Electronics > Power/Renewable Energy/EV's
Environmentalists and Nuclear Energy
CatalinaWOW:
--- Quote from: moz on April 03, 2017, 06:10:00 am ---
--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on April 03, 2017, 03:43:45 am ---I don't know what your list of renewables includes, but if it includes wood, biomass and human waste there are many places about the planet that have been made into nightmares for periods that approach or exceed your 1000 year mark. The whole Eastern Mediterranean was turned into desert wasteland
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I'm not convinced that going back several millennia and then saying that a particular large geographic area was primarily devastated by renewable energy generation is meaningful. Was firewood gathering the really major cause of the disaster? The "Eastern Mediterranean" appears not to be used by geographers, so I'm not entirely sure which specific site you mean.
My broader point is that those cases are rare and arguable unless you broaden them to include all human activity in the area.
I'm reluctant to get into local extinctions, for much the same reasons as arguing about bird strike for wind or solar is hard. To talk meaningfully about it you need pretty intense research and the argument ends up being as much definitional as statistical. Are the birds that used to live around an open cut mine locally extinct because, well, it's an open cut mine? Do they count as killed by the mine in the same way as birds killed by wind turbines count?
And then there's this amazing bit of writing about the Mediterranean desert that popped up in my search results (caution: faith-based material). It's worth reading just for the mind-boggling nature, if you're into a bit of casual boggling.
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I agree that it is hard to separate all of the variables, and particularly hard since most of those who try are proponents of one or another energy resource and end up with biases - intentional or otherwise.
I could give you a narrower geographical area - the countries of Lebanon and Israel. Then we could get into a discussion of whether burning wood for room heating and cooking is energy generation since it doesn't involve electricity, and what percentage of the environmental damage was "energy" related vs other human activity. For species extinction I was specifically thinking of the Colorado River system in North America. Here the Bonytail (a half meter size fish) is functionally extinct with no known wild breeding populations and a declining captive population, and others like the Pikeminnow (a two meter fish) and the Humpback Chub (a one third meter size fish) which are now endangered. As far as I know all biologists believe that dams on the Colorado river system are the primary and perhaps sole cause of their problems, with changes in water flow and temperature being the specific problems.
Interpretation of the devastation caused by these events is again subject to interpretation. While no one can argue about the half lives of radioactive products, and while there is not too much argument about the existence of excess deaths due to exposure to radiation the responses diverge radically from there. For example, I grew up in Colorado, spending most of my time at altitudes that varied from 2000 to 2700 meters, with occasional forays over 4000 meters. Due to natural radioactivity in the soil and higher cosmic ray radiation from the thinner atmospheric belt people living in that area can expect a significantly higher rate of radiation induced cancers than those living in Mississippi or Denmark. Not to mention cataracts and a host of other altitude related ailments. No one suggests evacuating or cordoning off my birthplace. But people casually talk about the need to cordon off areas for 10000 years or more on the chance that radiation levels in pockets might exceed a safety standard. Chernobyl is viewed by some as a radioactive wasteland, and by others as the place they live. Those who have chosen to live there are at higher risk, but their daily lives are far more affected by the lack of economic community that exists because of the quarantine than it is by the radiation.
mtdoc:
When evaluating the health hazards of radiation it's very important to understand that there are very large differences in the risks posed by different sources of radiation and different isotopes.
The risks from the cosmic radiation that increases with altitude or from naturally occuring earth sources like radon are minuscule relative to the risks posed by some of the fission products of nuclear reactors such as isotopes of iodine, caesium and strontium. And the relative health hazard of different isotopes depends not only on their relative radioactivity but also on their biological activity and propensity to bioaccumulate.
CatalinaWOW:
--- Quote from: mtdoc on April 03, 2017, 07:25:31 pm ---When evaluating the health hazards of radiation it's very important to understand that there are very large differences in the risks posed by different sources of radiation and different isotopes.
The risks from the cosmic radiation that increases with altitude or from naturally occuring earth sources like radon are minuscule relative to the risks posed by some of the fission products of nuclear reactors such as isotopes of iodine, caesium and strontium. And the relative health hazard of different isotopes depends not only on their relative radioactivity but also on their biological activity and propensity to bioaccumulate.
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Absolutely true. But I suspect that because of durability of exposure (cosmic radiation will not change in human history) and widespread exposure (The high Rockies, the Andes, the Alps, the Tibetan plateau), the total number of excess deaths due to living at altitude will be comparable to those from the three major nuclear incidents. Particularly if measured over the timescales some are using for nuclear safety. Three or four generations from now the effects of these incidents will have faded largely into the background, while cosmic rays will keep ticking along.
My point isn't that nuclear power is safe. If we continue to employ it as we have in the past you can assume that the contamination from accidents will be continually refreshed. The point is that this is just another example of the perceived risk being far different from other kinds of risk. We could run lots of nuclear power as ineptly as the Russians did at Chernobyl and death from nuclear radiation would still be pretty far down the cause of death list. Certainly below the cost of burning and using coal if you total up mining accidents and the various types of atmospheric releases.
Look at the possibilities - If you banned living at high altitude you could create huge nature reserves. Save numerous endangered species. Save large amounts of heating energy. Eliminate or reduce deaths from snowslides and landslides. Safe human lives from excess cancers (remembering that UV radiation is worse up there also). A safer better world. And just a day late for 4/1. ;)
tautech:
--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on April 03, 2017, 09:02:13 pm ---But I suspect that because of durability of exposure (cosmic radiation will not change in human history) and widespread exposure (The high Rockies, the Andes, the Alps, the Tibetan plateau), the total number of excess deaths due to living at altitude will be comparable to those from the three major nuclear incidents.
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You don't consider the numerous atmospheric tests in the US, Australian outback and on Pacific atolls major ? :-//
Most of these areas are still roped off as nogo regions. :scared:
Sure we know a lot more today but damage has been done that will take generations to become safe if ever.
So that you know where I stand, I support the safe use of nuclear energy for our future energy needs.
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