this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
681 points (86.2% liked)
Memes
45728 readers
1117 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yes coal is indeed very bad and needs go away immediately. But I'm not so sure if coal being bad makes radiation cancers from Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island, Sellafield, etc etc etc not worth caring about.
Some nuclear disasters are a bit overstated honestly. Like Three Mile Island was a tiny amount of radiation. Coal ash releases more radiation regularly. It’s just part of our normal “accepted” energy production and doesn’t get the media focus.
They're definitely worth caring about (and for) but I'd say it's really important to put the dangers of nuclear power in the context of what we're already doing, and it's magnitudes safer. While I feel like we should be pushing for more renewables regardless, at the same time nuclear's still really viable because it doesn't have the availability (renewables are weather dependent) and storage (you can just keep running it on demand) issues.