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Nuclear is a prime example for Black Swan instances. All fine until it blows - but when it blows, the catastrophe is really big. If a windmill fails catastrop
by pinaceae 10y ago
Nuclear is a prime example for Black Swan instances.
All fine until it blows - but when it blows, the catastrophe is really big.
If a windmill fails catastrophically, the area around it does not become uninhabitable for at least decades.
- GVIrish 10y agoThat's true in the abstract, but the big picture is that we're trying to avoid a much larger disaster with climate change. If wind+solar could fill the world's energy needs now, that is what we would be doing. But that is far, far off into the future, if it's possible at all. Burning coal is causing damage to the environment now, killing people from air pollution now, and potentially driving us towards climate change that will kill and displace many millions of people. Nuclear has its downsides but it is not going to raise sea level by 2 or 3 feet in the next century nor cause widespread disruptions in crop growing, or cause devastating extreme weather. A nuclear accident could result in an exclusion zone of a 2 or 3 dozen miles. Climate change could cause global consequences that would be irreversible with our current technology.