A big drama in the UK as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace discover that solar farms occupy plenty of space and cannot decide what is more evil: 7 hectares of nuclear power plant or 298 km2 of solar power plant.
@kravietz that reads more like propaganda than coherent argument, as if land use were the only topic here. Very one-sided.
But not surprising as he is part of this "generation atomic" thing, that is basically a lobby group posing as a "grassroots" organisation, no? ... whilst also working in the nuclear industry.
This kind of communication gives me the feel of PR greenwashing like when oil companies try to rebrand themselves as environmental. Not the whole story.
And yes, land use *is* a huge concern here, especially if you have to cover ~300 ha of land with glass.
@kravietz @nicksellen Hi there! Since I read your debate, I would like to add some thoughts.
1. Rewilding by nuclear power can really be effective. Demonstration sites can be visited in the Ukraine and in Japan.
2. Solar power can be integrated very well into the built environment. There is still a huge potential of space, even if it is more costly than solar farms. And it has the potential of democraticing the energy production and use (please don't start with mini nuclear plants, it is a difference if I get my energy from the sun, or from fission, including handling the waste).
3. If people decide to live with and from nuclear power, I respect that. As long as people who do not trust in this technology get a chance to live in nuclear free zones. And I personally would rather reduce my energy consumption than to live near a nuclear power plant. Besides, the question should not be nuclear vs. regenerative, but how do we want to live on this planet.
> Demonstration sites can be visited in the Ukraine and in Japan
Please, do not use such cheap propaganda.
If you want the latter, demonstration site for renewable energy can be visited at Mountain Pass mine or hundreds of unregulated mines in Africa or China. Hydro power demo site can be visited in Banqiao where 230'000 people died. Thousands of hectares occupied by coal ash. Hundreds of km2 occupied by wind farms. Etc etc.
@kravietz @nicksellen
These sites I mentioned are no propaganda. They just show how much space can be liberated for nature by this technology. It was not me who shared this meme about the space requirements of these technologies. Sorry that this fits not into your preferred energy solution.
Taking two nuclear accidents over 70 years history of nuclear power *and* ignoring areas polluted and people killed by any other sources, including renewables, is a textbook example of propaganda.
@kravietz @nicksellen Well, than the shared meme would also be propaganda, since it ignores so many things. By the way, do you ignore that these two examples prohibit human settlement over a very long time period? And do you ignore that the caused long-term death rate of only the first incident is estimeated to be in the million? (and yeah, I know, the WHO has a different estimation)
Just to be clear, at the time of Chernobyl disaster I was living 700 km away in Kraków and we obviously were not notified until like 3 days later.
There was no visible increase in cases of thyroid cancer in Poland, and you can collect mushrooms in forests because any levels of cesium are so nominal that they have no biological effects.
But you know what is very widespread in Kraków? Lung cancer and other lung diseases caused by coal.
@kravietz @nicksellen Yeah, we both lived behind the iron curtain :)
Do you trust the reports on related cases from those days? I mean, this would not have looked well...
And coal, yeah, I am not a fan either
I wouldn't worry about that, radiological labs in Poland detected the leak the next day, they just were suppressed from making it public. Then communism collapsed only 3 years later and there was no reason to falsify thyroid cases. Same for milk, grass, mushrooms etc.
I know because I argued with a friend from Bavaria about this, and he pulled the actual radiologic data for me, and the cesium doses are so low that they can be only detected because the modern equipment is very sensitive, and they definitely have no biological effect.
Same story with recent news by EU Greens about "forest fires in Chernobyl released radioactivity". The detected increase was 1 nSv which is 1/1000 of the background radiation anywhere on Earth 🤦♂️
But hey, now imagine German radiologic service withdraws this monitoring and says "you can now eat mushroom" - Greenpeace would spin such a crazy FUD in the news about "WILLINGLY KILLING PEOPLE WITH RADIATION IN MUSHROOM" that people wouldn't care about silly things like dose.
Then, to get cured, they would go to have a radon bath in one of the popular German radon spas 😂
@kravietz @nicksellen Well, it was always only a certain area there. It's a big country with lots of mushrooms :)
I would like to close this discussion by referring to something that Nick said, about that this discussion will hardly change anything. I think he is right, even though it was an interesting exchange. Real world costs for investing in nuclear energy rise and rise, while wind and solar getting cheaper and cheaper. No energy is free, but it might help if you need no fuel for the operation.
Good night.
"The only way to learn is by changing your mind."
Orson Scott Card
P.S. you still havent' replied anything about the K+S undeground storage https://www.kpluss.com/en-us/our-business-products/waste-management/underground-disposal/ so I assume you are not concerned about the health of Germans living in the densely populated country :)
@kravietz @nicksellen Good point. I know only of parts of the Bavarian forests were it is still not adviced to eat mushrooms because of still high radiation in that system.