bobins wrote: ↑11 Nov 2019, 16:41
Wonder how offshore windfarms would stand up to a tsunami ? Still, I s'pose that could never happen.......
Wonder how onshore windfarms would stand up to a once in a hundred years hurricane ? No chance of that ever happeneing though.......
Offshore wind turbines are anchored solidly to the ocean floor in the same manner as offshore oil drilling rigs. Do we hear of many oil rigs blowing over in a tsunami ? In danerously high winds the turbine blade pitch is feathered to minimise wind capture and the turbine itself is deliberately stalled. In this condition it can survive extremely high winds many times their maximum operational wind speed.
One thing I do know for sure is that a wind farm damaged by a tsunami or hurricane is not going to relase nuclear contamination into the environment or lead to any deaths.
Michel wrote: ↑11 Nov 2019, 19:14
... and that, folks, is exactly the kind of scaremongering nonsense which has prevented nuclear power from being far wider spread.
Scaremongering nonsence would be if I was making claims something could happen that can't. Instead I was drawing your attention to a disaster that has already happened, not some imaginary theoretical. A disaster that without a lot of human sacrifice and a LOT of luck would have had consequences 100x worse, and not just in the country of origin. They literally saved the situation for the whole of Europe by the skin of their teeth, and 30 years later Ukraine is still having to maintain and improve the original crumbling sarcophagus to continue to keep Europe safe from the radioactive fallout that is still in the reactor building.
WHO estimate 4.5 million people worldwide die *every year* from causes directly relatable to air pollution. Please , do share with us how many people nuclear power accidents have killed? Directly or indirectly. Even if you take the most pessimistic estimate, since 1956, it's still less than 1/6th of that 4.5 million number. Coal mining accidents killed more people between 1956 and 1960 than Nuclear power accidents have ever done. Hell, one mining disaster in China killed more people in one go. Records show that over 6000 miners have died over the years in Wales alone. All for digging out that nasty polluting stuff eh?
What purpose does this line of argument serve ? 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.
How many people have been killed by a malfunctioning wind turbine or solar panel ? Zero ?
I don't understand your line of reasoning which seems to be that because fossil fuel pollution kills a lot more people than nuclear we should jump into bed with nuclear. Why are only two choices on the table ?
Maybe I have a different world view from you growing up in a country that has had an anti-nuclear policy for over 30 years now...
Fukushima killed nobody. Not staff, not local people. Don't attribute natural disasters with nuclear accidents please. Stupid place to have built it, but no one will make that mistake again.
If a natural disaster triggers a nuclear accident then its still a nuclear accident. duh. It doesn't matter whether someone was asleep at the controls or a tsunami came in.
As for it being a bad place to build a nuclear reactor, the entire island of Japan is a natural disaster waiting to happen, both tsunami's and earthquakes. If they'd built it inland it would have just been hit by an earthquake instead. Japan just isn't a safe place to build a nuclear reactor.
Yes. I did watch Chernobyl. Not sure what your point is.. yeah, it was terrible. Again, no one will make that mistake twice.
Wow, the hubris to say that nobody will ever make mistakes again (design, manufacturing or operational) that result in a nuclear reactor mishap is unbelievable. If you really believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.
How many planes have continued to crash after previous crashes were fully investigated, the cause was found and changes were put into place to prevent them happening again. And yet planes continue to malfunction and crash. Why is the nuclear reactor industry immune to mistakes, oversights, laziness, mismanagement, bad planning and operational procedures, cost cutting, falsifying of testing etc etc...
Why should I put my well being and avoiding being irradiated in the hands of greedy for profit corporations ?
I'm well aware of all the dangers having lived with them for years. My father was a planning engineer at Dungeness B, then at Sellafield later on..
I was about to say you must either drink the coolaid or work in the nuclear industry. I wasn't too far off I suppose, and your bias is clear. I don't have any connection to nuclear, wind, solar or any other generation, nor do any family or friends. I just like wind and solar on their merits and dislike nuclear due to the severity of the risks, however unlikely they are to happen.
I take it you'll be scrapping your polluting Xantia forthwith and using only renewables in your EV from now on?
I've already said on several occasions that the Xantia is probably my last ICE car, and it already does less than 10% of my yearly mileage.
And yes for the last 3 years (since before I bought the Ion) I've been on an energy tarrif that is 100% renewable electricity, and this is used for over 90% of the charging I do on the Ion. (The remaining 10% being public rapid chargers whose generation source is unknown to me)
How's your move to renewable energy and lower pollution going ?