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Power Sources (lemmy.zip)
submitted 3 years ago* by to c/memes@lemmy.ml
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[–] 2 points 3 years ago (11 children)

Tidal, hydroelectric dams, and geothermal should all together be able to cover a pretty significant part of the Earth, shouldn't they?

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (10 children)

    Tidal and hydroelectric aren't great for nature.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (9 children)

    Yeah a dam will wreck a valley. But a nuclear station can irradiate a whole region and coal ruins the planet.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago (8 children)

    A dam wrecking a valley is a best case scenario. Worst case is thousands dead.

    The worst case scenario for a nuclear station is a few dozen dead.

    coal ruins the planet.

    Also runs the air and water, coal residue is dumped in rivers.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (7 children)

    I really don't want to play top trumps over which tragic disaster is worse by measuring bodycounts, as this is all way too grim and I think we can agree that the worst case scenarios for all of these things are awful in their own distinct ways. But that number you put for nuclear is difficult to believe. Where did you find it?

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    IIRC Chernobyl amounted to about 46 people dead from the disaster itself, (the Fukushima incident did not kill anyone at the time it occurred IIRC, three mile island didn't kill anyone) and while it did release a lot of radioactive material that did result it more cancers/excess mortality, coal burning releases about ten times more radioactive material than a nuclear reactor (coal has trace amounts of radioactive material in it). So even if we're just comparing the hazards of radiation nuclear is probably the better/cleaner option if there's a robust and quick response after incidents.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (2 children)

    Yes coal is indeed very bad and needs go away immediately. But I'm not so sure if coal being bad makes radiation cancers from Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island, Sellafield, etc etc etc not worth caring about.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago*

    Some nuclear disasters are a bit overstated honestly. Like Three Mile Island was a tiny amount of radiation. Coal ash releases more radiation regularly. It’s just part of our normal “accepted” energy production and doesn’t get the media focus.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    They're definitely worth caring about (and for) but I'd say it's really important to put the dangers of nuclear power in the context of what we're already doing, and it's magnitudes safer. While I feel like we should be pushing for more renewables regardless, at the same time nuclear's still really viable because it doesn't have the availability (renewables are weather dependent) and storage (you can just keep running it on demand) issues.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    deaths per watt hydroelectric is the worst and nuclear is one of the best

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