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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Metal_Zealot@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

With climate change looming, it seems so completely backwards to go back to using it again.

Is it coal miners pushing to keep their jobs? Fear of nuclear power? Is purely politically motivated, or are there genuinely people who believe coal is clean?


Edit, I will admit I was ignorant to the usage of coal nowadays.

Now I'm more depressed than when I posted this

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[-] intensely_human@lemm.ee 50 points 1 year ago

And they’re going for coal in some places because the political situation has made other reliable energy sources unavailable:

  • the Russia-Ukraine war has destroyed natural gas supply lines to Europe
  • anti-nuclear activism has resulted in lack of nuclear investment

Outside of coal, nuclear, and natural gas, there aren’t many options for reliable sources of electricity.

[-] room_raccoon@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago

Why are people so against nuclear? It doesn't make any sense.

[-] Zangoose@lemmy.one 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Nuclear is probably the safest form of power when proper protocols are put in place but it's hard to do that when the largest country in Europe (Russia, both by size and population) is currently in a war

[-] TheActualDevil@sffa.community 6 points 1 year ago
[-] TheHalc@sopuli.xyz 15 points 1 year ago

Oddly enough, it's safer than wind.

Solar's a little better in that regard, but all three are so much safer than any high-carbon sources of energy that any of them are great options.

[-] TheActualDevil@sffa.community 1 points 1 year ago

I can't look at their sources, so I'm going to believe them, buuut that is death per energy units. And I can't argue that nuclear isn't more efficient and generally safe. Presumably though, those injuries from wind are from construction primarily? Nuclear power plants have been out of fashion since the 80s for some reason, so there aren't really equal opportunities for construction incidents to compare that while wind construction has been on the rise. And I can only assume that after construction, the chance incidents only go down for wind while they can really only go up for nuclear.

None of that is to say that nuclear is bad and we shouldn't use it. Statistics like this just always bug me. Globally we receive more energy from wind than nuclear. It stands to reason that there's more opportunity for deaths. It's a 1 dimensional stat that can easily be manipulated. it's per thousand terawatt per hour, including deaths from pollution. So I got curious and did some Googling.

After sorting through a bunch of sites without quite the information I was looking for, I found some interesting facts. I was wrong in my assertion that wind deaths don't go up after being built. Turns out, most of those deaths come from maintenance. It does seem to vary by country, and I can't find it broken down by country like I wanted. It's possible that safety protections for workers could shift it. But surprisingly, maintenance deaths from nuclear power are virtually non existent from what I can tell. It seems like the main thing putting nuclear on that list at all is including major incidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima. Well, Fukushima has really only been attributed for 4 deaths total. And Chernobyl was obviously preventable. So it looks like you're right! Statistically, when including context, is definitely the least deadly energy source (if we ignore solar).

[-] Zangoose@lemmy.one 2 points 1 year ago

I believe so because of construction injuries but idk how well that scales

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this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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