Fossil Fuels Caused 8.7 Million Deaths Globally in 2018, Research Finds (theguardian.com) 200
Air pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil was responsible for 8.7 million deaths globally in 2018, a staggering one in five of all people who died that year, new research has found. From a report: Countries with the most prodigious consumption of fossil fuels to power factories, homes and vehicles are suffering the highest death tolls, with the study finding more than one in 10 deaths in both the US and Europe were caused by the resulting pollution, along with nearly a third of deaths in eastern Asia, which includes China. Death rates in South America and Africa were significantly lower. The enormous death toll is higher than previous estimates and surprised even the study's researchers. "We were initially very hesitant when we obtained the results because they are astounding, but we are discovering more and more about the impact of this pollution," said Eloise Marais, a geographer at University College London and a study co-author. "It's pervasive. The more we look for impacts, the more we find." The 8.7 million deaths in 2018 represent a "key contributor to the global burden of mortality and disease," states the study, which is the result of collaboration between scientists at Harvard University, the University of Birmingham, the University of Leicester and University College London. The death toll exceeds the combined total of people who die globally each year from smoking tobacco plus those who die of malaria.
Research Finds 'Everybody Dies' (Score:2, Insightful)
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Well, I'd really still rather have my car(s).
Hell, I"m wanting to maybe pick up an old 70's muscle car, maybe something with a 455 4-speed, 10 gallons to the mile...to have some fun in while there's still somewhat "cheap" gas around.
And besides...that last year isn't usually the best year, when being
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Well, I'd really still rather have my car(s).
Cars don't have to run on fossil fuels.
Hell, I"m wanting to maybe pick up an old 70's muscle car, maybe something with a 455 4-speed, 10 gallons to the mile...
My Tesla goes from 0 to 60 way faster than your muscle car.
And besides...that last year isn't usually the best year, when being old and sick, eh?
Life is like a rubber band. When you stretch it, you are lengthening all of it. You aren't just adding extra rubber to the end.
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My Tesla goes from 0 to 60 way faster than your muscle car.
Isn't it also full of software and updates and all of that stuff? How easy is it to work on it? Do you have to go to the dealer to change tires?
When gasoline powered cars start to be banned or at least very heavily taxed, I'd probably convert my current car to run on electricity. And still keep it with no computers or at most whatever the microcontroller is needed to control charging etc.
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How easy is it to work on it?
The wiper blades are easy to change.
Other than that, there is nothing to fix. EVs are nearly maintenance-free.
Do you have to go to the dealer to change tires?
No.
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EVs are nearly maintenance-free.
The motor might be, but not so much for other things - steering linkages, brakes and such. Even if steering is not directly linked to the steering wheel, there are some mechanical parts that move the wheels. There's probably AC, heating and a fan to blow air inside. Those parts will wear out (and rust) over time, just like in a gasoline powered car and they will need to be rebuilt or replaced. Unless all of those parts are made from materials that do not corrode in the presence of salt from the road, they w
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The brakes don't wear out. EVs use regenerative braking. So only the last few percent of kinetic energy is absorbed by the brakes. The factory brake pads will usually last the life of the car.
The AC and heater are so wimpy that they are hardly worth turning on. So they don't get much wear either. This is no big deal to me because I live in San Jose, where the weather is perfect 95% of the time.
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The AC and heater are so wimpy that they are hardly worth turning on
That sucks. Because where I live, the temperature outside can be from -30C to about +35C, I turn AC on at about 24C outside.
Heater is needed to defrost the windows in the morning in winter.
I guess electric car would be better than diesel, because it can be difficult to start a diesel car when it's colder than about -15C, while the electric car would probably work fine. OTOH, on a gasoline or diesel car, heat comes "free" from the engine, while turning the heater on would, I assume, discharge the batter of a
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If you have weather like that and your diesel is parked outside, you plug in the block heater. It's irritating, but not a show-stopper.
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Yeah, it's a bit more difficult for people who live in apartments, the car may be parked 20 or 50 meters from the apartment and such (long extension cable needed). I prefer gasoline though, it can start in cold weather, as long as the battery is somewhat OK.
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The motor might be, but not so much for other things - steering linkages, brakes and such.
Ev's mostly do regenerative braking. Actually some of them occasionally use the brake pads when not necessary for stopping every so often in order to remove rust from the discs.
Even if steering is not directly linked to the steering wheel, there are some mechanical parts that move the wheels. There's probably AC, heating and a fan to blow air inside. Those parts will wear out (and rust) over time, just like in a gasoli
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You can't escape the fact that EVs are a lot more mechanically simple.
I don't deny that. However, over time, car manufacturers have made it increasingly more difficult to repair the cars. Either by making it very difficult to access various parts or by some binding of the part to the car computer, where if you change the tires or some other part, you have to go to an "authorized service" to reset codes, otherwise the car won't work correctly. So, while electric cars may be more mechanically simple than new gasoline cars, I'm pretty sure they are more complicated overall compa
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What dealer?
Life is like a rubber band... (Score:2)
And besides...that last year isn't usually the best year, when being old and sick, eh?
Life is like a rubber band. When you stretch it, you are lengthening all of it. You aren't just adding extra rubber to the end.
I am totally going to steal that quote.
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My Tesla goes from 0 to 60 way faster than your muscle car.
That's great for drag racing but there are also races that go around a track for many miles, or race cross country. While your Tesla is slowing down to keep the battery from overheating the muscle car is still going strong. Likely the muscle car needs to slow down some for heat reasons too but not near as much as the Tesla. When the Tesla battery is dead and the muscle car out of fuel the muscle car will be back on the track in seconds while the Tesla is in the pit for minutes. If someone wants to figur
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Have you looked at the Nurburgring times for the Model S plaid? They will smoke any muscle car around a road course. The overheating issues were a problem because the early Model S did not have a cooling system and batteries that could keep up. But that's a problem of older designs rather than inherent to EVs.
Newer models will also hit 500 miles of range on a charge. Unless you are going for the cannonball run, I'm thinking you'll want to stop for a meal during that time, which should be enough to charge.
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Unless you are going for the cannonball run, I'm thinking you'll want to stop for a meal during that time, which should be enough to charge.
I know plenty of people that aren't racing a cannonball that would not consider an EV. A couple with a child or two is not always going to want to have to get all the kids out of the car to eat on a long trip. If they do then they want to leave as soon as the kids are ready to go, not when the car is ready to go. I can certainly remember plenty of times I'd need to go somewhere and stop for only 15 minutes to gas up and buy something to eat while I drive. I often consider stopping for more than 15 minut
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You're not going to win an argument on the "keeps going" front with an old car.
I just did.
If you believe I lost the argument then you are not looking at the same argument I am.
But there's a reason people generally prefer modern cars (gas or electric) to old ones.
Yes, I agree. If people want a vehicle that can go long distance in a short amount of time then they are not getting an EV. This doesn't have to be a race, just taking a weekend trip to visit Gramma will leave people looking for a gasoline burner. One big selling point for the gasoline burner is refill times. Another is upfront costs.
I mean sure if you need to drive all the way across country right the fuck now and your muscle car is in absolutely tip-top shape and super well maintained you might have an edge on the Tesla. In the remaining 99.999% of your life, not so much.
And for 99.999% of the people they don't care about 0-60 times. If people
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I just did.
No you didn't.
If you believe I lost the argument then you are not looking at the same argument I am.
Indeed: I think your argument is applicable to a tiny fraction of use cases and in the vast majority it doesn't apply.
Yes, I agree. If people want a vehicle that can go long distance in a short amount of time then they are not getting an EV. This doesn't have to be a race, just taking a weekend trip to visit Gramma will leave people looking for a gasoline burner. One big selling point for the gasol
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Indeed: I think your argument is applicable to a tiny fraction of use cases and in the vast majority it doesn't apply.
I believe the same for your arguments.
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But it doesn't have the classic car cool factor...it doesn't have the mean and distinct engine note, it doesn't have the smells and vibrations of the classic.
It is also missing the 4-speed part, which is half the fun.
The actual article (Score:2)
Thanks for the link to the actual article (instead of just the Guardian article discussing it).
For those who missed it, the study being talked about is here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]
Re: Research Finds 'Everybody Dies' (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't have it both ways.
You most certainly can. The way to reduce population is to moderate the birth rate. This does not involve killing people.
You can't complain that there are too many people but at the same time complain that [some problem] is killing people.
Yes, you can. This is a straw man argument. It is perfectly reasonable to want both a planet with fewer people, and also want to have those people have a higher quality of life.
If there really are too many people then getting rid of them is a good thing.
You might think so, but in fact, that turns out to be counter productive. When infant and child mortality is high, birth rates increase. This is, in part, because if people count on their children to support them when they get old, then increasing child mortality means that they need more children to make sure at least one survives to support them.
Here's some data: "Bangladesh data have demonstrated that if not a single child died in a family then the average total fertility rate (TFR) was 2.6 children; when 1 child died the number was 4.7 children; 2 child deaths meant 6.2 children; and more than 3 child deaths boosted the TFR to 8.3 children.
ref: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov]
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or poor families participate in industries that need cheap/free labor, like subsistence farming or low-tech manufacturing. You can make a lot of rugs, buckets, or sandals if you have several children over the age of 6 working for the family. Obviously they need to produce more than they eat, and feeding a child cost less than hiring a full time adult.
Re: Research Finds 'Everybody Dies' (Score:2)
Sure but compared to what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Fossil fuels is what allowed the population explosion in the mid-20th century through the green revolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
That didn't happen with sunshine and puppies. It happened with cubic miles of oil.
Re:Sure but compared to what? (Score:5, Informative)
Another headline: Fossil fuels a prerequisite for the existence of at least 3/4 of the world's population.
Humans existed for roughly 190,000 years with a total population that didn't exceed about 5 million people. Over the next roughly 10,000 years, the invention of agriculture got us to around 500 million. The industrial revolution, powered first by coal and then oil, is what got us from 500 million to nearly 8 billion in 300 years- just a blink in terms of the arc of human history. Oil allowed crop fertilization, mechanized blows, long distance irrigation projects, and global food transport (allowing large populations in areas with little or no local food source).
Now, we have to figure out a way to prevent those same fossil fuels from taking the population back to its pre-industrial levels. 8.7 million deaths from pollution is nothing compared to that challenge.
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*Mechanized plows.
Re:Sure but compared to what? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sure but compared to what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing beats fossil fuels in terms of energy density and ease of use.
But that said, we can use our fossil fuel powered machines to create machines that don't depend on fossil fuel.
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Nothing beats fossil fuels in terms of energy density and ease of use.
I believe it more accurate to say it's hydrocarbon fuels that are difficult to beat. We don't have to drill for hydrocarbons, we can synthesize them.
The technology to create carbon neutral hydrocarbons has existed for a century. Low carbon emission energy sources that can produce the heat and electricity to power this process has also existed for a long time. Low carbon energy sources that are also relatively abundant, safe, low cost and low tech like onshore wind, geothermal, hydro, and nuclear fission.
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Just saying that isn't an argument. The question is if we could have developed technology that uses less dense methods of energy storage, and the answer is clearly yes. At the very least we could have developed renewable and other storage technologies (hydrogen, batteries etc.) much earlier than we did.
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Hydrogen is a boondoggle and wasn't even as practical as it is now until fairly recent technological developments to contain it and to avoid embrittlement, both involving advanced coatings that we didn't have the tech to make previously. It also wasn't cost-effective to produce it until we developed new catalysts which also required advanced materials science.
We could have done a whole lot more with wind, though... starting well before the industrial revolution.
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Prior to the industrial revolution, humans DID use less dense and renewable energy sources. Homes were heated with wood and lit with whale or other organically derived oils. Long distance transportation used wind power (sailing ships). Local transportation used animal power (horses or other pack animals). What machinery existed was powered by hydro power (water wheels) or wind. Humanity did in fact use 100% renewable power. It was precisely the energy density of fossil fuels that allowed the quantum leaps i
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I think you underestimate what could have been done. Back then we did some really massive engineering projects that required vast amounts of labour.
There were huge gains to be made too. The first underground trains were steam powered, and as you might imagine the effect on the passenger's health was pretty severe. The first electric trains were introduced on the underground in 1890.
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Yeah, humanity built the pyramids 5,000 years ago. But guess what? The population was around 1/100th of what it is today. The fact that we pulled off some big engineering projects with nothing but animal power doesn't mean simply doubling down on those technologies could have supported 7 Billion people.
By 1890, the industrial revolution had been underway for the better part of a century. Very limited electric and pneumatic trains existed in the late Victorian era, but there's good reason why the vast majori
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Compared to wind & solar (Score:2)
Re:Sure but compared to what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, but that happened because it was the only viable option. The point is now that progress has happened, and it's no longer the most viable option for power generation - it's artificially cheap because it externalises costs like healthcare impact and in real terms is therefore significantly more expensive than most renewables that have other benefits like no energy dependence on petro-dictatorships, minimal environmental damage, and minimal healthcare impact, so guess what? If we move to cleaner fuels we can take the next step in human progress again.
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The "father" of the "green revolution" (Norman Borlaug) regretted his actions, which he acknowledged only delayed mass starvation events, and probably made them worse by increasing population.
Don't let facts interfere with your worship, though.
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Civilization grew and advanced increasing the life expectancy of humans greatly. Yet civilization grew because of bloody wars, tribal violence, brutal conquests. Now that we have civilization, do we need to keep the wars forever? Do we thank Genghis Khan for his contributions, or do we thank the heavens that his time is long gone? So the same with oil - if it helped us grow does it mean we need to continue worshiping it?
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Due to the Green Revolution enabling unlimited grain production (which completely depletes soil nutrients)
Wrong.
We know how to keep farming the same land for thousands of years because we know how to restore the nutrients to the soil. This process of nutrients coming out of the soil and going back in was going on for millions of years before humans came along, we only had to observe the process and enhance it artificially.
we are facing global warming and an even greater crisis that no one really talks about: the complete depletion of arable topsoil. It's very likely we'll see large-scale starvation return within the next 60 years or so.
Whatever. People have been predicting global famines for hundreds of years and getting it wrong every time, why is this any different?
Modern farming doesn't deplete the topsoil, it creates m
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even if we don't put any money or effort into technology
Is that what I claimed? It is not. I expect considerable investment, both in money and human effort, in the resolution of any problems of producing food. Evidence of this investment are all those stories of vertical farms on Slashdot.
You cite no sources for your claim. I'm sure you will notice that I did not either. I'm making the claim of no coming food shortage because we burn food as fuel for our cars. There's people that use corn and soybeans as fuel to heat their homes. We have so much food that
Classic case (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a classic case of stating a statistic without a baseline for comparison. And it does this to further an alarmist agenda.
The enormous death toll is higher than previous estimates and surprised even the study's researchers
How many deaths would occur if everyone suddenly stopped using fossil fuels?
Okay, then what was the death rate *before* the industrial revolution? Not the total deaths, the deaths normalized for the much-smaller population?
The US death rate is about 2.8M per year, 10% of that is about 300K. Without fossil fuels, we would not have developed antibiotics or the green revolution or all the plastics we now use. What would the death rate without those products?
The current top causes of death in the US are:
Heart disease: 659,041
Cancer: 599,601
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 173,040
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 156,979
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 150,005
Alzheimer’s disease: 121,499
Diabetes: 87,647
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 51,565
Influenza and pneumonia: 49,783
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,511
It's hard to see where to assign 10% of those deaths to pollution. Respiratory, sure... but that's only 1.5% from a total 10% claimed by the research, and probably much of that is due to smoking (and not directly associated with pollution). A fair number of cancer and heart disease would have to be caused by pollution for the study to make sense. Does it make sense?
Current estimates indicate that pollution will have a negligible effect on the environment in the next 50 to 200 years, and we're actually solving the problem with technology before that. If you're older than 20, think back to the year 2000 and see if you can remember wind farms, the cost of solar panels, or that stupid GM electric golf cart that nobody wanted.
Compare to today, where we have LCD lights everywhere with 10x the efficiency, electric vehicles that people actually want to buy and that reduces fossil fuels overall, wind farms, solar farms, and rooftop solar.
And on the near horizon: self-driving vehicles and drone delivery of small items. Those will eliminate a fair portion of fossil fuel consumption.
If current trends continue, in 20 years people will be even *more* shrill about the coming disaster - even though we've solved a fairly large slice of the problem.
You're strawmaning (Score:5, Insightful)
If we didn't have alternatives you might have a point... except you still wouldn't because then we should be devoting everything we've got to finding an alternative to something that kills 8.7 million a year.
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Why not let market forces take care of petrol? When switching to renewables is cheaper, then everyone will do it.
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That's a good idea. Let's internalize the full societal cost of petrol into its price, then let market forces choose the winners and the losers.
That'll last about 5 seconds (Score:2)
Those kind of "let 'er rip" approaches just make messes. We need to carefully untangle the mess we find ourselves in. This isn't like ripping off a bandaid. It's more like we've got a railroad spike in our head. It might not kill us, but if we just pull it out we'll bleed to death.
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Pollution is good for the economy?
Hey Slashdot, who left the door open and let the wackos in?
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Because they won't (Score:3)
1. There's trillions in fossil fuel assets that stand to be devalued if/when renewables take over. The entire Middle east goes from being a wealthy & crucial geo-political zone to a dirt broke backwater without the water.
2. Margins mean that if a business can make money do X or Y and Y carries some risk while X is a known quantity they go with X. Fossil Fuels are a known quantity right now.
3. Without government acti
Re:You're strawmaning (Score:5, Interesting)
Why not let market forces take care of petrol? When switching to renewables is cheaper, then everyone will do it.
I agree completely.
However, we must also be careful not to give arbitrary advantages to fossil fuels. At present, people who extract and burn fossil fuels are imposing a burden on everyone else, in the form of the pollution emitted and the climate changed caused by the unrecaptured CO2. Work out the cost of those burdens and apply a tax equal to that amount on everyone who burns fossil fuels. Then let market forces work.
Oh, similar analyses should be performed for all other energy sources, and their externalities likewise internalized. Then, with all costs accounted for, let the market optimize our choices. Markets are very, very good at that.
Note that while it's obviously impossible to determine the costs with perfect accuracy, fairly rough estimates will actually work reasonably well.
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We're saying we get off them as quickly as we can without disrupting lives.
I would go further than that. We need to get off them as quickly as possible because of the mass disruption that they're already causing in our lives.
This is the classic case of looking at costs on one side. We just accept all of the disruption from the status quo but don't accept any disruption, even if it's smaller in scale just different, for an alternative.
People are happy to spend 3 weeks in a hospital from fossil fuel emissions, but aren't willing to spend 10 minutes charging a car instead of 5 min
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I'll just posit something.
I would hope with Covid we can all understand that all deaths are not equal.
Remember all the talk about things like the obesity epidemic or diabetes epidemic? If you really need a citation... here you go.
https://www.who.int/news-room/... [who.int]
"builds awareness on the global epidemic of diabetes"
Society didn't go into lockdowns because of obesity. Death didn't take people totally out of the blue.
Quite frankly, it's a tragic shame that institutions like the CDC or even the WHO were spendin
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a) climate change is largely bullshit
b) this research is largely bullshit
c) you didn't really even read his/her post, or understand it.
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Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and you have presented none.
Let the adults talk, kid.
Re: You're strawmaning (Score:2)
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How many of deaths were attributed to people were over the age of 60?
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Probably still 100%.
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A fair number of cancer and heart disease would have to be caused by pollution for the study to make sense. Does it make sense?
Yes, obviously. Go forth and read up on those things and how pollution increases them before you blather again.
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Re: Classic case? How many deaths from Liberalism? (Score:2)
Antinuclear scumbags share some blame. (Score:3, Insightful)
Adoption of nuclear energy could have and should have mitigated millions of those killed by fossil fuels. That means that antinuclear scumbags have just as much responsibility for those deaths as the fossil fuel companies.
Fuck antinuclear scumbags. They are mass murderers.
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Oil is renewable energy. Solar power is not renewable.
Oil? (Score:2)
Sorry, oil is not renewable.
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except the study's numbers are utter conjecture and agenda driven nonsense...
the truth is fossil fuel use in that time saved lives, lengthened human lifespan and created wealth for billions. Guess it was worth it overall.
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Peaking natural gas costs upwards of $1.00 per kWh and nuclear averages $0.0245 per kWh. Antinuclear countries and states pay the most for energy. Energy poverty is increasing right now.
Nuclear can do a better job than fossil fuels.
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Peaking natural gas costs upwards of $1.00 per kWh and nuclear averages
You just compared peaking costs of one energy source with average cost of a different source.
I assmue that you did that as an attempt to deliberately mislead people.
$0.0245 per kWh.
Even if your numbers had been correct, the comparison would be wrong because you can't compare peaking cost to average cost... but your numbers are wrong.
Nice summary of electricity cost by source here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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The problem with renewables is that they require peaking natural gas. So those peaking costs occur every night. So everywhere we have installed renewables we still require natural gas. Renewables are intermittent. Grid storage is not viable(12 hours of storage is 5.4TWh's--not viable).
I also provided another comparison. Germany and California have much higher electricity costs than nuclear countries such as France or nuclear heavy states.
Existing nuclear is really cheap. $0.0245 is low for 24/365 e
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What's the LCOE of the Fukushima plants if you include the shortened lifetime, cleanup and all the environmental impacts?
Nuclear scumbags share some blame. (Score:2)
The problem with renewables is that they require peaking natural gas. So those peaking costs occur every night.
You have just changed your argument. You were comparing gas with nuclear. When I pointed out that your argument was faulty, suddenly you shift to comparing renewables with nuclear.
Nuclear is not a good peaking power source, it is a baseline power source. If you compare it to natural gas, you need to compare baseline costs, not peaking.
When your argument is to compare the best and most optimistic assumptions of systems you like to the worst and most pessimistic assumptions of systems you don't like, I don't
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And the only way an airline can avoid boarding too many people on the same flight is to fly more planes, right?
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Actually energy costs going up does equate to "energy poverty increasing."
*What is the cost of storing nuclear waste for twenty thousand years?
Zero. All of the highly radioactive elements completely decay inside of 10 years. How many people have died from used fuel(waste)? Also zero.
More than that. I am resentful that I have been forced to breath dirty air my entire life when nuclear energy could have mitigated that. More than 100 million have died from fossil fuels in the last 50 years. Nuclear can do a better job.
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How many people have died from used fuel? Zero.
All of the highly radioactive elements have already decayed(thats what makes them highly radioactive). Elements such as iodine 131 have a half life of 8 days. The rest of it is fine is dry cask storage.
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Those elements are not highly radioactive. In fact they are not even medium radioactive. What is more dangerous? An isotope with a half-life of a day or one with a half life of 20,000 years? Most people say the later(20,000 years) but it is the former(1 day) that is more dangerous. When something has a half-life that long they are not radioactive to harm a human being. They can still be chemically toxic just like lead.
Cask storage is cheap and can last more than a century. They are certified for be
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the truth is fossil fuel use in that time saved lives, lengthened human lifespan and created wealth for billions. Guess it was worth it overall.
False equivalency. The question isn't about fossil fuels vs no energy. The question is fossil fuels vs another cleaner energy source.
I don't believe it's worth it overall, and I say this while an oil company currently pays my wages, no, we're in a shit predatory industry that we as a species should have abandoned long ago.
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Blame the accountants, budget managers, etc. who ensured that nuclear reactors were not built with sufficient safety margins.
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Nuke is polluting bullshit (Score:2)
Nuke is polluting bullshit. And it's outdated, obsolete at that.
"Spread out!" - Moe Howard (Score:2)
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We cannot spread out without destroying our last wilderness areas. Such areas tend to be important as reservoirs of diversity, watersheds, and other frequently underappreciated but critical elements of our biosphere. Spreading out is a bad idea.
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Yes we can. Convert large tracts of low density sprawl to small, scattered pockets of high density, and return the remaining 95% of land to nature. Now you can afford, ecologically speaking, to build another pocket of humanity somewhere in the wilderness.
Cause of death is by reason of association (Score:2)
things are known to decrease population growth (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now, three things are known to decrease birth rate in a society:
1. Improving the standard of living (raise people out of poverty)
2. Giving people access to birth control (not mandatory birth control: simply access is enough).
3. Increasing the level of education.
Which of these three is it you consider "vicious"?
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"Wow. That wacko theory is a new one to me."
Only to you. Microparticles of the medications people take end up in the water supply.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/drugs-in-the-water
https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/pharmaceuticals-water
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/heres-the-drugs-that-can-show-up-in-drinking-water#:~:text=Pharmaceutical%20and%20hormonal%20contaminants%2C%20including,water%20treatment%20to%20the%20tap.
"So, which is it? The hormones are
Ahem... (Score:2)
"the study finding more than one in 10 deaths in both the US and Europe were caused by the resulting pollution"
Right. 1 in 10 deaths in the developed world are caused by pollution when it isn't even on the top 10 list of leading causes of death in the US? What does death by pollution even look like? Sounds like someone played fast and loose which correlation to me and blamed many things to which pollution could theoretically contribute on pollution and fossil fuel use.
Unless coroners were listing 'pollution
Ah, but how many lives did they save? (Score:2)
Apart from the obvious benefits of heating in cold regions, there's food and medicine transport, electricity generation which powers quite a useful life-savers such as mobile phones and LEDs in shoes etc. :-) Then there's all the iron and steel, which makes knives for surgeons and drug dealers and stuff for everyone.
Seriously, carbon has many essential uses.
Would Covid lockdown balance pollution deaths? (Score:2)
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In 2018?
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Indeed. How much shorter would those lives have been without fossil fuels?
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