OK; you show me those numbers, from reputable sources (ie not Greenpeace). What are the actual health impacts from nuclear accidents, and how do they compare with the long term morbidity effects from routine coal burning operations, and from accidents involving coal mining, burning, and waste disposal and storage?
You always talk about this when this topic comes up; but never once have you presented a shred of evidence for this supposed far greater morbidity that is enough to entirely offset the several orders of magnitude lower mortality rate.
I'm simply pointing out that your mortality statistics are irrelevent to the issue - yet you keep citing them as if they showed that nuclear was safe.
Unless you have a reason to believe that the relationship between mortality and morbidity is dramatically different with nuclear power than it is with other sources of electricity, then yes, they do.
You never present any reasons for this. Until you do, your objection is baseless.
All you're doing there is arguing that nuclear involves less mining, therefore it's a superior form of power generation.
No, that is ONE OF the things I am doing. Not all, not by a long chalk.
The rational approach to that would be to argue for safer mining standards, since the technology exists, the safer practices work, and the only reason they aren't adopted is that much of the mining takes place in countries where they don't want to spend money on safety. But somehow the idea that we can do thnigs better only applies to one side of the arguement. If you really wanted to reduce mining deaths, that would involve fewer changes to that industry than you're proposing to nuclear power.
Yes, there is a lot that can be done to reduce coal mining deaths; and coal miners should do those things. But at the end of the day, it is vital to leave as much coal as possible in the ground - and doing that reduces coal mining deaths dramatically as a side effect to doing something even more important.
How many people suffer debilitating illness per TWh of power generation for nuclear; and how does it compare with coal?
No, you were saying it was safer than renwables. So let's back that one up please.
OK, How many people suffer debilitating illness per TWh of power generation for nuclear; and how does it compare with renewables?
And why do you imagine that shifting focus to renewables relieves you of the burden of proof?
You claim that morbidity is a big problem for nuclear power; implying that the ratio of morbidity to mortality with nuclear power generation is at least an order of magnitude greater than it is for renewables, and several orders of magnitude greater than for fossil fuels. But you have presented NO REASON AT ALL why this should be so. Please show me the evidence for this extraordinary claim - and propose a plausible mechanism for it while you are about it. With neither hypothesis nor evidence, all you have is a
Togo said:
No, the problem with nuclear power is the long-term risks, and how to deal with them. Our capital system is not good at dealing with long-tailed liabilities, so any liabilty that could extend, in effect, indefinitely, becomes almost unfundable. That's why nuclear power can not operate without a government subsidy or guarentee of some kind. Solve that problem, and we could have more nuclear plants started tomorrow. But that's a hard problem to solve, so we end up with complaints about how people are unwilling to provide a subsidy/gurentee to the industry that the private sector wouldn't touch with a barge pole. The technology is fine, but the business model is the problem.
Then we need government to act in the good of humanity, rather than bowing down to big business.
Which is why it is promoting renewables.
Yours might be. Mine, sadly, is not.
The problem is not coal - almost no one is promoting coal outside of China.
I wish that were true.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/coal-is-good-for-humanity-says-tony-abbott-at-mine-opening-20141013-115bgs.html
The problem is that you want to promote an industry with problems on the grounds that they're solvable - which they may well be - without solving those problems.
Which problems are not solved? There are no technical problems left; the only 'problems' with nuclear power are political - and 'stopping people from being stupid' is a problem of all human endeavour, not a problem specific to nuclear power.
I'm not a adverse to a good arguement for nuclear power. But just bashing renewables on what turn out to be largely spurious grounds is not a good arguement.
I am not bashing renewables. I am bashing coal, and pointing out that a mix of nuclear
and renewables is a viable solution to the problem, while 'renewables only' is not - until you solve some very significant unsolved technical problems (for example, sufficient storage to cover intermittency). The problem is that you want to promote an industry with problems on the grounds that they're solvable - which they may well be - without solving those problems.
