I think I understand the point you're trying to make, but funnily enough, based on the current methods, yes.
That's not to say that the blades are more dangerous than the nuclear waste, just that the nuclear waste has many years of waste management engineering behind it, due to its danger. So there are defined processes of management that are well tested, well designed and well implemented.
Processes for blades currently are just bury them in landfill, which causes a bunch of unmitigated issues.
So you're saying there is years engineering experience behind nuclear waste management but burying wind turbine blades is somehow completely uncharted territory? Tell me how many landfills/regular waste processing plants (or are wind turbines fundamentally different?) exist compared to existing long term nuclear wast storage facilities? Do you think no engineers are involved in designing landfills? If you think the waste from wind turbines are a problem, what about the carbon fibres from all the other things (cars, planes, bikes...) that produce orders of magnitude more waste.
Same goes for solar cells, the recycling process is similar (but easier) than most regular electronics and if you think nuclear power plants don't require heavy metals in their construction, boy have I some news for you about what is in your laptop/desktop.
You might want to update your research on the state of play of turbine blade disposal. There are several companies with active recycling programs in place and scaling as we speak that do everything from recycling the blades into perfectly reusable fiberglass and fuel materials to converting them into building materials.
As far as disposal of nuclear waste goes, yeah there's a ton of engineering involved because the stuff is just that big a pain in the ass to deal with for any length of time. Given half-lives typically range between 30 years and 5 times the length of recorded human history and that the rule of thumb for "safe" levels of emission are 7 half-lives we're talking about borderline geologic time frames before certain types of waste meet anyone's definition of safe. We could also spend a moment here reviewing all of the incidents in the last 40 years where source material has managed to jump a fence and ended up crapping up an entire village or neighborhood. All of that is to say that anyone peddling the notion that storage of radioactive waste is a solved problem either has an agenda and no ethics or is grotesquely uninformed.
I'll give you this: nuclear proponents are really dedicated to twisting the facts to fit the narrative. "Actually, yes, large fan blades in landfills are worse than nuclear waste." Good stuff.
It looks less silly when you acknowledge the problems while explaining how they are outweighed by the benefits.
Here’s an enlightening calculation to do: total volume of fuel used by nuclear power plants over 100 years providing enough energy for the world vs total volume of turbine blades doing the same. Feel free to be generous with your lifetime estimates for turbines, the results will still be shocking. You can also repeat the calculation for any other fuel source or power generation method and be equally impressed.
The issue is that the cartels are now endemic to the region. They're part of the government, they're extorting legal businesses, they're laundering the money and investing into legitimate businesses. You can't just undo their influence.
How does ending the drug war take away 90% of their revenue. If you legalize drugs, the cartels would become legitimate producers and corner the market through fear and intimidation.
#2 Most drugs can just as easily be produced domestically by pharmaceutical companies.
#3 Of the drugs that can't be produced domestically, the Mexican cartels are just middlemen that can be cut out entirely. There's no reason drugs from Colombia need to transit Mexico.
#4 If you're worried about Colombian cartels - see points #1 and #2.
We already went through this with alcohol and organized crime.
I thought a lot about this over night. As a parent, it's a question I constantly grapple with. "What will I tell my child when they want real-world applications of an abstract, yet extremely important, topic?"
The conclusion I've come to is that asking for practical, real-world applications in one's life misses the point. The reason to learn calculus also has nothing to with mental exercise. The reason to learn calculus is that it provides the theoretical foundation upon which modern society is built. Differential equations provide solutions to engineering formulas that allow us to build skyscrapers. We can calculate the trajectory of celestial bodies and use that information to explore our solar system and to peer into the stars. We can train machine learning models that realize our imagination. The list of things calculus enables is near-infinite.
Now, do you need to know calculus to survive? No, of course not. You can live your entire life without even needing calculus. But, calculus is one of the wonders of the world. Its beauty is similar to something like the Grand Canyon or Mt. Rainer. Yes, it takes a little work to "see" calculus, similar to how you might need hike quite a distance to reach a beautiful peak, but the view from the top is worth it. There is no need for natural beauty, too. You can easily live your life without experiencing the wonderful things nature has to offer. But to live a life without experiencing nature is dull compared to what is possible. And it's the same with calculus.
Some are just good salespeople. Selling is a large part of gaining traction. I think a lot of good salespeople go out with an idea, try to sell it to potential customers, come back with feedback on what the potential customers actually need and adjust the product accordingly. Being able to get your foot in the door with a lot of potential customers is a very valuable skill. You don't need the world's greatest idea when you start.
You're right! You know how you make them care? Demonstrating over and over again how important it is. At school. A place where we are supposed to equip people with the knowledge of how to function effectively in society. To give them the tools to live the best life they can.
School is a place where we indoctrinate all sorts of ideas into students, maybe we could spend a little more time highlighting financial decisions since it is so core to quality of life?
I wouldn’t want to live next to a chip foundry personally. Any type of of large industrial operation is going to pollute the air. Check out this interactive map about the likelihood of cancer [1]. Living in areas with high industrial air pollution is highly correlated with cancer.
The dataset you linked to doesn't seem to show any of the chip fabs already operating in the US. Do you have any reason to believe that chip fabs (as they are run these days) are major polluters on par with other industries?
Isn't this just an argument to avoid living in cities?
Basically any large concentration of people is going to result in businesses existing that produce air pollution.
Everything in life is trade-offs. It sure would be nice to live in pristine untouched nature but also somehow have all modern conveniences and also somehow have a high income that is most commonly found in cities...
Like yeah I'm sure some people can square that circle, but most people need to live in places with more pollution than the countryside so they can make a living.
This is not an argument against living in cities. This is only an argument that you shouldn't live next to sites with significant industrial operation if you care about your risk of cancer. Look at the map I posted. There are plenty of places in plenty of cities that don't have elevated cancer rates.
As wtallis noted though, that scary map you linked is an incomplete dataset. Not only does it not include chip fabs, but it also doesn't appear to account for other sources of air pollution. If it was a more general map of air pollution levels in the US, I think you'd see a strong correlation between population density and air pollution levels which makes the trade-off analysis a lot more complicated than just avoid living near a chip fab if your goal is to avoid bad air making you sick.
You’re basically asking for perfect data to answer this one very specific question. You’re unlikely to get it. I’m just presenting what we currently know. PM2.5 (a measure of air pollution) exposure is highly correlated with all cause mortality. You can see additional evidence of this by looking at cancer rates near industrial centers. Chip fabs also emit similar types of air pollution and are regulated by the EPA, similar to other industries.
You’re free to look at this data and say: “well, it doesn’t conclusively prove that living next to a chip fab is bad, so I’m fine with it.” That’s your right. You can live where ever you want. But the data suggests living near industrial sources of pollution is bad for your health. Without any data suggesting that living near a chip fab is neutral to our health, I think applying Occam’s razor is warranted.
I'm not saying living near a chip fab doesn't present the risks you outlined. What I'm saying is it's very likely there are comparable risks living basically anywhere that isn't very sparsely populated, so I think your original post places undue emphasis on one risk among many that should all be weighed in an apples to apples way when making these kinds of decisions.
> I'm not saying living near a chip fab doesn't present the risks you outlined. What I'm saying is it's very likely there are comparable risks living basically anywhere that isn't very sparsely populated
Doesn't this directly contradict the incidence of cancer vs. distance to industrial pollution maps? Like you're literally many times more likely to get cancer if you live near a source of industrial pollution compared to other people who live in your same city but don't live right next to a source of industrial pollution.
Think about it like this: the volume of a sphere increases proportional to the radius cubed. That means the further you get from a source of pollution, the density of that pollution falls off by a cubic of the distance. That's quite a sharp drop off. So small sources of pollution may pose some risk, but due to the small amount of particulate combined with how fast the pollution drops off means it's not so dangerous. Very large sources of pollution, however, may be dangerous for some distance.
My operating assumptions here go something like this:
- Living in a sparsely populated area that is near a chip fab presents X health risks due to its specific kind of industrial pollution.
- Living in a densely populated city without a chip fab presents Y health risks associated with higher traffic, other kinds of businesses that produce air pollution, etc.
I would want to see X quantified against Y in order to make an apples to apples comparison here. If such a comparison is made, it seems likely to me that the health risks are similar. Hence, the only way to minimize your health risks is to live in a sparsely populated area that has no jobs. Anyplace with significant economic activity is likely to be hazardous to your health in some way.
And even if X is significantly more hazardous than Y, okay, then what? "Don't move there" is a lot less helpful than proposing regulations that minimize people's exposure to pollution while still letting us have chip fabs. The damn things need to be built somewhere for us to have nice things, so let's figure out how to do it right instead of just scaring people with (potentially) misleading stats.
