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[NNadir]

5. I have worked too long, and too hard, to understand issues in energy and the environment, by appeal to the primary...

Last edited Sun May 25, 2025, 11:49 AM - Edit history (3)

...scientific literature on environmental issues to respond to a request that I change my "attitude" in order to have, unfortunate as you may find it, a "debate" with someone who says, "I know something about {nuclear energy}."

To my mind there is nothing to "debate" with anyone on this topic. It's always the same superficial - excuse my language - bullshit, "nuclear waste" and "Fukushima" and "Chernobyl" as if these events on the scale of the destruction of the planetary atmosphere matter a whit.

I'm not amused. I am, frankly, disgusted.

I've been at DU now for more than 22 years, beginning in November 2002. In that period the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste, carbon dioxide, has risen, as of this morning, by 57.67 ppm (exactly).

Over the years, I've probably written close to 50 posts in the series represented by this recent post:

New Weekly CO2 Concentration Record Set at the Mauna Loa Observatory, 430.86 ppm

I'm not here singing "kumbaya" about electric cars. I'm paying attention.

Out of 2,574 weekly average readings comparing the level of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide, the 3.91 ppm increase over week 20 of 2024, is the 43rd highest ever observed, this, for me, after having to listen to blah, blah, blah reactionary bullshit about making energy supplies dependent on the weather precisely when we have destabilized the weather. We have squandered trillions of dollars on solar and wind energy only to make things get worse faster.

As I often point out, in this space, by appeal to the scientific journal Lancet, about 19,000 people die every damned day from dangerous fossil fuel waste (not including deaths from extreme global heating), aka "air pollution" and I have to listen bull about so called "nuclear waste," from people who want to "debate."

Global burden of 87 risk factors in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 (Lancet Volume 396, Issue 10258, 17–23 October 2020, Pages 1223-1249).

I often ask people who want to "debate" to show that in the 70 year history of commercial nuclear power to show - only direct appeal to the primary scientific literature - that nuclear power operations have killed as many people as will die in the next eight hours from air pollution.

Fear and ignorance about nuclear energy has killed far more people than radiation from nuclear plants has.

For amusement, I once responded to one of many in a series of fairly ignorant "I'm not an antinuke" antinukes here who want to "challenge" me here, one who now happily resides on my ignore list, about how much damage to the environment was done because a tunnel collapsed at the Hanford nuclear weapons plant. The damage was not not from radiation, but from fear of radiation, since no lives were at risk from radiation, but thousands of diesel truck loads of fossil fuel generated cement was trucked in because of fear, risking lives from diesel exhaust, not to mention the probability of a trucking accident.

828 Underground Nuclear Tests, Plutonium Migration in Nevada, Dunning, Kruger, Strawmen, and Tunnels

It probably contains 25 to 30 references to the primary scientific literature. I certainly didn't write the exercise to convince an "I'm not an antinuke" antinuke of anything; these people are in a dogmatic cult of ignorance. I wrote it because in writing it, I learned even more. I'm an old man, and I'm still in the process of learning, because I give a shit about the future far more than I care about bullshit about electric cars.

You may find this as arrogant as I find a request that I change my "attitude" in order to "debate" a random person who says they know "something" about nuclear energy. There's nothing to "debate." I don't know "something;" I know a vast amount, having worked at to understand the topic, on my own time, with no professional interest other than encouraging my son as he works on a Ph.D in nuclear engineering, on this topic, for roughly 40 years, ever since the Chernobyl reactor blew up. Again, you may find it arrogant, but I have never, not once, found anyone at DU, who knows as much as I do about nuclear energy.

Again, there's nothing to "debate." Nuclear energy saves lives.

Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)

It follows that questioning nuclear power kills people, again, about 19,000 people per day.

It does not need to be free of risk to be vastly superior to all other forms of primary energy. It only needs to be vastly superior to all other forms of primary energy, which it is.

This is Memorial Day Weekend. I will not only think on the military dead, in my memorials. I will reflect on the roughly 160,000,000 million people who died from air pollution just in the period I've been writing here, because people who think they know something about nuclear energy and want to "debate" it, while not giving a rat's ass about deaths from fossil fuels, think that the value of nuclear energy is debatable. Selective attention, frankly, disgusts me.

I respectfully or disrespectfully decline to "debate." Facts are not debatable, and my "attitude" is not subject to change for the benefit of anyone here or elsewhere.

Have a pleasant Memorial Day weekend.