4 ms·

I recently read the Serhii Plokhy book Atoms and Ashes, where he discusses 6 most notable nuclear accidents in depth. And his conclusion was pretty grim. Parap

I recently read the Serhii Plokhy book Atoms and Ashes, where he discusses 6 most notable nuclear accidents in depth. And his conclusion was pretty grim. Paraphrasing: If we bet on nuclear for mitigation of climate change, it is inevitable that nuclear accidents will happen more often. Also each accident causes a major setback in peoples minds regarding nuclear safety and the next Fukushima might kill off a lot of progress and the opportunity cost lost would be huge. I don't know how to argue with this. I personally think nuclear is really safe. If the worst accidents have killed a few hundred and caused premature deaths to at most hundreds of thousands. Compared to the millions of premature deaths PER YEAR for fossil related energy and the possible billions coming from climate change, nuclear is as safe as it gets (I mean probably more PV installers will fall off roofs than get killed by nuclear accidents), but peoples fears might not be surmountable.

londons_explore 4y ago
All it takes is for a few newspapers to regularly publish alongside any article about any power source the figures of "X people died per year by nuclear, Y by solar, Z by coal", etc. Any newspaper mogul could make that happen. Any time there is any accident, people interviewed need to start with "There is a risk this incident might stop nuclear from being the safest energy source. But to be honest, I think we'll still keep the crown".
tptacek 4y ago
It sounds like the argument presented here is that if we actually use nuclear power, there will be more accidents, which will cost us the opportunity of actually using nuclear power.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Each accident saves us from building more nukes than would have been built otherwise. The benefit has probably been well worth their costs.
zosima 4y ago
There is quite clearly not even remotely 100.000 premature deaths from Chernobyl. The only cancer that clearly went up in immediate connection to Chernobyl was thyroid cancer, and that was in most cases very treatable. It's also unclear how much of the increase in incidence, was due to increased screening. Thyroid cancer seems to have affected the general population, but in a dose-dependent manner, where the increased risk became really low when looking outside the cleaning crew. On top of that there is some evidence to suggest that the risk of leukemia and other blood cancers increased in the cleaning crew. (But still really low numbers). And as far as I know no signs of increased blood cancer rate was seen in the general population. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28929329/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28929329/ It actually appears that the largest loss of human life from Chernobyl happened because of panic. Women chose abortion because of the perceived increased risk of malformation in offspring. As far as I am aware, the actual increased risk of malformations has not been detectable, and I presume it to be negligible. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8516187/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8516187/ https://www.vice.com/en/article/ywyqzv/why-hundreds-of-thousands-of-women-ended-their-pregnancies-after-chernobyl https://www.vice.com/en/article/ywyqzv/why-hundreds-of-thous...
tomp 4y ago
> Also each accident causes a major setback in peoples minds regarding nuclear safety Planes are crashing all the time and kill tons of people (way more than nuclear power plants anyways), yet flying is more popular than ever (before Covid, anyways)
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Planes crash very, very rarely nowadays. Two crashes overseas (correctly) grounded all planes of the type for years. Russia shot one down a couple of years back. A crazy deliberately crashed another in the Indian Ocean. It is many, many times safer to fly than to drive the same distance. This is almost miraculous. It is also almost miraculous that the measures to make it so safe do not make flying enormously more expensive than it is.

londons_explore 4y ago

All it takes is for a few newspapers to regularly publish alongside any article about any power source the figures of "X people died per year by nuclear, Y by solar, Z by coal", etc. Any newspaper mogul could make that happen. Any time there is any accident, people interviewed need to start with "There is a risk this incident might stop nuclear from being the safest energy source. But to be honest, I think we'll still keep the crown".

tptacek 4y ago

It sounds like the argument presented here is that if we actually use nuclear power, there will be more accidents, which will cost us the opportunity of actually using nuclear power.

ncmncm 4y ago
Each accident saves us from building more nukes than would have been built otherwise. The benefit has probably been well worth their costs.

zosima 4y ago

There is quite clearly not even remotely 100.000 premature deaths from Chernobyl. The only cancer that clearly went up in immediate connection to Chernobyl was thyroid cancer, and that was in most cases very treatable. It's also unclear how much of the increase in incidence, was due to increased screening. Thyroid cancer seems to have affected the general population, but in a dose-dependent manner, where the increased risk became really low when looking outside the cleaning crew. On top of that there is some evidence to suggest that the risk of leukemia and other blood cancers increased in the cleaning crew. (But still really low numbers). And as far as I know no signs of increased blood cancer rate was seen in the general population. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28929329/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28929329/ It actually appears that the largest loss of human life from Chernobyl happened because of panic. Women chose abortion because of the perceived increased risk of malformation in offspring. As far as I am aware, the actual increased risk of malformations has not been detectable, and I presume it to be negligible. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8516187/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8516187/ https://www.vice.com/en/article/ywyqzv/why-hundreds-of-thousands-of-women-ended-their-pregnancies-after-chernobyl https://www.vice.com/en/article/ywyqzv/why-hundreds-of-thous...

tomp 4y ago

> Also each accident causes a major setback in peoples minds regarding nuclear safety Planes are crashing all the time and kill tons of people (way more than nuclear power plants anyways), yet flying is more popular than ever (before Covid, anyways)

ncmncm 4y ago
Planes crash very, very rarely nowadays. Two crashes overseas (correctly) grounded all planes of the type for years. Russia shot one down a couple of years back. A crazy deliberately crashed another in the Indian Ocean. It is many, many times safer to fly than to drive the same distance. This is almost miraculous. It is also almost miraculous that the measures to make it so safe do not make flying enormously more expensive than it is.