Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

[Big Tea]

It didn't take france 30 years.

It would today. Calder hall took 4 years to build and 2 to commission, but that was under what was almost war time rules.

[Jolle]

France did it quite quickly and safely, and presumably spent rather less than 6 billion a pop.

Germany went full on the other way and are now realising they about to reap the benefits.

There are several 'Child of the 60's ecologist protesters' on youtube saying they were force fed dogma and are resenting it as that is what got us into todays position.

The problem is now there is a 30 year lead time for building one.

Well, there is that thing with safety... not as a child of the sixties, but one of the seventies, remembering the fallout of Tjernobyl even several thousand kilometres away, when done in a safe manner and with a plan and stability for several hundreds of years how to store the waste, yeah, its safe.

But when not, like running a dangerous design without faults and no backups, it's very very dangerous. France and Germany can maintain a level of safety. But there are enough countries that not have the urge to set those standerds or go for the fastest route to generate power.

[Big Tea]

France did it quite quickly and safely, and presumably spent rather less than 6 billion a pop.

Germany went full on the other way and are now realising they about to reap the benefits.

There are several 'Child of the 60's ecologist protesters' on youtube saying they were force fed dogma and are resenting it as that is what got us into todays position.

The problem is now there is a 30 year lead time for building one.

Well, there is that thing with safety... not as a child of the sixties, but one of the seventies, remembering the fallout of Tjernobyl even several thousand kilometres away, when done in a safe manner and with a plan and stability for several hundreds of years how to store the waste, yeah, its safe.

But when not, like running a dangerous design without faults and no backups, it's very very dangerous. France and Germany can maintain a level of safety. But there are enough countries that not have the urge to set those standerds or go for the fastest route to generate power.

Even at worst case apocalypse things like Chernobyl do not hit the same scale as coal powered. The number of people working just digging coal out must be way higher than those numbers even if you do not account for 'creative' death certificates. I grew up in a coalmining area and every household had several relations died either underground or relatively young as a result of working underground. Those who did not die by retirement age were not much use for anything after retirement, and just living in the area reduced life expectancy and health by a huge slice.


https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

only tells the direct story of todays numbers. We do not have to go back far for the numbers to be any times higher

Do not overlook this paragraph -Fossil fuels and the burning of biomass – wood, dung, and charcoal – are responsible for most of those deaths. Eliminating fossil fuels could cut premature deaths from air pollution by around two-thirds. That’s three to four million deaths per year.

Edit
Sorry to labour the point, but this chart should be here as a stand alone stat

Coal: 25 people would die prematurely every year;
Oil: 18 people would die prematurely every year;
Gas: 3 people would die prematurely every year;
Nuclear: In an average year nobody would die. A death rate of 0.07 deaths per terawatt-hour means it would take 14 years before a single person would die. As we will explore later, this might even be an overestimate.
Wind: In an average year nobody would die – it will take 29 years before someone died;
Hydropower: In an average year nobody would die – it will take 42 years before someone died;
Solar: In an average year nobody would die – only every 53 years would someone die.


Not sure if this includes transport and construction deaths as it would for mining etc?

[Billzilla]

The other important fact about Chernobyl is that it's a design that's not used anywhere else in the world. So when people reflexively blurt out "BUT CHERNOBYL!!!!" when nuclear power is mentioned, you can safely know that they'd don't know what they're talking about.

[Jolle]

The other important fact about Chernobyl is that it's a design that's not used anywhere else in the world. So when people reflexively blurt out "BUT CHERNOBYL!!!!" when nuclear power is mentioned, you can safely know that they'd don't know what they're talking about.

Imagine the companies who are now polluting big cities with their coal plants, dodging safety and environmental regulations in developing/corrupt countries, operating Nuclear plants. Instead of slowly killing the population with their pollution, they could wipe out millions with one faulty valve and a non existing backup system.

There are still several Chernobyl-type power plants operational (about 10-20) in the former USSR.

[djos]

There are Modern Reactor designs that use 100% passive safety systems and as a result are almost impossible to melt down. It would actually require deliberate sabotage to cause an accident.

[Big Tea]

The other important fact about Chernobyl is that it's a design that's not used anywhere else in the world. So when people reflexively blurt out "BUT CHERNOBYL!!!!" when nuclear power is mentioned, you can safely know that they'd don't know what they're talking about.

Imagine the companies who are now polluting big cities with their coal plants, dodging safety and environmental regulations in developing/corrupt countries, operating Nuclear plants. Instead of slowly killing the population with their pollution, they could wipe out millions with one faulty valve and a non existing backup system.

There are still several Chernobyl-type power plants operational (about 10-20) in the former USSR.

Even that is relative. There was an accident in Halifax Canada in 1917 where a ship at anchor in the bay exploded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion

That was in the days of a small population and small ships. Imagine if it was today and a NPG tanker and a coal carrier.
The NPG (or petroleum) would throw thousands of ton of coal dust into the air. Coal dust flashes, and when dispersed like that becomes a Fuel Air explosive. You know, Like M.O.A.B and Tsar.

If there were 9000 injuries and 1700 deaths with that population density imagine it being in todays bay of skyscraper surrounded shores instead of like this

[hollus]

We know we are off topic, don’t we? Cool down time after all the explosions, possibly with post cleaning.