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In an average year nuclear accidents from power generation kill no one and the total deaths from all nuclear accidents ever are probably under 5,000. People die

In an average year nuclear accidents from power generation kill no one and the total deaths from all nuclear accidents ever are probably under 5,000. People die installing rooftop solar panels every year. Nuclear waste is treated with incredible care and there’s very little of it. Every solar panel has toxic heavy metals in it and most of them are manufactured China. I guarantee you people die from heavy metal exposure every year and once solar panels come to the end of their useful lives someone will be reprocessing them, probably unsafely. Nuclear power is really safe. https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy

pmoriarty 7y ago
"Nuclear waste is treated with incredible care and there’s very little of it." There's very little of it? Really? Even the Spiegel article says: "the amount of highly radioactive waste that Germany will have to store indefinitely - a total of around 10,000 tons - would fit inside a largish furniture store" 10,000 tons doesn't sound like very little to me. And that's just Germany. I don't know the numbers, but I would be shocked if other countries like the US and Russia didn't have way, way, way more.
- Krasnol 7y ago
  The "treated with care" part is also more like a shortsighted wish. See Asse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine Waste from decommission is not even included there.
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    No containment breaches ever sounds pretty great to me. There’s obviously room for improvement but if all you’ve got is that it’s not actually perfect I’ll happily concede that. Meanwhile Germany’s withdrawal from nuclear power has resulted in 1,000 additional deaths per year. http://papers.nber.org/tmp/26395-w26598.pdf http://papers.nber.org/tmp/26395-w26598.pdf This paper examines the impact of the shutdown of roughly half of the nuclear production capacity in Germany after the Fukushima accident in 2011. We use hourly data on power plant operations and a novel machine learning framework to estimate how plants would have operated differently if the phase-out had not occurred. We find that the lost nuclear electricity production due to the phase-out was replaced primarily by coal- fired production and net electricity imports. The social cost of this shift from nuclear to coal is approximately 12 billion dollars per year. Over 70% of this cost comes from the increased mortality risk associated with exposure to the local air pollution emitted when burning fossil fuels. Even the largest estimates of the reduction in the costs associated with nuclear accident risk and waste disposal due to the phase-out are far smaller than 12 billion dollars.
    - Krasnol 7y ago
      There was no shift from nuclear to coal in Germany. Throwing numbers around while ignoring the political reality around coal in Germany is bad science. The is a huge coal lobby and coal in underdeveloped regions being the only employer are right now the main reasons why coal is being kept alive while support for renewables is being kept low. Not a single coal reactor or mine would have been shut down if nuclear would have still be there.
- keanzu 7y ago
  If you piled all 10K tonnes in one place it would a cube less than 20m per side. All the 'highly radioactive waste' for Germany's entire nuclear industry for all of time up until now? That's very little. The EU Commission reports that in Germany 583 kilograms of waste is produced per person annually. So it takes only ~17,000 Germans to produce 10,000 tonnes of normal waste per year.
  - Krasnol 7y ago
    Is this including deconstruction waste or just the fuel?
    - keanzu 7y ago
      The Spiegel article doesn't appear to specify.
      - Krasnol 7y ago
        None of those nuclear ads "specifies". All of those love to ignore this waste just like the overdue reactors which are kept alive through expansive measures while problems are being underreported. Which is just another reason we shouldn't build more of those.

pmoriarty 7y ago

"Nuclear waste is treated with incredible care and there’s very little of it." There's very little of it? Really? Even the Spiegel article says: "the amount of highly radioactive waste that Germany will have to store indefinitely - a total of around 10,000 tons - would fit inside a largish furniture store" 10,000 tons doesn't sound like very little to me. And that's just Germany. I don't know the numbers, but I would be shocked if other countries like the US and Russia didn't have way, way, way more.

Krasnol 7y ago
The "treated with care" part is also more like a shortsighted wish. See Asse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II_mine Waste from decommission is not even included there.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  No containment breaches ever sounds pretty great to me. There’s obviously room for improvement but if all you’ve got is that it’s not actually perfect I’ll happily concede that. Meanwhile Germany’s withdrawal from nuclear power has resulted in 1,000 additional deaths per year. http://papers.nber.org/tmp/26395-w26598.pdf http://papers.nber.org/tmp/26395-w26598.pdf This paper examines the impact of the shutdown of roughly half of the nuclear production capacity in Germany after the Fukushima accident in 2011. We use hourly data on power plant operations and a novel machine learning framework to estimate how plants would have operated differently if the phase-out had not occurred. We find that the lost nuclear electricity production due to the phase-out was replaced primarily by coal- fired production and net electricity imports. The social cost of this shift from nuclear to coal is approximately 12 billion dollars per year. Over 70% of this cost comes from the increased mortality risk associated with exposure to the local air pollution emitted when burning fossil fuels. Even the largest estimates of the reduction in the costs associated with nuclear accident risk and waste disposal due to the phase-out are far smaller than 12 billion dollars.
  - Krasnol 7y ago
    There was no shift from nuclear to coal in Germany. Throwing numbers around while ignoring the political reality around coal in Germany is bad science. The is a huge coal lobby and coal in underdeveloped regions being the only employer are right now the main reasons why coal is being kept alive while support for renewables is being kept low. Not a single coal reactor or mine would have been shut down if nuclear would have still be there.
keanzu 7y ago
If you piled all 10K tonnes in one place it would a cube less than 20m per side. All the 'highly radioactive waste' for Germany's entire nuclear industry for all of time up until now? That's very little. The EU Commission reports that in Germany 583 kilograms of waste is produced per person annually. So it takes only ~17,000 Germans to produce 10,000 tonnes of normal waste per year.
- Krasnol 7y ago
  Is this including deconstruction waste or just the fuel?
  - keanzu 7y ago
    The Spiegel article doesn't appear to specify.
    - Krasnol 7y ago
      None of those nuclear ads "specifies". All of those love to ignore this waste just like the overdue reactors which are kept alive through expansive measures while problems are being underreported. Which is just another reason we shouldn't build more of those.