But why not same scrutiny for coal?

Correct operation of a coal plant has global impact, and therefore coal should be phased out entirely.

Absent that, when a coal plant goes badly wrong, the damage is small enough and localised enough to be affordable.

When a nuclear plant goes wrong, the upper bound for error includes both Chrenobyl and also "unknown parties stole the radioisotopes" followed by terrorists repeating the Goiânia accident somewhere.

Making all the failure modes not happen is expensive.

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dzhiurgis 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

But one is enforced (nuclear security) and coal is not.

p.s. ICE cars are literally spewing cancer fumes right into kids faces. 0 fucks given. If anything people try to frame EVs as actual devil.

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ben_w 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

I would like to enforce a coal ban, but nobody gave me an army with which to do so.

Not that I could've enforced it for all those years even if I had an army, as coal was dominant for so long for the same reason it is now being rapidly displaced: cost.

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nandomrumber 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Except that modern car engines are vastly improved over their 1970’s carburettor fed, catalytic convertered, counterparts.

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2 days ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

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dzhiurgis 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Go and run your car in garage lol.

I swear HN is infested with bots now.

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TheSpiceIsLife 2 days ago | parent [-]

That’s going to kill me because the exhaust is dominated by carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.

It isn’t going to kill me via the route you suggest: by giving kids cancer.

It’s Christmas very shortly, try not to be this much of a cunt around you’re family.

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dzhiurgis 2 days ago | parent [-]

You probably wanna look up benzene to start.

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nandomrumber 2 days ago | parent [-]

You think benzene is toxic?

Wait till you meet your attitude!

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dzhiurgis a day ago | parent [-]

> toxic

It's cancerogenic. Namely causes leukemia. 20k deaths per year in US alone.

But yeah, throw some jokes around. Maybe something about lead retarding detonation?

	▲	nandomrumber a day ago \| parent [-]
		Merry Christmas, here’s your pound of tetraethyl lead.

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nandomrumber 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

In the entire history of civil nuclear power "unknown parties stole the radioisotopes" has never happened.

The Goiânia accident caused four deaths.

The Chrenobyl reactors weren’t even housed in containment buildings, they were housed in what’s best described as a shed.

Got any real complaints?

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ben_w 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> In the entire history of civil nuclear power "unknown parties stole the radioisotopes" has never happened.

This reads a bit like "why do we need a QA department when we don't have any bugs"?

The reason nobody stole the stuff from reactors is because everyone has, by international law and also nonbinding recommendations, security and armed guards making sure they don't. These are not free.

The Goiânia accident was stupidity, not malice, so you can't predict how many people would die if it was done maliciously from how many were killed. My understanding is what keeps people (relatively) safe from this type of attack at the moment, is the public deployment of radiation sensors since 9/11, which we know about because of people with radioisotopes in them for medical reasons getting caught by them. These are not free.

The Chrenobyl reactors were housed in what’s "best described as a shed" because that was cheap. Same for all of the other design issues with those reactors: it made them cheap.

The rules that make reactors expensive are written in incidents.

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Forgeties79 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> The Chrenobyl reactors weren’t even housed in containment buildings, they were housed in what’s best described as a shed.

And why was that allowed? Because of quality regulation?

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TheSpiceIsLife 2 days ago | parent [-]

Got any examples of any presently operating civil power reactors that don’t have their reactor cores in some kind of containment structure?

Others I guess the answer to your question is: fuckwit communists were running the place at the time.

	▲	Forgeties79 a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Chernobyl happened while I was alive. It wasn’t that long ago. The leader of the Soviet Union who presided over the disaster (Gorbachev) died only 3 years ago. Aside from that, “because communism” is not a serious answer.
	▲	ImPostingOnHN a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Whether a deregulationist considers themselves communist or capitalist is a red herring: being in favor of dangerous deregulation spans many different national economic persuasions.

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Forgeties79 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Why do you think I am more generous towards the coal industry? We are talking about nuclear power. If you would like my opinion on coal, I will gladly give it to you. You never asked.

For starters: I think clean coal is absolute nonsense (I’ve cited the White House’s outrageous stance on this several times on HN) and people brush away the environmental, social, and general health impacts of coal to their own peril. We know the harmful impacts. We know the body count. We have alternatives and it’s time to move on.

I am absolutely 100% critical of the coal industry/power - far more than I am of nuclear. It doesn’t even compare.

So to answer your question:

> But why not same scrutiny for coal?

I’ll give you the same answer I give every person who gives me this tired refrain without ever even trying to suss out what I think about coal: I am. You are misinformed. And it has no impact on my desire to demand the highest safety standards for nuclear power.