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Patrick Townsend

Nuclear power

This is personal for me. I remember the Three Mile Island meltdown. I was not in that location, but I remember how close it came to a major disaster that would have impacted a wide area. Before that meltdown I remember listening to nuclear energy "experts" exclaiming how safe and clean nuclear energy is.

Then Chernobyl happened. We were living in southern Germany downwind of that disaster. Our daughter was 11 months old and vulnerable. Unless you've lived this you cannot imagine what it is like to fear invisible radioactive fallout and the danger to your family. You keep your family inside, off the grass, out of the parks, away from pets, and you can't get information about the danger. We were lucky and were able to return to the US shortly after. But you never forget the experience.

And then Fukushima.

You get the idea. I don't want to hear any BS about how safe nuclear power is.

Or any BS about how clean it is. Uranium mining is not environmentally safe or clean and there is no clean way to dispose of nuclear waste.

I know there is a climate catastrophe in progress right now. I just don't believe we should be activating nuclear power stations to power AI or anything else.

#AI #Nuclear #Radioactive #Climate #Microsoft

3 comments
Human after all

@patrick_townsend My friend was a baby in Belarus after Chernobly blew up and there was some kind of day out where everyone was outside and it rained on them. She was a baby and it was in Mogilev. I was in Belarus in 2018 and people told me that if you put a geiger counter on the vacuum cleaner after vacuuming your apartment it would register a higher reading. This was in the south nearer to Ukraine. You could also see the trees with cancerous growths on them.

Svante

@patrick_townsend I am very sorry to read your trauma. Public communication has failed you.

I understand your fear.

You are left in a mental state that rejects objective facts that are crucial for your survival, as shown in the last paragraph.

Please try to realize that your fears were mostly engineered by bad actors. Chornobyl was bad, but you were never in danger in Germany. Nobody died from TMI, nobody died from the nuclear accident at Fukushima.

MisterStormwing

@patrick_townsend I agree that it shouldn't be used to power AI. But I know that the energy within fissible materials is enough to sustain us for eons. This said, I think the priorities and decisions made by hierarchical societies guaranee these failures. Especially capitalism. We can do it if we aren't stupid. Alas, everyone with any power, is very, VERY stupid. I still think we may not have a choice. Our choice is to depower, or use nuke. Solar and Wind cannot fulfil our current demand.

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