Seeing as there's a good chance the forum will be shut down let's all post our favorite moments and threads here.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/211198/29ceddd2-c633-4e9b-8480-40e8349c315c/800px-Mein_Bratwurst's_joke.png
Snowmew posted:
[i]haha oh boy here we go again[/i]
There were, as you say, 3 "worldwide implicating nuclear accidents".
First of all, Chernobyl was considered dangerous and outdated while it was being built. It was condemned by both Russian and American nuclear scientists alike. They literally said "this will explode and kill thousands of people why are you doing this" but nobody listened. The design of the reactor was extremely unsafe and no reactor in the world would experience a similar disaster, ever. The reason that Chernobyl turned into such a massive disaster was the emergency management. No evacuation or public notification was done for 2 days after the incident. Had a proper evacuation taken place at the correct time, there would have been little or no deaths. That said, the main radioactive elements distributed in the Chernobyl accident - iodine, strontium, and caesium, with half-lives of 8 days, 29 years, and 30 years, respectively - decayed too quickly to have any significant ecological impact outside the exclusion zone.
The second "worldwide implicating nuclear accident" was Three Mile Island. Oh, wait, nobody died. Nobody. There were no deaths as a direct result of the TMI accident. Let me just say that a fourth time - zero people died from radiation poisoning in the TMI accident. Now, that said, the main reason it was a disaster in the first place was repeated operator error, which is extremely unlikely with today's training and safety protocols. Regardless, studies have repeatedly shown no significant effects to humans or the environment. It was a non-disaster.
That leaves us with the third "worldwide implicating nuclear accident" - Fukushima. Now, the reason Fukushima blew up was because TEPCO (the owner) failed to protect it against tsunamis. It SCRAMed properly during the earthquake, but the following tsunami flooded the underground backup generators which powered the coolant pumps while the plant was down. Since the reaction still generates some heat after being stopped, the cores overheated, hydrogen gas was formed, and it exploded. TEPCO was warned 3 years earlier that such a chain of events could happen and yet they failed to install any protective measures. In fact, reactors closer to the epicenter (owned by other companies, I might add) experienced insignificant to no damage. Oh, and by the way - no direct deaths. (It is not currently possible to estimate the number of cancer cases caused by Fukushima; it released several orders of magnitude less radiation than Chernobyl, which is the only accident with measurable impacts in worldwide history.)
So out of the three "worldwide implicating nuclear accidents", only one actually caused any deaths, and the causes are practically impossible today without breaking the laws of physics. No other serious incident has occurred in a commercial plant in history. A grand total of zero people have died in the US (and most of the rest of the world) from nuclear accidents.
To avoid quoting the rest of your misinformed, scaremonger replies, let me just knock these myths out right off the bat:
The ALFRED project is a lead-cooled fast reactor, one of the few Gen IV reactor designs. It is designed to far more efficiently utilize the energy stored in uranium fuel - current reactors use 0.4%, Gen IV reactors generally use 90% or more. So we're already looking at 200x the efficiency. Because of this, they only need to be fueled once in their entire lifetime, with a block of uranium fuel about the size of a car.
Nuclear waste is not some magic unknown thing. It is literally just unused fuel that can't be used in current reactor designs. The timeframe of dangerous radioactive decay in current waste is several million years - to compare, Gen IV reactors leave us with fuel that's only dangerous for around 300 years. An added bonus is that Gen IV reactors can use current "waste" directly as fuel, and doing so on our current reserves will be able to supply the worldwide energy needs entirely (eliminating all other generation methods and fuels) for several centuries without needing to mine any new uranium fuel and with no carbon output whatsoever. (By the way, nuclear power plants emit less radiation than coal and natural gas plants.)
Because of their design, Gen IV reactors are also extremely difficult to melt down (doing so would require a deliberate, malicious, coordinated attack and immense knowledge of the control systems, something which is extremely difficult to accomplish without getting caught). Even if they did melt down, it would be contained entirely, far more efficiently than TMI, which would naturally result in less than zero deaths.
Fukushima's fuel sinking into the ocean is not as big of a disaster as you make it out to be. You make up this vague assumption that it will suddenly irradiate the entire world and we'll all die. In fact, putting it in the water would likely make it less dangerous, since water "insulates" the radioactivity far better than air. By the way, the fuel rods from Chernobyl are kept in a pool of water because of this. In fact, swimming in the water is safer than being in the open air due to the latent radioactive substances outside, as long as you stay about a meter away from the rods themselves.
The risks of transporting nuclear waste (which is actually not even performed yet - all waste is currently stored on-site) is less than it is to actually use the stuff. Be as paranoid as you want about the transportation methods, but the fact is, you being 3 states away makes you completely unharmed from whatever might happen. The only danger you would face is being maybe 15-30 miles away, and at that point it would be negligible. (Believe it or not, it is actually possible to research this stuff, which you clearly haven't bothered doing.)
Your misinformed edit of Saber15's reply was also unwarranted and totally false. In terms of death per kWh generated, nuclear energy is literally the safest source of power (yes, even safer than solar and wind - keep in mind we are talking in relation to the energy produced, and solar/wind produce very little energy in comparison). In fact, here's the numbers:
- Coal: >1000x more dangerous
- Natural gas: 44x more dangerous
- Solar: 5x more dangerous
- Wind: 2x more dangerous (mostly from maintenance workers falling off turbines)
This is taking into account the 30 radiation deaths from Chernobyl, the few thousand cancer deaths from Chernobyl and (unreliably) projected Fukushima, and the deaths from largely unrelated issues along the nuclear chain, such as uranium mining. Hundreds of thousands of people die from coal-fired plants and coal mining every year. Yeah, that's safer for everyone.
Your totally incorrect comparison of nuclear containers to chlorine containers is exemplary of typical nuclear scaremongering. Chlorine gas is stored in a tank car, which is not as reinforced. Why they still use standard tank cars for chlorine is beyond me, but the structure of the container is entirely different and says absolutely nothing about the safety of nuclear containers.
So, after all of that, let's recap with a simple analogy:
As a whole, if all Facepunch users were to use coal-powered energy, we would kill around 1 person a week on average. If we were to all use nuclear energy, even if Chernobyl happened every 50 years, we would still statistically never kill a single person.
Want to try again?
Also I wish the images were still working on this thread: Most. Disturbing. Picturebook. Ever.
Some of you may remember it.
5 years ago, Snowmew talked about nuclear energy
"ALFRED - A new lead-cooled kind of nuclear reactor is to be constructed"
"Need help with some models" sure was... something. I don't have a link for it and honestly I don't feel like posting it if I did
long after facepunch is dead, this posts aura will still be felt
I need to see this again. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.
where's the fuckin oblivion thread
"This is a christian forum!!"
I've the REDICULOUS sunburn OR Why tanningbeds will kill you one..
The images are gone now, but something about a guy posting himself nude covered in sunburns with a very generous black bar around his genitals was hilarious to me.
and the oblivion thread
I think that's the picture that introduced me to Facepunch, I basically came here for the beatiful photoshop contest section.
Wickedplayer is fucking weird. He's in this bubble where he thinks hes super important to the Valve community but hes not. Like he legitimately gets angry if you post on reddit about a game update before him.
The fucking oven mitt thing is still great.
And the guy who got caught trying to push his shitty server host.
And monkey_123. Never forget monkey_123.
And all the rogue/compromised moderator incidents.
Anyone remember CubeManv2 aka Brandon Neider?
I miss him.
All my favorites already here but this one is golden too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiJrgfKbQrs
Photoshop the Sports Guy.
One of my favourites from Photoshop contests.
http://i.imgur.com/SaOgIFW.jpg
Nude grigori model request from GORYGIRL WHO HAS TO TYPE LIKE THIS FOR SOME MEDICAL REASON
also artwork from the gmod section
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