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> But overall, most of the things profiled as "severe problems and gross negligence" appear to have caused zero fatalities and zero radiation release. I'm not

> But overall, most of the things profiled as "severe problems and gross negligence" appear to have caused zero fatalities and zero radiation release. I'm not sure this is enough. "We almost head a nuclear meltdown in a densely populated area but zero fatalities so far!" is not inspiring confidence that there will be no fatalities in the future. > 10,000 fatalities from coal per year in the USA alone. Where did you get that number?

Bartweiss 9y ago
I agree that this is a tail risk situation, I don't mean to imply "no issues so far" is enough to make it safe. Three Mile Island isn't evidence of safety just because no one died, what matters to me is that there was no realistic route beyond "shielded meltdown". A lot of the fears raised by opponents of nuclear appear to be outright impossible. (Sadly realistic fears, mostly around hot waste disposal, don't seem to get as much coverage.) The coal number is deaths from health effects of coal burning. Estimates vary widely, but 7,500 is a minimum and 10k is conservative. It's worse per capita and per watt in other countries, too - US plants are cleanish and US coal is low-particulate. Moving China onto nuclear power would be a vastly bigger gain (even per watt) than the US. Accidental deaths are nontrivial for power sources, but don't dominate pollution effects. Coal is mostly pollution-derived because it's so dirty, oil is a mix because rigs are dangerous, wing & solar are wholly accident-based simply because there's no lethal pollution there. Nuclear causes approximately zero deaths of any kind, but again, tail risk. US source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-other-reason-to-shift-away-from-coal-air-pollution-that-kills-thousands-every-year/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-other-reason-... Global deaths/TwH source: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html#more https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-ener...
- whyever 9y ago
  Thanks for the links! In addition to the yet unsolved waste disposal problem you mentioned, there is the problem of mining the nuclear fuel. This can be quite dangerous to the miners, especially in countries with lax security standards. I would expect the most deaths due to nuclear power happen there.

Bartweiss 9y ago

I agree that this is a tail risk situation, I don't mean to imply "no issues so far" is enough to make it safe. Three Mile Island isn't evidence of safety just because no one died, what matters to me is that there was no realistic route beyond "shielded meltdown". A lot of the fears raised by opponents of nuclear appear to be outright impossible. (Sadly realistic fears, mostly around hot waste disposal, don't seem to get as much coverage.) The coal number is deaths from health effects of coal burning. Estimates vary widely, but 7,500 is a minimum and 10k is conservative. It's worse per capita and per watt in other countries, too - US plants are cleanish and US coal is low-particulate. Moving China onto nuclear power would be a vastly bigger gain (even per watt) than the US. Accidental deaths are nontrivial for power sources, but don't dominate pollution effects. Coal is mostly pollution-derived because it's so dirty, oil is a mix because rigs are dangerous, wing & solar are wholly accident-based simply because there's no lethal pollution there. Nuclear causes approximately zero deaths of any kind, but again, tail risk. US source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-other-reason-to-shift-away-from-coal-air-pollution-that-kills-thousands-every-year/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-other-reason-... Global deaths/TwH source: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html#more https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-ener...

whyever 9y ago
Thanks for the links! In addition to the yet unsolved waste disposal problem you mentioned, there is the problem of mining the nuclear fuel. This can be quite dangerous to the miners, especially in countries with lax security standards. I would expect the most deaths due to nuclear power happen there.