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People all over this thread making the enormously wrong point that nuclear is ~safe because Fukushima and Chernobyl weren't that bad... There is absolutely no i

People all over this thread making the enormously wrong point that nuclear is ~safe because Fukushima and Chernobyl weren't that bad... There is absolutely no indication that either one was the worst case and it's a failure of imagination to rely on what happened at either to assess the 'real' risk of nuclear. As just one example -- the pools at Chernobyl below the reactor that the engineers had to manually open after the meltdown were sufficient to cause a massive steam explosion. Sure, some additional fissile material would've been spread by that explosion which would be bad -- but the real risk is whether a few hundred ton equivalent explosion in reactor 4 would have been enough to destroy the immediately adjacent reactor 3 building and the reactor 1/2 building as well. There were 13GW of thermal energy in the complex and between design deficiencies and operator errors, 1/4 of that melted down and resulted in a 1,000 sq mi exclusion zone. It's absurd to think that was as bad as it could get.

dmitriid 4y ago
> There is absolutely no indication that either one was the worst case You're trying to prove a negative using Chernobyl (a 50-year old design) as some kind of proof. Even with Chernobyl only 100 deaths are directly attributed to the disaster and there hasn't been any statistically observable rise in effects like cancer since. So, the greatest nuclear power plant disasters in human history caused ... fewer deaths than a single coal power plant in a big city. So yes. We will use them as examples of how safe nuclear power actually is.
- mikeyouse 4y ago
  This is like saying SARS1 was as bad as a modern pandemic could be... of course it's not. It was the worst we'd seen to that point but with some bad luck, it could be substantially worse. If you assume that the worst thing that has happened is the worst thing that could happen, you're going to be in for a very bad time. This isn't remotely to say that Nuclear is 'bad' or that we shouldn't build new plants, just that we should be clear-eyed about the actual tail risks while designing them.
  - duxup 4y ago
    > it could be substantially worse You could say that infinitely. That doesn't help you avoid anything... could direct you to worse decisions. We use the incidents we know to inform ourselves about probability and etc. It's not just those incidents that are considered. And when more data comes along we use that too. That's how figuring things out works for just about everything.
  - dmitriid 4y ago
    > This is like saying SARS1 was as bad as a modern pandemic could be... of course it's not. Of course its not. Meaning "of course it's not like saying <insert false analogy here>". > but with some bad luck, it could be substantially worse. Funny how bad operators + most powerful recorded earthquake in Japan's history + tsunami isn't bad luck worth considering because there's always worse luck around the corner. > that we should be clear-eyed about the actual tail risks while designing them. We are: the greatest disasters involving nuclear power plants have shown that they are incredibly safe. And yet, the perception is "this is just waiting for bad luck to be so much worse". Strangely enough when we look at other sources of energy by deaths from normal operation (coal plants) or historical disasters (Banqjao Dam, 26 000 dead from flood, 145 000 dead from subsequent famine and epidemics, 11 million homeless), somehow no one goes "oh you cannot look at those and state something".
    - mikeyouse 4y ago
      Of course people look at those and state something... if you think that the Banqjao Dam failure is the worst dam failure that can happen, you haven't kept up on the news regarding the Mosul Dam (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul_Dam#Renewed_stability_concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul_Dam#Renewed_stability_co...) or Three Gorges (https://www.wsj.com/articles/worst-flooding-in-decades-raises-concerns-over-chinas-three-gorges-dam-11595337875 https://www.wsj.com/articles/worst-flooding-in-decades-raise...).. So new dam projects are built to avoid the obviously worse potential outcomes. I'm not sure how people are misunderstanding tail risks this much but NNT would be ashamed. "Regression to the tail" is super important when assessing long-term risk -- and likely points more in favor of nuclear plants due to the insanely disruptive tail risk that climate change represents. But "our repeated accidents didn't end up being too bad" isn't the way to assess them.. acknowledging that the accidents resulted in thousand-mile exclusion zones, but limited loss of life is important but that should directly inform the siting of new plants and the operation of existing ones (and why it's a good thing Indian Point is shutting down).
- notahacker 4y ago
  > Even with Chernobyl only 100 deaths are directly attributed to the disaster and there hasn't been any statistically observable rise in effects like cancer since. The trouble with taking the position that only 100 people were killed by Chernobyl and everything else is just estimates, is that holding such a position in good faith means chalking off similar back-of-the envelope estimates for deaths caused by exposure to coal plant emissions...
  - tuatoru 4y ago
    We can see the statistics for COPD, and control for other factors. We can see the statistics for cancers, and control for other factors.
- pvaldes 4y ago
  > Even with Chernobyl only 100 deaths are directly attributed to the disaster It was the same liquidator dying 60000 times. Just one death, but slipped in a banana skin and then fell from a window. Put it in the box next to "Holomodor was not a genocide", "No hospital has been bombed", "it is just a special operation" and "we always tell the truth and never hide anything inconvenient". > and there hasn't been any statistically observable rise in effects like cancer since. That lie was easy to debunk... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30137557/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30137557/
kaba0 4y ago
I mean, in both cases it could have hardly been worse. There were failures in the planning, in the operation and in external events. Like, what else could be worse? A meteor hitting the plant during a terrorist attack?
- mikeyouse 4y ago
  I gave one clear example - the pools below Chernobyl causing a secondary steam explosion that would've resulted in Reactor 3 and potentially 1/2 melting down as well.. naively making that disaster 3x worse than it was. In Fukushima, the explosion and subsequent power loss caused the spent rods from the 4th reactor to nearly boil the water away, had workers not been able to gain access to the site and manually spray the rods, they would've been just burning in the air releasing clouds of radioactive gases. Clearly this would've been much worse than what happened already, but is mostly unaccounted for when people proclaim that the accidents we've seen are evidence that those are the worst possible outcomes. But the whole point is that we don't know the universe of bad things that can happen..

dmitriid 4y ago

> There is absolutely no indication that either one was the worst case You're trying to prove a negative using Chernobyl (a 50-year old design) as some kind of proof. Even with Chernobyl only 100 deaths are directly attributed to the disaster and there hasn't been any statistically observable rise in effects like cancer since. So, the greatest nuclear power plant disasters in human history caused ... fewer deaths than a single coal power plant in a big city. So yes. We will use them as examples of how safe nuclear power actually is.

mikeyouse 4y ago
This is like saying SARS1 was as bad as a modern pandemic could be... of course it's not. It was the worst we'd seen to that point but with some bad luck, it could be substantially worse. If you assume that the worst thing that has happened is the worst thing that could happen, you're going to be in for a very bad time. This isn't remotely to say that Nuclear is 'bad' or that we shouldn't build new plants, just that we should be clear-eyed about the actual tail risks while designing them.
- duxup 4y ago
  > it could be substantially worse You could say that infinitely. That doesn't help you avoid anything... could direct you to worse decisions. We use the incidents we know to inform ourselves about probability and etc. It's not just those incidents that are considered. And when more data comes along we use that too. That's how figuring things out works for just about everything.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  > This is like saying SARS1 was as bad as a modern pandemic could be... of course it's not. Of course its not. Meaning "of course it's not like saying <insert false analogy here>". > but with some bad luck, it could be substantially worse. Funny how bad operators + most powerful recorded earthquake in Japan's history + tsunami isn't bad luck worth considering because there's always worse luck around the corner. > that we should be clear-eyed about the actual tail risks while designing them. We are: the greatest disasters involving nuclear power plants have shown that they are incredibly safe. And yet, the perception is "this is just waiting for bad luck to be so much worse". Strangely enough when we look at other sources of energy by deaths from normal operation (coal plants) or historical disasters (Banqjao Dam, 26 000 dead from flood, 145 000 dead from subsequent famine and epidemics, 11 million homeless), somehow no one goes "oh you cannot look at those and state something".
  - mikeyouse 4y ago
    Of course people look at those and state something... if you think that the Banqjao Dam failure is the worst dam failure that can happen, you haven't kept up on the news regarding the Mosul Dam (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul_Dam#Renewed_stability_concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosul_Dam#Renewed_stability_co...) or Three Gorges (https://www.wsj.com/articles/worst-flooding-in-decades-raises-concerns-over-chinas-three-gorges-dam-11595337875 https://www.wsj.com/articles/worst-flooding-in-decades-raise...).. So new dam projects are built to avoid the obviously worse potential outcomes. I'm not sure how people are misunderstanding tail risks this much but NNT would be ashamed. "Regression to the tail" is super important when assessing long-term risk -- and likely points more in favor of nuclear plants due to the insanely disruptive tail risk that climate change represents. But "our repeated accidents didn't end up being too bad" isn't the way to assess them.. acknowledging that the accidents resulted in thousand-mile exclusion zones, but limited loss of life is important but that should directly inform the siting of new plants and the operation of existing ones (and why it's a good thing Indian Point is shutting down).
notahacker 4y ago
> Even with Chernobyl only 100 deaths are directly attributed to the disaster and there hasn't been any statistically observable rise in effects like cancer since. The trouble with taking the position that only 100 people were killed by Chernobyl and everything else is just estimates, is that holding such a position in good faith means chalking off similar back-of-the envelope estimates for deaths caused by exposure to coal plant emissions...
- tuatoru 4y ago
  We can see the statistics for COPD, and control for other factors. We can see the statistics for cancers, and control for other factors.
pvaldes 4y ago
> Even with Chernobyl only 100 deaths are directly attributed to the disaster It was the same liquidator dying 60000 times. Just one death, but slipped in a banana skin and then fell from a window. Put it in the box next to "Holomodor was not a genocide", "No hospital has been bombed", "it is just a special operation" and "we always tell the truth and never hide anything inconvenient". > and there hasn't been any statistically observable rise in effects like cancer since. That lie was easy to debunk... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30137557/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30137557/

kaba0 4y ago

I mean, in both cases it could have hardly been worse. There were failures in the planning, in the operation and in external events. Like, what else could be worse? A meteor hitting the plant during a terrorist attack?

mikeyouse 4y ago
I gave one clear example - the pools below Chernobyl causing a secondary steam explosion that would've resulted in Reactor 3 and potentially 1/2 melting down as well.. naively making that disaster 3x worse than it was. In Fukushima, the explosion and subsequent power loss caused the spent rods from the 4th reactor to nearly boil the water away, had workers not been able to gain access to the site and manually spray the rods, they would've been just burning in the air releasing clouds of radioactive gases. Clearly this would've been much worse than what happened already, but is mostly unaccounted for when people proclaim that the accidents we've seen are evidence that those are the worst possible outcomes. But the whole point is that we don't know the universe of bad things that can happen..