4 ms·
Just take a brief look at the list of nuclear accidents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wi
by karamanolev 4y ago
Just take a brief look at the list of nuclear accidents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident...
There's various kinds of human errors (and humans will continue to make errors), equipment malfunctions, problems during equipment maintenance and so on.
Can you call "human incompetence" something to be planned for? Yes, sure, you have to plan for it. Can you plan it well enough so that it simply doesn't happen? Doesn't seem to have happened so far. Does it concern me too much? No. But do other people have to have the same risk tolerance? Also no. It's been proven that people are averse to rare-but-acute risks and can more easily accept frequent small risks (i.e. radiation and contamination from coal plants).
All that is to say that if people are concerned, it's on us to understand the reasons, not just shout into that void that "nuclear is SAFE!!!"
- metadat 4y agoA good reactor design would account for the human factor, and perhaps this is the truly difficult problem with practical nuclear power.
- karamanolev 4y agoAgreed. "A good reactor design" to that definition is enormously hard though - I'll be incredibly happy if that gets solved, hopefully with a modular "built in a factory" design that can be easily replicated and remain very safe.
- panick21_ 4y agoNo bad reactor designs get built or have been built in the West in many decades. Better designs would have been here long ago if we actually had continued with this technology, but its not that current reactors are truly bad designs. The problem with them is more that they don't fit into how energy markets and energy investments are made and have been made. That goes for both the US and Europe.