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We have accumulated a lot of stories that can be a bit hair-raising. But looking back, the actual rate of casualties is much higher for coal, oil, & gas. Which
by ip26 7y ago
We have accumulated a lot of stories that can be a bit hair-raising. But looking back, the actual rate of casualties is much higher for coal, oil, & gas. Which makes this feel like obsessing about airline fatalities (0.2 deaths per 10 billion passenger-miles) and ignoring automobile fatalities (150 per 10 billion vehicle-miles)
I mean, look at it from the other angle. At San Onofre, a vessel was installed backwards. It then proceeded to deliver power for 25 years & was decommissioned. Additionally, we're reading about all this mismanagement as a result of regulatory oversight. Not as a result of a post-catastrophe investigative report.
- patejam 7y agoI never liked comparing air travel to car travel. It's just not a fair comparison. Per mile danger is the most favorable towards airlines, but you could use per-journey and then airline travel is 3-4x more dangerous than cars. The best you can do is either say "airline travel is plenty safe enough" or make direct comparisons like "traveling from NYC to LA via airline is safer than driving the same distance".
- wool_gather 7y ago> you could use per-journey and then airline travel is 3-4x more dangerous than cars. This wouldn't be a fair comparison either, unless you normalized for number of people on the journey. (As done in passenger-miles.)
- patejam 7y agoMy point was that the 3-4x stat is also not fair. My point was that there are very few fair comparisons, and gave some examples that I think are fair statements.