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Weblog entry #371 for simonw

Death from wind power
Posted by simonw on Sat 1 May 2010 at 14:28
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In his blog Erich fails to account for the most important aspect of power generation, the power generated.

http://www.wind-works.org/articles/BreathLife.html

The figure usually used in comparison is deaths per TWh, on which basis nuclear is almost certainly safer than rooftop solar or wind generation.



 

Comments on this Entry

Posted by Anonymous (88.177.xx.xx) on Fri 7 May 2010 at 00:02
Of course, only counting deaths already happened does not tell much about the risks we'll encounter when the nuclear plants get 90 years old and more. Of course, you're not counting as "deaths" all the lives inevitably gone digging for raw radioactive material.
The fact that the diggers usually live, and die, in other countries than the final consumers' doesn't mean we don't care for their lives, does it?
Moreover, I wouldn't like to live and die near a disposal site. You know those plants produce tons of rejects each year, don't you? I mean such that will intensely irradiate for millenniums. Not counting, the contaminated waters...

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Posted by Utumno (118.168.xx.xx) on Sun 23 May 2010 at 07:37
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^^^ the main sources of energy used today ( oil, coal, gas ) are even worse, whereas the so-called 'green energy' ( wind, solar, current, biomass ) is economically unprofitable ( with exception of wind, maybe, in some parts of the world ).

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Posted by Anonymous (159.242.xx.xx) on Tue 1 Jun 2010 at 08:05
Clearly, you don't know much about nuclear power generation. There is virtual zero danger from disposal sites simply because we don't really have any! The vast majority of waste is contained in above ground containers near the power plants that generated them. Furthermore, uranium is not a dangerous radioactive substance when we mine it. It becomes dangerous after we enriched it and started burning it. Furthermore, we need VERY small amounts of it to produce a lot of power. So, mining uranium is many times safer than mining for coal or other materials. In fact, in Japan, they are working on extracting Uranium from the ocean, which is even safer! You get a thousand times more radiation from standing outside and breathing the air (and a million times more from X-Rays and MRIs) than what you get from being near an above ground nuclear waste container. Yes, the potential for death and destruction is far greater with nuclear power. However, it is for this very reason that so many precautions are taken and why it's safety record is so much better than wind power or hydroelectric (which has the worst safety record of them all).

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