***** Considering that I done electrical engineering at I have a good idea on what the pros and cons of nuclear energy are. You, evidently, are one of those delusional, misguided people who think everyone's out to get them. Grow up and get a grip
Marcus The Great Thorium is better than nuclear, but in the comparison to standard nuclear power stations and coal ones, nuclear is much safer. There have only really been around 3 disasters from nuclear power compared to the constant disasters of the fossil fuel industry. If you actually done any research into the Chernobyl disaster you would be able to see that it was caused by stupid mistakes. Also, that most of the deaths were that of emergency services who didnt know what to do and poor evacuation strategies.
I'm no activist, just a concerned educated citizen. I have taken numerous chemistry courses and environmental Sci too. Radioactive isotopes are very dangerous to the human body. Many of us won't get the cancers BUT we will become infertile, have gastrointestinal breakdown, thyroid dysfunction, - death from a combination of ailments that just seem to appear and overwhelm our bodies.
I'm on the same page! Dr. Caldicott...................your input is very powerful,truthful and just what people need to HOPEFULLY wake up! I cannot believe how desperate ,complacent and ignorant we have become in America! I am mortified!
Strong outspoken women like Dr. Helen Caldicott offer the only remaining hope we have to safe this planet. Thank you Dr. Caldicott, you are a hero to me.
I agree. I was in an argument with a Greenpeace fellow and finally got him to admit that what he was saying was wrong. He then said that it did not matter. He said he was willing to lie because his cause was more important than the truth. I can not understand this attitude. If you throw away truth then how do you even know what you are fighting for is right? It is then more like a faith based religion.
@quarkleptonsoup I noticed that. As Douglas Braaten, the Director and Executive Editor (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences), stated “In no sense did Annals of the NYAS or the New York Academy of Sciences commission this work; nor by its publication do we intend to independently validate the claims made in the translation or in the original publications cited in the work. The translated volume has not been peer-reviewed by the New York Academy of Sciences, or by anyone else.”
@d2099y The biggest harm from Chernobyl came from Radiophobia. People felt they were doomed and thus drank heavily and had depression etc. Helen Caldicott and her type are responsible for spreading that fear. She is the one causing harm with her misinformation. It is truly shameful.
Germany has spent 100's of Billions of Euros on their renewables program. Removing Hydro power from the renewables figures (because it was there before the renewables push and is also maxed out) we find that all that money produced only a few percent of their power from renewables. If that money had been spent on nuclear power, (like France did), they could have reduced their CO2 emissions significantly. Their CO2 emissions continue to rise. They are building coal plants as fast as they can.
@mphello You can look it up as easily as I can. Regarding your second point about the residents of Pripyat..of course it was a disaster for them. All power sources pose some danger. Nuclear is actually the safest in "deaths per kilowatt hour of electricity produced". In contrast, look up "Buffalo Creek Flood" or "Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill" to name the first 2 that a short google search served up.
So, revisiting this we see that Dr. Caldicott's concerns were more than a bit off the mark. The scale of the harm on the natural world is much much lower than she and others anticipated. I think that is a fact to be celebrated. Next we need to objectively consider why it was so far off the mark. Remember, I said harm to the natural world. This was certainly economically devastating, but let's not lose context. We really should be remembering the cause of the Fukushima Daiichi reactor damage, the Tohoku earthquake. Tens of thousands of people perished in that event, yet few remember its name. Fukushima has become synonymous with disaster. That is a distortion of fact. Every day, millions of people die and suffer grave negative health effects from burning coal and natural gas for power. Millions. Germany leads the world in wind and solar investment, yet they still have to rely on coal and natural gas. It is not trivially easy transitioning to a 100% "renewable" grid. In fact, it has not yet been achieved anywhere at even the scale of a reasonably large city. So, as we aspire to achieve a 100% "renewable" future, we are accepting a decades long period during which MOST of that power comes from natural gas and some coal. That will result in millions more unnecessary deaths and global warming. Despite our fear and loathing of it, very few actual lives have been lost to nuclear power. Could it... could it just be possible that we are being irrational to our own detriment? Nothing is perfect. Every power system we devise has and will have a cost and a benefit. Nobody wants to die prematurely of anything. Let's make the choices that deliver the best chance of an uninterrupted life to the most people based on evidence not conjecture, fear or loathing.
Shes been saying the same thing for nearly 40 years. The chicken little routine gets a little tiring after awhile. If we all disappear in the million degree fire ball one day?... hey Helen.. you got it right. Until then move on and enjoy your life. And you completely missunderstand my point. I DO live life. She needs to as well. Its not about being irresponsible. Its about savoring every moment you can. Is going to be doing this for the rest of her life?? Helen? We get it.
Well done Dr. Haldicott! d2099y has some good comments against coal below, but let's not be so silly as to say that this justifies nuclear. Wind/solar/biomass/geothermal are orders of magnitude less expensive, especially on a lifecycle basis, and the environmental and social costs of nuclear are astounding. Nuclear belongs in research labs at universities. It's never been viable without heavy subsidy, and never will be.
@dsatnik A more accurate statement is that nuclear has its capital costs up front and then is very cheap to run due to the essentially free fuel. On the other end of the spectrum there are natural gas turbines, which have very low up front capital costs but high and unpredictable fuel costs for the life of the plant. High capital up front is riskier but has lower total lifetime cost. In terms of cost Hydro is the cheapest followed by nuclear.
@quarkleptonsoup The laws of thermodynamics apply to the whole system in question, so you must include the increased entropy of the supernova explosion that created all the uranium in the first place
gas isn't cheap, the ecological cost with climate change and how gas is produced and used make it much to costly when one considers the cost of climate change. the methane produced is just one of the many factors that we as a species must take into account if we hope to survive. with'n my lifetime millions will die. even if we take action today all we can hope is the future will balance out. j
You can take a look at the shipyard study which showed workers working on nuclear ships had less cancer rates as those that didin't. It involved a study over tens of thousands of people by the DOE. Look at page 303 onwards. orau.org/ptp/PTP%20Library/library/Subject/Risk/shipyard.pdf I am sure I have more studies if interested as I try to back up my opinions.
@dsatnik why then if Wind/solar/biomass/geothermal are orders of magnitude less expensive do they receive Feed In Tariffs? What are the environmental and social costs of nuclear? Seriously...show me some facts to back up your vague assertion.
@mphello, Finding my position requires reading the link to 'The Atomic Plague' article I posted above, with further - in detail - reading of the chapter with the same name in John Pilgers book 'Tell Me No Lies'. For a true debate, it isn't just a case of holding a stance to one position, but to several interconnected ones. To challenge conclusion it is better to understand opposing view points even if we do not agree. It proves our right to the ownership of opposing thumbs ;-) ...
@d2099y The NYAS has also recently distanced itself from the report due to the report's sloppy science. The NYAS is now embarrassed to be associated with the paper and has said they will review the process by which they adjudicate papers.
@mphello If I am a nuclear apologist, then helen caldicott is a fossil fuel apologist. How does this labelling move the conversation forward? If someone lies, people should call them on it. There is too much misinformation and distortion out there and this is too important of a topic to allow that. By looking at the numbers and trying to not get emotionally caught up in the debate, I believe nuclear power is the best solution. It is safer than fossil fuels. All power sources pose some danger
@quarkleptonsoup Here is a quote... Wolfgang Weiss of the U.N. Scientific Committee on the effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR). "As far as the doses we have seen from the screening of the population ... they are very low,"
I am not going to do your work for you. If you are interested, you can find many sources that examine the veracity of HC's statements. I am sure you have valid core concerns that formed your beliefs. If HC is not a credible source of information, supporting her discredits your arguments to others. You deserve better. All power sources have trade offs. With these complicated subjects, it is important that people be held accountable for their misleading or inaccurate statements.
"Ramsar, Iran is the site of a well controlled study of two large populations living together in one city, either in a high background area of 300 to 700 mSv/year, or in a low background area of 2 to 3 mSv/year (Figure 3). High background area residents demonstrate a marked increase in DNA repair and a marked reduction of standardized mortality rate and of age adjusted cancer mortality, similar to that seen in the US Nuclear Shipyard Worker Study" ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2664640/
@mphello, I suggest we're suffering crossed wires due to these short reply boxes on threads. I've read a number of your previous posts on other threads and we're more or less on the same page in regard to Peak Oil and exponential limits to growth. Further to that, global climate change I suspect. My thoughts are on E.R.O.E.I and the ever decreasing return on global energy investment. The old 'My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet. His son will ride a camel' - comes to mind!
So your argument is that because she has been warning people about the dangers of nuclear power for 40 years then she must be saying nonsense. No.. she is not saying nonsense. But its like.. "Helen?.. we get it!!..ok.. great.. yeah its bad".. Helen would you like a glass of wine and some cheese something decadent ?. "Yes.. but Marge we're going to disappear in a fire ball". (Helen would you please leave)
Wet paint people? No. I am a live life NOW people. Boy you seem really defensive about Ms Caldicott. Your handle is fitting. What is wrong with you? You're offended because i tell her to go live her life? To put down the chicken little act and move on?. Does she sit on her patio with her friends and a glass of wine saying.. "You know we're all going to be vaporized by a nuclear weapon one day".. Great Helen.. You really put a damper on things don't you.
Why is that good necessarily? You are simply substituting one dependency for another. It bothers me to buy solar panels that are mostly produced in China because I have no control over the environmental damage caused in their manufacture. Even if we don't buy from China, the renewables companies are huge multinationals like GE and Westinghouse.
@mphello Using your logic, nuclear still comes out on top. Per kilowatt of output a nuclear plant requires 10 times less materials to build than either wind or solar. It takes thousands of windmills to put out the same power a a single nuclear plant. The energy in the fuel is millions of times more dense than any other fuel so mining etc is a million times easier.
@mphello We have the same goal; the shutting down of fossil fuel plants.There are 2 problems to consider: #1 The building of Wind and Solar over the last 25 years has yet to shut a single coal plant. Not in Germany or any other country. Nuclear is the only source of baseload power that can displace coal.
@AngelAtomiseu Most reputable scientists have a much smaller estimate, but even if your number is true, that is still 25 times less than have been killed by fossil fuels in the same period. No energy source is perfect, but nuclear is safer than all other sources on a "deaths per kilowatt hour" basis. That includes comparing solar, wind, hydro, gas, oil and coal.
@quarkleptonsoup Even the 70 altruistic plant workers who stayed behind gained an additional cancer risk of just 0.002% -- effectively zero in a country where four out of ten people get cancer.
@d2099y Also, since renewables are intermittent they need gas back up generation. As the percentage of power supplied by renewables increases, the more gas back up you need to keep the grid stable and so you reach a point around 10% where the extra renewables actually start increasing the burning of fossil fuels instead of replacing them. 100% renewables is not possible. Storage on that scale is not possible. Maybe a new breakthrough technology will save us, but until then we need nuclear.
i hope so, and work hard at the great awakening everyday. i don't give up the myol of influence is reduced to social media. at least we have that since we don't have mainstream media or politicians understanding the seriuosness of the 911 humanity is currently enduering. it's hard to not loose hope. the whole of the pacific ocean and northernhemisphere will be destroyed for century's. has that stoped the industry? no they are building 2 more tax payer paid plants in goergia. j
@quarkleptonsoup #2 Even if the richest countries somehow manage to use renewables to displace coal, it doesn't solve the main problem...there are a few billion poor people who are going to bring their standard of living and fuel consumption up to our levels. They will do it in the cheapest way possible which is burning coal. It is possible to make factory mass produced modular reactors that will supply power cheaper than coal. It is this or coal. I wish there was another option.
@mphello, interesting points. I'd very much love to debate. Even through private message. It must be friendly though, and as a means to learn from each other with a sense of fair play : - Google "The Atomic Plague - Wilfred Burchett" You should find the article directly below Wilfred Burchets Wikipedia page. You'll also find further reading and greater depth in the Book 'Tell Me No Lies' by John Pilger with the same title. I promise you or anyone else a detailed explanation of my position.
Thanks for the Green propaganda. Wind is expensive and useless. More wind means more gas turbine means more CO2. The cost of offshore is just extravagant.
@mphello It is the exploitation of people's emotions by scaremongers like Caldicott that upsets me. We need rational conversations so that as a society we can make the right choices for our energy future and for the planet's future. These are complex topics. Distortions and misinformation should not be tolerated. When Caldicott was campaigning to rid the world of nuclear weapons, her inflammatory style was useful, now she is just muddying the waters and getting in the way of proper discourse
i respect her and am disapointed you miss out on the education of the many, it's sad for us that there is people like you out there undermining the hope of one woman to wake up a world to it's own detruction by the hand of man. you will suffer with the rest of us when our works come about to a final end. it will happen, slowly but surely it is happening today, with'n my generation. i cry for the loss of a viable world so a few can be wealthy. j
Helen needs to cheer up and stop living her life in a horror movie. She was ranting that we were all going to vaporize in a nuclear war 30 years ago. Guess what?? We're all still here. Enjoy the time you have, live your life!!. Move on Helen!!, go camping. Get laid.. Smoke a joint. The endless Chicken little starts to wear a tad thin after a while. MOVE ON!!
any headway she may have made duering the 80's is unotcable will so many nuclear plants all over America and the world. i have 4 children and 2 grandchildren, and my heart aches at our destruction of self and the planet. with'n my lifetime we will see suffering beyound compare from such as this and dirty energy. it overwhelms me often. some care as i do, but we are so undereducated on these matters, that to few do. not enough to change it. i cry, wishing i wasn't so lonely in my dispare j
@mphello We have had 3 major accidents with nuclear power since it was invented. Not once has the public been forced to pay a single penny for the clean up.
Just because nuclear war hasn't broken out doesn't mean it couldn't have, can't, or won't in the future. Great!!!!. When the giant flash happens I'll look forward to Helen screaming "I TOLD YOU SO!!!". Meanwhile I'll be having a beer and enjoying my life.
You and Helen need to put down your world is going to end signs and go get laid, go camping, Smoke a joint. Stop with the chicken little nonsense. Great!! one day Helen may be right. How much are you going to care when there is a gigantic flash in the sky and you've spent your whole life worrying about it? You'd want to have checked everything off you bucket list. Go and DO IT!!
Compare the deaths and harm cause by nuclear to coal disasters and then see whats the safest
***** Nuclear is safer
***** And why would I be lying in a hospital bed dying?
***** Considering that I done electrical engineering at I have a good idea on what the pros and cons of nuclear energy are. You, evidently, are one of those delusional, misguided people who think everyone's out to get them. Grow up and get a grip
Marcus The Great Thorium is better than nuclear, but in the comparison to standard nuclear power stations and coal ones, nuclear is much safer. There have only really been around 3 disasters from nuclear power compared to the constant disasters of the fossil fuel industry. If you actually done any research into the Chernobyl disaster you would be able to see that it was caused by stupid mistakes. Also, that most of the deaths were that of emergency services who didnt know what to do and poor evacuation strategies.
another Tard
Thank you Helen Caldicot!
I'm no activist, just a concerned educated citizen. I have taken numerous chemistry courses and environmental Sci too. Radioactive isotopes are very dangerous to the human body. Many of us won't get the cancers BUT we will become infertile, have gastrointestinal breakdown, thyroid dysfunction, - death from a combination of ailments that just seem to appear and overwhelm our bodies.
I'm on the same page! Dr. Caldicott...................your input is very powerful,truthful and just what people need to HOPEFULLY wake up! I cannot believe how desperate ,complacent and ignorant we have become in America! I am mortified!
Strong outspoken women like Dr. Helen Caldicott offer the only remaining hope we have to safe this planet. Thank you Dr. Caldicott, you are a hero to me.
She is to me too.
I agree. I was in an argument with a Greenpeace fellow and finally got him to admit that what he was saying was wrong. He then said that it did not matter. He said he was willing to lie because his cause was more important than the truth.
I can not understand this attitude. If you throw away truth then how do you even know what you are fighting for is right? It is then more like a faith based religion.
@quarkleptonsoup I noticed that. As Douglas Braaten, the Director and Executive Editor (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences), stated “In no sense did Annals of the NYAS or the New York Academy of Sciences commission this work; nor by its publication do we intend to independently validate the claims made in the translation or in the original publications cited in the work. The translated volume has not been peer-reviewed by the New York Academy of Sciences, or by anyone else.”
thanks for posting
@d2099y The biggest harm from Chernobyl came from Radiophobia. People felt they were doomed and thus drank heavily and had depression etc. Helen Caldicott and her type are responsible for spreading that fear. She is the one causing harm with her misinformation. It is truly shameful.
Germany has spent 100's of Billions of Euros on their renewables program. Removing Hydro power from the renewables figures (because it was there before the renewables push and is also maxed out) we find that all that money produced only a few percent of their power from renewables. If that money had been spent on nuclear power, (like France did), they could have reduced their CO2 emissions significantly. Their CO2 emissions continue to rise. They are building coal plants as fast as they can.
You are are the best doctor !!!!
@mphello You can look it up as easily as I can. Regarding your second point about the residents of Pripyat..of course it was a disaster for them. All power sources pose some danger. Nuclear is actually the safest in "deaths per kilowatt hour of electricity produced". In contrast, look up "Buffalo Creek Flood" or "Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill" to name the first 2 that a short google search served up.
So, revisiting this we see that Dr. Caldicott's concerns were more than a bit off the mark. The scale of the harm on the natural world is much much lower than she and others anticipated. I think that is a fact to be celebrated. Next we need to objectively consider why it was so far off the mark. Remember, I said harm to the natural world. This was certainly economically devastating, but let's not lose context. We really should be remembering the cause of the Fukushima Daiichi reactor damage, the Tohoku earthquake. Tens of thousands of people perished in that event, yet few remember its name. Fukushima has become synonymous with disaster. That is a distortion of fact. Every day, millions of people die and suffer grave negative health effects from burning coal and natural gas for power. Millions. Germany leads the world in wind and solar investment, yet they still have to rely on coal and natural gas. It is not trivially easy transitioning to a 100% "renewable" grid. In fact, it has not yet been achieved anywhere at even the scale of a reasonably large city. So, as we aspire to achieve a 100% "renewable" future, we are accepting a decades long period during which MOST of that power comes from natural gas and some coal. That will result in millions more unnecessary deaths and global warming. Despite our fear and loathing of it, very few actual lives have been lost to nuclear power. Could it... could it just be possible that we are being irrational to our own detriment? Nothing is perfect. Every power system we devise has and will have a cost and a benefit. Nobody wants to die prematurely of anything. Let's make the choices that deliver the best chance of an uninterrupted life to the most people based on evidence not conjecture, fear or loathing.
Shes been saying the same thing for nearly 40 years. The chicken little routine gets a little tiring after awhile. If we all disappear in the million degree fire ball one day?... hey Helen.. you got it right. Until then move on and enjoy your life. And you completely missunderstand my point. I DO live life. She needs to as well. Its not about being irresponsible. Its about savoring every moment you can. Is going to be doing this for the rest of her life??
Helen? We get it.
@AngelAtomiseur We could burn it in fast reactors and make electricity with it.
Well done Dr. Haldicott!
d2099y has some good comments against coal below, but let's not be so silly as to say that this justifies nuclear. Wind/solar/biomass/geothermal are orders of magnitude less expensive, especially on a lifecycle basis, and the environmental and social costs of nuclear are astounding. Nuclear belongs in research labs at universities. It's never been viable without heavy subsidy, and never will be.
@dsatnik A more accurate statement is that nuclear has its capital costs up front and then is very cheap to run due to the essentially free fuel. On the other end of the spectrum there are natural gas turbines, which have very low up front capital costs but high and unpredictable fuel costs for the life of the plant. High capital up front is riskier but has lower total lifetime cost. In terms of cost Hydro is the cheapest followed by nuclear.
I'm talking of the German study she sites below. I say "German Study". There is limited room provided to write so can't expand much further.
@quarkleptonsoup The laws of thermodynamics apply to the whole system in question, so you must include the increased entropy of the supernova explosion that created all the uranium in the first place
gas isn't cheap, the ecological cost with climate change and how gas is produced and used make it much to costly when one considers the cost of climate change. the methane produced is just one of the many factors that we as a species must take into account if we hope to survive. with'n my lifetime millions will die. even if we take action today all we can hope is the future will balance out.
j
@d2099y Thanks for the links. Very informative. We need more of these sorts of rational comparison during these conversations.
You can take a look at the shipyard study which showed workers working on nuclear ships had less cancer rates as those that didin't. It involved a study over tens of thousands of people by the DOE. Look at page 303 onwards. orau.org/ptp/PTP%20Library/library/Subject/Risk/shipyard.pdf I am sure I have more studies if interested as I try to back up my opinions.
@dsatnik why then if Wind/solar/biomass/geothermal are orders of magnitude less expensive do they receive Feed In Tariffs?
What are the environmental and social costs of nuclear? Seriously...show me some facts to back up your vague assertion.
@mphello, Finding my position requires reading the link to 'The Atomic Plague' article I posted above, with further - in detail - reading of the chapter with the same name in John Pilgers book 'Tell Me No Lies'.
For a true debate, it isn't just a case of holding a stance to one position, but to several interconnected ones. To challenge conclusion it is better to understand opposing view points even if we do not agree. It proves our right to the ownership of opposing thumbs ;-) ...
@Licmycat Do you work for the oil companies?
@d2099y The NYAS has also recently distanced itself from the report due to the report's sloppy science. The NYAS is now embarrassed to be associated with the paper and has said they will review the process by which they adjudicate papers.
@mphello I challenge you to name a SINGLE major power source that has not received subsidies for its development.
Seriously.
@mphello If I am a nuclear apologist, then helen caldicott is a fossil fuel apologist.
How does this labelling move the conversation forward?
If someone lies, people should call them on it. There is too much misinformation and distortion out there and this is too important of a topic to allow that. By looking at the numbers and trying to not get emotionally caught up in the debate, I believe nuclear power is the best solution. It is safer than fossil fuels. All power sources pose some danger
I'm guessing she is a paid shill.
@quarkleptonsoup Here is a quote...
Wolfgang Weiss of the U.N. Scientific Committee on the effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR).
"As far as the doses we have seen from the screening of the population ... they are very low,"
I am not going to do your work for you. If you are interested, you can find many sources that examine the veracity of HC's statements. I am sure you have valid core concerns that formed your beliefs. If HC is not a credible source of information, supporting her discredits your arguments to others. You deserve better. All power sources have trade offs. With these complicated subjects, it is important that people be held accountable for their misleading or inaccurate statements.
"Ramsar, Iran is the site of a well controlled study of two large populations living together in one city, either in a high background area of 300 to 700 mSv/year, or in a low background area of 2 to 3 mSv/year (Figure 3). High background area residents demonstrate a marked increase in DNA repair and a marked reduction of standardized mortality rate and of age adjusted cancer mortality, similar to that seen in the US Nuclear Shipyard Worker Study" ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2664640/
wow!
I don't know about "Joe six-pack" but, I don't have a college degree and I understand everything she speaks of.
A. Antoine: There is no information in your statements. Just opinion and toilet mouth.
@mphello, I suggest we're suffering crossed wires due to these short reply boxes on threads. I've read a number of your previous posts on other threads and we're more or less on the same page in regard to Peak Oil and exponential limits to growth. Further to that, global climate change I suspect. My thoughts are on E.R.O.E.I and the ever decreasing return on global energy investment. The old 'My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet. His son will ride a camel' - comes to mind!
So your argument is that because she has been warning people about the dangers of nuclear power for 40 years then she must be saying nonsense.
No.. she is not saying nonsense. But its like.. "Helen?.. we get it!!..ok.. great.. yeah its bad"..
Helen would you like a glass of wine and some cheese something decadent ?.
"Yes.. but Marge we're going to disappear in a fire ball".
(Helen would you please leave)
Wet paint people? No. I am a live life NOW people.
Boy you seem really defensive about Ms Caldicott.
Your handle is fitting. What is wrong with you?
You're offended because i tell her to go live her life? To put down the chicken little act and move on?. Does she sit on her patio with her friends and a glass of wine saying.. "You know we're all going to be vaporized by a nuclear weapon one day"..
Great Helen.. You really put a damper on things don't you.
Why is that good necessarily? You are simply substituting one dependency for another. It bothers me to buy solar panels that are mostly produced in China because I have no control over the environmental damage caused in their manufacture.
Even if we don't buy from China, the renewables companies are huge multinationals like GE and Westinghouse.
@mphello Using your logic, nuclear still comes out on top. Per kilowatt of output a nuclear plant requires 10 times less materials to build than either wind or solar. It takes thousands of windmills to put out the same power a a single nuclear plant. The energy in the fuel is millions of times more dense than any other fuel so mining etc is a million times easier.
@mphello We have the same goal; the shutting down of fossil fuel plants.There are 2 problems to consider:
#1 The building of Wind and Solar over the last 25 years has yet to shut a single coal plant. Not in Germany or any other country. Nuclear is the only source of baseload power that can displace coal.
to bad there wasn't more of us. saddly not enough to change the death of ourselves and a planet that will take billions of years to recover from.
j
@AngelAtomiseu Most reputable scientists have a much smaller estimate, but even if your number is true, that is still 25 times less than have been killed by fossil fuels in the same period. No energy source is perfect, but nuclear is safer than all other sources on a "deaths per kilowatt hour" basis. That includes comparing solar, wind, hydro, gas, oil and coal.
@quarkleptonsoup Even the 70 altruistic plant workers who stayed behind gained an additional cancer risk of just 0.002% -- effectively zero in a country where four out of ten people get cancer.
@d2099y Also, since renewables are intermittent they need gas back up generation. As the percentage of power supplied by renewables increases, the more gas back up you need to keep the grid stable and so you reach a point around 10% where the extra renewables actually start increasing the burning of fossil fuels instead of replacing them. 100% renewables is not possible. Storage on that scale is not possible. Maybe a new breakthrough technology will save us, but until then we need nuclear.
Germany is leading the world in lignite coal plant building. Per capita they have the fastest growing carbon footprint of any country
i hope so, and work hard at the great awakening everyday. i don't give up the myol of influence is reduced to social media. at least we have that since we don't have mainstream media or politicians understanding the seriuosness of the 911 humanity is currently enduering. it's hard to not loose hope. the whole of the pacific ocean and northernhemisphere will be destroyed for century's. has that stoped the industry? no they are building 2 more tax payer paid plants in goergia.
j
@quarkleptonsoup #2 Even if the richest countries somehow manage to use renewables to displace coal, it doesn't solve the main problem...there are a few billion poor people who are going to bring their standard of living and fuel consumption up to our levels. They will do it in the cheapest way possible which is burning coal. It is possible to make factory mass produced modular reactors that will supply power cheaper than coal. It is this or coal. I wish there was another option.
SENDAI QUAKED=666
A FINAL KINGDOM=696
IRON AND CLAY=696
@mphello, interesting points. I'd very much love to debate. Even through private message. It must be friendly though, and as a means to learn from each other with a sense of fair play : -
Google
"The Atomic Plague - Wilfred Burchett"
You should find the article directly below Wilfred Burchets Wikipedia page.
You'll also find further reading and greater depth in the Book 'Tell Me No Lies' by John Pilger with the same title.
I promise you or anyone else a detailed explanation of my position.
"safe" this planet?
Let me guess.
The people responsible for this accident will only lose their jobs?
Keep their bonus, and golden pensions, for early retirement..
Thanks for the Green propaganda.
Wind is expensive and useless. More wind means more gas turbine means more CO2.
The cost of offshore is just extravagant.
@mphello It is the exploitation of people's emotions by scaremongers like Caldicott that upsets me. We need rational conversations so that as a society we can make the right choices for our energy future and for the planet's future. These are complex topics. Distortions and misinformation should not be tolerated. When Caldicott was campaigning to rid the world of nuclear weapons, her inflammatory style was useful, now she is just muddying the waters and getting in the way of proper discourse
Thanks for posting. Denial is not a river in Egypt.
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i respect her and am disapointed you miss out on the education of the many, it's sad for us that there is people like you out there undermining the hope of one woman to wake up a world to it's own detruction by the hand of man. you will suffer with the rest of us when our works come about to a final end. it will happen, slowly but surely it is happening today, with'n my generation. i cry for the loss of a viable world so a few can be wealthy.
j
Helen needs to cheer up and stop living her life in a horror movie. She was ranting that we were all going to vaporize in a nuclear war 30 years ago. Guess what?? We're all still here. Enjoy the time you have, live your life!!. Move on Helen!!, go camping. Get laid.. Smoke a joint.
The endless Chicken little starts to wear a tad thin after a while.
MOVE ON!!
well the pension crisis is over
any headway she may have made duering the 80's is unotcable will so many nuclear plants all over America and the world. i have 4 children and 2 grandchildren, and my heart aches at our destruction of self and the planet. with'n my lifetime we will see suffering beyound compare from such as this and dirty energy. it overwhelms me often.
some care as i do, but we are so undereducated on these matters, that to few do. not enough to change it. i cry, wishing i wasn't so lonely in my dispare j
How much radioactivity?
@mphello We have had 3 major accidents with nuclear power since it was invented. Not once has the public been forced to pay a single penny for the clean up.
LOL
Nuclear is economical, even with the huge burden of ridiculously strict allowed radiation levels!
Solar is extremely expensive.
You are in denial!
0%?
What could it possibly mean?
Just because nuclear war hasn't broken out doesn't mean it couldn't have, can't, or won't in the future.
Great!!!!. When the giant flash happens I'll look forward to Helen screaming "I TOLD YOU SO!!!".
Meanwhile I'll be having a beer and enjoying my life.
@mphello She wants to spread Fear Uncertainty and Doubt. Oh..and sell books.
God, they yack even more after they have gone through the "change"!!!
@joel1923 both are untrue so pick whichever number fits your beliefs
You mean lung cancer?
And these people were smokers?
feels good to fall for lies?
You and Helen need to put down your world is going to end signs and go get laid, go camping, Smoke a joint. Stop with the chicken little nonsense. Great!! one day Helen may be right. How much are you going to care when there is a gigantic flash in the sky and you've spent your whole life worrying about it? You'd want to have checked everything off you bucket list.
Go and DO IT!!
Your are crazy.
Wind is not cheap, and also it is unreliable, so it cannot replace anything.
sure, kiddo
sure, anti-nuclear denier