I'm so curious as to how reactionaries will deal with bird flu. They could always be screeching toddlers about COVID because it meant being hygienic and polite to avoid a 1% FaTaLiTy RaTe, even if that didn't reflect how severe it actually is without killing you outright. I have no clue what bird flu looks like in the long-term, but there's that immediate 50% fatality rate. In theory that should make them take it seriously. BUT, in addition to all that 1984 COVID precautions which also suppressed other respiratory viruses, the only way to avoid this one is to not. eat. burger. That is their entire identity and they've spent the past four years hyped up on COVID denialism.
Nuclear problem is costs, not safety. If safety was the primary goal you would be arguing that we should be shutting down solar arrays and wind turbines, given they kill far more people than nuclear. They’ve also wiped out a lot fewer towns than dams and coal plants have, but those don’t have big scary words attached to them and so people don’t care.
It is eminently reasonable to try and keep clean power operating instead of continually shuttering it for more natural gas plants.
Let's play a game: solar == bicycle, wind == motorcycle, coal/methane == automobile, hydro == train, nuclear == airplane — admittedly, the metaphors analogies aren't perfect but they'll do for today. Although it would be regrettable having an accident with any of these transports, which one's "worst case scenario" would you prefer?
There's a nice table a few paragraphs down. Solar and wind definitely have much smaller death rates than any fossil fuel, but nuclear still wins.
Also, planes are the poster child of things that seem scary and get a lot of news, but are actually much safer on a mundane basis. You're literally arguing that we should do the thing with a higher death toll because the other thing looks scary.
That article's a little stale, ain't it? Even Forbes says so. And "deathprint per trillion kWhs"? What is that in months? Years? What does solar's "deathprint" ultimately work out to? 8 people fell off their roof installing panels in, what, 10 years?
It lists deaths per kwh to normalize over how much power you gain. A power source that kills 10 people and gives you 1 million kwh is safer than a power source that kills 3 people and gives you 100 kwh.
Deaths due to solar are hard to estimate. Most people just point at roofing (which is pretty dangerous even compared to most construction jobs) and assign a percentage of roofing deaths based on how many panels are being installed. This article estimates 100-150 deaths a year just in the US.
Again, your logic is false. The size of a particular accident is irrelevant. What matters is total deaths over a long time, averaged out over how much energy they generated. If there is a demand for X amount of power over a decade, whichever energy source meets that demand with the fewest deaths should be the one we pick. Anything non-fossil fuel is two orders of magnitude better, so that is what we should be building.
Quite bluntly, you seem allergic to big numbers. That is not an argument.
Michigan
Top
This magazine is not receiving updates (last activity 0 day(s) ago). Subscribe to start receiving updates.