For the record, I am opposed to so called "renewable energy," since it depends entirely on unsustainable mining and the trashing of wilderness, a point I just made in the Science forum a few minutes back:
Valuing the functionality of tropical ecosystems beyond carbon
I further note that the so called "renewable energy" industry is entirely dependent on access to fossil fuels although the scientifically illiterate fantasy about batteries, or worse, hydrogen - scientifically illiterate because the 2nd law of thermodynamics is not subject to repeal by popular opinion - are very popular, useless, but popular.
A Giant Climate Lie: When they're selling hydrogen, what they're really selling is fossil fuels.
Anyone who is concerned about nuclear "safety" while engaged in de facto acceptance of the status quo is simply not paying attention to numbers.
The commercial nuclear industry is almost 70 years old. When I hear concerns over nuclear safety here, I make the following request:
Please show me that in the entire history of commercial nuclear energy, roughly 70 years, that the death toll associated with its use (feel free to include the boogeymen at Chernobyl and Fukushima) has matched the death toll that will take place in the next six hours from air pollution, a little over 4500 people.
Here is the comprehensive paper from the primary scientific literature from which my numbers are derived:
Global burden of 87 risk factors in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 (Lancet Volume 396, Issue 10258, 17–23 October 2020, Pages 1223-1249).
Lancet is one of the world's most prominent medical journals.
Please indicate from this paper or any reputable peer reviewed source that shows that nuclear energy has killed as many people in the last 70 years as will die from air pollution in the next six hours.
The selective attention that kills people is largely based around the extremely dubious contention that nuclear energy, and only nuclear energy needs to be risk free, or systems with vastly larger risks will be allowed to kill at will in massive numbers.
Nuclear energy does not need to be risk free to be vastly superior to everything else. Nuclear only needs to be massively superior to everything else, which it is.
The climate scientist, Jim Hansen as a co-author, back in 2013, made calculations about how many lives nuclear energy had saved, this is an era defined by screaming vituperation against the technology:
Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)
It follows from this paper's analysis that opposition to nuclear people kills people.
People lie, to themselves and to each other, but numbers don't lie.
Have a pleasant Sunday.
= new reply since forum marked as read