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I think ""more Americans" died from installing rooftop solar than have died from construction or use of nuclear power" includes all aspects of nuclear power. Th

I think ""more Americans" died from installing rooftop solar than have died from construction or use of nuclear power" includes all aspects of nuclear power. The "or use" would seemingly include operating nuclear plants. And given the incredibly low number of deaths in the US associated with nuclear power production, it seems fair.

7952 11y ago
It isn't the same thing though. Workers have consented to the risk and can work to make themselves safer. The general public have not. it is basic professional responsibility to minimise risk to the public. With wind and solar power this is trivial to do. You can make a wind turbine fail safe by not building it within a certain distance of places with people. Making a nuclear plant fail safe is hugely complex and expensive. Ignoring that fact is intellectually dishonest.
ebbv 11y ago
It's not everything, though. Because as I mentioned it purposely focuses on America, excluding the two biggest nuclear disasters (Chernobyl and Fukushima.) Also fatalities hardly tell the whole story. Far more people have had their lives totally upended by Fukushima than have died from it, and then there's all the people born with defects from Chernobyl, or left unable to reproduce, and we have yet to see the long term effects of Fukushima. Pro-nuclear folks tend to focus on a couple of things; cost and mortality under "normal" circumstances. Because those two things look great. But if you start talking about the full impact that nuclear power has had on it world, the picture becomes far less rosy.
- merpnderp 11y ago
  But talking about Chernobyl and Fukushima is like focusing on the Pinto as a rolling deathtrap and saying we shouldn't have cars. Fukushima should have been shut down decades ago when it was discovered the danger earthquakes posed for it, and Chernobyl was such a horrific chain of bad decisions, it might as well have been on purpose.

7952 11y ago

It isn't the same thing though. Workers have consented to the risk and can work to make themselves safer. The general public have not. it is basic professional responsibility to minimise risk to the public. With wind and solar power this is trivial to do. You can make a wind turbine fail safe by not building it within a certain distance of places with people. Making a nuclear plant fail safe is hugely complex and expensive. Ignoring that fact is intellectually dishonest.

ebbv 11y ago

It's not everything, though. Because as I mentioned it purposely focuses on America, excluding the two biggest nuclear disasters (Chernobyl and Fukushima.) Also fatalities hardly tell the whole story. Far more people have had their lives totally upended by Fukushima than have died from it, and then there's all the people born with defects from Chernobyl, or left unable to reproduce, and we have yet to see the long term effects of Fukushima. Pro-nuclear folks tend to focus on a couple of things; cost and mortality under "normal" circumstances. Because those two things look great. But if you start talking about the full impact that nuclear power has had on it world, the picture becomes far less rosy.

merpnderp 11y ago
But talking about Chernobyl and Fukushima is like focusing on the Pinto as a rolling deathtrap and saying we shouldn't have cars. Fukushima should have been shut down decades ago when it was discovered the danger earthquakes posed for it, and Chernobyl was such a horrific chain of bad decisions, it might as well have been on purpose.