this country and we are in the best position in the world to harness this energy source. Not a dream - it is here already.

In reality, there's a single tidal power station in the UK, which was turned on in 2021. Not "for decades". Not much more than a year. Also, it's claimed to produce 2MW, which for renewables (other than some implementations of geothermal) means it produces a varying and uncontrollable amount, rarely if ever produces 2MW and probably averages less than 500KW. It's a miniscule fraction of required generation, of hardly any relevance.

I might continue to expose your false claims, but the time advantage is with you. You can (and do) just make stuff up, devoid of any consideration of reality or evidence. That will take you no time at all. It takes me far more time to use evidence to disprove them and when I do you can just make up new claims immediately.

 

[Angilion]

So, are those deaths you used to support your claim that nuclear is as safe as solar/wind civilian deaths or not?

I regard your position that the death of anyone who works in any job that is in any way connected to energy generation or usage is of no importance as being extremely wrong and I will not go along with it.

 

[ver01@]

I regard your position that the death of anyone who works in any job that is in any way connected to energy generation or usage is of no importance as being extremely wrong and I will not go along with it.

Not my position and I wasn't the one that misinterpreted safety data. You have essentially ignored civilian deaths which is very disrespectful.

 

[Angilion]

Not my position and I wasn't the one that misinterpreted safety data. You have essentially ignored civilian deaths which is very disrespectful.

As always, your statement is untrue.

The figures I'm using include all deaths of all people.

You are demanding that only deaths of people not working in energy production in any way are counted. For some reason, you don't consider workers to be civilians. Perhaps you believe that all energy production is run by the military. Given your posts so far, who knows what you believe.

Are you trolling? You're so consistently wrong that it's starting to look like you're doing it intentionally.

 

[ver01@]

You shouldn't have a problem sharing the link from where you got your data from then?

 

[bigmike20vt]

I must admit in an ideal world we would not be using nuclear...... the waste takes 1000s of years to be fully safe and even the safest system can fail. the chances of disaster are low but IF disaster happens it's a doozy.
and that is ignoring potential for terrorism or acts of war.
that said for now (due imo to not doing enough over the last 30 years) nuclear is the only practical solution for a low carbon emission backbone.
renewables are amazing and unless fusion becomes viable are the future, but at a guess (numbers out of my rear) we probably need 3x the amount of off shore wind generation, 10x the amount of onshore wind, combined with solar, tidal and geothermal where possible , not to mention a boat load of storage (electric cars may help). none of which will happen over night.
so personally I consider myself resigned to nuclear for the next 30 years or so but I don't think we should be aiming to use it long term.

 

[PlacidCasual]

I haven't had chance to check it but I was talking to an industry leader at an event recently and he said that the latest IPCC report effectively suggests that the ideal long term solution is 30% nukes, 30% wind and solar backed with storage and 30% biomass with carbon capture. Which was a somewhat surprising statement, it's not something you ever hear in the media and certainly isn't spread publically by the hiarshirt brigade. Like I say I'll need to check that.

 

[ver01@]

That doesn't sound ideal for long term.