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It was one of the worst accidents in nuclear history. ... that killed ~1 person. I think the disconnect here is that the "whaddaboutism" type arguments are act
by chris_va 4y ago
It was one of the worst accidents in nuclear history.
... that killed ~1 person.
I think the disconnect here is that the "whaddaboutism" type arguments are actually relevant for once. Arguing against nuclear (or anything else) is implicitly an argument to use alternative sources of power, as society isn't generally leaving people in the dark with no electricity. If the Fukushima reactor hadn't been there, then it would have bean a coal or natural gas plant. Both would have killed far more people over the lifetime of the plant.
I think people have an allergic reaction to nuclear power that goes beyond rational, given the underlying statistics deaths/TWh. Having a single terrifying moment certainly imprints a lot more heavily on people's minds, though, than distributed deaths.
- jmull 4y agoMy point is to not blow off Fukushima... and you respond by blowing off Fukushima. Maybe approach it from the other direction: what was the impact of Fukushima? (You wouldn't really argue the sum total impact was one human life, right?)
- chris_va 4y agoI think perhaps you didn't take the "one of worst nuclear accidents in history" part as much of an acknowledgement as intended. Disasters are not the norm, so focusing on the disaster intrinsically misses the global cost/benefit trade-off, which I think seems more important to people trying to have broad policy discussions. To your point, the primary impact was the large scale evacuation. Horrible for anyone living immediately nearby. On the scale of terrible power-plants, maybe worse than living next to an active coal plant, but better than living downstream of a collapsed hydro-dam.
- wasmitnetzen 4y agoA whole region where 170 000 people lived was evacuated, some of them were not able to return for years. That has a cost as well, one that is hard to quantify. Replacing nuclear with coal is obviously a bad idea. But replacing it with hydro, wind, solar power is so much better.
- insane_dreamer 4y agoI don't have the numbers but I'm pretty sure that more people have died from hydro (dams collapsing) than nuclear. Three Gorges Dam displaced over 1 million people. Not saying hydro is bad, but I'm not sure that nuclear is worse. Solar and wind are the best as they seem to have few downsides providing the conditions are right .