Pathological Altruism

[Jimmy Higgins]

The thing is insurance companies do not want to deal with large events. It's the same reason the government does flood insurance and earthquake insurance is a joke.

Coal outstrips nuke by 3 1/2 orders of magnitude. Nuke has the best safety record of any major source of power, coal has the worst. (Yes, nuke beats all your green options.)

Source please. And if it's the same mortality-rate-based figures you tried to fool people with last time, I'll be disappointed.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html

Yeah, it's based on deaths so it doesn't allow you to pretend nuke is much more dangerous than it really is.

95000GW would have taken 43.7 million tons of steel and 82.7 million tons of concrete. 3% of one year of global steel production. 4% of one year of the world’s concrete production. Half of one year’s production in the US for steel. About 15 deaths if corresponded to half of one years metal/nonmetal mining fatalities. 0.1 deaths per TWh. If the metal and concrete had come from China about 2700 metal/nonmetal mining deaths per year for 5 times the amount of steel. 270 deaths to get the metal for the wind turbines. 1.9 deaths per TWh. These construction related deaths are amortized over the life of the wind turbines of 30 years. Other wind power deaths need to factor in dangers associated with working with very tall structures (50 stories tall) and with deep water work associated with building and anchoring offshore.

Are you serious?! This is including material production? Did the study account for drunk drivers that may crash into the wind turbine's design engineer's car and kill him too?

"Deaths by TWh by energy source" strongly implies during production of energy, not the 'dust-to-dust' cost starting back in the waning days of glaciation.

It's quite reasonable to look at the whole cycle. Does the death not being direct somehow make it not happen?

How does the death not being directly linked with a particular energy source make it relevant to that PRODUCTION of that energy? Shall we include the mentally disabled people who were intentionally poisoned with radioactive material to see the results of the exposure in the death count for Nuclear Power? How about Hiroshima? Are you saying those deaths never happened?

And don't get me started on the civilizations almost assuredly destroyed because of fusion and a star going supernova.

Your link is ridiculous!

 

[ksen]

Guys, solar power is super dangerous. I know this because whenever I go outside I get a wicked bad sunburn.

 

[bilby]

The thing is insurance companies do not want to deal with large events. It's the same reason the government does flood insurance and earthquake insurance is a joke.

Coal outstrips nuke by 3 1/2 orders of magnitude. Nuke has the best safety record of any major source of power, coal has the worst. (Yes, nuke beats all your green options.)

Source please. And if it's the same mortality-rate-based figures you tried to fool people with last time, I'll be disappointed.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html

Yeah, it's based on deaths so it doesn't allow you to pretend nuke is much more dangerous than it really is.

95000GW would have taken 43.7 million tons of steel and 82.7 million tons of concrete. 3% of one year of global steel production. 4% of one year of the world’s concrete production. Half of one year’s production in the US for steel. About 15 deaths if corresponded to half of one years metal/nonmetal mining fatalities. 0.1 deaths per TWh. If the metal and concrete had come from China about 2700 metal/nonmetal mining deaths per year for 5 times the amount of steel. 270 deaths to get the metal for the wind turbines. 1.9 deaths per TWh. These construction related deaths are amortized over the life of the wind turbines of 30 years. Other wind power deaths need to factor in dangers associated with working with very tall structures (50 stories tall) and with deep water work associated with building and anchoring offshore.

Are you serious?! This is including material production? Did the study account for drunk drivers that may crash into the wind turbine's design engineer's car and kill him too?

"Deaths by TWh by energy source" strongly implies during production of energy, not the 'dust-to-dust' cost starting back in the waning days of glaciation.

It's quite reasonable to look at the whole cycle. Does the death not being direct somehow make it not happen?

How does the death not being directly linked with a particular energy source make it relevant to that PRODUCTION of that energy?

Wait, are you saying that building power plants has nothing to do with energy production? Why do power companies waste so much time, money, and effort on it then?

Shall we include the mentally disabled people who were intentionally poisoned with radioactive material to see the results of the exposure in the death count for Nuclear Power?

Did poisoning those people help with the development, construction, operation or decommissioning of any kind of power generation facility? If so, then yes; If not, then no.

In the same way, we don't include the deaths of people who were coal stokers on ships that sank, in the figures for coal power.

How about Hiroshima? Are you saying those deaths never happened?

Was the bonbing of Hiroshima a prerequisite for the development of nuclear power? If nuclear power could not have been developed without destroying Hiroshima, then yes, those deaths should be included. That is a tough thing to demonstrate though, particularly with the whole 'not being remotely true' problem to overcome.

And don't get me started on the civilizations almost assuredly destroyed because of fusion and a star going supernova.

Your link is ridiculous!

Drunk drivers crashing into wind turbines are not required for them to operate; however building them is required; and obtaining materials for them is also required.

I don't see why it is unreasonable to include the sourcing of required materials, the construction, operation, demolition/decommissioning, and the storage/transport/disposal of waste in the figures; all are unavoidable parts of the process of getting power to people. In fact, I can't see how it is reasonable to exclude any of those activities from an analysis of the overall safety of different technologies; all necessary activity must be included, and this must be done for all of the technologies that are being compared. To do otherwise is to distort the figures.

 

[Togo]

No, the primary problem is business-related. The present model for nuclear power relies on the government subsidising your risks. Governments aren't keen any more. That's not a political problem, it's a problem with the business model.

The thing is insurance companies do not want to deal with large events.

Sure they do. It's called the catastrophe business (Cat line for short), its a popular form of insurance business, and a great deal of it is done here in london. The problem is that nuclear power has long tailed liabilities that can't be easily capped, which means you can't build a nuclear plant without government subsidising the risk. It's inherently a government business.

It's the same reason the government does flood insurance and earthquake insurance is a joke.

Flood insurance is done in the private sector here too. It's very popular. We also deal with flood insurance for americans, as well as earthquake, so I'm not sure what you're referring to.

Coal outstrips nuke by 3 1/2 orders of magnitude. Nuke has the best safety record of any major source of power, coal has the worst. (Yes, nuke beats all your green options.)

Source please. And if it's the same mortality-rate-based figures you tried to fool people with last time, I'll be disappointed.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html

Yeah, it's based on deaths so it doesn't allow you to pretend nuke is much more dangerous than it really is.

Ok these figures ignore morbidity statistics (i.e. sickness), which is mainly the danger with nuclear power.

If you want to claim nuclear power is safe, you need safety statistics. 'Safe' and 'causes fewer outright deaths' are not the same thing. Why claim something that isn't true?

 

[arkirk]

I think a lot of the argument for nuclear power is really a desire to not have to face the complexity of rearranging our lives when we wise up to the fact we can't keep powering everything with coal. We have lost track of our own bodily relationship to the earth and relate more to man's cultural adaptations and ill suited ready made infrastructure. It makes reducing carbon a very complex problem indeed. It is not a pretty problem to have to face and there more than likely will not be some individual hero to bail us out.

Religion took root because man faced existential worries. We were always busy dying. So along comes Johnny simpleton with a solution....just believe in an afterlife and your fears will vanish. We still are dying all the time, but now we have a mental band aid that makes our mortality not seem so real.

We have been riding the back of mother nature for a long time, sucking her oil and building things that only take oil. Now we have to stop? We are used to doing as we always have and don't want to stop. I like fast cars and light shows...hell I don't necessarily want to stop, but we must.

Nukes and coal are not interchangeable technologies. We need to face up to the fact we need a lot of little solutions and busying ourselves seeking them out rather than jumping from the frying pan (coal) into the fire (nukes). If we assume that advocates of nuclear power are well intended, then we must make an exception to the notion there is no such a thing as pathological altruism. I always give the other guy a fair chance to explain his position so I can maybe find the easy way out he is recommending, but when it clearly is not there, I still have to be honest with myself and others.

We need to rework all sorts of things when the fossil fuels go away...things like how we grow our food, how we transport ourselves around, how we find value in life. Most people today have aspirations based on availabilities of things that simply won't be available. That however does not mean nothing will be available if we stop doing nothing about the problem. Now should not be a time of stalled economy and stalled research and development. Quite to the contrary. We should at this point all be working on the problem and applying our best logic to it, and building the infrastructure we need to survive...and hopefully lead reasonably happy lives.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So reduced energy consumption will "doom us as a species?" What you are dodging is the fact we are out of control and when nature applies its control on us, it will not be nice. You also give the common man no credit for perhaps being able to help us plan on how to accomplish energy consumption reduction. We are literally drowning in our waste.

Your dream economy won't have the surplus needed to fund R&D. Without it we will run out of resources eventually.

Advocating nuclear power is just saying, "Coal is bad. Try this other bad." Since the dawn of the nuclear age, the problem of disposal of nuclear waste (including plutonium) has been and will continue to be critical and still without viable answers. The salt dome proposal you mentioned has already been discounted as unfeasible. You seem unable to grasp the concept of non renewable. You seem unaware that there are tipping points in the global warming problem...when we melt sufficient permafrost and start releasing methane in even larger quantities than the frackers are doing and intend to do.

1) Plutonium is not nuclear waste. It's fuel for a reactor designed to use it.

2) Plutonium is not a boogyman. What typically comes out of reactors is effectively useless for bomb makers (When you're after weapons-grade material you pull the rods out frequently, thus minimizing the amount of Pu-240 you produce. In a power reactor you leave them in much longer, you get a lot more Pu-240. Too much Pu-240 and your bomb will fizzle. Anyone who can separate Pu-239 from Pu-240 would be better served separating U-235 from U-238, they don't need the reactor products.) It's not unduly toxic for a heavy metal.

3) We could switch to building nuke plants tomorrow--which would be the most effective thing we could actually accomplish about global warming.

You ignore the dying condition of the world's corral reefs due to bleaching caused by dissolved CO2 in our oceans. Our oceans have been acting as a CO2 sink and this too will reverse as temperatures rise. You seem to think we have some sort of eternal license to inhabit this real estate no matter what we do. Are you a religious man?

I'm ignoring?? I'm advocating doing something effective. You're advocating pie-in-the-sky that won't happen.

We already have enough nuclear waste and its safe disposal is doubtful right now. Our environmental conditions are changing and will continue to go in the wrong direction for human life even if we greatly reduce our Carbon pollution. We will not be able to kiss off the rest of the world when these problems land full force at home. Here we are in the deep muddy and you keep telling us to push on.

We are using up resources. Current technology can slow this loss, it can't stop it. It's a lot more than just fossil fuels. If they run out we die.

The "green" approach is to cut our usage as much as possible, prolonging our existence at the cost of certain doom in the end. Their doomsday predictions conveniently cut off before they show the collapse of their approach.

The other approach is to look for actual answers. That's what people like me advocate. If it fails we are doomed faster. It's basically betting a few centuries against eternity.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So reduced energy consumption will "doom us as a species?" What you are dodging is the fact we are out of control and when nature applies its control on us, it will not be nice. You also give the common man no credit for perhaps being able to help us plan on how to accomplish energy consumption reduction. We are literally drowning in our waste.

Your dream economy won't have the surplus needed to fund R&D. Without it we will run out of resources eventually.

Advocating nuclear power is just saying, "Coal is bad. Try this other bad." Since the dawn of the nuclear age, the problem of disposal of nuclear waste (including plutonium) has been and will continue to be critical and still without viable answers. The salt dome proposal you mentioned has already been discounted as unfeasible. You seem unable to grasp the concept of non renewable. You seem unaware that there are tipping points in the global warming problem...when we melt sufficient permafrost and start releasing methane in even larger quantities than the frackers are doing and intend to do.

1) Plutonium is not nuclear waste. It's fuel for a reactor designed to use it.

2) Plutonium is not a boogyman. What typically comes out of reactors is effectively useless for bomb makers (When you're after weapons-grade material you pull the rods out frequently, thus minimizing the amount of Pu-240 you produce. In a power reactor you leave them in much longer, you get a lot more Pu-240. Too much Pu-240 and your bomb will fizzle. Anyone who can separate Pu-239 from Pu-240 would be better served separating U-235 from U-238, they don't need the reactor products.) It's not unduly toxic for a heavy metal.

3) We could switch to building nuke plants tomorrow--which would be the most effective thing we could actually accomplish about global warming.

You ignore the dying condition of the world's corral reefs due to bleaching caused by dissolved CO2 in our oceans. Our oceans have been acting as a CO2 sink and this too will reverse as temperatures rise. You seem to think we have some sort of eternal license to inhabit this real estate no matter what we do. Are you a religious man?

I'm ignoring?? I'm advocating doing something effective. You're advocating pie-in-the-sky that won't happen.

We already have enough nuclear waste and its safe disposal is doubtful right now. Our environmental conditions are changing and will continue to go in the wrong direction for human life even if we greatly reduce our Carbon pollution. We will not be able to kiss off the rest of the world when these problems land full force at home. Here we are in the deep muddy and you keep telling us to push on.

We are using up resources. Current technology can slow this loss, it can't stop it. It's a lot more than just fossil fuels. If they run out we die.

The "green" approach is to cut our usage as much as possible, prolonging our existence at the cost of certain doom in the end. Their doomsday predictions conveniently cut off before they show the collapse of their approach.

The other approach is to look for actual answers. That's what people like me advocate. If it fails we are doomed faster. It's basically betting a few centuries against eternity.

- - - Updated - - -

It's quite reasonable to look at the whole cycle. Does the death not being direct somehow make it not happen?

How does the death not being directly linked with a particular energy source make it relevant to that PRODUCTION of that energy? Shall we include the mentally disabled people who were intentionally poisoned with radioactive material to see the results of the exposure in the death count for Nuclear Power? How about Hiroshima? Are you saying those deaths never happened?

And don't get me started on the civilizations almost assuredly destroyed because of fusion and a star going supernova.

Your link is ridiculous!

What they are looking at is deaths that would not have occurred had that energy not been produced. It seems to me to be the best yardstick.

I do not think misguided experiments with radiation count towards nuke power deaths and Hiroshima certainly doesn't--that was a weapon, not a powerplant.

Just because you don't like what it says doesn't make it ridiculous.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Was the bonbing of Hiroshima a prerequisite for the development of nuclear power? If nuclear power could not have been developed without destroying Hiroshima, then yes, those deaths should be included. That is a tough thing to demonstrate though, particularly with the whole 'not being remotely true' problem to overcome.

Simple test: The first reactor (albeit not used for power generation) came before Hiroshima. The material of the bomb that hit Nagasaki all came out of a reactor.

Drunk drivers crashing into wind turbines are not required for them to operate; however building them is required; and obtaining materials for them is also required.

If for some reason turbine pillars had to be placed next to roads in flat terrain I would count the drunk driving deaths from hitting them. Normally, however, they aren't next to highways.

 

[TacticalLoco]

The problems are with black people because that's who we are trying to help. It has nothing to do with them being black.

The bigotry is getting old. It's amazing to me that anyone other than greedy shit fuck conservatives support these ideas.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The thing is insurance companies do not want to deal with large events.

Sure they do. It's called the catastrophe business (Cat line for short), its a popular form of insurance business, and a great deal of it is done here in london. The problem is that nuclear power has long tailed liabilities that can't be easily capped, which means you can't build a nuclear plant without government subsidising the risk. It's inherently a government business.

"Large" is a relative measure. No insurance company wants to insure a risk that's too great a percent of their income. That's why you have reinsurance--companies casting off risks that are too big for them to take on.

However, the biggest events (flood, earthquake, nukes) are too big even for reinsurance. This says nothing about the size of the risk, only of the potential size of the claim.

An insurance company grosses $10B/yr. There's a 1 in a million chance of a billion dollar claim arising out of <x>. They'll sell you a policy for something a bit over $1,000. There's a 1 in a million chance of a $10 billion dollar claim arising out of <y>. They're not going to sell you a policy for a bit over $10,000.

It's the same reason the government does flood insurance and earthquake insurance is a joke.

Flood insurance is done in the private sector here too. It's very popular. We also deal with flood insurance for americans, as well as earthquake, so I'm not sure what you're referring to.

American flood insurance is all government because private companies aren't interested. We have earthquake coverage but it's a joke. I priced it many years ago when we bought a house. The earthquake premium would have been more than twice the total rest of the premium and carried a 10% deductible. Note that I live in a low-risk area.

Ok these figures ignore morbidity statistics (i.e. sickness), which is mainly the danger with nuclear power.

If you want to claim nuclear power is safe, you need safety statistics. 'Safe' and 'causes fewer outright deaths' are not the same thing. Why claim something that isn't true?

Huh? The only real threat from low-level exposure is cancer. That kills about half the people that contract it. What sickness are you talking about?? The only power-related radiation sickness I can think of that hit anyone other than plant workers was at Chernobyl.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We need to rework all sorts of things when the fossil fuels go away...things like how we grow our food, how we transport ourselves around, how we find value in life. Most people today have aspirations based on availabilities of things that simply won't be available. That however does not mean nothing will be available if we stop doing nothing about the problem. Now should not be a time of stalled economy and stalled research and development. Quite to the contrary. We should at this point all be working on the problem and applying our best logic to it, and building the infrastructure we need to survive...and hopefully lead reasonably happy lives.

In the real world people don't spend money on R&D when they don't have what they need personally.

 

[bleubird]

stuck,stuck,stuck,stuck,and stuck.....
Let's try the same thing again and see if that works.
Omg,that should have worked,'cause it fit my model.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

In the real world people don't spend money on R&D when they don't have what they need personally.

R&D can upset the God of Shareholder Value.

 

[arkirk]

We need to rework all sorts of things when the fossil fuels go away...things like how we grow our food, how we transport ourselves around, how we find value in life. Most people today have aspirations based on availabilities of things that simply won't be available. That however does not mean nothing will be available if we stop doing nothing about the problem. Now should not be a time of stalled economy and stalled research and development. Quite to the contrary. We should at this point all be working on the problem and applying our best logic to it, and building the infrastructure we need to survive...and hopefully lead reasonably happy lives.

In the real world people don't spend money on R&D when they don't have what they need personally.

Real world eh? It's you that is saying they don't need it, attempting to convince them they don't need it. Your "real world" is more a creature of your mind than a reality. If we all were given more information about our environment, far more of us would be aware the clean environment we need is something we won't have unless we work at it.

Examples of simple environmental problems that were solved LATE have already been covered in this thread...asbestos, lead pollution. Examples of environmental problems that will need to be solved (we hope not too late) will be mercury contamination, and fossil fuels and nukes. We just hope we don't let the hour get too late. These problems are subject to tipping points where they suddenly fulminate and cause social chaos. Environmental stressors like coastal flooding, extreme weather, crop failure, and loss of potable water can destroy a society. If we have to appeal to our patriotism to get going on fixing these issues, then let's do it and stop obfuscating.

Most of the people in the REAL WORLD CARE ABOUT THEIR FUTURE and would be interested in having one for their children and children's children. This is not a time to become calloused and tinker with public perception of our problems, Unfortunately we have an advertising industry in this country that has been doing that at the behest of industries that are not well situated for change. As these industries have managed to become the most profitable industries in the country, they have plenty of money to keep the game going a little longer....and screw the environment and me and you...just for the love of money.

People would care if they were properly informed. That is really the problem. More and more our society knows we are poisoning ourselves despite the best efforts of Chevron, Exxon, and BP to hide this fact. The real problem is that they are petroleum specialists and their approach has been very heavy on the production side of the product. Being what they are, it is likely they do not hold the solution to the problem. The same applies to the Nuke industry. It will have to continue to exist for centuries just to handle and keep isolated the waste it has already produced. So it won't go away, but it really will not be profitable.

 

[arkirk]

Loren: You seem to me to always assert I have some dream Utopia in mind. What I am saying is that WE HAVE A PROBLEM...NOT HERE IS THE FINAL ALSWER TO THE PROBLEM. I am asserting that we are being lied to by people like the Koch Brothers, Exxon, BP etc. to keep them going. I am also asserting that the nuclear industry is unsound and a very bad public investment. I admit I don't know how far we will get and indeed cannot predict the outcome of our encounter with our waste products, but I know we need to make a valiant effort to resolve the problem. You are the one who only considers narrow business parameters and outmoded and dangerous methods of boiling water. If you want to insure these things with public money...like the sharks say..."I'm out!"

 

[Togo]

Loren: You seem to me to always assert I have some dream Utopia in mind...

As far as I can tell, Loren's arguments always involve making claims about what it going on in other people's heads. I can't tell whether that's simply the way he thinks, or simply the way he writes, but it's common pattern in his arguments.

 

[Togo]

Sure they do. It's called the catastrophe business (Cat line for short), its a popular form of insurance business, and a great deal of it is done here in london. The problem is that nuclear power has long tailed liabilities that can't be easily capped, which means you can't build a nuclear plant without government subsidising the risk. It's inherently a government business.

"Large" is a relative measure. No insurance company wants to insure a risk that's too great a percent of their income. That's why you have reinsurance--companies casting off risks that are too big for them to take on.

However, the biggest events (flood, earthquake, nukes) are too big even for reinsurance. This says nothing about the size of the risk, only of the potential size of the claim.

An insurance company grosses $10B/yr. There's a 1 in a million chance of a billion dollar claim arising out of <x>. They'll sell you a policy for something a bit over $1,000. There's a 1 in a million chance of a $10 billion dollar claim arising out of <y>. They're not going to sell you a policy for a bit over $10,000.

Yes, they will.

What happens is that they sell the policy for $10,000, and then parcel out the risk to other companies in exchange for a cut of the fees. That's how a syndicated insurance market works. It takes a lot of organising and some good computer models. That's why companies I am personally familiar with carry flood, earthquake and other form of 'cat' risk.

It's the same reason the government does flood insurance and earthquake insurance is a joke.

Flood insurance is done in the private sector here too. It's very popular. We also deal with flood insurance for americans, as well as earthquake, so I'm not sure what you're referring to.

American flood insurance is all government because private companies aren't interested.

We have a lot of US flood insurance premium income coming in from somewhere. Seems odd that people would pay without being insured.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

"Large" is a relative measure. No insurance company wants to insure a risk that's too great a percent of their income. That's why you have reinsurance--companies casting off risks that are too big for them to take on.

However, the biggest events (flood, earthquake, nukes) are too big even for reinsurance. This says nothing about the size of the risk, only of the potential size of the claim.

An insurance company grosses $10B/yr. There's a 1 in a million chance of a billion dollar claim arising out of <x>. They'll sell you a policy for something a bit over $1,000. There's a 1 in a million chance of a $10 billion dollar claim arising out of <y>. They're not going to sell you a policy for a bit over $10,000.

Yes, they will.

What happens is that they sell the policy for $10,000, and then parcel out the risk to other companies in exchange for a cut of the fees. That's how a syndicated insurance market works. It takes a lot of organising and some good computer models. That's why companies I am personally familiar with carry flood, earthquake and other form of 'cat' risk.

Only if there are companies to farm it out to. When the amount is big enough (one of the standard anti-nuke measures is to demand infinite liability insurance) there's nobody to farm it out to and they don't offer it.

It's the same reason the government does flood insurance and earthquake insurance is a joke.

Flood insurance is done in the private sector here too. It's very popular. We also deal with flood insurance for americans, as well as earthquake, so I'm not sure what you're referring to.

American flood insurance is all government because private companies aren't interested.

We have a lot of US flood insurance premium income coming in from somewhere. Seems odd that people would pay without being insured.

Are you not aware the US flood insurance program is federally backed?

 

[AthenaAwakened]

How did a thread about a non-problem wind up about flood insurance?

 

[bilby]

How did a thread about a non-problem wind up about flood insurance?