4 ms·

I guess I don't follow your reasoning. The long term data (over decades) shows that nuclear kills fewer people than other forms of power generation. Maybe that

I guess I don't follow your reasoning. The long term data (over decades) shows that nuclear kills fewer people than other forms of power generation. Maybe that will change over time (fewer people falling off of roofs when installing solar). That data includes "high impact" events, including things like Fukushima, which evidently has not resulted in any radiation-related fatalities.

beat 10y ago
I'm not just measuring fatalities. I'm measuring economic costs. A nuclear accident can render a city uninhabitable, even if no one dies. edit: An additional risk is that a nuclear plant is much more complex and expensive than a solar plant. A major accident, if nothing else, wrecks the plant, taking away a key resource that could take a decade and billions of dollars to rebuild (if it's politically possible to rebuild at all). Solar and wind, made up of collections of small units, can't suffer the same kind of unrecoverable catastrophic failure. Again, economic risk. And yet another risk... because of the potential destructive nature, nuclear plants are obvious targets for terrorists and military action. This ties back to the ability to disable a plant and its impact. Even if it doesn't cause fatalities, taking a nuclear plant offline and forcing evacuations isn't that hard. High, high economic risk. This is another example of your original mistake. You're narrowly focusing, and not doing a solid risk analysis. Nuclear power is riskier than solar, because the potential impact of failure is much higher.
- ZeroGravitas 10y ago
  A recent explosion in a US nuclear waste facility is estimated to cost $2 Billion. It was caused by using the wrong kind of kitty litter apparently: https://www.abqjournal.com/830731/2014-nuclear-accident-at-wipp-ranks-among-costliest-in-u-s-history.html https://www.abqjournal.com/830731/2014-nuclear-accident-at-w...
  - wstrange 10y ago
    That waste dump was built for the nuclear weapons program, not for reactor waste. Different issue (plutonium is indeed nasty stuff).

beat 10y ago

I'm not just measuring fatalities. I'm measuring economic costs. A nuclear accident can render a city uninhabitable, even if no one dies. edit: An additional risk is that a nuclear plant is much more complex and expensive than a solar plant. A major accident, if nothing else, wrecks the plant, taking away a key resource that could take a decade and billions of dollars to rebuild (if it's politically possible to rebuild at all). Solar and wind, made up of collections of small units, can't suffer the same kind of unrecoverable catastrophic failure. Again, economic risk. And yet another risk... because of the potential destructive nature, nuclear plants are obvious targets for terrorists and military action. This ties back to the ability to disable a plant and its impact. Even if it doesn't cause fatalities, taking a nuclear plant offline and forcing evacuations isn't that hard. High, high economic risk. This is another example of your original mistake. You're narrowly focusing, and not doing a solid risk analysis. Nuclear power is riskier than solar, because the potential impact of failure is much higher.

ZeroGravitas 10y ago
A recent explosion in a US nuclear waste facility is estimated to cost $2 Billion. It was caused by using the wrong kind of kitty litter apparently: https://www.abqjournal.com/830731/2014-nuclear-accident-at-wipp-ranks-among-costliest-in-u-s-history.html https://www.abqjournal.com/830731/2014-nuclear-accident-at-w...
- wstrange 10y ago
  That waste dump was built for the nuclear weapons program, not for reactor waste. Different issue (plutonium is indeed nasty stuff).