Nuke Power Would Kill Fewer People Than Petroleum

[ylexot]

Over Time, Nuclear Power Would Kill Fewer People Than Petroleum | Popular Science

Using nuclear power for energy instead of coal has prevented almost 2 million pollution-related deaths around the world, and could save millions more lives in the future, according to a new paper. It’s the latest publication from James Hansen, NASA’s fiery climate change scientist, who is retiring on Wednesday after 46 years with the space agency.

The paper argues that policymakers should increase nuclear power, rather than continuing dependence on fossil fuels. The 2011 disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant should not deter governments from expanding nuclear power, according to Hansen and its lead author, Pushker A. Kharecha of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University Earth Institute. On the contrary, nuclear power will prevent further deaths from air pollution, they argue.

Interesting to see greenies pushing for nuclear power...

 

[Larry Gude]

Two problems with this;

1. Nuke, properly applied, would wipe out an awful many jobs in carbon fuels.

2. With coal not killing millions, that's millions more to go jobless with the jobless millions nuke creates to begin with.

 

[GWguy]

Two problems with this;

1. Nuke, properly applied, would wipe out an awful many jobs in carbon fuels.

2. With coal not killing millions, that's millions more to go jobless with the jobless millions nuke creates to begin with.

That's going to happen at some point, regardless. Maybe not in our lifetime, but it will happen, just as other huge industries collapsed when something newer and better came along.

Think what would happen if full scale nuclear fusion became a reality. Fission, coal AND gas/oil would be nearly eliminated along with all the jobs. And that technology is something that we are all seeking.

 

[Larry Gude]

That's going to happen at some point, regardless. Maybe not in our lifetime, but it will happen, just as other huge industries collapsed when something newer and better came along.

.

Those were more realizations I came to some time back in explaining why in the hell weren't not totally nuke in the first place; political pressure for jobs.

I mean, as it is, we make nuke artificially expense SOLELY to try and force the cost UP. If new and better are too cheap, it upsets natures (as in Washington DC's) balance.

 

[somdwatch]

The Japanese and Russia

Japan and Russia would probably disagree with you after their meltdowns.

 

[ylexot]

Japan and Russia would probably disagree with you after their meltdowns.

How many people died from those meltdowns?

 

[GWguy]

Over Time, Nuclear Power Would Kill Fewer People Than Petroleum | Popular Science

Interesting to see greenies pushing for nuclear power...

I probably agree with the statement that there are fewer deaths from Nuke, but I wonder how they came up with those numbers? 2 million? Direct deaths from explosions, cave-ins, black lung, etc.. can be measured, but 2nd/3rd hand world-wide is kinda tough to put numbers on.

 

[ylexot]

I probably agree with the statement that there are fewer deaths from Nuke, but I wonder how they came up with those numbers? 2 million? Direct deaths from explosions, cave-ins, black lung, etc.. can be measured, but 2nd/3rd hand world-wide is kinda tough to put numbers on.

They are proponents of global warming...they make it up.

 

[SamSpade]

I mean, as it is, we make nuke artificially expense SOLELY to try and force the cost UP. If new and better are too cheap, it upsets natures (as in Washington DC's) balance.

I started my college career as a nuke engineer. It was my plan for the future.

Then Three Mile Island happened. I wisely switched to electrical. I didn't like it, but there was never a likelihood we wouldn't need EE's, but the future of nukes seemed doomed.

Several years later, I was working for Harvard in their radiation safety department. At the time, there was tepid acceptance for Seabrook, a nuclear power plant about to go online but unfortunately close to the Massachusetts border, and all sorts of arguments ensued over "evacuation zones". Our staff visited them and declared that Seabrook was about the most advanced plant they had ever seen.

Then Chernobyl happened. Strangely enough, a LOT of the initial data and material examined from Chernobyl fell to us at Harvard, and the programs we oversaw at major medical facilities in the area, such as at Brigham and Women's.

Chernobyl was a serious disaster, but it was exactly the kind of thing expected to happen in Russia where safety was not particularly high on their list of industrial concerns. We observed outrageous radiation levels on SHOES that stepped in puddles in *Kiev*, hundreds of miles away.

So what do we have in this country? *Extremely* regulated nuclear power, the safest in the world, and believe it or not - more of it here, than anywhere else.

But it comes at a price - it is so tightly regulated, it doesn't necessarily come CHEAPER than fossil fuels. When you total it all up, you don't really gain savings - just pollution free air.

-
-
-

It is VERY hard for me to believe that the primary source of antagonism against nuclear power is collusion among forces favorable to fossil fuels. At present, they are in no danger of losing competitively. Even if it shut them down - which it won't - the rest of the world still wants OUR oil and coal.

 

[Larry Gude]

It is VERY hard for me to believe that the primary source of antagonism against nuclear power is collusion among forces favorable to fossil fuels. At present, .

At present.


Go back 30-40 years. One of the great promises of nuke was plentiful CHEAP energy. There were lesser concerns about carbon pollution. If there were more, the 'greens' of the day would have been all over nuke but, their concerns were KILLING EVERYONE.

Our nation was, regulatorily speaking, the Wild West compared to today where nuclear power plants COULD very much be an existential threat to coal. Is it much of a stretch to imagine coal money helping to fund The China Syndrome? Or green groups?

Let me ask you this as well; my premise is we've MADE nuke far more expensive than it reasonably need be specifically so it is an economic balancing tool, to help coal stay in the game be it domestically or as export.
So, would you estimate that the regulatory burdens of nuke are just about right, somewhat over done, a lot over done or enormously over done?

 

[SamSpade]

So, would you estimate that the regulatory burdens of nuke are just about right, somewhat over done, a lot over done or enormously over done?

Can't say, I'd be flat out guessing. When I saw that video where a Congressman was talking about a friend that could NOT OPEN his minor league baseball stadium because the men's bathroom mirror was a half-inch too high, I understand that regulation is SERIOUSLY worse than almost any tax or conspiracy. That someone, somewhere actually thinks it is WORSE for a stadium bathroom mirror to be just a tiny bit too high up so that possibly a height-challenged person or someone in a wheelchair might be inconvenienced by a half-inch of mirror space than it would be to shut down a ball park and deprive dozens of people of their jobs and livelihood?

Or that, rather than legally fight something they don't like, they just regulate it to death? Or make piles of money just raking in fees over things they have no intention of directing funds to address? (For example - a highway toll is SUPPOSED to supplement the funds the state uses to maintain the road - but eventually just turns into a cash cow).

I think we over-regulate everything in this country. It would be hard to build ANY kind of power plant ANYWHERE without a mile of regulations and paperwork and licensing.

I find it a tad ironic that we are reaching a point where we are RETIRING our nuclear fleet after decades of trouble-free service - and people are debating the safety of small, modular nukes. Like we haven't been USING them for fifty years.

 

[Larry Gude]

Can't say, I'd be flat out guessing. When I saw that video where a Congressman was talking about a friend that could NOT OPEN his minor league baseball stadium because the men's bathroom mirror was a half-inch too high, I understand that regulation is SERIOUSLY worse than almost any tax or conspiracy. That someone, somewhere actually thinks it is WORSE for a stadium bathroom mirror to be just a tiny bit too high up so that possibly a height-challenged person or someone in a wheelchair might be inconvenienced by a half-inch of mirror space than it would be to shut down a ball park and deprive dozens of people of their jobs and livelihood?

Or that, rather than legally fight something they don't like, they just regulate it to death? Or make piles of money just raking in fees over things they have no intention of directing funds to address? (For example - a highway toll is SUPPOSED to supplement the funds the state uses to maintain the road - but eventually just turns into a cash cow).

I think we over-regulate everything in this country. It would be hard to build ANY kind of power plant ANYWHERE without a mile of regulations and paperwork and licensing.

I find it a tad ironic that we are reaching a point where we are RETIRING our nuclear fleet after decades of trouble-free service - and people are debating the safety of small, modular nukes. Like we haven't been USING them for fifty years.

Great post.

 

[MarieB]

There are 2 new reactors going up at a plant in Georgia, but last time I checked they were said to way behind schedule.


When I was checking out classes at CSM, I noticed that they have a program that focuses on the nuclear program. I was somewhat surprised considering the expansion at Calvert was not approved

 

[ylexot]

There are 2 new reactors going up at a plant in Georgia, but last time I checked they were said to way behind schedule.


When I was checking out classes at CSM, I noticed that they have a program that focuses on the nuclear program. I was somewhat surprised considering the expansion at Calvert was not approved

Why would that surprise you? They still need people to run what's there already. :shrug:

 

[MarieB]

Why would that surprise you? They still need people to run what's there already. :shrug:

Sure they will at some point, but how many?


But it seems that the program was set up specifically for the expansion. They haven't changed the informational page stating that 4000 would be needed during construction and 200 after that.