3 ms·

> it kills a very low number of people per TWh This is a grossly naive and over-simplistic way to judge safety and efficacy. Yes, perhaps fewer people die in

> it kills a very low number of people per TWh This is a grossly naive and over-simplistic way to judge safety and efficacy. Yes, perhaps fewer people die in a major accidents, but then you've left a large swath of land unusable for hundreds or thousands of years. And the cost for managing the disasters is astronomical. In a place like Japan, they lose a not insignificant portion of landmass to an accident. While other forms of energy may overall cause more deaths, it's been distributed across everyone evenly. And apparently this is considered an better outcome, because that is precisely the policy we are taking with Covid. I'd make a bet that by the end of this pandemic, the amount of suffering and death caused by the lockdowns will be more than from Covid itself, when you consider the massive economic failure of small business, children in isolation for so long, depression, overdoses, suicide, domestic abuse, diseases not being diagnosed or treated, civil unrest, etc. It's considered a good policy to share the suffering across everyone to avoid a few directly attributable deaths of compromised individuals. edit: I'd be curious if anyone was willing to refute my statement rather than downvote it. I strongly believe what I say but am a big supporter of critical thought and would love for someone to challenge my statement and give me a reason to think otherwise.

drivebycomment 6y ago
Which large parcel of land in Japan is unusable for hundreds of years ? I am not aware of any large area declared unusable that way.
- colordrops 6y ago
  http://fukushimaontheglobe.com/the-earthquake-and-the-nuclear-accident/evacuation-orders-and-restricted-areas http://fukushimaontheglobe.com/the-earthquake-and-the-nuclea...
  - drivebycomment 6y ago
    Where does it say the evacuated areas are off limit for hundreds of years ?
    - colordrops 6y ago
      After doing a bit of searching around, it looks like 20-40 years: https://www.brainscape.com/blog/2015/06/how-long-take-to-recover-from-a-nuclear-accident/#:~:text=More%20than%20100%2C000%20people%20remain,at%20least%2020%2D40%20years https://www.brainscape.com/blog/2015/06/how-long-take-to-rec.... So one of my assumptions was incorrect - but only about Fukushima. Chernobyl is estimated at 20,000 years. So it depends on the nature of the contaminaation.
      - drivebycomment 6y ago
        I have no doubt that all advocates for nuclear would agree Chernobyl is not acceptable, and that Chernobyl can't happen in more modern reactor designs. If Fukushima is the worst case (and newer designs may even avoid/prevent Fukushima style event entirely), I'd say the cost is acceptable. ~300 square km area that's affected is relatively small, given the grand scheme of things - it would be certainly much, much less impact than coal mining has on land use and pollution (by mining itself, not counting the effect of burning coal). So if I have a magic wand, I'd happily remove all coal mining and power plants, and replace them all with nuclear power plants (though not necessarily put them on the same location), and I think humanity will be better off. In the really long term, if/when there's enough energy storage solutions, I think we may not need much of nuclear power plants anymore. But I think we can not wait for that to be viable as the climate disaster is already on its way.
Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
> they lose a not insignificant portion of landmass to an accident. After a tsunami wave. That was the reason for losing large land mass and a lot of destruction and death. It would have largely been the same way with or without the nuclear plant there.

drivebycomment 6y ago

Which large parcel of land in Japan is unusable for hundreds of years ? I am not aware of any large area declared unusable that way.

colordrops 6y ago
http://fukushimaontheglobe.com/the-earthquake-and-the-nuclear-accident/evacuation-orders-and-restricted-areas http://fukushimaontheglobe.com/the-earthquake-and-the-nuclea...
- drivebycomment 6y ago
  Where does it say the evacuated areas are off limit for hundreds of years ?
  - colordrops 6y ago
    After doing a bit of searching around, it looks like 20-40 years: https://www.brainscape.com/blog/2015/06/how-long-take-to-recover-from-a-nuclear-accident/#:~:text=More%20than%20100%2C000%20people%20remain,at%20least%2020%2D40%20years https://www.brainscape.com/blog/2015/06/how-long-take-to-rec.... So one of my assumptions was incorrect - but only about Fukushima. Chernobyl is estimated at 20,000 years. So it depends on the nature of the contaminaation.
    - drivebycomment 6y ago
      I have no doubt that all advocates for nuclear would agree Chernobyl is not acceptable, and that Chernobyl can't happen in more modern reactor designs. If Fukushima is the worst case (and newer designs may even avoid/prevent Fukushima style event entirely), I'd say the cost is acceptable. ~300 square km area that's affected is relatively small, given the grand scheme of things - it would be certainly much, much less impact than coal mining has on land use and pollution (by mining itself, not counting the effect of burning coal). So if I have a magic wand, I'd happily remove all coal mining and power plants, and replace them all with nuclear power plants (though not necessarily put them on the same location), and I think humanity will be better off. In the really long term, if/when there's enough energy storage solutions, I think we may not need much of nuclear power plants anymore. But I think we can not wait for that to be viable as the climate disaster is already on its way.

Erlich_Bachman 6y ago

> they lose a not insignificant portion of landmass to an accident. After a tsunami wave. That was the reason for losing large land mass and a lot of destruction and death. It would have largely been the same way with or without the nuclear plant there.