And a quote:
“Using historical electricity production data and mortality and emission factors from the peer-reviewed scientific literature, we found that despite the three major nuclear accidents the world has experienced, nuclear power prevented an average of over 1.8 million net deaths worldwide between 1971-2009 (see Fig. 1). This amounts to at least hundreds and more likely thousands of times more deaths than it caused. An average of 76,000 deaths per year were avoided annually between 2000-2009 (see Fig. 2), with a range of 19,000-300,000 per year.”
Thankfully its an academic debate now anyway, because solar and wind prices are already much cheaper with no end to their continued improvement in sight.
That's FUD. What are you proposing is going to happen that would be worse? You can't get a nuclear explosion; the fuel isn't weapons grade. You can get a meltdown and a hydrogen explosion, but that is what happened at Chernobyl. It leaves behind a hot mess and a large cleanup bill but hardly anybody dies. Especially if you're not an obtuse Soviet bureaucracy that dispatches ordinary firefighters to deal with it without adequate training or equipment.
> They consume alot of water resource as well, for cooling.
Water isn't "consumed", it starts off as H2O and ends up that way. It evaporates and then condenses again somewhere downwind.
One effort that stands out as "preventing something much worse" is that there was a risk of a potentially larger secondary explosion from steam buildup. They tunneled under the reactor and injected ~25 tons of liquid nitrogen a day (the tunnel started 6 days after the explosion, and was functional 8 days after the explosion). They had people risk/give their lives swimming in to close valves and pumping water out. Dates from here: http://www.chernobylgallery.com/chernobyl-disaster/timeline/
Also, you can absolutely get a nuclear explosion from a reactor, there is some suggestion that Chernobyl might have been a small one in fact (paper): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00295450.2017.1...
No offense but if you can't see how Chernobyl or Fukushima could have turned out worse, or that unexpected accidents in other locations could happen and could be worse, you don't understand nuclear power. Its problematic because I expect you have read plenty on it in order to want to defend it in a topic about aforestation.
"Water isn't consumed"
Water resource is consumed, sure it rains again - often far away and into the sea. Fresh water resources are scarce and under pressure in many places, ancient aquifers are drying out, particularly in the US.
Modern nuclear powerplants are much safer than these that had accidents.
Yes you have to include the possibility of new accidents - being sabotaged or not. But that possibility needs to be weighed with the probability of it. And it's very low.
Meanwhile we completely ignore the 100% sure deaths and radiation caused by coal powerplants. Because we're used to it.
BTW sabotaging hydro powerplants can kill hundreds of thousands of people at once. And it's much easier than sabotaging a nuclear powerplant. Get one diver with a swimsuit and give him some TNT.
Somehow I haven't seen this used as a counterargument to renewable energy :)
Its promotion was competing with and obstructing the promotion of renewables for over a decade past, but its moot now that in the past couple of years the price performance of renewables has become unassailable. There's no point promoting nuclear anymore and arguing about how safe nuclear has been or could be - its more expensive already than wind and solar, materially, environmentally, security-wise and economically. Wind and solar are still on a rapid improvement curve. Nuclear powered heat plants are not futuristic generation options, they're relics from the nuclear arms race.
This is not a case of of risk but uncertainty - very different strategies apply here.
Has large scale energy storage been solved? I know there are a number of ways to do grid-scale storage, but are any of them scalable enough to power the entire country from solar and wind? Especially if another "storm of the century" (which seem to be happening more frequently now) reduces solar/wind output from a significant portion of the country so you need to draw deep into storage reserves.
There are numerous technologies which can currently provide large scale energy storage at cost which is currently competitive in many situations and due to drop rapidly once they are actually required and built in quantity. To mention a few: flow batteries, hydrogen production and generation, carbon neutral biomass fuel, heat storage and conversion batteries including molten salt, enhancement of existing hydro schemes, online EV fleet, active geothermal... besides you know if pushed, even the occasional emergency fossil fuel burn if unprepared. Nuclear plants are not known for their uptime during storms either.
Current prices are detailed here, been dropping every year : https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...
