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I have to say you lost me at: > The cost of a Chernobyl-scale incident is that it renders a region uninhabitable and kills several hundred people. There are q

I have to say you lost me at: > The cost of a Chernobyl-scale incident is that it renders a region uninhabitable and kills several hundred people. There are quite a few interesting numbers regarding Chernobyl: 31 deaths, for example, is an official figure. But the credits for the TV series also state that estimates of deaths would vary between 4,000 and 93,000 victims. A bit more about the numbers and some additional estimations: The environmental organization Greenpeace estimates the total number of dead as a result of the Chernobyl accident at 93,000. Kate Brown, a professor at MIT, considers up to 150,000 deaths realistic for Ukraine alone. The International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) says Chernobyl caused 50,000 to 100,000 deaths and up to 900,000 disabled. 34,499 rescue workers died, according to the Ukrainian Commission for Radiation Protection. However this figure is considered to be wrong because there is usually no such precise information on this scale. So the number just seems to be doctored to look more precise than is possible at estimations like these. So now we can pick and choose to support our ideology. I don't pick and chose, but state that there are quite a few nuclear reactors that sit in areas way more densely populated with massively more inhabitants in the zone of imminent danger. So any extrapolation from Chernobyl numbers (whichever one selects) would need to factor this into their argument imho. Edit: One question ==> > Waste storage is obviously a challenge. The US has apparently produced enough nuclear waste "to cover a football field about seven yards deep." (64,000 metric tons) Does this number include the parts of the reactor buildings being contaminated? >

sdoering 5y ago
I dug a little deeper for those interested. In Germany there are currently reactor being demolished. None is done, so the numbers are still estimates. For a 1.3MW reactor block the amount of highly contaminated material will probably be in the range of 3000 to 5000 metric tons. For the US with around 96 active reactors (2020) this would imply something (back of a napkin calculation) 280,000 to 470,000 metric tons of additional waste on top of burned nuclear fuel. Depending on the peculiarities of the reactors and so on. I know there are error margins. Highly contaminated material that needs to be secured for thousands of years. This is a multi generational cost factor for our generations convenience. For the ability to burn electricity like there is no tomorrow. Today the lower half (poorer half) of US population is living a live that would enable the US to reach Paris Climate goals. The same applies roughly to most western/northern countries. People like me in the upper income half are the culprits so to speak (statistically speaking).
kelnos 5y ago
This is indeed quite worse than the parent suggested, and I agree with your numbers. I am curious, though, to how many people die due to the normal, continued operation of coal plants (both from mining and from the plant's actual operation). Is that something we can quantify with a reasonable degree of accuracy (like to a rough order of magnitude)? Because even if we have a Chernobyl every 25 years that kills 150k people and gives another million some sort of disability, we have to acknowledge that operating coal plants -- as a "normal" part of their operation -- kills people too. I don't know if they are better or worse than the "amortized" 6k/year killed by nuclear in our estimate here. But it's certainly not zero. And beyond that, burning fossil fuels destroys ecosystems, causes extinction of various animal species, and, if we do not arrest the affects of climate change, will kill millions of people due to its various effects. (Arguably, this has already killed lots of people during extreme weather events linked to climate change.) Maybe 150k people dead every 25 years in a nuclear disaster is, unfortunately, a "bargain" in comparison. If we could scale up renewables at the same rate we could scale up nuclear, then it'd be a no-brainer: choose the former. But it's not clear that we can meet our energy needs with renewables today, even if there was a giant, global push to go fully renewable on a short time scale. Maybe it's better to risk nuclear power incidents in the medium term than continue to vomit fossil fuel byproducts into the atmosphere. But of course the general public will never make this kind of decision rationally; ultimately most of these are political decisions.

sdoering 5y ago

I dug a little deeper for those interested. In Germany there are currently reactor being demolished. None is done, so the numbers are still estimates. For a 1.3MW reactor block the amount of highly contaminated material will probably be in the range of 3000 to 5000 metric tons. For the US with around 96 active reactors (2020) this would imply something (back of a napkin calculation) 280,000 to 470,000 metric tons of additional waste on top of burned nuclear fuel. Depending on the peculiarities of the reactors and so on. I know there are error margins. Highly contaminated material that needs to be secured for thousands of years. This is a multi generational cost factor for our generations convenience. For the ability to burn electricity like there is no tomorrow. Today the lower half (poorer half) of US population is living a live that would enable the US to reach Paris Climate goals. The same applies roughly to most western/northern countries. People like me in the upper income half are the culprits so to speak (statistically speaking).

kelnos 5y ago

This is indeed quite worse than the parent suggested, and I agree with your numbers. I am curious, though, to how many people die due to the normal, continued operation of coal plants (both from mining and from the plant's actual operation). Is that something we can quantify with a reasonable degree of accuracy (like to a rough order of magnitude)? Because even if we have a Chernobyl every 25 years that kills 150k people and gives another million some sort of disability, we have to acknowledge that operating coal plants -- as a "normal" part of their operation -- kills people too. I don't know if they are better or worse than the "amortized" 6k/year killed by nuclear in our estimate here. But it's certainly not zero. And beyond that, burning fossil fuels destroys ecosystems, causes extinction of various animal species, and, if we do not arrest the affects of climate change, will kill millions of people due to its various effects. (Arguably, this has already killed lots of people during extreme weather events linked to climate change.) Maybe 150k people dead every 25 years in a nuclear disaster is, unfortunately, a "bargain" in comparison. If we could scale up renewables at the same rate we could scale up nuclear, then it'd be a no-brainer: choose the former. But it's not clear that we can meet our energy needs with renewables today, even if there was a giant, global push to go fully renewable on a short time scale. Maybe it's better to risk nuclear power incidents in the medium term than continue to vomit fossil fuel byproducts into the atmosphere. But of course the general public will never make this kind of decision rationally; ultimately most of these are political decisions.