Yeah, but the only choice isn't between smoking cigarettes and smoking dynamite sticks. Coal being bad doesn't make nuclear good. Meltdowns aren't the only bad things that nuclear reactors can cause. Where I live, people are losing their heads talking about how we need more nuclear power so we can get bigger electric cars to replace bicycles and public transport (not to replace cars with internal combustion engines, of course, because how else would people get on board with building infrastructure for giant electric sports cars than to let pre-existing rustbuckets roam free and keep gas stations in operation).
Except it does, because every single second that you're running fossil fuels is causing more irreversible damage to our biosphere at a scale we can't possibly contain, and you must produce electricity somehow. When demand is completely inelastic, a bad option can become a good option as long as there are worse alternatives.
Also burning coal, especially Lignite which is what Germany is burning, has very bad heating value and ironically contains lots of heavy metals and naturally occurring radioactive materials (radon, thorium, uranium, potassium).
All of that goes out the smoke stack into the environment. Radiation levels and cancer rates around coal power plants are significantly increased. But that seems to be no big deal for some ideologues.
Yeah, but the only choice isn't between smoking cigarettes and smoking dynamite sticks. Coal being bad doesn't make nuclear good. Meltdowns aren't the only bad things that nuclear reactors can cause. Where I live, people are losing their heads talking about how we need more nuclear power so we can get bigger electric cars to replace bicycles and public transport (not to replace cars with internal combustion engines, of course, because how else would people get on board with building infrastructure for giant electric sports cars than to let pre-existing rustbuckets roam free and keep gas stations in operation).
Except it does, because every single second that you're running fossil fuels is causing more irreversible damage to our biosphere at a scale we can't possibly contain, and you must produce electricity somehow. When demand is completely inelastic, a bad option can become a good option as long as there are worse alternatives.
Also burning coal, especially Lignite which is what Germany is burning, has very bad heating value and ironically contains lots of heavy metals and naturally occurring radioactive materials (radon, thorium, uranium, potassium).
All of that goes out the smoke stack into the environment. Radiation levels and cancer rates around coal power plants are significantly increased. But that seems to be no big deal for some ideologues.
Don't spoil the fun, people want to feel smart with no effort.