With climate change looming, it seems so completely backwards to go back to using it again.

Is it coal miners pushing to keep their jobs? Fear of nuclear power? Is purely politically motivated, or are there genuinely people who believe coal is clean?

Edit, I will admit I was ignorant to the usage of coal nowadays.

Now I’m more depressed than when I posted this

  • intensely_human@lemm.ee
    0·
    10 months ago

    There are concerns outside of the list you wrote. For example:

    • people need energy and coal is a source of energy
    • intensely_human@lemm.ee
      0·
      10 months ago

      And they’re going for coal in some places because the political situation has made other reliable energy sources unavailable:

      • the Russia-Ukraine war has destroyed natural gas supply lines to Europe
      • anti-nuclear activism has resulted in lack of nuclear investment

      Outside of coal, nuclear, and natural gas, there aren’t many options for reliable sources of electricity.

        • Zangoose@lemmy.one
          0·
          10 months ago

          Nuclear is probably the safest form of power when proper protocols are put in place but it’s hard to do that when the largest country in Europe (Russia, both by size and population) is currently in a war

          • Jakob :lemmy:@lemmy.schuerz.at
            0·
            10 months ago

            What is safe on Nuckear Power Plants?

            It’s enough for hundredthousand of years, if only one time happens a SuperGAU. Only once is enough.

            And the nuclear waste is dangerous as fuck for also hundredthousand of years.

            And you can produce 30, 40 or maybe 50 years electric energy, and it needs the same time to decontaminate and dismantle a nuclear powerplant. And before it takes 20, 30 or mor years, to build such a plant… This is not cheap, not safe and not sustainable.

            • updawg@lemm.ee
              0·
              10 months ago

              I don’t trust the US Federal government to properly dispose of it. The waste from the Manhattan Project is buried in a landfill, a landfill that’s on fire.

              • BigNote@lemm.ee
                0·
                10 months ago

                The problem isn’t fire, it’s that the waste at Hanford has leached into the soil and a plume of it is headed towards the Hanford Reach on the Columbia River. There’s a mitigation plan in place and it looks like it’s ultimately going to work, but it’s very expensive and not something that anyone wants to see happen again.

                • updawg@lemm.ee
                  0·
                  10 months ago

                  I was referring to the Westlake Superfund site in St Louis right next to the Missouri river

                  • BigNote@lemm.ee
                    1·
                    10 months ago

                    Fair play. That said, please do look up Hanford. It’s way bigger than Westlake and is potentially a much bigger problem, though granted, Westlake is problematic as well.