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I agree with you that other environment polutions have also very long-lasting effect. But my main point was that isolated statements like "half million death pe

I agree with you that other environment polutions have also very long-lasting effect. But my main point was that isolated statements like "half million death per year" are predenting to be meaningful, but are not when you look closely. (Reminds me on "coast length" -- but this is another story.)

belorn 4y ago
The problem of counting things that potentially can lead to deaths is that we will have more potential deaths than we will have people. If we are counting the decay time, we end up with things like lead which has a very very long decay time. We can look at the waste from a nuclear plant, collected and stored and estimate how dangerous or how long it will last. We can also look at the waste from a mine, generally put in a large hole next to it, and estimate how dangerous it is and how long it will last. Mines generally also release a lot of waste into the environment like radon, so we can estimate how much radiation a mine is legally allowed to release into the environment compared to a nuclear plant. If you live anywhere near a mine or where mining activity has occurred in the past, the level of radiation in the air from mining pollution is measurable and quite dangerous in high levels. Here in Sweden it's also recommended that people buy and own detectors in case those levels are too high, and fans with filters to remove the radon particles down to acceptable levels. There is no such recommendation for people who live near nuclear plants, despite Sweden having several of those. A bit odd is it not?