Booooooooooo
No more carbon energy!
No more blocking #bchydro from developing #greenenergy: wind solar tidal geothermal
#cdnpoli #canada #mexico #fascism #antifa #antifascist #elbowsup #bcpoli #vancouver #burnabybc #canlab #bcgreens #bcndp
#climatechange #pipelines #lng #KsiLisims #epstein #blackrock #broligarchs #trump
If you want to get out of fossil fuels, you need something which does the same job but better. We have that. We've had it for well over 50 years, and there has long been opposition to it precisely because it has proven capable of displacing fossil fuels.
@publius @emilylowan @greensfornuclear
Do you have any death toll stats on wind solar tidal and geo?
I've got some on nukes.
@Maxfieldripken @emilylowan @greensfornuclear
Other forms of energy supply are not subject to the same strict reporting requirements as the nuclear industry. A few years ago, the German government became curious about the incidence of deaths, injuries, and general accidents at bioenergy facilities, and had to go around collating newspaper reports — the term “manure tsunami” appeared at one point.
Those statistics which are available show that solar and wind involve large fall and fire risks.
@Maxfieldripken @publius @emilylowan
For wind and solar, yes. Sovacool et. al. studied fatal accidents compared to power generation for different energy sources between 1990 and 2013 and found that nuclear power was safer than solar and solar. There is very little deployed tidal energy in the world. We might assume that it is similar to hydro power in many respects, but it is likely safer as there is no 'down hill' for water to rush. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.07.059
@greensfornuclear @publius @emilylowan
Rates per twh is interesting
I'm looking for your number of deaths, not as a rate (deaths of humans)
Also solar is safer than nuclear, by your chart, and wind is close. And you don't have geothermal, I see.
@Maxfieldripken @greensfornuclear @publius @emilylowan
Hi, I'm one of the members of Greens For Nuclear. I don't think that the total death figure is relevant. Far less power was generated over the time frames Sovacool et. al. studied through solar/wind than through nuclear (60,205 TWh for nuclear versus 3,566 TWh for wind and solar combined).
I heard it once quoted that more people die falling out of bed in the UK than are shot, does this make guns safer than beds?
@Maxfieldripken @greensfornuclear @publius @emilylowan
In the interests of completeness, Sovacool et. al. calculates total fatalities from 1950–2014 for wind at 126, solar at 13, and hydro at 177,665. Again, we're at our beds and guns comparison: would scaling up wind and solar to the scale of hydropower or nuclear make the world far safer?
The fatality rate data they calculate suggests the answer is no, and actually wind is more dangerous than hydropower per unit of production.
@tolstoys_lizard @Maxfieldripken @greensfornuclear @emilylowan
Considering that Sovacool is notorious for anti-nuclear papers, often well outside his areas of expertise, some of which are egregious enough to end in retraction, if the worst he can find to say about nuclear is "not worse than hydro", the truth is probably a great deal more favourable.
Possibly the deadliest single industrial accident in history was the Macchha irrigation dam collapse in Gujarat, estimated 20 000 dead.
@publius @tolstoys_lizard @greensfornuclear @emilylowan
I won't agree that total death figures are irrelevant.
Deaths per terawatt, or any kind of measure can be interesting, but can also move us past the humanity of war, economics and policy.
Direct deaths from energy failures matter.
Flooding a valley for a dam matters.
Irradiating geography matters.
Increases in cancers and reduction of lifespans and quality of life matter.
@publius @tolstoys_lizard @greensfornuclear @emilylowan
Drones killing people is maybe more cost effective and safer than 2 highly trained pilots in a more expensive plane.
We can make efficiency comparisons and productivity arguments all we want, but all this isn't a board game with hypothetical consequences.
And if 3 wind turbines burn down in a forest fire, the risk of catastrophic consequences is lower than say, nukes.
Solar panel failures? Generally harmless?
@Maxfieldripken @tolstoys_lizard @greensfornuclear @emilylowan
Burning down forests is not without consequences. In fact it kills people as well as polluting the air and destroying habitat. And wind construction projects, as well as malfunctioning turbines, have started such fires.
Malfunctioning solar panels set fires as well. Amazon had to replace huge numbers of them after its rooftop installations set several warehouses afire.
@publius @tolstoys_lizard @greensfornuclear @emilylowan
Wow, we are into The Obtuse Zone, like The Twilight Zone, but less fun.
Yes, a wind turbine can cause a forest fire.
A wind turbine can be burned in an existing fire, and its burning will likely not kill anyone. In a forest. Already on fire.
Most forest fires, forever, have not been caused by wind turbines. In the history of wind turbines.
If a solitary solar panel fails, its failure likely won't kill anyone. Just no energy.
@Maxfieldripken @tolstoys_lizard @greensfornuclear @emilylowan
And what then?
You are trying to imply that VERY LARGE NUMBERS of PV panels and wind machines are harmless, based on the idea that the probability of one individual machine causing a forest fire, or a house fire, is reasonably small.
Meanwhile, you are WORSHIPPING the effectively zero probability of a mass casualty event caused by a nuclear power reactor, of which a few thousand units would supply all world energy needs.
@Maxfieldripken @tolstoys_lizard @greensfornuclear @emilylowan
Again, experience of actual nuclear accidents shows that the "catastrophic consequences" you are thinking of, which were anticipated early on (hence the measures put in place to protect against them), CANNOT OCCUR.
Chernobyl dispersed roughly 1/3 of the core material of a 1 GW reactor during full-power operation. No such event could occur in any other kind of plant (or remaining RBMKs). Consequences were FAR SMALLER than expected.
@greensfornuclear @publius @emilylowan
This link doesn't have raw numbers either
@greensfornuclear @publius @emilylowan
Got any raw numbers?
@greensfornuclear @Maxfieldripken @emilylowan
Geothermal is a complex problem because it strongly depends "what kind of". Many places in the world, including Britain, have little or no geothermal potential, and what there is, is not renewable — the conductivity of the rock is low so the heat will be depleted within 20 to 40 years, and not recharge for centuries.
Meanwhile, if you liked hydro-fracking for gas (I sure don't!), you'll LOVE stimulated geothermal. 100Ă— the number of wells!
@publius @emilylowan @greensfornuclear
Um no, I don't oppose nukes because I secretly know they're better than carbon energy.
It's the death and destruction.
@Maxfieldripken @emilylowan @greensfornuclear
What death and destruction? What in the world are you talking about?
The number of deaths due to the Chernobyl accident, lumping together plant personnel and the general public, deaths by blunt-force trauma and steam burns with deaths resulting from radiation poisoning and cancers, is not more than 150. In most countries, in most years, there is not a single occupational fatality. The injury rate is among the lowest of any industry.
@publius @emilylowan @greensfornuclear
I'm dying dying, to see the links you've got for the stats for 150.
@Maxfieldripken @emilylowan @greensfornuclear
All you have to do is look at the UNSCEAR reports on Chernobyl.
“Apart from [an estimated 5000 excess juvenile thyroid cancers], there is no evidence of a major public health impact attributable to radiation exposure two decades after the accident.”
Juvenile thyroid cancer is highly treatable, with a very high survival rate. The thousands of leukemias expected among the liquidators never appeared.
https://www.unscear.org/unscear/en/areas-of-work/chernobyl.html
https://unis.unvienna.org/unis/en/pressrels/2018/unisous395.html
The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 was a tragic event for its victims, and those most affected suffered major hardship. Some of the people who dealt with the emergency lost their lives. Although those exposed as children and the emergency and recovery workers are at increased risk of radiation-induced effects, the vast majority of the population need not live in fear of serious health consequences due to the radiation from the Chornobyl accident. For the most part, they were exposed to radiation levels comparable to or a few times higher than annual levels of natural background, and future exposures continue to slowly diminish as the radionuclides decay. Lives have been seriously disrupted by the Chornobyl accident, but from the radiological point of view, generally positive prospects for the future health of most individuals should prevail.
@publius @emilylowan @greensfornuclear
Wow, I read 6,000 and 20,000 not 5k. Maybe that's just a typo?
The content in those links is horrific and I am stunned that your takeaway was that it's not that bad.
I taught a couple Chernobyl kids in the 90s.
I'd characterize your assessment of it to be sad and somewhat chilling.
Emily Lowan (she/her)
Stephen Elliott~Buckley
publius
Greens For Nuclear
Tolstoy's Lizard