Let's nuke climate change!

@humy said
I am sure fusion power will become a practical option one day, its just a matter of when, not if. The main problem I see with it is that it will probably come far too late to help with the current problem and in the mean time renewables, possibly complemented with just a bit of old fission power, is the answer.
But, that said, I have been looking at any news of fusion power dev ...[text shortened]... the latest news on fusion power;

https://phys.org/news/2019-04-china-quest-limitless-energy.html

Pure theory for the past 80+ years. I'm not holding my breath.

@metal-brain said
Millions of people die of cancer every year. Many of them nuclear related. I could puff up estimates of those too, but that would be resorting to straw man arguments like you are. I see no need to resort to that. Everybody knows I could easily do that so it is not necessary to make a big deal about it.

Fukushima. That is all I need to say.

You say "many" of those who die of cancer had cancers that are nuclear related. Do you have any actual evidence that a statistically significant proportion of the general population has cancer due to the nuclear industry?

On a point of information, making a lot out of statistics is not a strawman argument. A strawman argument happens when person A makes some statement X and person B says something to the effect of "What you are really saying is Y" and proceeds to attempt to knock down Y.

@deepthought said
You say "many" of those who die of cancer had cancers that are nuclear related. Do you have any actual evidence that a statistically significant proportion of the general population has cancer due to the nuclear industry?

On a point of information, making a lot out of statistics is not a strawman argument. A strawman argument happens when person A makes some statemen ...[text shortened]... omething to the effect of "What you are really saying is Y" and proceeds to attempt to knock down Y.

Estimates are estimates, not true statistics. Do you have any actual evidence that a statistically significant proportion of the general population has died from air pollution?
Humy already admitted pollution was not listed as cause of death on the death certificates, so how can you accept the estimates as accurate?
Helen Caldicott pointed out that in Japan nobody is counting leukemia cases, only thyroid cancer. How can there be an accurate estimate of leukemia if they are not counted?

BTW, more than one person here falsely claimed meltdowns were not omitted from the study when they were. Meltdowns are not under "normal operation". Where were you when the truth needed defending? You condoned the constant lying from humy and wildgrass both. Why?

I pointed out how much radiation was released into the environment from Fukishima. Then wildgrass brought up coal as a radiation source and falsely claimed the study he posted included meltdowns. There is your straw man.

Now you are continuing that straw man tactic. All 3 of you are attacking a strawman now. Worse than that, it is based on a falsehood!

@metal-brain said
Estimates are estimates, not true statistics. Do you have any actual evidence that a statistically significant proportion of the general population has died from air pollution?
Humy already admitted pollution was not listed as cause of death on the death certificates, so how can you accept the estimates as accurate?
Helen Caldicott pointed out that in Japan nobody is c ...[text shortened]... man tactic. All 3 of you are attacking a strawman now. Worse than that, it is based on a falsehood!

Well during the great smog of 1952 there were 4,000 excess deaths during the smog and 6,000 in the months after [1]. Recent research suggests that these are underestimates [2]. The Met office article talks about increases in the death rates in London due to smogs in December 1873 (an increase of 40% ) as well as what the Met Office article describes as "marked increases in death rate" after the fogs of January 1880, February 1882, December 1891, December 1892 and November 1948. These are acute events, the smog of 1952 was particularly lethal because of the level of sulphur in the type of coal they were using, which meant that the smog contained of the order of 800 tonnes of sulphuric acid.

In the U.K. these days particulate pollution from diesel engines is the main culprit.

According to the WHO figures world wide about 7 million deaths are attributable to air pollution - that is one eighth of all deaths [4]. The International Energy Agency released a report [5] which is incredibly long and detailed, I simply searched for statistics about coal. The share of energy use of coal is 28%, however as the report says (see page 37) how much pollution that means depends on the technology in use. However combustion of coal is responsible for over half of sulphur dioxide emissions, oil burning is responsible for over half of NOx emissions with coal in second place.

I think that it is quite clear that coal is responsible for a huge number of premature deaths every year. I think that you would have a job demonstrating any excess deaths of people not employed in the nuclear industry from the normal operation of nuclear reactors.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London
[2] https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/case-studies/great-smog
[3] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/298/5601/2106.2
[4] https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/en/
[5] https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/WorldEnergyOutlookSpecialReport2016EnergyandAirPollution.pdf

@metal-brain said
Estimates are estimates, not true statistics. Do you have any actual evidence that a statistically significant proportion of the general population has died from air pollution?
Humy already admitted pollution was not listed as cause of death on the death certificates, so how can you accept the estimates as accurate?
Helen Caldicott pointed out that in Japan nobody is c ...[text shortened]... man tactic. All 3 of you are attacking a strawman now. Worse than that, it is based on a falsehood!

I am not responsible for what either humy or wildgrass post. I do not always agree with them. I did not read the article he posted a link to and only occasionally pay attention to this thread. I do not feel the need to argue with every post that I disagree with. So you have no good cause to accuse me of condoning anything.

It is still not a strawman argument, he is not misrepresenting your position which is fundamental in a strawman. He posted a link to a paper which did not prove the point he was hoping it would. This is what we call a mistake. It is definitely not a strawman argument.

@metal-brain said
Estimates are estimates, not true statistics. Do you have any actual evidence that a statistically significant proportion of the general population has died from air pollution?
Humy already admitted pollution was not listed as cause of death on the death certificates, so how can you accept the estimates as accurate?
Helen Caldicott pointed out that in Japan nobody is c ...[text shortened]... man tactic. All 3 of you are attacking a strawman now. Worse than that, it is based on a falsehood!

A few last points about cancer estimates concerning the nuclear power industry. First of all I find it unlikely that Japan does not keep track of leukemia, thyroid cancer, and every other disease known to man as part of its health system's normal operation. I am certain that the NHS does. I do not know the basis of Helen Caldicott's claim.

However according to the Wikipedia page they introduced a thyroid screening program shortly after the incident. The reason for that is that thyroid cancer is highly survivable, with a 94% survival rate, increasing to almost 100% if caught early. Screening for thyroid cancer uses ultrasound and is non-invasive. Tests for leukemia depend on white blood cell counts, which are not entirely reliable as there is aleukemia where the cancerous cells do not leave the bone marrow. I think the decision to screen for thyroid cancer and not for leukemia was made entirely on public health grounds and not for the purposes of tracking the effects of meltdown. The five year survival rate in children diagnosed with leukemia is between 65% and 80% [3].

This is a copy and paste from an article reviewing some research into the effects on workers involved in the Chernobyl cleanup [4]:

Overall, there were 137 cases of leukemia among the [110,000] workers [enrolled in the study] over the 20-year span of the study, and 16 percent of those cancers were attributable to the Chernobyl radiation exposure, the team found.

What is more the total number of deaths at Fukishima would have been less had they not evacuated the local population. The total number of deaths attributable to relocation was 1,600 (living in temporary accommodation, stress, etc.) compared with 1,399 due to the actual tsunami. Which means that the decision to evacuate the area caused more deaths than the actual incident.

According to the relevant Wikipedia page the total number of people killed in the nuclear bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima is 226,000. Mostly from the heat and the blast, which aren't relevant to a reactor meltdown. Excess cancer deaths are estimated at 1,900. [1]

I spent a couple of hours on this, I have not exhausted all the possibilities and it is easy for me to have missed something. However, the evidence I can find indicates that the total number of deaths attributable to the nuclear industry, not including mining, in its entire history does not exceed the number of deaths due to the 1952 London smog. In fact even if we attribute only 1% of the excess deaths per year due to air pollution to coal - a deliberate underestimate - then coal is killing 70,000 a year, so over a five year period coal has killed more people than the nuclear industry and nuclear weapons have in their entire history.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Cancer_increases
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster#Thyroid_screening_program
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leukemia
[4] https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2012/11/13087/chernobyl-cleanup-workers-had-significantly-increased-risk-leukemia

@metal-brain said
Estimates are estimates, not true statistics.

No, they are true statistics. You only dismiss them because they prove you wrong because they prove, and contrary to your claim, many people (MILLIONS) have died of air pollution and millions surely will do until we start polluting a LOT less. The estimates have a defined margin of error so, for example, the chances of them being wrong by, say, more than 30%, may be less than 0.1%. Given the estimates say that many MILLION have died from air pollution, even if we allow for a very high margin of error, that still means it just isn't credible that MILLION have NOT died from air pollution. This compares with the estimates of deaths from nuclear, including ALL nuclear disasters put together, that show more like just a few thousand at the very most, and certainly a lot LESS than one million, have died from nuclear. If those estimates are wrong BECAUSE they are estimates (your logic) then all estimates of the number of deaths from nuclear must also be wrong thus you cannot validly use them either. But they aren't wrong because they are estimates thus we can validly use both just like I did and do.

DeepThought has done a good job of showing just some of the huge number of statistics for deaths from air pollution. But to add to that; these are the statistics I showed earlier again and those for nuclear that I showed;

https://www.quora.com/On-average-how-many-people-do-nuclear-power-plants-kill-a-year
"...
According to all the reliable sources, on average, about 0.35 deaths per year for a 1000 MW nuclear plant. So that would work out to about a death every 3 years. This includes the mining and transportation of the uranium, the future storage of the waste, Chernobyl, Fukushima, etc.

For comparison, a similar coal plant kills that many people every 18 hours. An oil plant is about half of that.

That’s per plant. When you add up all the power plants, like the question asks, it comes up to 60 for all the nuclear plants, 390,000 for the coal plants, and 324,000 for all the oil plants per year.
..."
-and the above doesn't takes into account all deaths from air polution from fossil fuels (especially from cars, buses etc) and it STILL gives a wildly higher death rate than from nuclear!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents
"...In the US alone, more than 100,000 coal miners have been killed in accidents over the past century
...
by far the greatest energy fatalities that result from energy generation by humanity, is the creation of air pollution. The most lethal of which, particulate matter, which is primarily generated from the burning of fossil fuels and biomass is (counting outdoor air pollution effects only) estimated to cause 2.1 million deaths annually..."

And then if you look in the table of values in the "Fatalities" table you clearly see this;

Energy source | Mortality rate(in deaths/PWh)
Nuclear (global) 90
Wind 150
Solar – rooftop 440
Hydro (global) 1,400
Natural Gas 4,000
Coal (US) 10,000
Biofuel/biomass 24,000
Oil(total energy) 36,000
Coal (global) 100,000

ALL other science weblinks on this give similar statistics that clearly show air pollution kills far more people than nuclear. NO weblink or any other source of information shows the contrary and so far you haven't shown a single website or any other source of information that shows air pollution kills LESS people than nuclear. So what is the source of your information?

@metal-brain said
Estimates are estimates, not true statistics. Do you have any actual evidence that a statistically significant proportion of the general population has died from air pollution?
Humy already admitted pollution was not listed as cause of death on the death certificates, so how can you accept the estimates as accurate?
Helen Caldicott pointed out that in Japan nobody is c ...[text shortened]... man tactic. All 3 of you are attacking a strawman now. Worse than that, it is based on a falsehood!

Can you point out the post where wildgrass claimed that his reference did anything other than talk about the normal operation of nuclear reactors. I went back through the thread and found one post where he quoted a Scientific American article on page 18 post number 3. At no point did he claim that this included meltdowns.

@deepthought said
Well during the great smog of 1952 there were 4,000 excess deaths during the smog and 6,000 in the months after [1]. Recent research suggests that these are underestimates [2]. The Met office article talks about increases in the death rates in London due to smogs in December 1873 (an increase of 40% ) as well as what the Met Office article describes as "marked increases ...[text shortened]... blications/freepublications/publication/WorldEnergyOutlookSpecialReport2016EnergyandAirPollution.pdf

There you go saying NNPs under "normal operations" which omits meltdowns. Why are you omitting meltdowns in your statement as well? Don't you think they should be included?

There is a strawman right there. You want to omit meltdowns (fallacy of radiation amount) and attack your strawman.

I never said pollution was not a problem in certain areas. I once mentioned China as having pollution problems. So Londoners burned high Sulfur coal. Isn't that about as foolish as burning radioactive coal? Solutions for these are common sense, you shouldn't burn contaminated coal. There is also a reason I live in the country. I like the clean air.

Whose fault is it they they live in air pollution prone cities? It is a bit like a villager near a volcano staying there despite warnings of Sulfur Dioxide gas. Whose fault is it that the fool stays there?

Europe in general has a Diesel pollution problem. Why are so many personal cars and trucks diesel in Europe? Is it because of taxes on fuel? My truck is fueled with gasoline and that is generally typical here in the states. Why are you Europeans so fond of diesel? Do you like your Nitrogen Oxides?

@deepthought said
Can you point out the post where wildgrass claimed that his reference did anything other than talk about the normal operation of nuclear reactors. I went back through the thread and found one post where he quoted a Scientific American article on page 18 post number 3. At no point did he claim that this included meltdowns.

Again, why are you excluding meltdowns? Why are you condoning wildgrass' excluding meltdowns? He kept repeating that coal releases more radiation into the environment than Nuclear and that it was a fact. It was a fallacy. He NEVER used the words "normal operations" when he made that statement, therefore it was false.

Why are you condoning his false statements as acceptable rhetoric?

@metal-brain said
There you go saying NNPs under "normal operations" which omits meltdowns. Why are you omitting meltdowns in your statement as well? Don't you think they should be included?

There is a strawman right there. You want to omit meltdowns (fallacy of radiation amount) and attack your strawman.

I never said pollution was not a problem in certain areas. I once mentioned Ch ...[text shortened]... pical here in the states. Why are you Europeans so fond of diesel? Do you like your Nitrogen Oxides?

In my analysis above I included casualties from the blasts of nuclear weapons, I included meltdowns and I included normal operations of nuclear reactors. The total number of deaths from nuclear technology in its entire history is still lower than the number of deaths attributable to air pollution in one year.

I looked back through the thread and you mentioned Fukushima once in the 4 pages preceding wildgrass's post on page 18. You did not start banging on about meltdowns until after his post. So, I am afraid that the strawman is in fact yours.

High quality coal was exported to repay debts incurred fighting the Second World War. We had rationing for a decade after the end of the War. There was no alternative but to burn low quality coal. However, your contempt for the victims of the smog is noted.

Interesting that you regard living in cities as a matter of personal responsibility, but do not seem to regard living near a reactor as such.

@deepthought said
In my analysis above I included casualties from the blasts of nuclear weapons, I included meltdowns and I included normal operations of nuclear reactors. The total number of deaths from nuclear technology in its entire history is still lower than the number of deaths attributable to air pollution in one year.

I looked back through the thread and you mentioned Fukushim ...[text shortened]... ies as a matter of personal responsibility, but do not seem to regard living near a reactor as such.

"I looked back through the thread and you mentioned Fukushima once in the 4 pages preceding wildgrass's post on page 18. You did not start banging on about meltdowns until after his post. So, I am afraid that the strawman is in fact yours."

Ridiculous! This thread is about nuclear!

Would you have me not talk about nuclear radiation? Is this thread about coal? Nope. Calling the main subject matter a strawman argument is the dumbest thing I have heard today so far.

You have used strawman arguments in the past as well. Remember my theory that time dilation and gravity are the same?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_tensor_(general_relativity)

You used metric tensor as a strawman argument.

@metal-brain said
"I looked back through the thread and you mentioned Fukushima once in the 4 pages preceding wildgrass's post on page 18. You did not start banging on about meltdowns until after his post. So, I am afraid that the strawman is in fact yours."

Ridiculous! This thread is about nuclear!

Would you have me not talk about nuclear radiation? Is this thread about coal? Nope. ...[text shortened]... ipedia.org/wiki/Metric_tensor_(general_relativity)

You used metric tensor as a strawman argument.

No it is not. The thread is about nuclear power as an alternative to the burning of fossil fuels. So you have failed to understand the point of the thread.

Your "theory" that gravitation and time dilation were the same was inconsistent due to the number of degrees of freedom in the metric tensor. I introduced the metric tensor in a vain attempt to explain the correct theory, but you were not interested.

You can't even recognize your own strawman arguments and are accusing everyone else of your own failures of rationality. It is time for you to take responsibility and recognize your own weaknesses. I have no recollection of ever seeing you concede a point or accept that you could possibly be wrong. This might not be your self-image and I cannot easily guess your internal mental states without visual feedback, but you seem to lack empathy and regard your own judgement as clearly better than anyone else's.

I am not demanding that you agree with me - aside from anything else I am as capable as anyone else of error - I'm asking for basic levels of courtesy in your posting style. If someone insults you feel free to insult them back on an insult by insult basis, but try to wait until they do. I've learned that it's generally more constructive to avoid rising to insults, but that is my policy, I don't think of it as compulsory.

@deepthought said
No it is not. The thread is about nuclear power as an alternative to the burning of fossil fuels. So you have failed to understand the point of the thread.

Your "theory" that gravitation and time dilation were the same was inconsistent due to the number of degrees of freedom in the metric tensor. I introduced the metric tensor in a vain attempt to explain the correc ...[text shortened]... e constructive to avoid rising to insults, but that is my policy, I don't think of it as compulsory.

Still ridiculous. So I can't talk about radiation from NPPs because wildgrass started talking about radiation from coal first on a nuke thread? It was a comparison. Comparisons cannot be met with reasonable comparisons from both when wildgrass brought both of them up to begin with? LOL!!!!!

Now you are making yourself look silly. You will not be happy until you stifle debate entirely and everyone can see that. An alternative was brought up and is fair game to continue comparisons. Only the developmentally disabled would be fooled by you.

Give it up. You never tried to explain how metric tensor even meant anything. That is because it is a description as you said yourself. You now say that I'm "inconsistent due to the number of degrees of freedom in the metric tensor".
You never brought that up before. Is this jargon again? Do you just continually make up new jargon to BS people you think are ignorant? Go ahead, explain how a description of a field is the same as a field. See if you can BS yourself out of this one.

@metal-brain said
You now say that I'm "inconsistent due to the number of degrees of freedom in the metric tensor".
Is this jargon again? Do you just continually make up new jargon

Unlike you or me, especially you, Deepthought is extremely WELL qualified in the relevant physics and thus knows what he is talking about and knows and understands MUCH more about tensors than you or I. You not understanding what he says is merely a symptom of you not understanding the relevant physics nearly as well as he does.
It is delusional arrogance for a non-scientist layperson such as yourself to assume to know better about some part of physics (such as tensors) than an extremely well qualified physicist like him just because you don't understand the physics terminology he uses. The default assumption by a non-expert should be that an expert almost certainly knows about the subject he is an expert on better than you unless you have a VERY GOOD reason to think otherwise; -and a 'VERY GOOD reason' you certainly don't have here; Not even close.

P.S. I do not claim to understand tensors myself; because I don't. But the point is I don't have the delusion that I DO understand tensors LET ALONE think I know about them better than he does!