3 ms·
How many people died in all of those? Now compare to the particulate pollution coal releases, which would force evacuation of neighborhoods if we treated them a
by wbl 9y ago
How many people died in all of those? Now compare to the particulate pollution coal releases, which would force evacuation of neighborhoods if we treated them as nuclear plants.
The US Navy has operated hundreds of reactors for decades 24/7.
- pps43 9y agoThe point is not how many people have died, but how bad the impact can be. Even if nobody dies, the need to evacuate a large city like New York or Tokyo because a nuclear power plant nearby underwent rapid unplanned deconstruction might easily wipe off all economic gains from the nuclear energy, and then some.
- scaryclam 9y agoAs opposed to...the entire planet being affected, like it is with fossil fuels?
- pps43 9y agoSolar, wind, hydro do not affect the entire planet. Even burning fossil fuels might be ok, if combined with CO2 sequestration. But this is irrelevant. I'm just saying that you do a comparison, you need to take into consideration risks, too. Otherwise buying any kind of insurance looks pretty irrational.
- wbl 9y agoWhat's a worse accident then Chernobyl in terms of release? Evacuation is frequently not necessary as people willingly live in places with quite high natural radioactivity.
- pps43 9y agoOnly about 3.5% of radioactive material from one reactor was released (there were four reactors). Also no large city happened to be close enough downwind. Some of the areas within 30 km exclusion zone still have levels of radiation too high for people to live there, and will remain high for hundreds of years.
- Tomte 9y agoIt doesn't matter how many have died in the accidents so far. It matters what the worst-case outcome is. I don't downplay it with some statistic about how rare it would be.
- laughinghan 9y agoDoesn't this go both ways, though? You've discussed the worst-case outcome of using nuclear power at length. But I've yet to see you address, anywhere in this thread, the worst-case outcome of not using nuclear power and using greenhouse gas-emitting power sources instead.