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What many seem to be missing is that the potential downside of a black swan nuclear catastrophe is many orders of magnitude worse than anything that could occur

What many seem to be missing is that the potential downside of a black swan nuclear catastrophe is many orders of magnitude worse than anything that could occur at a coal plant and includes such lovely scenes as giant radioactive clouds circling the earth. Clearly the Japanese disaster has come nowhere close to this severity, but what would have happened if another larger earthquake and tsunami had struck in the midst of the containment operations? How about five more? Yes, these scenarios are extremely extremely unlikely, but if the possible results include worldwide radiation poisoning, it still could be worth considering, so I think these fears do have some rational basis. Comparisons to x-ray output or air pollution are completely missing the point.

jerf 16y ago
"if the possible results include worldwide radiation poisoning" Well, they don't. We've blown up dozens upon dozens of nuclear bombs, actual factual nuclear bombs, each of which is far far worse than even the worst possible multi-plant catastrophe that could possibly strike, and all we got was a measurable but as far as I know impact-free increase in radioactive cesium levels in people's bones. (Which is even less impressive than it sounds because it's really easy to measure radiation. "Measurable" is orders of magnitude below "dangerous".) "Some plants melt down and everybody in the world gets radiation poisoning" is not a "Black Swan", that's "The laws of physics have been rewritten" event. We can't plan for those at all. (No, please do not trot out anything about how we "may not" fully understand the science. Again, if there is some weird circumstance under which some uranium can suddenly become conscious and declare its undying hatred of the human race in magnificent Elizabethan English shortly before completely converting all its mass to energy, rendering the planet sterile in the resulting explosion, it still doesn't matter, because we can't plan for such low-probability events regardless. We understand radioactivity matters well more than we need to to run reactors.) I am all for rational analysis of the risks, but if you're including actual doomsday scenarios in your analysis, you haven't even started rational analysis yet.

jerf 16y ago

"if the possible results include worldwide radiation poisoning" Well, they don't. We've blown up dozens upon dozens of nuclear bombs, actual factual nuclear bombs, each of which is far far worse than even the worst possible multi-plant catastrophe that could possibly strike, and all we got was a measurable but as far as I know impact-free increase in radioactive cesium levels in people's bones. (Which is even less impressive than it sounds because it's really easy to measure radiation. "Measurable" is orders of magnitude below "dangerous".) "Some plants melt down and everybody in the world gets radiation poisoning" is not a "Black Swan", that's "The laws of physics have been rewritten" event. We can't plan for those at all. (No, please do not trot out anything about how we "may not" fully understand the science. Again, if there is some weird circumstance under which some uranium can suddenly become conscious and declare its undying hatred of the human race in magnificent Elizabethan English shortly before completely converting all its mass to energy, rendering the planet sterile in the resulting explosion, it still doesn't matter, because we can't plan for such low-probability events regardless. We understand radioactivity matters well more than we need to to run reactors.) I am all for rational analysis of the risks, but if you're including actual doomsday scenarios in your analysis, you haven't even started rational analysis yet.