Chernobyl

[Shaka_Khan]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/w...pact/82892592/

Chernobyl's legacy: Kids with bodies ravaged by disaster

There are 2,397,863 people registered with Ukraine’s health ministry to receive ongoing Chernobyl-related health treatment. Of these, 453,391 are children.

There are 2,397,863 people registered with Ukraine’s health ministry to receive ongoing Chernobyl-related health care. Of these, 453,391 are children — none born at the time of the accident. Their parents were children in 1986. These children have a range of illnesses: respiratory, digestive, musculoskeletal, eye diseases, blood diseases, cancer, congenital malformations, genetic abnormalities, trauma......

This is still a problem even with children born long after the accident.

[Fragony]

We will always have STALKER

[lars573]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/w...pact/82892592/

This is still a problem even with children born long after the accident.

Allow me to introduce you to an element that didn't exist on the planet before 1945. That is only created by Nuclear fission, Cesium. It's in everything, to the point that they can test sealed things for validity from it's absence (old wines/liquors for example). And one of the two types created by fission has a half life of 30 years. Meaning it will be dangerous to any organic life for 120 years at the minimum (I forget the exact number of half life periods it has to go through before it's not dangerous anymore). As organic life forms absorb the stuff like it's potassium. And shit loads of the stuff was dumped all over Ukraine. Chernobyl aftermath is gonna be a problem in Ukraine for centuries. Much like it has been in Japan. Or Bikini atoll.

[Strike For The South]

But Nuclear power is safe and nothing bad would ever happen.

Before someone inevitability comes along, gnashing their teeth, telling me how the Russians (everything the Soviets did was the Russians fault, remember that) disregarded protocol, telling me how accidents literally never happen (except that one in Japan and that other one in three mile island).

I would simply point out that one of these accidents is catastrophic. You know what happens when a windmill or solar panel explodes? A fire. You know a fire does? It gets extinguished.

Nuclear power is meme propagated but pseudo scientific shutins.

[lars573]

Any amount s gonna be bad for public health in the long run.

But Nuclear power is safe and nothing bad would ever happen.

Before someone inevitability comes along, gnashing their teeth, telling me how the Russians (everything the Soviets did was the Russians fault, remember that) disregarded protocol, telling me how accidents literally never happen (except that one in Japan and that other one in three mile island).

I would simply point out that one of these accidents is catastrophic. You know what happens when a windmill or solar panel explodes? A fire. You know a fire does? It gets extinguished.

Nuclear power is meme propagated but pseudo scientific shutins.

To be fair Western reactors are safer than the Soviet ones (provided you use the safety features right, looking at you TEPCO). As the Soviet ones had this super secret flaw (only the KGB was allowed to know about it) that would make them prone to exploding. If you do the exact thing they did in Chernobyl that night in 1986. Cut the power and use the decay heat to power the turbines.

[Kralizec]

My parents have told me a little bit about those times. At the time they had two young children with a third one underway, so they were seriously concerned at first.

But Nuclear power is safe and nothing bad would ever happen.

Before someone inevitability comes along, gnashing their teeth, telling me how the Russians (everything the Soviets did was the Russians fault, remember that) disregarded protocol, telling me how accidents literally never happen (except that one in Japan and that other one in three mile island).

I would simply point out that one of these accidents is catastrophic. You know what happens when a windmill or solar panel explodes? A fire. You know a fire does? It gets extinguished.

Nuclear power is meme propagated but pseudo scientific shutins.

Chernobyl is of an entirely different order than either Three Mile Island or Fukushima.

The latter one is officially the second worst disaster, and to put that in perspective, nobody actually died. Greenpeace activists and other alarmists will grudgingly admit this, but then point out that a lot of locals could have their lifespans shortened by several years. Which is in itself a valid point, but doesn't justify all the hysteria - especially since the earthquake that caused the disaster led to more than 15.000 fatalities.
Germany immediately decided to phase out nuclear power in reaction to the hysteria, something that surprises me to this very day.

I don't oppose phasing out nuclear power eventually, but since green energy still isn't reliable enough to be a primary source it's better than the alternatives - i.e. fossil fuel plants.

[wooly_mammoth]

But Nuclear power is safe and nothing bad would ever happen.

Before someone inevitability comes along, gnashing their teeth, telling me how the Russians (everything the Soviets did was the Russians fault, remember that) disregarded protocol, telling me how accidents literally never happen (except that one in Japan and that other one in three mile island).

I would simply point out that one of these accidents is catastrophic. You know what happens when a windmill or solar panel explodes? A fire. You know a fire does? It gets extinguished.

Nuclear power is meme propagated but pseudo scientific shutins.

Sigh. The Chernobyl disaster was caused by human error and a lack of knowledge concerning all the processes taking place inside a reactor coupled with bad reactor design. Once things went belly up, the reactor had no security systems to either prevent or delay the explosion so it was on a one way trip to dumping radioactive debris straight into the atmosphere. Modern reactors are designed with many types of protective layers between the nuclear fuel/waste and the outside world. They are also designed with automated control systems that kick-in if things go south and keep them from escalating.

Natural events like monster earthquakes or tsunamis can still cause a disaster, but the problem is that right now we don't really have a working option to nuclear fission for our energy supply. I mean sure, the Internet is full of crackpots with wondrous solutions to all the problems of existence, but we are speaking about the real world here.

[Fragony]

We are going to need a lot of these things if electric cars are as much on the rise like they seem to be. We can eventually move on to Deuterium and Thorium

[Greyblades]

But Nuclear power is safe and nothing bad would ever happen.

Before someone inevitability comes along, gnashing their teeth, telling me how the Russians (everything the Soviets did was the Russians fault, remember that) disregarded protocol, telling me how accidents literally never happen (except that one in Japan and that other one in three mile island).

I would simply point out that one of these accidents is catastrophic. You know what happens when a windmill or solar panel explodes? A fire. You know a fire does? It gets extinguished.

Nuclear power is meme propagated but pseudo scientific shutins.

It's been a while since I've seen someone disparage Nuclear power, I didn't expect it to be you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents

http://coalitionoffreedom.com/how-ma...lear-accidents

At worst 5400 people have died due to nuclear accident over 60+ years, 5000 of those are estimates based on surrounding exposure and largely uncomfirmed, that is out of 182,156 dead from power production related accidents overall since 1907. To put it in perspective: The 1957 Great Smog of London killed 12,000.

Also there was that time when a hydroelectric dam killed 171,000 people. Not sure why it is omitted from the worldwide death toll.

Nuclear power is a beast when things go wrong, but it is less of a beast than previous methods of power production with the added benefit that it doesn't mess things up when it's running perfectly. It is also the only power source with the efficiency and capacity to replace the burden oil and coal bears(save hydro-electric which cant be used everywhere and the consequences of a large scale failure can be biblical, far beyond that of all nuclear accidents thus far).

[Shaka_Khan]

Nuclear power is a beast when things go wrong, but it is less of a beast than previous methods of power production with the added benefit that it doesn't mess things up when it's running perfectly.

Unfortunately, this isn't a perfect world.

[wooly_mammoth]

Well, it's not, but if you live under the fear of impending disasters you may as well just curl up on the ground and quietly await your death. Don't stand in your house because and earthquake might bring it down on you, don't go outside because you may be hit by a car, don't fly in an airplane because you may crash, and don't use nuclear power plants out of the fear that something extremely improbable may cause an accident.

[Greyblades]

Unfortunately, this isn't a perfect world.

Depends what you mean by perfect but lets leave the semantics to the pedants. When it works, which is 99.999999999% of the time, it doesn't release anything into the atmosphere which is more than can be said for combustion based power production.

Even before Chernobyl influenced reforms it took either a huge series of screw ups or an act of god to make nuclear plants fail in any way that affects the world outside a plant.

[Gilrandir]

And shit loads of the stuff was dumped all over Ukraine. Chernobyl aftermath is gonna be a problem in Ukraine for centuries.

Not all over Ukraine. In fact, only a comparatively small area of Ukraine was contaminated. It mostly went north and north-west.