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Lowest death toll in the best-case scenario, but what about the worst-case scenario? It's not like a fluke once in a lifetime event, we've had meltdowns and par

Lowest death toll in the best-case scenario, but what about the worst-case scenario? It's not like a fluke once in a lifetime event, we've had meltdowns and partial meltdowns all over the world from the US to Switzerland to the Soviet Union to Japan time and again, and while they were bad, they could have been worse, substantially worse. We're investing tons of money into fusion though, so maybe that'll make all these fission plants a moot point.

mlyle 7y ago
There's also the alternative view that maybe we've gotten better at things, and the safety record of nuclear going forward might be better than what we've experienced so far. Calling our history of accidents so far the "best-case" scenario may be misleading.
- PostOnce 7y ago
  I'm not calling our history the best case, it's a bad case, but it's not the worst case. Nuclear is completely safe in the best-case scenario. Nuclear is safe if nothing goes wrong, if the weather is fine, if the people follow the protocols, if nothing unforeseen occurs. If one of those things isn't true, we get Chernobyl, or Fukushima, or perhaps next time, instead of being "not that bad", or "pretty bad", it's worse, because of something we didn't foresee, and we regret it for the rest of human history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_nuclear_disasters_and_radioactive_incidents#Lists_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_nuclear_disasters_and... It's not like we've only had one or two incidents with one or two technologies. I think we're not ready, yet.
  - mlyle 7y ago
    > > Lowest death toll in the best-case scenario, > I'm not calling our history the best case, it's a bad case, but it's not the worst case. Well, in our "bad case" it's still orders of magnitude better than the alternatives... > it's worse, because of something we didn't foresee, and we regret it for the rest of human history. Or this is hyperbole, because nuclear plants just aren't that scary in potential worst case harms. You have less harm in 70 years than one typical year of coal power does-- perhaps less than one typical month of coal power inflicts. Also I don't think your list is fair: counting deliberately nuking places, mining accidents, and radiotherapy accidents. Again, while nuclear is scary-- it at least is self-limiting. There's plenty of shit we do with chemicals and industrial processes that could be bad forever.
  - tapland 7y ago
    > I think we're not ready, yet. With your list of fears, we never will be. If climate scares are true, we're actually doomed if we are to avoid nuclear. I'm OK with increasing risk more than plenty, way above coal deaths, if it prevents a larger crisis for society. But we really aren't with nuclear.
MertsA 7y ago
Lowest death toll including Chernobyl and Fukushima. Those are arguably not representative of the safety improvements we've made over the last 50 years since those plants were built. As bad as those were, solar, wind, and hydro kill more people per TWh produced.

mlyle 7y ago

There's also the alternative view that maybe we've gotten better at things, and the safety record of nuclear going forward might be better than what we've experienced so far. Calling our history of accidents so far the "best-case" scenario may be misleading.

PostOnce 7y ago
I'm not calling our history the best case, it's a bad case, but it's not the worst case. Nuclear is completely safe in the best-case scenario. Nuclear is safe if nothing goes wrong, if the weather is fine, if the people follow the protocols, if nothing unforeseen occurs. If one of those things isn't true, we get Chernobyl, or Fukushima, or perhaps next time, instead of being "not that bad", or "pretty bad", it's worse, because of something we didn't foresee, and we regret it for the rest of human history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_nuclear_disasters_and_radioactive_incidents#Lists_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_nuclear_disasters_and... It's not like we've only had one or two incidents with one or two technologies. I think we're not ready, yet.
- mlyle 7y ago
  > > Lowest death toll in the best-case scenario, > I'm not calling our history the best case, it's a bad case, but it's not the worst case. Well, in our "bad case" it's still orders of magnitude better than the alternatives... > it's worse, because of something we didn't foresee, and we regret it for the rest of human history. Or this is hyperbole, because nuclear plants just aren't that scary in potential worst case harms. You have less harm in 70 years than one typical year of coal power does-- perhaps less than one typical month of coal power inflicts. Also I don't think your list is fair: counting deliberately nuking places, mining accidents, and radiotherapy accidents. Again, while nuclear is scary-- it at least is self-limiting. There's plenty of shit we do with chemicals and industrial processes that could be bad forever.
- tapland 7y ago
  > I think we're not ready, yet. With your list of fears, we never will be. If climate scares are true, we're actually doomed if we are to avoid nuclear. I'm OK with increasing risk more than plenty, way above coal deaths, if it prevents a larger crisis for society. But we really aren't with nuclear.

MertsA 7y ago

Lowest death toll including Chernobyl and Fukushima. Those are arguably not representative of the safety improvements we've made over the last 50 years since those plants were built. As bad as those were, solar, wind, and hydro kill more people per TWh produced.