No, the mushroom cloud does not get a pass. There is nothing inside nuclear power plants that could create it. They do use ²³⁵U but in a way too low concentration so the rate of fission is greatly limited, and the worst thing that can happen, even in obsolete reactors without inherent regulation, is overpressure and conventional explosion that releases heavy isotopes from the reactor.
Meh, it’s cartoon logic. I mean maybe the joke would have been improved for you and I if it was a Union Carbide plant but let’s be real the Bhopal disaster doesn’t get nearly as much attention as it deserves because nobody knows what the fuck methyl isocyanate is.
I came to say something similar: if a flaming head fell into the cooling tower, it would just fall down to the bottom surface and not interact with anything more explosive than a steam pipe (on only then if it impacted the inside of the tower.
The flaming head in the comic continues to burn without fuel or oxygen, but a normal flame might even be put out by the intake breeze at ground level.
Also, a person couldn’t kick an object the size and weight of a head on this trajectory … I’m not sure that Flaming Head is the right comic to criticize here. The absurdity is kind of the point.
It’s much safer to live near a NPP than a coal fired plant or heavy industry, or an airport, or a highway, or a busy intersection, etc. You get the drift
Fukushima was spectacularly bad oversight of a private company with massive responsibility, and even that needed a tsunami to cause a problem. Regulatory agencies in most countries, especially after 2011, will never be that loose again, not to mention many areas have vanishingly low natural disaster rates. And Chernobyl cannot happen again unless someone rebuilds an obsolete, sketchy reactor design that will never get approval.
The big issues nowadays are dual use of uranium enrichment centrifuges and spent fuel disposal (it’s often not economical to recycle), which aren’t local to the plant and wouldn’t stop me from supporting a nuclear plant on the edge of my town (Czechia is free from natural disasters except relatively mild winds and flooding, both of which are easily protected against with a self-contained robust structure away from flodplains). Unfortunately people are so averse of catastrophic risk that many will refuse to fly an airplane yet willingly smoke.
By the way, there are many actual valid NIMBY points against highways, airports, datacenters, aluminium plants etc. There are air pollution and noise laws in reasonable countries for this reason.
Sorry, but I simply do not agree. Regulatory agencies are only effective when politicians aren’t taking bribes to kneecap them, which Trump has proved happens on a regular basis. There can and will be another Fukushima scale nuclear accident, somewhere, some day. I would not like to live next to whichever plant gets hit with the bad luck. I’m not saying nuclear power isn’t “safe,” just saying when the shit hits the fan I’d like to be nowhere near it.
I mean, you can live near one all you want, go right ahead. It’s not for me.
By the way, there are many actual valid NIMBY points against highways, airports, datacenters, aluminium plants etc. There are air pollution and noise laws in reasonable countries for this reason.
Yeah but living near those things just “sucks.” When things go bad at an airport they don’t have to permanently evacuate everyone in a 20 mile radius.
When things go really wrong they go really really wrong, but that doesn’t change the statistical risk. Radiation is viscerally scary because you can’t see it, but you’re way more likely to get hit by a bus or die in a cloud of anhydrous ammonia or something similarly nasty.
Plus things have only gone really wrong once, and that’s Chernobyl. Fukushima Daiichi got hit by an earthquake, and then a tsunami, and lost auxiliary power. The plant’s containment held. Estimates for cancer rates were something like 100 additional cases globally. Nobody got acute radiation poisoning, nobody got sick. The panic killed more people than the disaster. Which is kind of a microcosm of our broader relationship to nuclear power: the fear of what could go wrong caused us to stick with technologies that we know kill people. The Keystone coal power plant kills more people than the Fukushima disaster did, and that’s for normal operation of the plant after they installed scrubbers
anyway if you’re still reading I love your work keep it up
Yeah but things really go wrong, all the time, all over the world. Feel free to live next door to a nuclear plant, no problem on my side. I’ll just be chilin outside of the 20 mile exclusion zone myself.
anyway if you’re still reading I love your work keep it up
I know I’m taking this much too seriously, but can we please stop perpetuating the “glowing green sludge/gas” image of nuclear power?
Cooling towers emit water vapor, for goodness’ sake.
The mushroom cloud gets a pass, though. That’s just funny.
No, the mushroom cloud does not get a pass. There is nothing inside nuclear power plants that could create it. They do use ²³⁵U but in a way too low concentration so the rate of fission is greatly limited, and the worst thing that can happen, even in obsolete reactors without inherent regulation, is overpressure and conventional explosion that releases heavy isotopes from the reactor.
Bit of a distraction from the point: this comic is not funny.
I thought it was funny.
(I know, I was trying to be generous)
Meh, it’s cartoon logic. I mean maybe the joke would have been improved for you and I if it was a Union Carbide plant but let’s be real the Bhopal disaster doesn’t get nearly as much attention as it deserves because nobody knows what the fuck methyl isocyanate is.
I came to say something similar: if a flaming head fell into the cooling tower, it would just fall down to the bottom surface and not interact with anything more explosive than a steam pipe (on only then if it impacted the inside of the tower.
The flaming head in the comic continues to burn without fuel or oxygen, but a normal flame might even be put out by the intake breeze at ground level.
You fools. Everybody knows nuclear power plants explode if you look at them funny.
Also, a person couldn’t kick an object the size and weight of a head on this trajectory … I’m not sure that Flaming Head is the right comic to criticize here. The absurdity is kind of the point.
Really, really have nothing against absurdism, just harmful depictions of helpful things.
Nuclear power is the one issue where nimby is justified.
It’s much safer to live near a NPP than a coal fired plant or heavy industry, or an airport, or a highway, or a busy intersection, etc. You get the drift
You can live there if you want, no objections here.
Yeah, they shouldn’t be in mixed-zone areas. Like almost any other power plant.
Reminder that including disasters and uranium mining, nuclear power is still the least deadly
Yeah but when things go wrong with nuclear power, they really really go wrong.
Fukushima was spectacularly bad oversight of a private company with massive responsibility, and even that needed a tsunami to cause a problem. Regulatory agencies in most countries, especially after 2011, will never be that loose again, not to mention many areas have vanishingly low natural disaster rates. And Chernobyl cannot happen again unless someone rebuilds an obsolete, sketchy reactor design that will never get approval.
The big issues nowadays are dual use of uranium enrichment centrifuges and spent fuel disposal (it’s often not economical to recycle), which aren’t local to the plant and wouldn’t stop me from supporting a nuclear plant on the edge of my town (Czechia is free from natural disasters except relatively mild winds and flooding, both of which are easily protected against with a self-contained robust structure away from flodplains). Unfortunately people are so averse of catastrophic risk that many will refuse to fly an airplane yet willingly smoke.
By the way, there are many actual valid NIMBY points against highways, airports, datacenters, aluminium plants etc. There are air pollution and noise laws in reasonable countries for this reason.
Sorry, but I simply do not agree. Regulatory agencies are only effective when politicians aren’t taking bribes to kneecap them, which Trump has proved happens on a regular basis. There can and will be another Fukushima scale nuclear accident, somewhere, some day. I would not like to live next to whichever plant gets hit with the bad luck. I’m not saying nuclear power isn’t “safe,” just saying when the shit hits the fan I’d like to be nowhere near it.
I mean, you can live near one all you want, go right ahead. It’s not for me.
Yeah but living near those things just “sucks.” When things go bad at an airport they don’t have to permanently evacuate everyone in a 20 mile radius.
When things go really wrong they go really really wrong, but that doesn’t change the statistical risk. Radiation is viscerally scary because you can’t see it, but you’re way more likely to get hit by a bus or die in a cloud of anhydrous ammonia or something similarly nasty.
Plus things have only gone really wrong once, and that’s Chernobyl. Fukushima Daiichi got hit by an earthquake, and then a tsunami, and lost auxiliary power. The plant’s containment held. Estimates for cancer rates were something like 100 additional cases globally. Nobody got acute radiation poisoning, nobody got sick. The panic killed more people than the disaster. Which is kind of a microcosm of our broader relationship to nuclear power: the fear of what could go wrong caused us to stick with technologies that we know kill people. The Keystone coal power plant kills more people than the Fukushima disaster did, and that’s for normal operation of the plant after they installed scrubbers
anyway if you’re still reading I love your work keep it up
Yeah but things really go wrong, all the time, all over the world. Feel free to live next door to a nuclear plant, no problem on my side. I’ll just be chilin outside of the 20 mile exclusion zone myself.
Thanks!
deleted by creator
That and affordable housing omg could you imagine the poors living next to you?
I don’t think poor people should live next to nuclear power plants either.