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It goes completely against what most believe, but out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy ht

It goes completely against what most believe, but out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy And that's including the worst-case accidents.

Aachen 6y ago
We all seem to get that airplanes are safe and that being afraid to fly is something to overcome. We also know how disastrously it can go wrong if the plane crashes into flats (I'm thinking of the Bijlmer disaster, not a terrorist attack): it's not a theoretical risk, it's just exceedingly unlikely to happen to you. How come this is communicated differently for fission energy? Looking at the data it's a similar situation.
- StillBored 6y ago
  Planes are massively more dangerous too. How many actual deaths are a result of nuke accidents? Depending on how you count its possible more people died in a single airplane crashes than have died in all the nuke related energy production incidents, ever. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_123 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_123 If you want to include ground based deaths 911 was close to 3k people dead.
adamc 6y ago
My father, who used to testify at various hearings (he was a physicist) used to make this argument. I think it kind of misses a key point: People would much rather deal with N deaths a year than deal with a range with an average of N - k, but a much, much higher possible number (thicker tail to the distribution). Just because math says it's better doesn't mean that is how people experience the risk.
- mpweiher 6y ago
  Right, and that's part of it. However, it doesn't capture all of it, because people vastly overestimate the risk of the bad case. Nuclear is dramatically safer than fossil fuels even if you only count the years with accidents.

Aachen 6y ago

We all seem to get that airplanes are safe and that being afraid to fly is something to overcome. We also know how disastrously it can go wrong if the plane crashes into flats (I'm thinking of the Bijlmer disaster, not a terrorist attack): it's not a theoretical risk, it's just exceedingly unlikely to happen to you. How come this is communicated differently for fission energy? Looking at the data it's a similar situation.

StillBored 6y ago
Planes are massively more dangerous too. How many actual deaths are a result of nuke accidents? Depending on how you count its possible more people died in a single airplane crashes than have died in all the nuke related energy production incidents, ever. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_and_radiation_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_123 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_123 If you want to include ground based deaths 911 was close to 3k people dead.

adamc 6y ago

My father, who used to testify at various hearings (he was a physicist) used to make this argument. I think it kind of misses a key point: People would much rather deal with N deaths a year than deal with a range with an average of N - k, but a much, much higher possible number (thicker tail to the distribution). Just because math says it's better doesn't mean that is how people experience the risk.

mpweiher 6y ago
Right, and that's part of it. However, it doesn't capture all of it, because people vastly overestimate the risk of the bad case. Nuclear is dramatically safer than fossil fuels even if you only count the years with accidents.