Premature deaths. But how do you tell apart a normal death from a premature death? I have friends at the WHO and they have told me not to believe everything the WHO says, they have political agendas: bird flu and Tamiflu being a fine example of what I mean. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bird+flu+vaccine+rumsfeld
We should be moving towards replacing fossil fuel with something that is cleaner and still serves the purpose of providing energy. Ironicly we may need to use fossil fuel in that process (ex: heavy equipment to build solar farms), but eventually the new technology should be self sustainable.
We should, yes, best is better than good. But don't demonize fossil fuel because 1) it's been and still is a very good thing and 2) we've got nothing better yet.
Premature deaths. But how do you tell apart a normal death from a premature death? I have friends at the WHO and they have told me not to believe everything the WHO says, they have political agendas: bird flu and Tamiflu being a fine example of what I mean. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bird+flu+vaccine+rumsfeld
It’s statistics and a bit of detective work. In the 1950s -1970s lung cancer, throat and stomach rates all of a sudden increased dramatically. Doctors were puzzled. Was it something in the food, air, exposure during Word War II? They didn’t have a clue. Some very smart doctors started comparing notes on patients to see if they could find anything in common. They did. All of their patients either smoked ciragetttes or lived in a home with a ciragette smoker. Thanks to thieir work, we now know how deadly ciragettes are. Statistically they compared the life expentency of non-smokers with smokers and found smokers on average died years sooner than non-smokers. And people who smoked and then stopped smoking would live a bit longer than if they continued to smoke but not as long as a non-smoker.
From 1945 though the 1970s we did experiment after experiment to find out the effects on ionizing radiation. We have a very good understanding statistically of the dose, exposure and life expectancy. This is not pseudoscience as the anti-nukes like everyone to beleive. If it were we would not be able to sucessfully treat cancer patients with nuclear medicine.
There are paradoxes with ionizing radiation. One can be exposed to a dose of ionizing radiation of say 20 which would cause cancer in a patient. But at a dose of 25 it kills the cancer and the patient doesn’t get cancer.
On YouTube Vertasium/Derek has a two one hour episodes on the discovery and history of ionizing radiation. Uranium: Twisting the Dragon’s Tale. This was a PBS show int he US. 5 Stars.
There are four things that can happen when a quanta of ionizing radiation passes through a cell. In decreasing order of likelihood they are: Nothing, cell death, a non-harmful mutation, and a harmful mutation (cancer).
In one family members case it resulted in more than two decades of extra life before succumbing to another cancer that may have been related to the radiation treatment. Or maybe not. No one really knows the statistics on these things.
Look at the source. If you don't trust the UN for some reason, look at the data in another place, if available.
Great... but, many many many more people can live THANKS to the fossil fuels, so what? It's not perfect, but almost. Are you against vaccines too because a small % die when vaccinated?
Get your priorities right, because fossil fuels do much more good than bad.
About nuclear waste:QuoteThe United States has over 90,000 metric tons of nuclear waste that requires disposal. The U.S. commercial power industry alone has generated more waste (nuclear fuel that is "spent" and is no longer efficient at generating power) than any other country—nearly 80,000 metric tons. This spent nuclear fuel, which can pose serious risks to humans and the environment, is enough to fill a football field about 20 meters deep. The U.S. government’s nuclear weapons program has generated spent nuclear fuel as well as high-level radioactive waste and accounts for most of the rest of the total at about 14,000 metric tons, according to the Department of Energy (DOE). For the most part, this waste is stored where it was generated—at 80 sites in 35 states. The amount of waste is expected to increase to about 140,000 metric tons over the next several decades. However, there is still no disposal site in the United States. After spending decades and billions of dollars to research potential sites for a permanent disposal site, including at the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada that has a license application pending to authorize construction of a nuclear waste repository, the future prospects for permanent disposal remain unclear.
Current Storage Sites for High-Level Radioactive Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel and Repository with License under Review
[image removed. too big]
That's quite a large amount of nuclear crap to me.[...]
In 2016, an estimated 4.2 million people died as a result of high levels of ambient air pollution."
Ouch
I doubt that figure very much, but even if it were true, Do you realize how many billion humans aren't starving to death thanks to fossil fuels? Don't you realize that without fossil fuels it's impossible to feed 7 billion people? Can't you imagine what a shitty quality of life we'd have without fossil fuels? You better pray to the gods you do not get to see the end of the fossil fuels because it's not going to be anything nice.Look at the source. If you don't trust the UN for some reason, look at the data in another place, if available.
We can do something about the amount of fossil fuels now, and preserve them for other uses instead of burning them. That requires political commitment, however.
The map you showed is a compilation. We’ve been talking about nuclear power. The map you are showing isn’t that showing nuclear material not only from nuclear power plants, nuclear bombs, medical nuclear waste, and industrial nuclear waste.
The map is an accurate. It does not show San Francisco, (Hunters Point) or the Farallon Islands.
So not exactly sure what the map is and is not indicating.
In the US we could reprocess the spent nuclear fuel rods, but politically we don’t want to do it. Same with storage. We could store it safely, but again the politics gets in the way.
But let’s be fair about this, we have the same issue with the residue from burned fossil fuels. Coal slug heaps are radioactive, contain many cancerous compounds and the particulate which gets blown by the wind causing respiratory diseases especially in kids.
Yes coal and fossil fuels provide has provided us with machines to grow, harvest and transport food. It keeps us warm. Allows to to cook food without building a fire and many other conviences including transportation. I would gladly fly to Europe on a plane in half a day than spend 3 months on a ship powered by the wind.
HLW accounts for just 3% of the volume, but 95% of the total radioactivity of produced waste.
[...]
The IAEA estimates that the disposal volume of the current solid HLW inventory is approximately 22,000m3.1 For context, this is a volume roughly equivalent to a three metre tall building covering an area the size of a soccer pitch.
[...]
In addition to producing very significant emissions of carbon, hydrocarbon industries also create significant amounts of radioactive waste. The radioactive material produced as a waste product from the oil and gas industry is referred to as 'technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials' (Tenorm). In oil and gas production, radium-226, radium-228, and lead-210 are deposited as scale in pipes and equipment in many parts of the world. Published data show radionuclide concentrations in scales up to 300,000 Bq/kg for Pb-210, 250,000 Bq/kg for Ra-226, and 100,000 Bq/kg for Ra-228. This level is 1000 times higher than the clearance level for recycled material (both steel and concrete) from the nuclear industry, where anything above 500 Bq/kg may not be cleared from regulatory control for recycling.8The largest Tenorm waste stream is coal ash, with around 280 million tonnes arising globally each year, carrying uranium-238 and all its non-gaseous decay products, as well as thorium-232 and its progeny. This ash is usually just buried, or may be used as a constituent in building materials. As such, the same radionuclide, at the same concentration, may be sent to deep disposal if from the nuclear industry, or released for use in building materials if in the form of fly ash from the coal industry.9
80000 tonne isn't much if you consider that is all the waste that has been generated since the 1950s in the US. Compare that to "more than 100 million tons of coal ash and other waste products are produced by coal-fired power plants in the United States every year" Nuclear waste is neither particularly hazardous nor hard to manage relative to other toxic industrial waste.
Most of that waste is not as dangerous, only 3% is so called high level waste (HLW). There is only about 22 000 m3 HLW in the world:QuoteHLW accounts for just 3% of the volume, but 95% of the total radioactivity of produced waste.
[...]
The IAEA estimates that the disposal volume of the current solid HLW inventory is approximately 22,000m3.1 For context, this is a volume roughly equivalent to a three metre tall building covering an area the size of a soccer pitch.
[...]
In addition to producing very significant emissions of carbon, hydrocarbon industries also create significant amounts of radioactive waste. The radioactive material produced as a waste product from the oil and gas industry is referred to as 'technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials' (Tenorm). In oil and gas production, radium-226, radium-228, and lead-210 are deposited as scale in pipes and equipment in many parts of the world. Published data show radionuclide concentrations in scales up to 300,000 Bq/kg for Pb-210, 250,000 Bq/kg for Ra-226, and 100,000 Bq/kg for Ra-228. This level is 1000 times higher than the clearance level for recycled material (both steel and concrete) from the nuclear industry, where anything above 500 Bq/kg may not be cleared from regulatory control for recycling.8The largest Tenorm waste stream is coal ash, with around 280 million tonnes arising globally each year, carrying uranium-238 and all its non-gaseous decay products, as well as thorium-232 and its progeny. This ash is usually just buried, or may be used as a constituent in building materials. As such, the same radionuclide, at the same concentration, may be sent to deep disposal if from the nuclear industry, or released for use in building materials if in the form of fly ash from the coal industry.9http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/nuclear-wastes/radioactive-waste-management.aspx
Yes, coal is serious crap. I don't get why is the US still using such a daunting amount of it.
Why compare against coal, instead of other kinds of power plants?
There are 1,130,000 m3 of tritium contaminated water on tanks around the plant. Tritium contamination cannot be removed, and there's still no plans of what to do with it, and this number continues to raise at about 150 m3 per day.
You could do electrolysis of the water and release the hydrogen into the atmosphere, it will quickly rise to the top of the atmosphere and then leave earth. Probably a waste of energy though.
There are 1,130,000 m3 of tritium contaminated water on tanks around the plant. Tritium contamination cannot be removed, and there's still no plans of what to do with it, and this number continues to raise at about 150 m3 per day.
Tritium is easy to deal with, all we have to do is nothing and wait. In two more years half of it will be gone. And in another 12 years half of that will be gone. Shortly after that there won’t be enougj left to worry about as it will have decayrd away.
You could do electrolysis of the water and release the hydrogen into the atmosphere, it will quickly rise to the top of the atmosphere and then leave earth. Probably a waste of energy though.
Only problem with that is the H3 would probably react with molecules in the atmosphere. Instead of acid rain we could have tritium ran. But you know than might not be a bad idea and could save electricty by glowing during the night.
Wasn’t it the Soviet Union who used Trittium and Phospherous based paint in tunnels, pill boxes and gun implacments to provide a source of light at all times without the need for electricity?
You could do electrolysis of the water and release the hydrogen into the atmosphere, it will quickly rise to the top of the atmosphere and then leave earth. Probably a waste of energy though.
Only problem with that is the H3 would probably react with molecules in the atmosphere. Instead of acid rain we could have tritium ran. But you know than might not be a bad idea and could save electricty by glowing during the night.
Wasn’t it the Soviet Union who used Trittium and Phospherous based paint in tunnels, pill boxes and gun implacments to provide a source of light at all times without the need for electricity?
That sounds like it would be bad, although, I wounder how much of the H32 would react before it reached beyond the troposphere. Probably not enough that it would matter.
They still make radioluminescent paint and gadgets with tritium. Apparently tritium costs $30000 per kg.
The lesson seems to be that natural disasters and nuclear reactors don't mix well. At least we got lucky, and no more tsunamis had hit the zone.
The lesson seems to be that natural disasters and nuclear reactors don't mix well. At least we got lucky, and no more tsunamis had hit the zone.Absolutely. The tsunami directly killed more than 15000 people and cost over $360 billions in damages. That tsunami was 40 meter high at some places. They have tsunami walls in Japan that protect cities, and they had that at Fukushima as well, but they were too low in this case. It is the same with hydro electric dams. If such a dam fails because of an earthquake or a meteorite several thousands living downstream will die.
This height is deemed the record in Japan historically, as of reporting date, that exceeds 38.2 metres (125 ft) from the 1896 Meiji-Sanriku earthquake.[166] It was also estimated that the tsunami reached heights of up to 40.5 metres (133 ft) in Miyako in Tōhoku's Iwate Prefecture. The inundated areas closely matched those of the 869 Sanriku tsunami.[167]
Are you sure the tsunami was 40 meter high? Seems much too high for a tsunami wave.
Thought the power plant survived the tsunami with no problem. Wasn’t the real cause of the meltdown no electricity to power the pumps? The fuel tanks for the pumps were flooded and the fuel floated away. If they only would have built the fuel tanks on the hill behind the power plant there would have been any disaster. This was not a fault with the design or operation of the reactor, but the back-up systems.
Why Tesla receives such criticism in the videos?
Because Telsa concentrate on only one part of the business. Their after-sale and parts available (and used Tesla purchase programs) are utter and complete crap. You can find dozens and dozens of people waiting months for simple parts, or in this case, the purchase of a used certified pre-owned Tesla that has taken 2+ months and counting (and this to a guy who has a big Tesla following)
The lack of dealing with the rest of the business will be Tesla's downfall.