4 ms·

I often hear the argument that "nuclear is bad because there is a chance of a catastrophic loss of life". Well, there has not yet been any large scale nuclear

by JTbane 7y ago

I often hear the argument that "nuclear is bad because there is a chance of a catastrophic loss of life". Well, there has not yet been any large scale nuclear disaster. Cars kill hundreds and we still use them.

mncolinlee 7y ago
Both coal and nuclear have potentially killed millions. Just because it can take decades for Chernobyl, Fukushima, and coal air pollution to result in some cancers, that does not mean they aren't primarily responsible for those deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_...
- jcranmer 7y ago
  The estimation of excess cancer deaths for Chernobyl and Fukushima is based on exposure results and the LNT model of accumulated dose response instead of actual observed cancer incidences, because it's impossible to actually assign specific incidences of cancer to specific causes. Thus, the counts for deaths caused by Chernobyl--the only nuclear power plant to cause significant death--will include deaths that have yet to occur. The total estimates for deaths to nuclear power, even including the use of Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs, struggle to amount to a million, even if you start using the high outlier estimates of anti-nuclear groups.
- godelski 7y ago
  > Both coal and nuclear have potentially killed millions. If you remove nuclear from that sentence it is still true. If you remove coal from that sentence it certainly is not. You are being EXTREMELY misleading. The page you show lists under 10k for nuclear (even if we take the highest estimates from Chernobyl we are around 100k). 20 times that more Americans die per year from coal ash. PER YEAR! 3x that die from cars, or opioids, or guns PER YEAR! Lumping nuclear into this statistic is grossly misleading at best and manipulative at worst. Considering the link you provided, and that I believe you have the ability to count, it suggests the latter. So I just have to ask: why?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
magduf 7y ago
>Cars kill hundreds and we still use them. Cars in the US alone kill 30,000 people every year. It's one of the biggest killers we have, only behind things like heart disease, and it's easily the biggest thing that kills younger, healthy people. Worldwide, the number is somewhere around 250k.
- fooblitzky 7y ago
  250k is an understatement, according to the WHO it's closer to 1.35 million. Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death, worldwide, for people aged 5-29. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-traffic-injuries https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-traffi...
godelski 7y ago
While I agree with your point it is phrased wrong. There have been two large scale nuclear disasters. BUT in those disasters less people died (globally) or will die (using LNT model) than Americans die per year from coal ash. By a fair amount too (4x-100x. 100x is the UN estimate from 2006). You could argue that 10x Americans die every year by cars than any person has died from nuclear. Because when it come to nuclear we're really only talking about 1 event that lead to deaths, and the HIGH estimates of that are still under 100k (for reference, the coal ash number is ~200k/yr, and cars are ~33k/yr). Which yeah, that's a lot of people, but not that many when you consider the time frame of all of nuclear power. Other energy sources and utilities have their deaths spread out over decades and location, the problem with nuclear is that it is temporally and physically concentrated. But let me repeat the main point. Every year more Americans die from coal ash than ALL the people who have ever died from any nuclear incident.
eeZah7Ux 7y ago
This is a logical fallacy.

by JTbane 7y ago

mncolinlee 7y ago

Both coal and nuclear have potentially killed millions. Just because it can take decades for Chernobyl, Fukushima, and coal air pollution to result in some cancers, that does not mean they aren't primarily responsible for those deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_...

jcranmer 7y ago
The estimation of excess cancer deaths for Chernobyl and Fukushima is based on exposure results and the LNT model of accumulated dose response instead of actual observed cancer incidences, because it's impossible to actually assign specific incidences of cancer to specific causes. Thus, the counts for deaths caused by Chernobyl--the only nuclear power plant to cause significant death--will include deaths that have yet to occur. The total estimates for deaths to nuclear power, even including the use of Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs, struggle to amount to a million, even if you start using the high outlier estimates of anti-nuclear groups.
godelski 7y ago
> Both coal and nuclear have potentially killed millions. If you remove nuclear from that sentence it is still true. If you remove coal from that sentence it certainly is not. You are being EXTREMELY misleading. The page you show lists under 10k for nuclear (even if we take the highest estimates from Chernobyl we are around 100k). 20 times that more Americans die per year from coal ash. PER YEAR! 3x that die from cars, or opioids, or guns PER YEAR! Lumping nuclear into this statistic is grossly misleading at best and manipulative at worst. Considering the link you provided, and that I believe you have the ability to count, it suggests the latter. So I just have to ask: why?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

magduf 7y ago

>Cars kill hundreds and we still use them. Cars in the US alone kill 30,000 people every year. It's one of the biggest killers we have, only behind things like heart disease, and it's easily the biggest thing that kills younger, healthy people. Worldwide, the number is somewhere around 250k.

fooblitzky 7y ago
250k is an understatement, according to the WHO it's closer to 1.35 million. Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death, worldwide, for people aged 5-29. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-traffic-injuries https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/road-traffi...

godelski 7y ago

While I agree with your point it is phrased wrong. There have been two large scale nuclear disasters. BUT in those disasters less people died (globally) or will die (using LNT model) than Americans die per year from coal ash. By a fair amount too (4x-100x. 100x is the UN estimate from 2006). You could argue that 10x Americans die every year by cars than any person has died from nuclear. Because when it come to nuclear we're really only talking about 1 event that lead to deaths, and the HIGH estimates of that are still under 100k (for reference, the coal ash number is ~200k/yr, and cars are ~33k/yr). Which yeah, that's a lot of people, but not that many when you consider the time frame of all of nuclear power. Other energy sources and utilities have their deaths spread out over decades and location, the problem with nuclear is that it is temporally and physically concentrated. But let me repeat the main point. Every year more Americans die from coal ash than ALL the people who have ever died from any nuclear incident.

eeZah7Ux 7y ago

This is a logical fallacy.