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Italian parliament votes for return to nuclear energy

908 points · 818 comments · geox

  1. reddalo · · focus · HN ↗
    I'm Italian and I'm super happy with this.

    The referendum that made nuclear energy illegal in Italy was held right after the accident of Chernobyl; people voted with their gut, not with their mind.

    Curiously enough, some Italian town signs still have a small sub-sign reading &quot;denuclearized municipality&quot; (example: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;live.staticflickr.com&#x2F;1421&#x2F;712461235_e46a2c7db5_z.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;live.staticflickr.com&#x2F;1421&#x2F;712461235_e46a2c7db5_z.jp... )

    1. icantevenhold · · focus · HN ↗
      As someone who thinks nuclear is both less efficient and much more expensive than renewable energies - would you mind sharing a bit why this makes you happy?

      Since all plants in Italy are closed since the 90s won’t it take decades and billions of tax euros to get them back operational again?

      1. someonebaggy · · focus · HN ↗
        It&#x27;s cheaper if you stop caring about safety, right? In the USA it&#x27;s now illegal for reactors to have adequate shielding - &quot;as low as reasonably possible&quot; is officially &quot;woke&quot;
        1. sgjohnson · · focus · HN ↗
          &quot;as low as reasonably possible&quot; is a massive overkill.

          US killing the linear no-threshold model is a good thing. LNT model assumes that absolutely no amount of radioactivity is safe, which is provably wrong.

          It has nothing to do with safety if the model that required &quot;as low as reasonably possible&quot; is bullshit per se.

          The maximum allowed annual radiation dose for US radiation workers is 50mSv&#x2F;year. It&#x27;s just 16x the global average background radiation. And that&#x27;s the average. In reality it&#x27;s more like 5x - 25x.

          For cancer specifically we&#x27;re seeing marginally increased risk at 100 mSv&#x2F;year, but it doesn&#x27;t really become worrying enough until we&#x27;re at 300-500 mSv&#x2F;year.

          1. someonebaggy · · focus · HN ↗
            And is it reasonable to get their doses that low?
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