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I think this overlooks the ways that opposition can increase costs of building nuclear and the extreme safety burden imposed on nuclear plants but not other ene

• gameswithgo 6y ago
  If safety costs were not high, then suddenly the boogie men might be correct about the dangers?
  • whatshisface 6y ago
    The right balance would be to let nuclear meet the same safety standards as other power sources, instead of far higher ones.
  • throw0101a 6y ago
    The fatality rates of other source of electricity are much higher, and they seem to be accepted: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents * https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy So why is there an insistence on potentially over-engineering nuclear? Why the insistence on lower rates of nuclear compared to other type of generation? If we don't want to reduce nuclear safety—which is completely reasonable—then to be consistent, other forms of generation should be made safer—which may drive their costs up. Pick a rate that is acceptable, and have design goals around that. Either by making things less onerous for nuclear or more onerous for others. There are all sorts of gas generators coming online (because of fracking), and while they may be better than coal, but that's hardly a useful way to eliminate emissions. Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen: > Our findings also have important implications for large-scale "fuel switching" to natural gas from coal or from nuclear. Although natural gas burning emits less fatal pollutants and GHGs than coal burning, it is far deadlier than nuclear power, causing about 40 times more deaths per unit electric energy produced (ref. 2). * https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/kharecha_02/ https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/kharecha_02/