Dump Your Deezel

[bobins]

How many people have been killed by nuclear pollution and accidents ? Quite a few. How much land has been rendered unlivable for decades or centuries due to accidents ? Quite a lot.

On a point of order, and to try and put a bit of perspective on this, the Chernobyl accident hasn't actually rendered that much land unlivable - but there is a caveat to that : the land wasn't exactly inhabited to start with. The Pripyat Marshes were very sparsely populated, and quite a few inhabitants have moved back now anyway. Pripyat town itself - the one that has the Ferris wheel and gets all the attention - is just about empty of inhabitants, but Chernobyl town is thriving and inhabited... though I can't really recommend the hotel They are putting some of the Pripyat land to excellent use though - they've got a solar farm built there

As for Fukushima - yep, I fully realise that one needs a lot of analysis and work on the land and that the accident there has devastated the area. "A comprehensive assessment by international experts on the health risks associated with the Fukushima I nuclear power plant disaster concluded in 2013 that, for the general population inside and outside Japan, the predicted risks were low and no observable increases in cancer rates above baseline rates were anticipated." Bear in mind though that Japan has very high energy needs and the temporary removal of their nuclear generating capacity has caused electricity shortages. "The (Japanese) Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said in 2017 that if the country is to meet its obligations under the Paris climate accord, then nuclear energy needs to make up between 20-22% of the nation's portfolio mix."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Japan

[Hell Razor5543]

Can we agree that (regardless of how it is generated) pollution kills? The fallout from a nuclear accident (however it occurred) is pollution. The soot from a coal fired generator is pollution (as with oil and gas powered generators). The London pea-soup fogs were caused by pollution (and in 1952 such a fog lasted four days, killed (it is estimated) 12,000 people, hospitalised 150,000 more, and caused countless animal deaths). It is not difficult to look up statistics that show arguments for or against the various power generation schemes. That does not mean they are right or wrong, just that they need to be looked at clearly and objectively.

People make mistakes (even with the best intentions). I believe it has been said that if you were to invent a fool-proof system somebody else would breed a bigger fool. The best we can hope for is that competent, intelligent people learn from the mistakes made in the past, evaluate the risks and do their best to minimise them whatever power generation system they develop.

[mickthemaverick]

Up to this point nobody has acknowledged that the nuclear power station requires fuel in the shape of Uranium235 in order to produce the heat by fission for vapourising the water to drive the turbines. Most naturally occurring Uranium is in the form U238 which has to undergo enrichment before it can be used in the reactor. Thus a nuclear power station still requires mining and processing which in themselves use other forms of energy. So the industry is not completely 'clean'.
This info shows more about the aquisition of fuel:

Resources and reserves
It is estimated that 5.5 million tonnes of uranium exists in ore reserves that are economically viable at US$59 per lb of uranium,[70] while 35 million tonnes are classed as mineral resources (reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction).[71] Prices went from about $10/lb in May 2003 to $138/lb in July 2007. This has caused a big increase in spending on exploration,[70] with US$200 million being spent worldwide in 2005, a 54% increase on the previous year.[71] This trend continued through 2006, when expenditure on exploration rocketed to over $774 million, an increase of over 250% compared to 2004. The OECD Nuclear Energy Agency said exploration figures for 2007 would likely match those for 2006.[70]

Australia has 31% of the world's known uranium ore reserves[72] and the world's largest single uranium deposit, located at the Olympic Dam Mine in South Australia.[73] There is a significant reserve of uranium in Bakouma a sub-prefecture in the prefecture of Mbomou in Central African Republic.

Some nuclear fuel comes from nuclear weapons being dismantled,[74] such as from the Megatons to Megawatts Program.

An additional 4.6 billion tonnes of uranium are estimated to be in sea water (Japanese scientists in the 1980s showed that extraction of uranium from sea water using ion exchangers was technically feasible).[75][76] There have been experiments to extract uranium from sea water,[77] but the yield has been low due to the carbonate present in the water. In 2012, ORNL researchers announced the successful development of a new absorbent material dubbed HiCap which performs surface retention of solid or gas molecules, atoms or ions and also effectively removes toxic metals from water, according to results verified by researchers at Pacific Energy.

[bobins]

Can we agree that (regardless of how it is generated) pollution kills?
<much snippage>......

Yep, and the only way we're ever going to crack that issue is by reducing the world population and reducing rampant global consumerism, and by stopping the 'developing' countries developing - and that ain't ever going to happen.
......so guess what folks, pollution in all colourful and widespread forms, is here to stay

[white exec]

There are some grounds for optimism. though.
We no longer put lead into petrol (and water pipes), arsenic into wallpaper and dress fabric, cobalt into paint, mercury into batteries, and have reduced our use of VOCs and high doses of X-rays.
Still plenty to monitor, big money to watch, and lessons to be learned.

[Hell Razor5543]

Another (indirect) cause of pollution are governments who want their population to have what they want now, whatever the consequences ("not our problem" attitude). Well, what the various populations around the world need to be asking is "What sort of world will we leave for our children?". Currently, the way things are going, the answer appears (to me, at least) to be "A graveyard".

[NewcastleFalcon]

Yep, and the only way we're ever going to crack that issue is by reducing the world population and reducing rampant global consumerism, and by stopping the 'developing' countries developing - and that ain't ever going to happen.

..and that is why our friends at BP are so relaxed/complacent about their future profitability. Global energy demand inevitably on the way up due to those reasons of increasing population and "developing" countries. At the same time they can tinker around a bit with alternative energy "greening" their image up a bit with a bit of electrical or hydrogen infrastructure for transport, or buying into a few solar/wind schemes, while at the same time creating a nice little green revenue stream, to compliment their core business.

REgards Neil

[Gibbo2286]

I borrowed this from the Birmingham history website, pollution, what pollution?

[NewcastleFalcon]

Excellent little film Gibbo. I'll link it to the scrapyard tales thread too.

Regards Neil

[bobins]

Well, what the various populations around the world need to be asking is "What sort of world will we leave for our children?". Currently, the way things are going, the answer appears (to me, at least) to be "A graveyard".

Errrrr..... But yes, that is what we are leaving them. There is a grim inevitability about that. Like it or not the planet will eventually become uninhabitable - we can delay that occasion by a day, a week, a year...... but it's still, ultimately, heading for hell in a handcart
To get a bit existential about it : Mankind's existence will bring about the demise of Mankind's existence. What a cheery thought for a Tuesday morning

[NewcastleFalcon]

To get a bit existential about it : Mankind's existence will bring about the demise of Mankind's existence. What a cheery thought for a Tuesday morning

Your challenge, should you decide to accept it, is to put up a suitably apocalyptic POTD for those cheery words!

Regards Neil

[bobins]

If I wasn't typing on a mobile, I'd put up Zager and Evans on the P.E. jukebox, and if I was at home I'd be rifling through my 10,000 odd (very odd?!?!) Cold War related photos

[Peter.N.]

Your'e not wrong Bobbins - but there is hope.

Peter

[Mandrake]

"All wind turbines are designed for a maximum wind speed, called the survival speed, above which they will be damaged. The survival speed of commercial wind turbines is in the range of 40 m/s (144 km/h, 89 MPH) to 72 m/s (259 km/h, 161 MPH). The most common survival speed is 60 m/s (216 km/h, 134 MPH). Some have been designed to survive 80 metres per second (290 km/h; 180 mph)"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine_design

My original point was actually relating to the fact that all energy generating methods have their drawbacks and no one method is the best, nor should we rely on any one method.

And if a once in 30 year freak tsunami wipes out a few dozen offshore wind turbines nobody is injured as they're all unmanned. As they're a distributed system the ones that aren't taken down keep working once the storm has passed. Done properly, wind generation has a massive diversity factor.

Quite a different scenario than something like Fukashima where damage to the reactors both caused risk of harm to people requiring evacuations and took out the entire generation output of the Fukashima plant in one blow. One problem with nuclear is its anything but distributed. If a nuclear reactor has a problem that takes it offline, whether accident, unplanned maintenance etc, that is a large chunk of generation lost.

How many oil rigs blow over ? More than you realize....?

[...]

The Seacrest Drillship disaster in the South China Sea, 430km south of Bangkok, Thailand, killed 91 crew members on 3 November 1989. The 4,400t drillship was anchored for drilling at the Platong gas field owned and operated by Unocal. The drillship was capsized by the Typhoon Gay, which produced 40ft-high waves on the day of the accident.

I'm not sure what relevance a drilling ship capsizing has to the fixed oil platforms we're talking about ?

The Ocean Ranger oil drilling rig disaster, which occurred in the North Atlantic Sea off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, on 15 February 1982, is one of the deadliest offshore oil rig accidents in history. The offshore oil drilling capsized and sank, killing 84 crew members on-board.
The rig was capsized due to a very strong storm, which produced 190km/h winds and waves up to 65ft (20m) high.

The Glomar Java Sea Drillship disaster took place on 25 October 1983 in the South China Sea. It caused the deaths of 81 people when the drillship capsized and sank at depth of 317ft, approximately 63 nautical miles south-west of Hainan Island, China, 80 nautical miles east of Vietnam.
Operations ceased prior to the arrival of tropical storm Lex as it approached from the east of the drilling site. Global Marine’s office in Houston, Texas, reported that the drillship was experiencing 75k (138.9km/h) winds over the bow, but the contact was abruptly lost."

https://www.offshore-technology.com/fea ... s-4149812/

I could go on.......

Good job wind turbines are not manned like oil platforms....

Can you find any references to capsized off shore wind turbines ? I'm sure there have been some, but I haven't heard of any. If some are occasionally damaged by freak Tsunami's then, meh, that's just the price of doing business out in the ocean. As long as nobody is injured and it doesn't cause widespread damage and loss of power.

[white exec]

If an off-shore wind turbine were to fall over, would that just be a drop on the ocean...?