Spicy Air ☢️
1mon 14d ago by lemmy.dbzer0.com/u/diffaldo in Memes@lemmy.dbzer0.com from lemmy.dbzer0.com
Nuclear is the best btw.
People when they hear nuclear industry propaganda.
People when they hear fossil fuel industry propaganda.
Dont touch my propaganda 😡
Mom says it’s my turn on the propaganda.
-"But solar panels destroy the environment!1!"
Nuclear industry propaganda? Lol, lmao even
Outside a few specialized company, nuclear industry doesn't even exist
Where else does the utterly false idea that nuclear waste is a solved problem come from, then?
Exactly. As if a poison that last longer than humans can plan for - or even realistically imagine - could ever be a solved problem.
indestructible
Yeah, I think I've heard that claim before. It seems like every time that claim was made something came along to prove it wrong.
Indestructible cask underground is for cowards. In the US we don't have a long term storage site, so we just ship it around to different temporary sites.
There is nothing more permanent than a temporary solution
As far as I am aware there is no final storage for atomic waste anywhere. France wants to build one in 2030 but we'll see then I guess.
2 just from tom scott
https://youtu.be/aoy_WJ3mE50
https://youtu.be/PB7HT3BZLzM
According to Wikipedia the first site goes live somewhen this year running for 70 years and the second one was a major groundwater breach that has been cleaned up and is being monitored.
I'd hardly call these success stories. I love nuclear but it's hard to sugarcoat the long standing issues.
Yeah, but at least everyone else has long term storage solutions even if it's not permanent. The US just has short term storage where you can only keep it for a number of years before having to shuffle it to a different short term storage facility via train or semi truck.
Huh. We don't either in Germany, but I assumed, it was largely because the whole place is inhabitated. Is there not some desert or Alaska or something in the US, where no one minds?
We actually have a perfect place for it in the yucca mountains that was designated in the 1980s, but the actual construction of it has been held up since then thanks to nimby shit.
I would love to see the US head towards nuclear power, but I'm not hopeful it's ever going to happen. By design the federal government just doesn't have the power to mandate a state to do anything it doesn't want too, and a functional electric grid powered by nuclear would require more federal control than what is possible in the foreseeable future.
Our government was designed to grant corporations and the aristocratic class to be able to exert a huge amount of influence over the government. They have decided that it's a lot more profitable to not progress past fossil fuels.
Well, nuclear power, at least for now, is quite expensive. As long as no new technological breakthrough comes along, it's simply cheaper to use wind and solar as main power producers. Of course, this has its own problem in the form of power storage, but at least we already have the technology for this.
Power storage is only half of it. Most grids transmit AC power, and in order for that you need SOMETHING in the grid that provides a stable frequency aka a stable prime moves whose speed is unaffected by changes in load. That can be provided by fossil fuel plants, nuclear plants, or hydropower (as long as shifting climate patterns continue to keep reservoirs full).
Wind turbines don't have a consistent enough prime mover (the wind, so unreliable that it's a metaphor for constant, rapid change). Solar panels supply DC power, so another option is figuring out long range DC power transmission, which is what China is doing I believe. It's an incredibly costly and resources intensive solution though.
Power generation is more complicated than just making something spin. You have to consider loading, reactive load, what to do with excess power during off peak hours, balancing load between multiple power sources. Unfortunately, solving the climate crisis is going to take more than "just build renewable sources".
It also doesn't help that our infrastructure is out of date due to refusing upgrades because they included green sources (Trump preventing off hore wind farms, for example, also prevents infrastructure upgrades) and/or NIMBYism.
Source: I work in nuclear power.
I didn't want to trivialize the problems with switching to greener alternatives; I just wanted to say that we don't need some 'future tech' to get it done. All we need is what is already known and implemented somewhere in the world.
Also building more nuclear facilities - without any groundbreaking new improvements - is more expensive than the alternative.
Hey I agree with you, but,
The last nuke plant we built in the US was designed in the 1980's thought, so those ground breaking improvements are here.
Still better than coal
At least we can trust the fossil fuel industries storage place.
A warehouse in the Ohio River valley's flood zone?
Well, it's actually worse... They store it in the air we breathe.
It's both actually.
Indestructible is a keyword in Magic the Gathering. I do not see it working the same way in engineering.
As a Geologist the idea that there are seismically inactive magic rocks that will sit there and not change shape or be affected by anything for eternity and that we can assume placing radioactive waste in them will be fine for an indefinite amount of time is honestly hilarious.
I'm kind of concerned that somebody who calls himself a geologist doesn't understand radiation. The time scales involved are just not compatible. The rock is geologically inactive over the time scales that you need to store radioactive material which is at most maybe a few thousand years.
You don't need it for an eternity, though. Just the half-life of the waste product. Also, you can just dig a hole away from any major fault lines and you'll be reasonably safe for an indefinite period. The plan to put nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain was about as good as anything we've come up with, give or take the need to win Senate races and Presidential ECs in a pivotal swing state.
You don't need it for an eternity, though. Just the half-life of the waste product.
????
You don't know what half life means, lol.
Just the half-life of the waste product.
half-life
half
Bruh
You don’t need it for an eternity, though. Just the half-life of the waste product
More like 10 half lives before its safe
A big cement hole under a geologically stable rock formation provides that time.
Also, you can just dig a hole away from any major fault lines and you'll be reasonably safe for an indefinite period.
Are you a geologist? How can you say that confidently?
Look at it from a risk assessment standpoint.
The barrels will be made.
You can put them in the deep ocean in the Marianas trench, they will degrade immediately and leak quickly. they will be diluted enough to make the leakage relatively safe. most of the upper foot chain doesn't get to eat those creatures down there. But bad optics and enivonmentally unreasonable.
You can surface warehouse them. They can be regulary check for leaks, but can be struck by terrorists, meteors, airplanes, capitalism. Still bad optics.
You can bury them outright. can't check for leaks, they might make it into the water table. bad for animals which might enter the food chain.
You can put them inside a tunnel/vault. You can, until there is an event (and maybe afterward) check for them for leaks. move them to somewhere else, maybe even use them for other things if you find ways to do that.
Nothing is indefinite. But of all the places we can put them, a maintainable underground vault is less likely to get fucked then we as human are at fucking them up.
The only reason the landscape is a static unchanging thing to you is because you haven't been taught that nothing could be further from the truth by a healthy culture, there is no easy place to put these barrels, most people who aren't Geologists prescribe most of the Earth's surface to being a passive background that things happen to and in not a character itself that acts sometimes over great lengths of time and sometimes over shockingly small lengths of time.
That is what people who aren't Geologists really have a hard time understanding who aren't leftists or haven't been raised with Indigenous culture, the landscape is a verb not a noun and this idea there are caverns underground that will be forgotten by the movement above and rest safe for eternity is a fantastical way of thinking of the Earth System. It is a devastatingly incomplete way of seeing the world that sets up future generations to be screwed over by our hubris and lack of understanding of the dynamics we live within.
I am not entirely against Nuclear Power, but I refuse to have people explain to me Geologic lengths of times and contexts who have spent no amount of practical time actually learning how landscapes even far from active fault lines can change radically over time.
As a geologist myself, it doesnt sound like you are well informed. There are plenty of regions on the globe that haven't exhibited any real geological activity for billions of years. The places that deep geological repositories are proposed are very deep as in far below the water table and in impermeable rock. Erosion is neglible in these areas, and there are very few geological processes that could conceivably change that. The waste itself is to be stored in multiple layers of protection, right down to the material the waste is composed of, which has a low water solubility.
Is it possible that a mid contental rift will open up near one of these and result in processes that ruin the storage site? Sure, but thats so unlikely that we might as well start talking about a big meteor crashing into the site and spraying nuclear fallout across the planet (which would kind of happen anyways with a meteor that large). Point is, the risk of that happening even on geological timescale is pretty low. There are larger risks associated with natural uranium deposits or even regions with large amounts of granite.
The biggest risks of DGRs is that some time in the future, humans forget about where they are or cant understand the warnings placed on them and accidentally dig them up before they decay enough.
The point is the idea that we assume we can gurantee something we absolutely cannot, it is hubris.
Thats extremely reductive and not an all a fair characterization of DGRs. Everything comes with some risks, the risks associated with DGRs are extremely small. As an educated geologist who claims to be familiar with this topic, maybe you could share what risks you are concerned about rather than broadly claiming that it is impossible to guarantee against any risks on the timescale required for neutralization of radiation hazard.
The humans telling me they found a special place to put radioactive things that will be protected "forever" is the part I don't trust.
It is a seductive idea and my bullshit meter immediately starts flashing.
So have you actually done any reading on the topic? You are a geologist and using your expertise as an argument that you know what you are talking about, but if you dont use that expertise to read and interpret literature and reports that non-experts have trouble with then you are doing others a disservice and using your qualifications to spread misinformation. DGRs do not need to last "forever" radioactive waste decays to radiation levels equivalent to natural deposits within 10,000 to 100,000 years. As you know, this is a very short period of time on geological time scales and the risk of some unanticipated geological phenomenon cropping up at the selected sites that would operate quickly enough to matter are extremely slim to the point that the risk is essentially 0. Off the top of my head the only two things that could happen that quickly and unexpectedly are impact events and kimberlites. These are two extremely rare and unlikely events that would have far greater consequences than disrupting a DGR.
End of the day, even if we stopped all nuclear power tomorrow, we still need a place to safely store the waste that exists. DGRs are the safest option that I am aware of, but maybe you have encountered other options in your time as a geologist that I have not.
No a DGR is by definition the most stable place to put something, as it has been specifically sought out and designated by a geologist for this purpose.
My problem is with the human parts of this that are all convinced this is an easy option, corners will be cut and the consequences will outlive all of us by orders of magnitude.
No, the idea that producing radioactive waste is ok because we can always find places to ferret it underground is one of the stupidest misunderstandings of how humans bullshit, cut corners and ignore inconvenient environmental contexts I can imagine.
We have not been studying the earth that long compared to other sciences, even Plate Tectonics is largely still not understood in many of the important aspects, I am sorry but when you turn around and say "nothing will happen to this rock for 100,000 years" you may be right but also there are going to be lots of things you don't forsee and more importantly humans are going to cut corners you would never have imagined they would cut.
I am not saying we need to get rid of all nuclear power, I am saying it is nowhere as foolproof as an energy source as nuclear power advocates constantly push, it is not the future alternative energy is.
I'm really quite confused by your critique here. You aren't against nuclear power, and you think DGRs are the best place to put nuclear waste, but you are concerned that it wont actually be managed properly? My concern is that it is not managed properly today with the current system of "Storing it in barrels above ground and moving it around every now and again". If your argument is that solar power is a lower risk, more cost effective option than nuclear power then say that. Don't use your expertise as grounds to criticize a waste management plan that you agree is our best option and that is desperately needed whether or not nuclear power is expanded. It only spreads more fear and misinformation about these sites.
The only reason the landscape is a static unchanging thing to you
Try again boss. I didn't say that.
I mean, it depends. If you're storing cesium, it's a fine assumption. Iodine though…
How can you say that confidently?
I'm taking the word of the Department of Energy, which employs an abundance of geologists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository#Earthquakes
Well you certainly aren't lmao.
It always amazes me how many people lack basic reading comprehension.
Yes I am?
My condolences for your advanced case of retrograde amnesia.
Radioactive materials come from the earth. It's only reasonable that they can be put back there.
Then why do they have to be enriched after we take them out of the earth in order for us to draw power from them?
Good fucking lord. I'm tired of seeing your pro oil propaganda. You're arguing that it's bad to be able to control where hazardous materials are stored. I mean here's a fucking crazy question I'm sure you won't even respond to, but why don't we just utilize more of the damn "spent fuel"? It's possible, there's been research on the topic. Big oil stopped that development. Go ahead what else is there to say?
Nope I am not advocating for the use of fossil fuels.
In Australia, all the people who were vehemently against solar and were calling for building of more coal fired power plants have lately shifted to saying, that Australia needs multiple nuclear power plants.
Whilst I don't doubt it probably wasn't a good thing to have around 20 years ago, solar and wind are so much cheaper and I know a good percentage of homes have made the switch to solar in recent years.
The only politicians I'm seeing which are calling out for nuclear seem to be very closely aligned with resources companies.
Mining shills who want to spend $10b on concrete manufacturing and uranium mines.
What makes me laugh is that we could still invest that into mining, get the resources to make solar panels and batteries, then stop because battery recycling is a thing. They can still get rich off it. They just have a set period the mining is necessary while we get the amount required. But by then they could buy the solar farms and generate infinite income from the power generation... Are they all just bad at capitalism or something?
Dunno if we should be making any broad conclusions about solar based off Australia
Nuclear waste sounds scary because you can point to it. Fossil fuel waste is just everywhere, quietly speedrunning the atmosphere.
Just the lead in gasoline kills around 5 million people a year. That is just scratching the surface of the problems oil and gas cause.
Plus the millions of people that coal plant's smoke kill…with radiation. Coal has killed more people by radiation in the US alone than nuclear accidents all over the world, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings combined.
Wow, that sounds so wild to think that exposure to coal related radiation has killed way more people than every man made radiation exposure ever (if your not counting fallout from nuclear arms testing).
Hasn't gasoline been leadfree for quite a while now?
It was supposed to be phased out of regular gasoline in 2021. It will still be used in airplane fuel. It will take decades before it isn't present in large quantities though. That much lead in the environment doesn't just disappear.
A poisonous and heavy metal just spewing everywhere in the sky. And the conspiracy theorists ignore that and fall for fake bullshit.
For sure, not that I doubt things like global warming. The reality is oil and gas kill many millions every year. So much focus only on global warming is almost a red hearing when it already causes so much death.
I think the problem is, or at least one I see a lot, is that climate change is already happening, but because it's gradual and there's already so much unpredictability you can rarely just point at something specific and say "that's because of climate change." And the constant naming of it as "global warming" has done so much damage too, because now when the new weather is cold you still have skeptical conservatives saying things like "global warming my ass!"
I agree, that is why we should just point out that it kills millions every year. Even without global warming we should have moved to phase out oil and gas wherever possible several decades ago. Now is the next best time I suppose.
Nuclear isn't the best anymore. Batteries, solar and wind are cheaper and take way less time to build
Nuclear isn’t the best anymore.
By $/kwh, green energy is some of the most efficient on the plant. By $/sqft, nothing tops nuclear. That's why we're not throwing sails and solar panels up on aircraft carriers.
Transitioning from bunker fuel to nuclear batteries on commercial ships would be a huge improvement to the global fleet. That's something we can't expect solar/wind to match.
That’s why we’re not throwing sails and solar panels up on aircraft carriers.
Ok, but these are things that we don't need, that are literally murdering people and destroying the planet.
There must be a better example.
these are things that we don’t need
These are big boats that need large amounts of power to cross vast oceans. You could say the same about any number of merchant vessels, which primarily consume bunker fuel. If you could operate an oversized sailboat to manage bulk shipping cheaper than the current models, people would do it in a heartbeat.
There must be a better example.
Take your pick.
That's true, aircraft carriers and stealth submarines use nuclear power, but still prohibitively expensive for the shipping industry. Commercial shipping is picking up on wind with flettner rotor systems, sails and kites, it's still only modestly decreasing fuel use but future ships could take more advantage of wind.
Not sure what the future will look like but it could be that some type of redux flow battery and electricity could be used to power commercial ships. I'm pretty sure at some scale the redux flow system could save costs after energy prices drop.
Don't forget, that they produce immediately useable energy. No heat loss, due to steam turbines.
And then there is the timespan that nuclear waste stays harmful. OPs "indestructable" container have to stay indestructable for millions of years.
If we assume 40 years as a generation, that will be 50,000 generations. The whole history of mankind is only 400 generations.
Edit: Added sources for everyone unable to use the Internet for its intended use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#cite_note-3
Half lifes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_plutoniumhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_uranium
Estimating a generation of 40 years was generous: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_time
History and pre history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recorded_history
And then there is the timespan that nuclear waste stays harmful. OPs "indestructable" container have to stay indestructable for millions of years.
More like between 30 and 1000 years. Still a long time but you're being pretty hyperbolic suggesting millions.
The time radioactive waste must be stored depends on the type of waste and radioactivity.
The back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle, mostly spent fuel rods, contains fission products that emit beta and gamma radiation, and actinides that emit alpha particles, such as uranium-234 (half-life 245 thousand years), neptunium-237 (2.144 million years), plutonium-238 (87.7 years) and americium-241 (432 years), and even sometimes some neutron emitters such as californium (half-life of 898 years for californium-251). These isotopes are formed in nuclear reactors.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste#cite_note-3
have to stay indestructable for millions of years.
If we assume 40 years as a generation, that will be 50,000 generations. The whole history of mankind is only 400 generations.
Talk about pulling numbers out of your ass...
Half-life refers to the time it takes for a radioactive isotope to decay to half its original quantity. This process is not linear but exponential, 10 half lifes are necessary to reach only 0,1% of radioactivity.
Plutonium-239, a highly toxic isotope with a half-life of 24,100 years. Plutonium-239 would still retain 12.5% of its radioactivity after 72,300 years.
Uranium-235: has a half life of 703.8 million years.
All these isotopes are byproducts of nuclear energy production.
These timespans are geologically relevant. There cannot be an estimation about the changes that occur in these.
Sources: Half lifes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_plutoniumhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_uranium
Estimating a generation of 40 years was generous: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_time
History and pre history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recorded_history
q. e. d.
And they already exist in the planet. It's not like these materials are magicked into existence. They're already here.
We refine it. We use it. Then we put the used material back into the ground, in a place that's probably safer and more out of the way than it was before it got mined.
We purify the material, yes.
If the ore grade is lower (e.g., 0.05%), you’d need ~280–300 kg of ore per kg of U-235.
When a hypothetical water contamination would occur in a natural deposit with a 0.05% density, it would contaminate water less than if it would occur with a purified source.
"The dose makes the poison." You may have heard the proverb.
The higher the dosage, the higher the potential health risk. Which is exactly why the purified material is so much more dangerous than the natural occuring sources.
You also assume controlled environments, deep in old salt mines. Have a look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory#cite_note-VCR_2003-02-19-33
"Lopez described the cleanup of the heavily polluted sodium burn pit, a six-acre site where Rocketdyne disposed of massive amounts of radioactive waste. The modus operandi included chucking barrels of radioactive sodium into the sludgy pond and firing a gun at the canisters, which would then explode, releasing radioactive contaminants into the air.Lopez said that the pit has now been excavated ten to 12 feet down to the bedrock, resulting in the removal of 22,000 cubic yards of soil."
They did so, because the barrels wouldn't sink to the ground of the pond.
There isn't even a guarantee, for correct disposal. One could pocket life changing money by chucking barrels into the sea, today.
But that was not my point, my point was we cannot assume a controlled environment, even to the best of our abilities and knowledge, in timespans we haven't even been able to measure our own history in.
I am not totally against nuclear energy, it has the highest energy density possible. Heavier atoms aren't stable enough. The periodic table ends with these elements for a reason.
But the potential dangers, stemming from them are unimaginable. Because they exceed our very own existence as a species.
The biggest issue is that people don't understand that the shit that will kill you Chornobyl dead burns itself out relatively fast. Sushi grade polonium is only spicy for a couple of weeks.
The "it's radioactive for zillions of years" stuff is typically a heavy metal hazard far more than a radiation hazard.
If it's decaying for a zillion years a gram might be popping off a few sextillion gamma rays a second, insignificant.
Jimmy Carter, by shutting down the reprocessing industry, fucked the whole thing sideways.
You're right, and it's even less dangerous than you're saying.
If each gram was emitting a few sextillion gamma rays per second you'd be able to harness it as a power source, it would be producing megawatts per gram (I did do the math!). The rate of decay is years /decades per atom. One gram of Plutonium 239 would only give off a few hundred thousand gamma particles per second near the start of its decay.
Sorry if this comes off as me correcting you, I just read your comment and got curious so I did some calculations and wanted to share. If anything, I'm extra-agreeing with you.
🤗 check me, love it
Thanks🤗.
I don't usually get the chance to do interesting maths anymore. As soon as you're done with uni it's just Excel innit.
I'd argue that the rate of decay per atom is actually random, except that the probability per unit time is scaled according to how long the half life is.
You need a shitton of atoms so that you can average out all that randomness and find the emergent property that is half life.
Fortunately, any amount of radioactive material large enough for us to do anything with it does indeed have a shitton of atoms! Avogadro's number is one of my favorite scientific constants because it reveals the crazy scale of the atoms we take for granted.
Like with U238 and its 4 billion year half life, one mole of just that atom would weigh 238 grams and have 6.022x10^23 atoms. A half-pound or quarter-kilo chunk of very heavy metal that fits in the palm of your hand contains over 602,200,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms.
Some of those atoms are going to decay today, and some of them will still be radioactive in 100 billion years.
Yep, once you know the half life, you can use that figure to work out the mean lifetime: the average time you'd expect to be looking at once nucleus before it decays. It works out to be 1.4x the half life of the material. You're right though, it is random, and you could be waiting three nanoseconds or three million years.
Stop framing it as a dichotomy.
I'm quite pro nuclear, I think the mass decomissioning of nuclear plants that's been happening in Europe is the wrong move. But this is an incredibly reductive and dishonest meme.
I'm not pro nuclear but I agree that decommissioning existing nuclear plants to replace them with coal+gas is ridiculous. Totally backwards.
Solar+storage>nuclear>hydrocarbons
First replace the hydrocarbons, then you can think about replacing nuclear.
I thought that it was just a Germany thing. Where else does this happen?
Solar and storage for the win(d)!
Solar/wind are best. Nuclear has serious practical issues (slow to spin up and down, thus requiring either fossil fuels or batteries) and financial issues (the return on investment just doesn't beat renewables and the batteries they need anymore). It's also extremely slow to build nuclear so by the time you're splitting atoms renewables and batteries will be even better.
Nuclear has one major benefit though, it's a peaceful means to maintain the capacity for nuclear second strikes. Countries like France can't completely abandon it without leaving themselves vulnerable in a way that Ukraine has learned isn't wise.
But nuclear compared to fossil fuel? Yeah split those atoms.
Countries like France can’t completely abandon it without leaving themselves vulnerable in a way that Ukraine has learned isn’t wise.
The "Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons" line always neglects to include how the weapons were under the authority of the military of the USSR. Not the Ukrainian local militia.
It's akin to saying "Fidel Castro shouldn't have surrendered nukes for Cuba". They weren't his to surrender. They were Khrushchev's. And he traded the missiles in Cuba to get American missiles out of Turkiye, which moved us away from nuclear war over the long run and benefited civilization universally.
France's nuclear program is owned and operated by the national government. This is comparatively not true of the UK and Germany, whose nukes are owned and operated by the US. And given the history of France, Germany, and Russia, I would argue that Germany posses the bigger historical military threat than Russia every did. With the rising popularity of the AfD in Germany, this threat may become existential far sooner than anyone in Europe wants to admit.
But nuclear compared to fossil fuel? Yeah split those atoms.
What's crazy about nuclear power relative to coal power is how much we've invested in optimizing the latter since the 1980s relative to the former. Fourth and fifth generation nuclear reactors don't exist outside of France and China in the modern day. Meanwhile, the juice coal plants can squeeze out of tree-fossils and tree-fossil farts is truly remarkable.
Nuclear should be the obvious alternative, but we've let the science atrophy for decades. That's why countries across the Pacific continue to build new coal plants at a rapid clip, while nuclear new-start construction languishes.
I've always wandered that instead of trying to spin down or spin up reactors based on demand, if we could scale the demand instead.
Like when power Usage is low dump all that energy into massive desalination plant or CO2 reclamation machine or something
Nuclear is only safe under the constant management of a stable global society. We don’t live in a stable society so I don’t support nuclear.
Nuclear is only safe under the constant management of a stable global society.
Fossil fuels aren't safe even with constant management and a stable global society.
It's very hard to kill millions with solar panels
But not impossible, if we try.
Solar powered attack drone.
It's not that hard.
@naught101@lemmy.world @OwOarchist@pawb.social @Memes@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Sadly, solar panels do kill thousands of birds/avians.
[...] the largest solar power plant in the world, Ivanpah Solar Plant, located in the Mojave Desert in California, is believed to be responsible for at least 6,000 bird deaths each year, as the birds can suffer severe burns or become incinerated if they fly too close to the 40-foot towers that concentrate sunlight from five square miles of solar panels. These numbers are likely an underestimation, as the sight of birds and insects rapidly immolated as they soar too close to the towers, which can reach temperatures of 1000 degrees Fahrenheit
(Source)
Even when birds don't get burnt alive, the reflection of the sunlight from the surface of solar panels is akin to pointing lasers at airplanes and ending up blinding the pilots.
And as I've been an owl-biased person lately, I'd say owls are likely going to be the most affected because their breathtakingly beautiful deep eyes are larger than most avians, therefore having more surface area for the reflected sunlight to blind them, and because they're so reliant on their accurate vision to hunt, blindness will definitely mean death...
I don't know why solar panels have to be this reflective, (yeah, I know, there's a glass protecting the semiconductor from the elements, still) it even seems counterintuitive because you're losing lots of energy in form of reflected light. Ideally, solar panels should be akin to a vantablack, totally dark and, therefore, as fully light-absorbing as possible, practically a human-made optical black hole.
Still, solar energy seems gazillion times better than both nuclear and fossil fuels, because some things that were buried by Mother Nature should stay buried, and both nuclear and fossil fuels digs things that Mother Nature have been burying for ages. Should nuclear power facilities need more nuclear fuel, there are currently 12,187 (as of 2025, maybe an outdated number from Federation of American Scientists) potential sources for the carcinogenic hot stone eager to be dismantled by way more sane scientists instead of being used by "M.A.D." (iykwim) hominids in green garments and boots.
I don’t know why solar panels have to be this reflective
Because those types of solar plants don't use photovoltaic cells, they use mirrors to focus sunlight to a point where the resulting heat is used to generate electricity. So, same basic effect as using a magnifying glass to start a fire to anything that passes through that.
They're also mostly falling out of favour, losing out to photovoltaic panels. Which are simpler to make, operate, and are vastly cheaper to boot, while also not being reflective (They are protected by a layer of glass, so there's a minimum amount of reflection simply because they're smooth, but they're not mirrors).
@The_Decryptor@aussie.zone @Memes@lemmy.dbzer0.com
By "I don't know why solar panels have to be this reflective", I meant PV panels as well. Yes, the article I linked, regarding Ivanpah, refers to a solar thermal, which is worse give the way its designed as a panopticon conjuring a death ray out of sunlight. But solar panels aren't less unsafe for beings high in the skies:
They’re also mostly falling out of favour, losing out to photovoltaic panels. Which are simpler to make, operate, and are vastly cheaper to boot, while also not being reflective (They are protected by a layer of glass, so there’s a minimum amount of reflection simply because they’re smooth, but they’re not mirrors).
I tend to disagree. The glass coating is still a flat smooth glass, practically similar to that of a mirror. Should the glass coating be rough, it would reduce the specular reflection, but this would likely affect the absorption of sunlight by the PV semiconductors.
On top of that, we're talking about a pair of eyes seeing the reflection from height, which won't be the same as if you stare at it standing in ground level. In fact, pilots can get temporarily blinded by solar panels and this can pose dangers to aviation (as per IATA).
If trained humans are affected, you betcha birds are even more affected by having eyes more sensitive than ours. Hence my comment on this regard, because we humans have this annoying bias of worrying more about other humans (because, after all, we're humans) than worrying about the countless other species who have been inhabiting Earth way before an hominin descended from the tree to play with fire and having a "cogito ergo sum" delusional moment. I'm not saying we shouldn't worry about other humans, I'm saying we are far from being the only tenant species temporarily inhabiting this Pale Blue Dot.
That 6000 figure is from a solar thermal plant, not solar PV. Solar panel reflections are nothing like lasers. And owls would not be affected because they fly at night...
@naught101@lemmy.world @Memes@lemmy.dbzer0.com
That 6000 figure is from a solar thermal plant, not solar PV.
Yes, but PV has a highly reflective coating, which reflects sunlight almost like a mirror. It won't burn the birds, but then we get to another part of your reply:
Solar panel reflections are nothing like lasers.
Which is correct to a certain extent... but looking at a mirror which is reflecting the sunlight doesn't seem that nice to the eyes, especially sensitive eyes of a bird looking at it from height (where the sunlight reflection may or may not converge from multiple panels positioned together, hence my analogy to lasers) and possibly mistaking it for a lake (glass panels aren't something naturally occurring, it's something we hominids built, something unbeknownst to other species, so the chances are the reflective surface will seem like the surface of a water body, especially in deserts where the bird will be thirsty). This "Siren call from the light" is similar to how moths end up colliding with lamps: they don't know the concept of "light emitter" so their instincts mistake it for the Full Moon which means mating.
Notice: birds being killed by solar panels doesn't necessarily mean the panels are directly killing them; rather, it's the specular reflection from their glass coating rendering the birds disoriented (because, again, the thing looks like a lake but isn't a lake), which in turn will expose them to unnecessary risks, such as being temporarily blinded (akin to how drivers can get blinded from getting headlights unwittingly blasting at their eyes) and/or colliding mid-flight due to misguided spatial notion and unseen obstacles. Because it's an avian death indirectly (and not directly) caused by the panels, it's unlikely to become statistics, it'll likely look like the bird died of "natural causes". In fact, many human activities indirectly kill birds, especially when we talk about climate change, and I guess/hope you know how this lack of direct harm doesn't mean climate change isn't doing harms to wildlife.
And owls would not be affected because they fly at night…
Seems like you don't know some of the amazing diurnal and crepuscular owls yet, so here it goes:
- Surnia ulula (Northern Hawk Owl, primarily diurnal):
https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/nohowl/cur/introduction
- Asio flammeus (Short-eared Owl, active day and night):
https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/sheowl/cur/introduction
- Athene cunicularia (Burrowing Owl, one of my favorites, active day and night): https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/burowl/cur/introduction
- Bubo virginianus (Great Horned Owl, can be active during twilight): https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/grhowl/cur/behavior
There are others, and as I said in another reply in this thread, there's the possibility that a nocturnal owl will be disturbed by something (corvids harassing her, or human activity) which will force her to wake up and flee to a safer place.
This has been debunked again and again. What a stupid take.
@Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com @Memes@lemmy.dbzer0.com
What exactly are you referring to? My comment is lengthy and mentions a lot of things.
Solar panels kills birds.
We already debunked wind turbines kill birds.
The thing is, that yes, even windows kills birds.
You know what kills birds 1.000 times more than all three combined?
Cats.
It's an invented "discussion" to blame renewables. You don't think oil&gas kills way way way way more?
Also fossil fuel plants kill a lot more than wind
https://thinc.blog/2013/05/20/why-coal-and-nuclear-plants-kill-far-more-birds-than-wind-power/
@Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com @Memes@lemmy.dbzer0.com
See my other replies in this sub thread, where I'm explaining the nuances behind this matter.
The thing is, that yes, even windows kills birds.
I agree with you in this regard. Window panes are as reflective as solar panels. But then we humans tend to place solar farms where it used to be the habitat for wildlife because we humans can't be bothered to have football fields worth of blue mirrors potentially reflecting sunlight towards apartments during specific moments of the day.
Again, I'm not against PV, much to the contrary, it's the best we have (after all, every type of energy source stems from solar energy under the hood, so why not siphon directly from the source?), but I'm the kind of person who tries to ponder about both sides of the coin, hence why (if you noticed) my initial comment wasn't without ideas to solve this issue (making the panels vantablack, for example).
You know what kills birds 1.000 times more than all three combined? Cats.
Just like owls kills mice and small mammals with such an amazingly ruthless impetus, and...? Were talking about natural hunters doing instinctive hunting, a situation very different from our artificial apparata doing artificial harms to the environment, an environment of which predates our existence as the Homo sapiens species we are. Solar panels as we crafted these don't naturally occur in Nature.
It’s an invented “discussion” to blame renewables. You don’t think oil&gas kills way way way way more?
Did you know two things can be true at once? I'm not saying oil and gas are harmless, much to the contrary. Perhaps you didn't even read my whole comment where I said "some things buried by Mother Nature should stay buried". I don't mean to be rude but I suggest you read my initial comment again in all of its entirety.
There is no need for nuance when cats kill 1.000 times more mr "read my wall of text to blame renewables in some insignificant manner".
Also, you didn't answer my question. But you're not here for discussions I guess.
@Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com @Memes@lemmy.dbzer0.com
you didn't answer my question
Your only question in your earlier reply was "you don't think oil and gas kills way way more?", to which I replied with a counter-question about two things being true simultaneously, and then I said "I'm not saying oil and gas are harmless, much to the contrary", recalling my earlier excerpt about things buried by Mother Nature, things of which, if you didn't catch it initially, are oil (and by extension gas) as well as radioactive minerals (those containing uranium, plutonium, etc).
So yes, I did answer your question.
There's no need for nuance when cats kill 1,000 times more
So? What do you suggest we do with cats and how the heck could instinctive behavior, a behavior of which is found among species that predates us human, compare to artificially melting rocks and sand merged to mimick the naturally occurring photosynthesis in a very rough manner?
Because I didn't criticize PV just for the sake of it, I said several times how PV panels could benefit of having a vantablack surface that could absorb the most sunlight possible while reflecting the least specular light possible. Still you seem to be deliberately ignoring those parts from a content you dismissed as a "wall of text" (while you're curiously accusing me of being unwilling to discuss).
To blame renewables
You just strawman-d a constructive critique of mine about photovoltaic panels (in which, again, I didn't say "we should stop using PV", for Goddess sake) to "blaming (all) renewables", which I defy you to quote and point out the excerpt from my replies where I supposedly said that. If you can't pinpoint the excerpt where I say something in the lines "we should stop using renewables" or "we should stop using PV", then I gentle ask you don't put words in my fingers that I didn't wrote.
Oh no an actor arguing in bad faith.
Blocked.
birds/avians
lol, why specify both here? Tell me more about these non-bird avians and/or these non-avian birds...
I’d say owls are likely going to be the most affected
Aren't they only active at night, though? The solar farm should pose no hazard at all during the night. Can't be blinded or immolated by reflected sunlight when the sun's not out.
@OwOarchist@pawb.social @Memes@lemmy.dbzer0.com
lol, why specify both here? Tell me more about these non-bird avians and/or these non-avian birds…
At least to me, an ESL (English as a second language) person, both words carry different meanings:
Birds = Passeriformes, such as corvids, mockingbirds, parakeets, etc...
Avians = everyone else from Aves clade, especially the "larger" ones, such as owls, falcons, eagles and swans, but also hawks and chickens.
In Portuguese (I'm Brazilian) we have "pássaros" and "aves", which are definitely going to refer to different winged beings, and owls aren't passerines, therefore they'd be more of an "ave" than a "pássaro".
Both of these categories, however, have species that are equally going to be affected by solar panels, hence my distinction and inclusiveness.
Aren’t they only active at night, though?
That's the beauty of Strigiformes: there are lots of misconceptions about owls in what our common sense believes. There are diurnal and crepuscular owls, such as the northern hawk-owl (Surnia ulula) and the burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia, although she isn't used to fly as higher as her cousins because, and here's another common sense belief to be broken, she doesn't nest on trees and other higher places, she nests underground).
Many owls are crepuscular, active during dawn/dusk when the sun has a lower apparent angle. Depending on the solar panels' position and arrangement (e.g. solar panels facing slightly north/south), this means a sunlight reflected towards the far horizon instead of reflecting upwards. Given how the sunlight during dawn/dusk is fainter, yeah, it's not gonna burn the avians/birds, however it'll definitely blind them if they're flying towards the solar panels, because they'll be looking directly at a focused and magnified sunglare.
And even the so-defined "nocturnal owls" may meet the sunlight, either by being faced by danger/annoyance during sleep/roosting (such as corvids harassing owls or evil hominids attacking owls, among other situations requiring the owl to wake up and flee) or (a guess of mine) by getting active earlier during summer (when sunset happens later than usual), then they'll face the same problem as their crepuscular/diurnal cousins.
Actually, solar does kill more than nuclear. Installation, mining, and refinement do have hazards. Nuclear is safer than those, including nuclear disasters, which are more unlikely every time one happens.
Actually, solar does kill more than nuclear.
In raw numbers, sure. But that's because solar installations are far, far more common than nuclear installations.
Instead of looking at raw totals, you need to look at deaths/injuries per gigawatt-hour produced. Looking at it that way, I don't think solar would come out as the more dangerous of the two.
(Deer kill more people than bears. But that's only because people meet and interact with deer much more often. I'd rather be locked in a cage with a deer than locked in a cage with a bear.)
Also, if you're going to include mining and refinement in solar panels, you'd better be including mining and refinement for nuclear plants as well. Not just for the nuclear fuel, but also for all the metals, concrete, and other materials that are necessary to build a plant and deal with its eventual waste products.
To be fair, though, that would be extremely difficult to calculate. Suppose a miner working in a copper mine gets run over by a mine truck on the job. Most of the copper from that mine goes toward making copper wires. A tiny portion of those wires were used in the construction of a nuclear power plant. Another tiny portion of those wires were used to connect solar panels. And the vast majority of those wires were used for different purposes entirely, not related to power generation of any kind. Which energy source gets counted for that worker's death?
That's what I meant, in raw energy numbers. Solar just barely squeeks ahead now it seems, but nuclear was ahead for a while. Nuclear would be if the scale were larger, but we've done everything possible to make it expensive and hard to build. They're actually relatively cheap in raw construction, but we've built laws and systems to increase the price so it doesn't out compete dirty energy (they're the ones with the money, so they write the laws).
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh
Also, if you're going to include mining and refinement in solar panels, you'd better be including mining and refinement for nuclear plants as well.
It does. It's just a much smaller amount required.
Yes but historically speaking, an oil fire doesn’t render the area immediately uninhabitable for thousands of years.
As long as we don’t light oil on fire constantly all over the planet and let it burn for decades, we’re gonna be fine.
Historically speaking, the cumulative effect of lighting oil on fire is set to make the entire planet uninhabitable, permanently.
It won't be permanent, it'll just be noticeable in evolutionary time. Think K-T or End Permian events not the collapse of the magnetosphere. Mind you that's really bad. Like, I'm comparing this to the death of the non-avian dinosaurs and an event called the great dying, with our best case scenario being an extinction event more reminiscent of those demarking minor change in evolutionary era, it's really fucking bad. But there's reasonable hope that a small spattering of species of various types (except megafauna, we're fucked) will survive and adapt.
an oil fire doesn’t render the area immediately uninhabitable for thousands of years
But the production and burning of it releases just as much radiation and causes just as much cancer. (Actually more.)
Nuclear doesn't either. It's just that we're much safer (and made more scared) or radiation. We're overly cautious. It's actually been shown that a little bit more radiation than background may actually be good for you.
(Edit: Watch this before you downvote: https://youtu.be/gzdLdNRaPKc)
Three mile island, Fukushima, and Chernobyl are pretty much safe. (Chernobyl is slightly more dangerous, because there's the potential for hot debris, but that's unlikely at this point. If you're careful, it's safe. If people were to live there, it'd be safe wherever they are, as they'd ensure there's no hot objects.) The last reactor at Chernobyl shut down in 2000, meaning they were working there and operating it for decades safely after the disaster. Three mile Island was operating until 2019 safely, and since there have been plans made to bring it back online.
It's actually been shown that a little bit more radiation than background may actually be good for you.
Doubt
Watch this video before you doubt it without looking into it. The sources he uses are listed in the description.
...O ...K ... nothing is going to destabilize global society as badly as the collapse of crop growing cycles due to fossil-fuel-induced climate change.
Anything we can do to reduce burning fossil fuels is going to improve global stability.
Yes, but why waste time and effort with a stopgap like Nuclear when we can just go to wind and solar that we already have the tech for?
Bonus, the more its used, the more we learn, the better it gets for efficiency and ability to manufacture.
Nuclear is not a stop gap. It's a solution.
I think you have it backwards, wind and solar are the stopgap.
Wind and solar require heavy mining of non-renewable, relatively rare resources that will likely run out in a couple generations. Solar panels and wind turbines have a short lifespan of a few decades, and we aren't good at recycling.
Look at the world leader in clean energy- China - and their long term plans. They are heavily invested in solar, for now, as a stopgap measure as they develop thorium reactor power and other related technologies.
I addressed this in another comment, but basically wind and solar both require large amounts of open land to generate significant amounts of electricity. They aren't a complete solution, they simply can't fit everywhere.
Most places that can't fit in fields of solar arrays or wind turbines are reliant on fossil fuels for electricity, and those circumstances aren't going to change anytime soon. The best solution right now would be to replace the coal and gas plants with nuclear.
Solar can be put on already used spaces like building roofs and parking lots that would be otherwise unproductive.
True, but this doesn't really work for densely populated areas. There isn't enough roof space on top of a 20-story apartment or office building to place enough solar panels to serve the building's needs.
For places like Barcelona:
New York:
Seoul:
etc. there's a lot of energy demand, but all of the nearby ground space is already occupied. Even if you put solar panels on top of all the buildings, each rooftop wouldn't be enough to power its own building, so collectively you would only get a fraction of the city's energy needs. The cost of doing each install and the wiring infrastructure would outweigh the benefit, it would never be practical.
*Edit: just to ballpark this, New York City used 15-16 billion kWh in Jan 2026, so ~15 million MWh/month, 180 million MWh/year. The Mojave Solar Project is one of the largest solar installations in the world. It generates ~580 GWh/year (580,000 MWh/year). So, to serve New York City we need only 310 equivalent MSP installations. The MSP installation takes up ~1765 acres, so we only need about 540,000 acres (2100 sq km), or a little over 1/10 of the state of New Jersey.
Just for New York City. Not the whole state.
And that's assuming reliable output, with no transmission losses.
And that estimate is probably too low, because any solar installation in that area wouldn't get the same amount of regular sunlight as the Mojave Desert.
Both things can be true. The comment you're responding to literally does not mention FF.
The comment you’re responding to literally does not mention FF.
Does it need to? That's the alternative we're talking about, whether it's mentioned specifically or not.
Wind and solar are great and have become so good in the past decade that they're more cost effective than everything else, but they still aren't applicable everywhere, most often due to real estate requirements. Nuclear reactors are bulky too, but nothing compared to the amount of space you need for solar arrays or wind turbines to generate an equivalent amount of electricity. For the places where wind and solar can't fit, it's fossil fuels or nuclear.
That's the alternative you're talking about. Straw men are such mark-ass bitches, right?
What alternative do you propose?
Solar and wind?
I already addressed those.
true, sorry, skimming the thread
That feels kind of all-or-nothing. Environmental issues are part of the problem destabilizing societies. Overall, the poisoning of the environment is much worse and much less contained with fossil fuels than with nuclear power. Distant future societies might have no knowledge of nuclear storage sites and a few people might even die before they realize they need to stop breaking into the underground barrels. But a lot more people will die from the environmental havoc that we're causing with fossil fuels. And they can't just stay away from the barrels to avoid that one.
Just to be clear, I think wind and solar (and geothermal where appropriate) are the best ways to get off of fossil fuels. They've gotten a lot cheaper than nuclear so it doesn't make much sense to build new reactors. But it also doesn't make much sense to shut them down if nuclear waste is the only issue.
I agree but also think that we should build both nuclear and renewables. Because we dont have much time left.
Of course. Why wouldn't we use both?
Just like a financial portfolio, our energy ecosystem is only safe if it's well and proper distributed. Excess energy can be stored, or simply routed to ground, programs that incentivise energy use during unexpected peak periods already exist, there's absolutely no reason not to over-plan and engineer it just to avoid shit like what goes down in Texas almost every year...
I like your thoughtful take and that you didn’t leap to the assumption that I support fossil fuels. Renewables are the way, and we had renewables (windmills and such) before we had electricity.
Not really, no. It is safe pretty much regardless. On-site caskets are bomb proof and contain waste safe enough that it wouldn't make sense for a dirty bomb. Though if you really care then we can just stop considering mountains sacred and instead starting burying the waste as we have planned and fully considered all pros and cons towards 70 years ago.
I really hate people thinking all of nuclear is light water reactors
Why have all safety measures when half do and we save money for shareholders!
"I want change but it should be immediate with no transition".
Solar is better in every way
But no boil water spinny thing?!
You can boil water spinny thing with solar, too!
It's just not the same :(
Nuclear is best in every way
Generally, the economics of nuclear involve a very large upfront cost followed by cheap energy afterwards. Maintaining existing plants usually makes sense but building new ones should only be done with careful consideration of other options in the long term. On demand power can be used to supplement a grid so having a variety of options makes sense.
But it seems like everybody just picks up one thing as their pet solution and tries to promote it in absolute terms, which doesn't really make sense. Different environmental conditions call for different solutions, and imperfect options can still have a use case. There isn't really a "best."
You are missing out on the very long tail of waste disposal and treatment and the associated costs and risks.
QAA podcast has a prettybleak good episode on it here
The long term cost of nuclear is by far the highest, unless we actually figure out a no maintenance storage method or other way to get rid of the waste. It's cheap in the moment, but effectively taking on a debt for a very long time. Not that dissimilar to fossil fuels, really. And just like with fossil fuels, the costs are socialized, because whatever company is responsible for the waste probably won't be around in 100, 500, or 1000 years.
This is a misunderstanding of radioactive material. The atoms already exist & they are already spread all throughout the world. Building a reactor allows us to harness the energy of atoms decaying in a useful way.
As for the end product France is able to recycle up to 96% of spent fuel. The remaining 4% is being prepped & placed back in the ground at a site they are currently building.
If you want to read more this Stanford student wrote a well cited paper.
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2024/ph241/friedman2/Or you can read this this science insite article.
https://scienceinsights.org/what-does-france-do-with-nuclear-waste/
indeed. and the fuel gets concentrated and after it is spent and no longer usable, you can buy the fuel pellets on a keychain, yes?
It's spelled BREATHE
Breath is what you TAKE Breathe is what you DO
Breath is what you TAKE
If you're The Police.
Another tor's cabinet of curiosities watcher, I see!
But I don't see the waste coming out of the car, and I f I can't see it it doesn't exist. Well... I haven't actually seen nuclear waste but I assume they are green glowing rods that give me cancer if I get to close
I am not sure if that's sarcasm, but spent reactor fuel doesn't glow, and it never glows green. Any glow you're going to see is cherenkov radiation, and that's a soft blue glow. But you wouldn't see that either.
But you wouldn't see that either.
Not until it's too late
Why not neither?
Nuclear is best.
The problem is, that unless you cut corners somewhere between mining uranium and electricity comes out, it's also the most expensive way to make electricity known to mankind.
Most expensive upfront cost, but doesn't that get balanced by how much you get out of it?
Solar, wind and hydro power is faster and cheaper to build and operate. The only advantage of nuclear is the constant power output. However, we are constantly getting better at efficiently storing energy.
They watched shit on you tube like the scrappers that found the strontium 90 sources in Georgia and used them for warmth.
There's no amount of it's not the same that will make them unsee it
This, but unironically
FEBREEZE
Trees clean the air
Algae does that better than trees.
Trees, on the other hand, are natural climate control. They break up wind, cool the immediate air, and if enough of them are around, augment the local weather.
or spicy rain.
The "seismologically inactive rock" part is now gaslighting, because we've relocated sooo many cubic kilometres of landlocked-ice to mobile-water, redistributing tectonic-forces to such a great degree, that there's a new fault-line now appearing in the California-Nevada region, & there are multiple volcanoes firing right now, some of whom hadn't been active for a long time.
IF a hard-egg-shell forms with a particular pattern of forces on it, & keeps building to fit that pattern-of-forces,
.. & then you suddenly change the pattern-of-forces..
THEN you get cracking.
We've altered the distribution-of-surface-weight sooo significantly, that "seismologically inactive rock" is a lie.
The reason that this particular gaslighting bugs me so much, is that there was a plan, being implimented in the US's southwest, to bury nuclear-waste in a desert-region, because then water wouldn't be able to get it..
OK, so WAS it desert a few millenia ago?
Well, no: it had been jungle.
IT ISN'T STABLY DESERT, THEN, IS IT??
They ignored that, & kept on with their "safe for millenia" operation.
Neither the climate nor the plate-tectonics are stable, when many cubic-km of ice are either forming on land, or disappearing from land, during any ClimatePunctuation.
There's another gaslighting that some, also in this discussion, have called-out: halflife isn't "when it becomes safe", it's just when it's 1/2 as radioactive as it was when stored.
Some Korean researcher, iirc, did a simple multi-generation experiment, with mice:
Put a single atom of plutonium in some mice, but not others ( don't know which isotope they were using, sorry ).
Have them reproduce, have them reproduce, & so-on, through 7 generations..
Measure the cancer-rate of the 7th-or-so generation.
it was measurably higher among the single-plutonium-atom-recipient lineages.
Obviously, nobody's going to replicate that, if they want to have a career afterwards: it'd cost too-much-establishment too-dearly, & therefore they'd be torpedoed/blacklisted/smeared/whatever.
That's how politically-formed "science" works.
( ask all the vaccination-researchers under RFK Jr's rule )
The problem is that if we've unleashed sooo much needless nuclear-radioactive-materials into our ecologies that we've guaranteed higher-cancer-rate ( I've also read that there's no-such-thing as a cancer-free end-of-life/old whale, nowadays .. which may be evidence if that isn't entirely-caused by chemical-pollution ) for .. pretty-much all species, globally?
It isn't possible to buy new radioactive-free steel for making scientific detectors:
they buy WW2-and-earlier sunken-ship steel, because it's meaningfully less radioactive..
So, our carelessness limits our ability to do science.
So EACH plutonium-atom can, on average, increase the cancer-rate of that-mouse's descendant-line..
& we WON'T know the evidence?
I know that nuclear is much less greenhouse-gasses ( mining isn't zero, hence the "less" ) than other kinds of power.
I used to be all-in on it.
But the gaslighting, the blatent lies, the corruption, the .. intentional-incompetence in managing such projects & such installations .. Chernobl's graphite-cooled reactor left blast-marks at the site's top-level, SHOWING it blew-up ( a 2nd time ) while in the air, yet the Official Position is that that didn't happen??
& implimenting a prevent-fire-by-cooling-it-with-flammable-graphite "genius design" is what made it self-destructable, in the 1st place..
Take Thorium SMNR's: the "you can't make weapons-fuel in them" is a lie: you CAN make weapons-grade fuel in them.
Fusion's "it's inherently clean" isn't true either: the lining of the reactor gets neutron-enriched so that IT is nuclear-radioactive waste, after awhile..
( don't bother trying to convince me that "clean coal" is anything other than gaslighting: I've seen too much evidence that it's propaganda, not actual-engineering's-results: capture isn't perfect, & the mercury & greenhouse-forcing both remain problems )
When a single ATOM of plutonium is sufficient to measurably increase the cancer-rate in a lineage-of-mammals..
then your halflife has to bring the material down to zero.
So, getting the 500 TONNES of plutonium currently existing in our world ( it is naturally produced in uranium-reactors ) down to 1-atom-per-each-person, would require about 78 times its halflife & that'd be about 40 times as long it has been since the Ice Age, IF it were all plutonium-240 ( plutonium-239 takes much longer to decay-down )..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium#Cold_War_use_and_waste
& I got the half-life values from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_mass#Bare_sphere
Ideologically-convenient, what the meme pushes, but as they have said "the devil is in the details", and those details matter.
Both in radioactive waste AND in the still-accelerating ClimatePunctuation we're in.
BOTH involve concerted-ignoring, BOTH produce nightmare-consequences at global-scale, resulting from that convenient-ignoring.
How I wish there was a true+accurate+current+correct site where every kind of power-generation can be CORRECTLY compared.
Instead of this trying-to-discern-truth-through-the-firehose-of-lies/propaganda scam.
_ /\ _
This reads like the ramblings of a madman and I could not spend the time going through it so I will just address the claim of the "one atom causing cancer in a lineage of animals" as a bold, bold lie. A single atom of any heavy element does not produce any amount of energy that would cause cancer risk in humans. Even accounting for the entire decay chain. Humans are also the most at risk due to our complex DNA.
Edit: since I had done some more research I'll edit to show that human are among the most susceptible to radiation causing cancer and immediate effects. While plants are the more susceptible and some animals due to their cell make-up and reproduction speed and many other factors (again I'm no biologist) they can be more susceptible, but humans are typically the most at risk when looking at effects of radiation. Either way, a single plutonium atom has an activity level of 1.4x10^-24 curies. We probably couldn't detect this with our most sensitive equipment if we tried as it would be washed away with background radiation. It will certainly not harm anything.
How can our DNA be "complex" when it is 9X% of the DNA of a banana?
That claim doesn't make sense to me
That's because the DNA of a banana is also complex.
The sentence above seems to imply that human DNA is more complex than most animals. Are you claiming that banana DNA is more complex than most animals?
Yes.
I'm a nuclear physist not a biologist, so I don't know the main differences between genetic makeup between species. The "fun fact" about being genetically close to a banana is mostly just a fun fact and doesnt mean anything when it comes to cell production/reproduction.
When it comes to interactions with nuclear forces, our cells and DNA are more complex than any animal that we've studied. This is why dogs can exist within Chernobyl's radiation zone and live very normal lives. Their DNA can withstand the higher levels of particle bombardment and not have higher risk of cancer or deformities.
This is false. Dogs are no less no more complex than humans. Tons of dogs got cancer and died. Just like everything, this is survivorship bias. The dogs of Chernobyl are simply the descendants of the dogs that didn't die.
They are particularly hardy at withstanding radiation … because they are the descendants of the dogs that didn't die. And even then it is not a massive genetical difference, it's mostly about epigenetic adaptations. It's why they are being studied for better understanding of radiation and cancer. They also still die more than dogs who are not constantly being bombarded by radiation.
The same is true for almost all of the fauna around the incident site, dogs are just cuter and easier to make fun journalist pieces and nicer to work with in labs. And also plants and fungi show the same hardiness. There's nothing special about specifically the dogs.
This is actually completely false. Go ahead and find me a peer reviewed article that shows dogs of Chernobyl having higher cancer rates than other dogs. Here is an article that says otherwise https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10358910/
We have no evidence that proves hormesis and you are suggesting with no evidence that the dogs we study now, after 50 years have undergone evolution to no longer have cancer.
If you don't understand radiation, contamination, and dose, that is OK. It is a huge subject that takes years of understanding and I think is the main reason we have this fear of nuclear, because as a whole we don't understand. Yes the dogs are contaminated but because of their genetic make up, the amount of contamination they have does not give them an appreciable dose. That some contamination would be enough to want to consider cancer risk in humans, even though it is still extremely minimal. Dogs do get cancer, but it is unproven if that is due to radiation completely, because dogs get cancer just like we get cancer for many reasons.
I wish people on the internet that adamantly want to argue would stop to actually read the shit they quote, instead of pretending that a half assed google search is some kind of gotcha. Your peer reviewed article that says otherwise actually doesn't mentions cancer, not even once. It is about external and internal contamination. It doesn't assign causality between contamination rates and dogs genetic makeup, whatsoever (it might actually be due to human intervention, feeding them with clean food). I also used cancer just as one example of the effects of radiation, it is not the only way that radiation kills. (I also fail to see what hormesis have the fuck to do with any of the discussion, but I guess you find it a fun scientificoid word that makes you sound smart).
I never said it was a genetic change, but epigenetic adaptation. As in, the things that are not in the genome but affect genome expression and are inherited. There's a ton of studies on these dogs, they all point to a higher rate of genetic differentiation and fast adaptation due to environmental pressure factors like isolation and inbreeding. It's not just the radiation, it's what happens when you let a bunch of domestic animals back into nature.
They are surviving in big part due to human care, which is the only thing protecting them from other stuff like hypothermia during winter and parvovirus. That kills them at a higher rate than radioactive contamination. Yet they still seem to be breeding so fast that neutering them is a perfectly valid option.
But anyways, back to the main point. Here's the main reason they are good for genetic studies:
Our examination of dogs from Ukraine and neighboring countries in Eastern Europe revealed that both the Chernobyl City and CNPP populations have a similar genetic structure to free-breeding dog populations, reflecting a history of admixture, indicating that dogs have existed in the Chernobyl region for a long period of time, potentially since the disaster, or even earlier. Genetic differentiation from other purebred and free-breeding dogs suggests that the Chernobyl populations have a unique genomic signature, supporting their utility in further genomic studies – The dogs of Chernobyl: Demographic insights into populations inhabiting the nuclear exclusion zone
They seem to be genetically distinct enough that they might have some adaptations:
We detected a significant degree of genetic differentiation between the two populations of dogs sampled at the Nuclear Power Plant and in Chernobyl City, along with almost complete clustering at the population level through the DAPC and PCA, corroborating trends that were seen in identity by state clustering analyses in Spatola et al. (in press). […]
we identified genomic regions that have diverse allele frequencies between the populations, including candidate genes such as xrcc4 and cntnap2. Our findings are likely to inform future studies, where we intend to search these genomic regions and candidate genes for variants, novel and previously documented, to further evaluate the degree of local adaptation within the Nuclear Power Plant and Chernobyl City populations. – Population dynamics and genome-wide selection scan for dogs in Chernobyl
So, in summary, the current consensus is:
It’s possible that the dogs that survived long enough to breed already had genetic traits that increased their ability to survive. So perhaps there was extreme selective pressure at the start, and then the dogs at the power plant just remained separate from the city population. Investigating that question is an important next step that we are now working on. – Deep Dive Into Genome of Dogs Within Chornobyl Exclusion Zone Shows Genetic Differences Are Not Due to Mutations
So I reiterate my point. Dogs are no less no more complex than humans. Just like everything, this is survivorship bias. The dogs of Chernobyl are simply the descendants of the dogs that didn’t die. It's ok to not be an expert at something, I'm not a biologist either (nor a nuclear physicist). But at least I bother to read sources before spouting BS on the internet. Shout out to my bro who actually is a biologist and taught me this factoid and shared the links to these studies.
Also, are you really suggesting that evolution doesn't occur in small scale? 50 years is 30 generations of dogs, that's a shit ton of breeding.
I see what the issue is here, is that you are upset with me saying that humans have a more complex genome, and not about the discussion of radiation effecting different species of animals, I see. Yes I will concede that the term "complex" for genome is not a good descriptor. There are a lot of reasons why humans are mor susceptible to radiation with immediate effects, and that is not due to "complexity." However, it is still true that we are more susceptible than dogs, and it is still true that the dogs of Chernobyl are better at handling radiation than humans and generally are OK with the fallout there.
However go fuck yourself for the introduction to your comment. "Don't read the shit they quote" when the paper we both cited proved our points that we were making.
TLDR: This is mostly made-up alarmist bullshit.
There is no scientific evidence of a global cancer rate going up in relation to nuclear tests. Localised - sure. People living near to where the tests took place were massively affected, but it's not a global trend in any way.
New evidence shows that even the Chornobyl disaster didn't really affect too many people - the vast majority of the "omg, cancer everywhere!" panic was due to the fact that nobody was testing people for cancer in those regions before the disaster. So, yeah, once they started testing, they noticed a bunch of cancer.
The entirety of the Cold War era nuclear testing and all the catastrophes combined have managed to raise the global background radiation levels by around 0.1 mSv per year. Typical natural background radiation is around 2.4 mSv per year. People living in higher altitudes are exposed to even more - in Peru, for example, that's around 3.0-3.8 mSv per year.
This extra radiation has already dropped to around 0.005 mSv per year, meaning pre-war low-background steel lifted from shipwrecks is no longer necessary for most use cases. Also: a lot of that contamination didn't come from the atmospheric contamination, but rather from the use of cobalt-60 for steel cauldron coating, and due to thorium contained in welding rods used in gas tungsten arc welding.
What is a "graphite cooled reactor"? Chernobyl's RMBK is water cooled. As are the vast majority of them (one notable exception being the UK AGRs cooled by CO2). The RMBK is graphite moderated but that is very different to being cooled.
And we know there were two explosions in the accident... I don't understand why you are acting like its a big secret?
And you can't keep going on about the 'single atom of plutonium' stuff without providing evidence. Because even if it is even slightly credible I'll wager that the effects seen aren't quite what you are making them out as.
I don't think it would be any kind of shock to find out governments and the USSR in particular would be not entirely truthful about stuff but the majority of this.... ramble... is all conspiracy theory and making weird conclusions based on a statement with no source.
And how is the nuclear waste supposed to get there? Car, truck, or train will still have a spill
I don’t think you understand how durable and well sealed those casks are. It’s not fall off the side of the train and break open kind of tough, it’s get hit by the train going full speed and the train loses kind of tough.
I’m fairly certain I read they can also withstand a direct blast from fairly sizable munitions, like state actor missile size.
Let's not pretend other fossil fuels don't have the same problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_spill
Also, in the best case scenario, none of that shit goes back into the ground. We just burn it, or turn it into plastic, and it stays in our lives forever.
Old video demonstrating that nuclear waste casks can survive severe accidents, such as a train crashing at 80 mph
Please explain how fossil fuel is stored in the air?? Dumbest thing ever read!
It sounds like you may actually not know. The most impactful greenhouse gas, which is also a waste product of fossil fuels, is CO2. This is pumped into the air by anything that burns fossil fuels along with many other poisonous gases.
Think of a car - the exhaust (which is the waste) just gets pumped into the air.
CO2... is pumped into the air by anything that burns fossil fuels along with many other poisonous gases.
Don't forget particulates, like radioactive thorium, put into the air by burning coal.
You know nothing, all this vanishes or comes back to the ground, get real! some scientists we have in here!
all this vanishes or comes back to the ground
yeah but to do so it takes decades. forests grow slowly.
How do you know it takes decades?!?
forests grow slowly
And vanish means it goes where?
Fossil fuel waste.
Man you really believe there is fuel waste stored in the air? I mean seriously?! 😂🤣😂
Did you get lost trying to find facebook?
i think thats a troll
Is this supposed to be a joke?!
coal dust is partly radioactive
Delicious but its a bit spicy 🤤
Found the fossil fuel bot farm.
Btw, it's CO2 from burning, methane from leakage and small particulate matter from some sources that don't burn cleanly like coal and wood.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runit_Island
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site#Cleanup_under_Superfund
what marvel / dc universe do you think that the refuse of nuclear fission lives in ?
More people have died from radiation poisoning due to Coal mining and coal plants than the entirety of all nuclear incidents and weapon uses world wide.
No one here is advocating for fossil fuels
Well if you're advocating against the cheapest and safest fuel source, one does assume you're advocating for fossil fuels; especially when you are explicitly repeating their propaganda.
Just a reminder, Green Peace, the primary reason many 'environmentalists' are against Nuclear power and are so misinformed on the subject, was paid tens of millions of dollars by the oil and coal lobbies to spread said propaganda.
You’re the one buying the propaganda “cheapest and safest”
Ah yes the 'nuclear lobby' that spends hundreds of billions of dollars a year in propaganda. You sure are very smart for recognizing them.
The total number of people that have died in relation to anything nuclear, not just nuclear power, but research, weapons testing, and weapons use, is less than the number of people that died due to fossil fuels last year. It's also lower than the number of people that have died producing and installing solar panels.
The total cost per kWh for nuclear is also still lower than any other method of baseline power generation. This includes Solar + Battery configurations, regardless of the battery technology.
Ah yes the 'nuclear lobby'
aka the military industrial complex
so whats your idea? Should we close all nuclear reactors because its too dangerous?
No, my plan is to force corrupt politicians through a coarse seive until we can continue having a society. What's yours?
Please and thank you.
I hate the fact that theres no better alternate to nuclear.
Except, you know, solar and wind power, which are like and order of magnitude cheaper and way faster to build.
What if we put the nuclear reactor up in space, really far away, then used devices of some kind of revieve the energy it transmits to us via low level radiation?
Right... I suppose next you're going to say it could be one of those fusion reactors that are always just 10 years away!
Without heat dissipation, nuclear reactors go boom.
If we’re using space, I think there be even more feasible to use solar and hydrogen.
I was just referring to the sun in a non technical way.
Ohhh. I get it.
I was thinking more like a large fusion reactor using gravitational containment. I don't think the temperature will be too much of an issue.
Nuclear only makes economic sense if you also have a military use for the fuel.
If you dont have nuke warheads, or subs that depend on it...it makes no economic sense.
[citation needed]
Name a single Nuclear power plant that was profitable over its whole live cycle without depending on state money for at least one of the phases, from planing it to tearing it down and long time storage of the waste till its save again.
Do you think people are running around just knowing the names and financial details of every nuclear power installation on the planet?
How about this. No googling or looking up a reference here, just be honest.... Name 1 coal power station.
Nobody here is trying to defend coal lmao
The point is not to defend coal. The point is that the information you are asking for casually is not something that the typical person has on hand (nor is it easily researched). The request is patently ridiculous.
Strange? How can that be if Nuclear is "so cheap"....sooo many power plants and u cant find a single one that isnt burning state money to run or clean up after.
Meanwhile solar is so profitable now that even for home usage its worth it to normal people....oh and its also decentral how nice.
Digging shit out of the earth that will poision everthing with radioactive dusts miles around the mine...then using it for a while before not having a solution to store it....makes only sense when you have to run a submarine for national security or a deepspace probes power generator.
But that itself would be very expensive so why no offload some of the mining and refining cost onto the civilians....
Insufferable, it’s almost as if you come across as a German
I asked you for a citation dummy
Common sense. And if u to lazy to find me a single profitable nuclear powerplant...dont call me the dummy.
Canada has entered the chat.
iNdEsTrUcTiBlE
He really said "indestructible"
He really said it
Guys guys guys
He said the word
This is why no sane person takes nuke fans seriously. They have to literally lie and be dumb