this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2024
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 35 minutes ago

You know this really clarified something for me. So much fud on the internet is really about over simplification. If you take out all context and reduce something down to nothing you can make the conclusion whatever.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 58 minutes ago (1 children)

But we also stopped using open fire after we found better/safer alternatives to heating and cooking

[–] [email protected] 1 points 56 minutes ago (2 children)

What's the better and safer alternative to nuclear power plants?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 44 minutes ago* (last edited 43 minutes ago)

Thorium rather than uranium fuel cycling

[–] [email protected] 3 points 27 minutes ago

Not going into that, just saying the argument as presented is very flawed

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 minutes ago

Does anon think chernobyl was the only nuclear disaster?

[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Radioactive materials really are the closest thing we have to ancient demons.

They can give you unlimited power, but it's always an uneasy bargain. They must be contained in special places where no human can go, and the people tasked with keeping them sealed must be vigilant, with never a moment's careless inattention, or they might get loose.

If anything ever goes wrong, they wreak havoc. And afterwards, that place is cursed beyond repair. No one can look upon it. No one can go there. If they do, they will die in horrible ways, with no hope of salvation. Machines that try to trespass will break. Film cannot develop, or is ruined. They must simply be left in the tomb, alone and undisturbed, forever.

That one grainy photo of the elephant's foot is absolutely chilling to me, like a monster from another world lurking silently underground.

You can also bargain with them to destroy the cities of your enemies. There is no limit to the power. Whole continents laid waste, simply by the right type of priesthood making the right incantations. But for almost a century, no one has dared to do it, because of what might come.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 hours ago

And afterwards, that place is cursed beyond repair. No one can look upon it

Here's a guy looking upon it 30 years ago, 10 years after the accident.

https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/chernobyls-intensely-radioactive-elephants-foot-lava-recreated-in-the-lab/4011170.article

You wouldn't want to sleep next to it, and you certainly wouldn't want to breath it in, but it's not going to kill anyone who looks at it.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Also, we buy the rocks from dictators.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 hours ago

Eh, kinda. The largest uranium reserves in the world are in Australia, and the highest grade uranium deposits are in Canada. The western US has large reserves that don't require international trade (though they're mostly in federally protected land so it would take a lot of government action to actually start mining it).

That said, Kazakhstan does the most uranium mining at the moment by a wide margin and they're not exactly a shining example of democracy. They're responsible for 25% of US uranium imports.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

Some of the largest deposits of uranium in the world are in Brazil, not currently a dictatorship, but also not being mined.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

I think what would give cavemen pause would be if the house was on fire for 20,000 years.

That said, we definitely should have stayed on nuclear.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Don't know why you're being down voted, that's accurate. Dresden was set fucking alight like 80 years ago and was rebuilt. Chernobyl?

And yes, it's arguably cleaner than most fuel, just know what yours doing and don't put it on a flood plane!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Their comment agitates both the "nuclear bad" crowd and the "nuclear good" crowd :(

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Ahhh, I get ya.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 hour ago

Chernobyl shows that worst case scenario is that we get large wildlife preserves.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

How do we know prehistoric people didn't cause a uranium explosion and then either died within a radius or swore to never use it again

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Yes, and yes.

Worse, that time we think of(3 Mile Island), the safeties worked. Things were fine.

Two other events were issues, but not "my" issue.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Yes, we're that dumb. The China Syndrome, a movie about on out-of-control reactor meltdown, hit theaters 12-days (March 16, 1979) before the Three Mile Island incident (March 28, 1979). The US quit building reactors because of a Hollywood movie.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago

The "pre historic" people who witness the [r-word] burning his house down would not be able to spread their story (along with the fear of fire) before they go extinct because they lacked such a crucial technology. In contrast, stories like Chernobyl can have its story around the world before you can even walk 1% of the circumference.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago

Nuclear power is usually not abandoned for being dangerous, but because it's weirdly complex to keep it safe as compared to the alternatives. This makes it one of the most expensive ways to produce energy (at least given European regulations). Also, the raw material is expected to be quite rare relatively soon.

I guess this may be more about the way caveman made their fire... and the multi-billion cavedollar structure for holding the magic stone can be annoying.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

As someone who literally had to evacuate when reactor 4 exploded in Fukushima these memes are so exhausting

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

The evacuations were considered a mistake and caused more harm than good.

There was very little actual damage from the reactors.

In response to the station blackout during the initial hours of the accident and the ongoing uncertainty regarding the cooling status of units 1 and 2, a 2 km radius evacuation of 1,900 residents was ordered at 20:50.[67] However, due to difficulty coordinating with the national government,[68] a 3 km evacuation order of ~6,000 residents and a 10 km shelter-in-place order for 45,000 residents was established nearly simultaneously at 21:23. The evacuation radius was expanded to 10 km at 5:44, and was then revised to 20 km at 18:25. The size of these evacuation zones was set for arbitrary reasons at the discretion of bureaucrats rather than nuclear experts.

This was a failure of the government not anything to do with nuclear power.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 28 minutes ago

Nuclear safety and government are closely connected in most countries, though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

What if he burned down every house within 50 miles and the landscape didn’t recover for decades? What if it happened again and again?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

What if we constantly subsidized industries that made our climate unlivable?

Nuclear is a sound option. We already deal with mining wastes that must be managed in perpetuity. Nuclear waste isn't much different in that regard.

Your point about landscapes also happens in mining.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 hour ago

Yes, we should be moving to solar instead of propping up uneconomic polluting industries like nuclear or coal.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Just a reminder, coal power releases more radiation per year than the totality of radiation released by nuclear power including all nuclear accidents and disasters... And it's not even close.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

It’s disingenuous to compare radiation which is diffused globally via the atmosphere with ground contamination which is localized and thousands of times too dangerous for human habitation.

You’re saying don’t worry about the toxic waste dump next door because there’s air pollution everywhere.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 minutes ago

Boy have I got news for you, coal is also worse in terms of ground and water pollution by a factor of 4... Without counting coal mining which is basically the most long term harmful activity to the environment humans can do.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

What if instead of scary magic rocks that release bad juju, what if we went back to the burney rocks that also put out even more bad juju than the scary rocks and makes the sky fairies mad and fired up? That would protect us from the scary event, even if it was much worse long term.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

Retard burnt his house so bad no one could have a house in the state he fucked up in.

Still agree lol