I’m not sure if we’re allowed to ask questions on this sub. It seems mostly news articles but I figured I’d give it a go.
So Bruce Power in Ontario is planning to build the world’s biggest nuclear plant in the world (by expanding on an existing plant).
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/ontario-new-nuclear-build-1.6897701
BC is more well known for hydroelectric, but that particular source hasn’t really been greatly expanded on in decades and site-C is pretty controversial.
This got be thinking:
How do we in BC feel about nuclear power? Would you support one near where you live? Why or why not, and what other power options would you prefer?
I mean, I live in Vancouver which expects a large earthquake at some point. Earthquakes are bad but seriously awful with a nuclear power plant nearby.
In general though, nuclear is probably one of the best options to help transition towards a renewable economy. (Not itself renewable but to my understanding, significantly less carbon intensive than gas, coal or oil, even including the mining and refining. But I could be wrong.)
Looking at Japan, earthquakes aren’t that big of a problem.
Tsunamis that take out the backup energy system and destroy all the surrounding infrastructure… that was the problem.
In my opinion, nuclear power plants should give away 5% of their energy to surrounding residents and provide district heating. That’s only fair to compensate for the reduction in property values.
To each their own! My takeaways from that were that serious accidents generally introduce unexpected complications, we got really lucky with Fukushima and taking chances with one of the most devastating natural phenomena might not be the most best gameplan.
We got lucky? Dude… Sure it can always be worse. Chernobyl could have been worse too.
But actually both of them are really bad in any case. Nothing you want to see repeated, ever.
Fukishima and Chernobyl are nothing alike. Drawing a likeness between them is is incredibly dishonest (or abysmally-informed). There really isn’t much in the way of how Chernobyl could have been worse, and a meltdown like Chernoby isn’t even possible anymore.
Oh no, Chernobyl could have been a LOT worse. It’s really worth learning about.
“If the three courageous men were not successful in their mission the Chernobyl death toll was likely to reach the millions. Nuclear physicist Vassili Nesterenko declared that the blast would have had a force of 3-5 megatons leaving much of Europe uninhabitable for hundreds of thousands of years.”
https://www.history.co.uk/article/the-real-story-of-the-chernobyl-divers#:~:text=If the three courageous men,hundreds of thousands of years.
3-5 megatons? You don’t get blasts like that from a ruptured steam vessel. That takes a nuclear explosion. You are aware that not only was Chernobyl not a nuclear explosion, there is nothing in any nuclear power plant anywhere even capable of creating a nuclear explosion of any magnitude, right?
You are welcome to provide a source that backs up your claim, like I did!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_meltdown
Nothing alike? You can look up the differences in relocated population etc yourself here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_Chernobyl_and_Fukushima_nuclear_accidents
Look, they are not the same. But the world would be better off if none of the two had happened and we ought to be very fucking sure it never happens again. And I got just the idea how to make sure of that. No, the answer is not coal plants, neither “new and safe” nuclear.
The history of nuclear power could have had 10 Chernobyls and no improvements in reactor design, and it would still be a better, safer source of power than the mix we’re using now. The amount of death from nuclear power is unbelievably low. It’s infinitessimal compared to other sources, on a per-joule basis. It’s even lower than solar power, somehow.
And why in the world would NPPs becoming safer (which, relative to Chernobyl, they already are) not make it an obvious solution? And what solution do you have that’s better than NPPs, coal, and gas that would be suitable for base load power? And don’t you dare say “wind” or “solar,” because those are not dispatchable sources of power.