From the current HNQ darling of the echo bunnies
Why does the new green deal push for green energy but not for nuclear energy?
(united-states / environmental-policy / nuclear-energy)
It seems strange to me that that the new green deal wants clean and renewable power from solar and wind energy yet oppose nuclear energy. I have been googling experts consensus on nuclear energy and even tried to google experts against nuclear energy and so far all the results say nuclear is the greenest and most efficient power source that will reduce carbon emissions. So, as far as quick search shows, nuclear energy seems to be by far our best option for green energy. The new green deal seems like a huge investment on inefficient technologies.
I'd like to know how this is not a push question? And that's just one of the quality problems of this question. The wording, the lack of documented research, the host of assertions without proof. It's a terrible question and has a ton of upvotes. Not a single close vote. If the push-character is not evident from the question itself, or a previous one: a quickly accepted answer of mediocre quality is all the proof that's needed? That answer with a single "it's the truth"-reference was criticised with
Peer review was not kind to Calabrese, and Jenkins is hardly qualified to talk about what environmentalists do or do not believe. -1 for promoting conspiracy theory and junk science, again. sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001393511630038X
and of course again connecting quick accept answer with quality of question:
The very first word of that quotation is already reason enough to ignore it as axe-grinding, yet here we are, with this accepted. Hard to accept that the question was an honest inquiry asked in good faith when the querent jumped straight to the answer that confirmed their preferences. And I am pro-nuclear power. This just isn’t the way to go about making the case.
And the quality of most of the answers is not that good either. Even the highest upvoted answer, which has now 99, outperforming the accepted one with 36 votes, was commented on by the author of that answer with:
It's a broad question (it was even broader when I wrote this answer), so I use wikipedia to provide an overview. For more focused questions, I use proper sources. If you doubt any of the facts in my answer, please be specific.
I do not want to criticise that specific answer, but the author admitting to posting a somewhat deliberately sloppy answer based on a single Wikipedia link to a sloppy question is quite telling for the perceived quality here.
Below the question is a mod comment:
Lots of comments deleted. If you would like to answer the question, please post a real answer. Also please keep in mind that Politics Stack Exchange is not a discussion forum. Question&Answer sites like Stack Exchange are not a good medium for political debates. The question is asking for anti-nuclear arguments made by proponents of the new green deal. It is not asking for counter-arguments or for arguments they should be making. If you would like to debate the pro's and con's of nuclear power, please do so on a more discussion-oriented website.
Compare the interpretation the mod liked to read into the question and the expectations of possible answers. Does the accepted answer operate in any way "for anti-nuclear arguments made by proponents of the new green deal" or is it denying a clear answer and instead opts to denounce all possible answers as "scientific fraud" of "dishonest people"? Is this 'argument one, two three, comparison' or "us and them"?
Now consider this:
Why do people believe nuclear power is dangerous? [on hold]
(public-opinion / nuclear-energy / energy-policy)
According to this table published in Forbes, nuclear is the safest way to generate electricity. If this is the case, why is it that so many people believe not just that nuclear is not the safest, but that it the most dangerous?Energy Source Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr)
Coal – global average 100,000 (41% global electricity)
Coal – China 170,000 (75% China’s electricity)
Coal – U.S. 10,000 (32% U.S. electricity)
Oil – 36,000 (33% of energy, 8% of electricity)
Natural Gas – 4,000 (22% global electricity)
Biofuel/Biomass – 24,000 (21% global energy)
Solar (rooftop) – 440 (< 1% global electricity)
Wind – 150 (2% global electricity)
Hydro – global average 1,400 (16% global electricity)
Hydro – U.S. 5 (6% U.S. electricity)
Nuclear – global average 90 (11% global electricity w/Chern&Fukush)
Nuclear – U.S. 0.1 (19% U.S. electricity)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid
This was downvoted, put on hold and even deleted despite having an answer. In short some thuggish killers shot it down in flames? How else can this be interpreted.
The reasons were given as
"The primary purpose of this question appears to be to promote or discredit a specific political cause, group or politician. It does not appear to be a good-faith effort to learn more about governments, policies and political processes as defined in the help center." – Joe C, Philipp
Also, nuclear safety is not within the field of political science. Explaining and estimating the dangers of nuclear power is a topic for physicians, physicists, ecologists and engineers. So this isn't the right website to answer this question anyway. – Philipp ↵♦ 2 days ago ↵
How is this not a double standard compared to the other dreck that currently clogs the HNQ lists?
To the last comment I replied:
@Philipp Not that this a perfect Q, but: This is not primarily about the 'real danger' (which pro-nuke physicists underestimate routinely, and cannot calculate to the level of "therefore this policy follows, by expertocracy and formula", so tough luck for such a Q on PhysicsSE as well?), it is tagged public opinion and energy-policy. Therefore it is at the core of politics: public debate, 'reasoning' and communication. How is risk/benefit estimated, 'calculated', communicated and how are decisions based on that? If that's not on-topic then what is?
All the reasons cited for shooting down the deleted question apply even more so to the uncriticised and upvoted. How crazy is that? Quite.
The flying Q is pushy, badly researched, claims unreferenced assertions, attracts bad answers, is per mod opinion not on-topic, yet is per top-anwser too broad, is per top-answer solved with a single Wikipedia link, accepts a very questionable answer. Bueller?
It seems that the better question got shot while a worse one was for more than a week the official representative of PoliticsSE on the network list.
Not that this is perhaps really representative of this site? But certainly not a shining example.
For this dynamic, I'd like to have an explanation. Why and how did this happen?