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100% safe is never the metric. Nothing is 100% safe. Every form of energy generation has risks that have to balance the good the energy source brings. Nuclear i

100% safe is never the metric. Nothing is 100% safe. Every form of energy generation has risks that have to balance the good the energy source brings. Nuclear is nearly unique in that it can produce carbon-free energy (unlike fossil and biomass), continuously for 2 years on end between reloads (unlike wind/solar/coal), and it can be deployed in a wide variety of geographic locations (unlike hydro and geothermal). The risk is that there are occasionally nuclear accidents: Three mile island and fermi 1 meltdowns, both of which killed zero people. Chernobyl, which killed ~50 from ARS and up to 4,000 early deaths over the next several decades (on top of a few million cancers that would have happened anyway in the population). Fukushima, which killed up to one person. Can anyone name any fatal natural gas explosions? Any hydro dam failures that killed 100,000? How many people per year does coal kill by operating normally (~200,000). We as a society accept certain risks from our energy infrastructure because of all the good we get from it. Here is a plot of how many thousands of days of life are lost by various things [1]. Note that nuclear is almost ridiculously low. This chart doesn't include the impact of climate change on human lives. Nuclear fission is a climate superpower, and we cannot be justified in neglecting this natural resource because we're afraid of something going boom. TLDR: A factor of 100x improvement in nuclear safety goes from tiny risk to supertiny. Current plants are already safer than almost everything else we know. Some studies have more people dying from installing solar on their roofs than getting killed by radiation from nuclear fission plants. [1] https://i.imgur.com/ClgbpA4.png https://i.imgur.com/ClgbpA4.png

v_lisivka 8y ago
Yeah, even Sun will blow and destroy our Solar system, so solar energy is not safe too. BTW: Will you move to Chornobyl to demonstrate that radioactivity is safe? Land is cheap here.
- acidburnNSA 8y ago
  Sure, if my family and job were there. Its a thriving wildlife refuge now. Check it out. https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/worlds-worst-energy-accidents-in-environmental-perspective/ https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/worlds-worst-energy-ac...
  - uterus-liner 8y ago
    Pretty tough talk, posting comments on the internet. You have convenient excuses, and a lot of talk. How about you actually do it?
  - v_lisivka 8y ago
    I can drive to Chornobyl by bicycle. I just don't want that. Wildlife is thriving in my area too, because people abandon homes and move to cities instead. However, if you like it, you can create similar exclusion zone near to you. Just vote for nuclear power and wait until next nuclear disaster.
    - AstralStorm 8y ago
      Come on. You can drive nearly to the reactor itself and not even get a yearly background radiation dose now. There are a few hot spots where contaminated gear from decommissioning is stored, that's it. People got cancers at increased rate, which is limited to less than two generations of damage. The range had expired a bunch of years ago. Going into high mountains is a bigger radiation risk today. As a bonus, you can just drive to Fukushima on a bike today and not even get a daily dose of some inhabited places in the US.
      - v_lisivka 8y ago
        Cancer rate continue to grow here at steady rate. My neighbors died because of cancer, my brother has tumor. Tell your nice story to someone else, please.
    - smileysteve 8y ago
      > However, if you like it, you can create similar exclusion zone near to you. Just vote for nuclear power and wait until next nuclear disaster. Reminder that coal has more radioactive waste over a decade than a nuclear plant does in its worst failure mode; and that worst failure mode is very unlikely with modern reactor designs (unlike Chernobyl and Fukushima)
      - 8y ago
beders 8y ago
A 1% failure rate is not acceptable. Nice try downplaying the actual consequences of a reactor incident like Chernobyl. Do I have to mention radioactive boars roaming in Bavarian forests again? The billions in costs to an economy? The only part I agree with you is that coal is a not an acceptable way to generate power. There's now sufficiently cheap power generators that don't devastate whole areas for centuries to come. Let's use those instead of this old nuclear tech.
- acidburnNSA 8y ago
  Core damage frequency of modern plants is in the 1e-6 to 1e-8 range/year. That's 4-6 orders of magnitude lower than 1%. I highly recommend you read some recent info regarding Chernobyl [1]. I'm not downplaying it at all. I'm using quantitative numbers produced by teams of UN and WHO scientists. RE cost: climate change will cost trillions. Nuclear power plants can prevent that cost. "Centuries" is a persistent anti-nuclear myth. Again, see [1]. I don't think you're well justified in saying I'm downplaying Chernobyl when you're going on and saying stuff like this! [1] https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/worlds-worst-energy-accidents-in-environmental-perspective/ https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/worlds-worst-energy-ac...

v_lisivka 8y ago

Yeah, even Sun will blow and destroy our Solar system, so solar energy is not safe too. BTW: Will you move to Chornobyl to demonstrate that radioactivity is safe? Land is cheap here.

acidburnNSA 8y ago
Sure, if my family and job were there. Its a thriving wildlife refuge now. Check it out. https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/worlds-worst-energy-accidents-in-environmental-perspective/ https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/worlds-worst-energy-ac...
- uterus-liner 8y ago
  Pretty tough talk, posting comments on the internet. You have convenient excuses, and a lot of talk. How about you actually do it?
- v_lisivka 8y ago
  I can drive to Chornobyl by bicycle. I just don't want that. Wildlife is thriving in my area too, because people abandon homes and move to cities instead. However, if you like it, you can create similar exclusion zone near to you. Just vote for nuclear power and wait until next nuclear disaster.
  - AstralStorm 8y ago
    Come on. You can drive nearly to the reactor itself and not even get a yearly background radiation dose now. There are a few hot spots where contaminated gear from decommissioning is stored, that's it. People got cancers at increased rate, which is limited to less than two generations of damage. The range had expired a bunch of years ago. Going into high mountains is a bigger radiation risk today. As a bonus, you can just drive to Fukushima on a bike today and not even get a daily dose of some inhabited places in the US.
    - v_lisivka 8y ago
      Cancer rate continue to grow here at steady rate. My neighbors died because of cancer, my brother has tumor. Tell your nice story to someone else, please.
  - smileysteve 8y ago
    > However, if you like it, you can create similar exclusion zone near to you. Just vote for nuclear power and wait until next nuclear disaster. Reminder that coal has more radioactive waste over a decade than a nuclear plant does in its worst failure mode; and that worst failure mode is very unlikely with modern reactor designs (unlike Chernobyl and Fukushima)
    - 8y ago

beders 8y ago

A 1% failure rate is not acceptable. Nice try downplaying the actual consequences of a reactor incident like Chernobyl. Do I have to mention radioactive boars roaming in Bavarian forests again? The billions in costs to an economy? The only part I agree with you is that coal is a not an acceptable way to generate power. There's now sufficiently cheap power generators that don't devastate whole areas for centuries to come. Let's use those instead of this old nuclear tech.

acidburnNSA 8y ago
Core damage frequency of modern plants is in the 1e-6 to 1e-8 range/year. That's 4-6 orders of magnitude lower than 1%. I highly recommend you read some recent info regarding Chernobyl [1]. I'm not downplaying it at all. I'm using quantitative numbers produced by teams of UN and WHO scientists. RE cost: climate change will cost trillions. Nuclear power plants can prevent that cost. "Centuries" is a persistent anti-nuclear myth. Again, see [1]. I don't think you're well justified in saying I'm downplaying Chernobyl when you're going on and saying stuff like this! [1] https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/worlds-worst-energy-accidents-in-environmental-perspective/ https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/worlds-worst-energy-ac...