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> What are those "entirely disproportionate downsides", in your opinion? If you subtract the effects of radiophobia? A handful of people operating Chernobyl ha

> What are those "entirely disproportionate downsides", in your opinion? If you subtract the effects of radiophobia? A handful of people operating Chernobyl have caused costs that passed 600 billion euros already in 2016, and will keep costing more money for the foreseeable future. Nations have international agreements to cover liabilities from nuclear power stations, since no company and very few individual nations can cover the costs of severe accidents. That's disproportionate.

mpweiher 2y ago
The majority of health effects from Chernobyl were from the evacuation, not the accident. Check the WHO reports. In Fukushima it was all of them. The 1975 Banqiao dam failure caused (best estimate) around 200000 deaths, evacuation of tens of millions and a several million houses destroyed. Was that a reason for the entire world to get out of hydro-power, because the "disproportionate downsides" are just too great? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure Or did we check that our dams are built to better standards? And possibly update those standards? The RBMK-1000 was a reactor that even at the time would never have been permitted to be built in the west. Not even close. It was inherently unstable, with the positive void coefficient, and had no containment. And the kinds of shenanigans that were ordered at Chernobyl also are not permitted. TMI was a meltdown. There was no effect outside the plant. And nuclear safety was improved significantly after TMI. Fukushima will have no health effects in the Japanese population. All the adverse health effects and the vast majority of the financial damages are due to the unnecessary evacuation and the shutdown. "Relocation was unjustified for 75% of the 335,000 people relocated after Chernobyl." "Relocation was unjustified for the 160,000 people relocated after Fukushima." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957582017300782 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095758201... “By now, more Japanese have died from the closing of Japan's nuclear power plants following the 2011 Tohoku quake than from the tsunami and the earthquake combined, which was about 20,000 people.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2019/10/31/shutting-down-japans-nuclear-plants-after-fukushima-was-a-bad-idea/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2019/10/31/shutting-... In terms of money, just 5 years of the reactor shutdown cost the Japanese more than $200 billion. That is the vast majority of the financial damage. Take that to 10 years and you are at $400 billion and that's assuming constant prices. The "Atomausstieg" has cost Germany more than €500 billion. So what is disproportionate? Nuclear energy is cheap, clean and safe. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
- Kon5ole 2y ago
  >The majority of health effects from Chernobyl were from the evacuation, not the accident. Check the WHO reports. No, 6000 cases of thyroid cancer from Chernobyl were not caused by the evacuation, it was caused by the fallout. And the topic you are trying to dodge is that nations all over europe had to spend money to screen for these cancers for decades after Chernobyl, they had to feed wildlife special food, sanitize large areas of land and so on. The EU even had to pay for a new sarcophagus, despite never haven gotten a single kwh from Chernobyl. And it hasn't stopped costing money yet. Nothing else (at least in peacetime) that humans do can have such consequences from mistakes made by a few individuals. We see the same hidden costs in Sellafield, where Norway - who exports power to the UK, they don't get any - are volunteering to pay for Sellafield since an accident at sellafield could have severe effects on food production near Oslo, the capital of Norway. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/05/sellafield-nuclear-site-leak-could-pose-risk-to-public https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/05/sellafield-... Notice how the 2.5 billion pounds of yearly hidden costs I told you about earlier here is described as a "shoestring budget". The hidden subsidies given to nuclear power is found everywhere if you just scratch the surface a little bit. In summary; precisely because it's not clean, it's also neither cheap nor safe.
  - mpweiher 2y ago
    Once again: not according to the WHO (and other studies). Just read up on the actual science. "The psycho-social impact of disasters and emergencies has been well documented. It has been reported to be the Chernobyl accident’s main public health impact that affected the largest number of people." https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/documents/publications/1986-2016-chernobyl-at-30476d83ab-985d-416f-b936-576b0c0ca17f.pdf https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/documents/publ... "Relocation was unjustified for 75% of the 335,000 people relocated after Chernobyl." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957582017300782 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095758201...

mpweiher 2y ago

The majority of health effects from Chernobyl were from the evacuation, not the accident. Check the WHO reports. In Fukushima it was all of them. The 1975 Banqiao dam failure caused (best estimate) around 200000 deaths, evacuation of tens of millions and a several million houses destroyed. Was that a reason for the entire world to get out of hydro-power, because the "disproportionate downsides" are just too great? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure Or did we check that our dams are built to better standards? And possibly update those standards? The RBMK-1000 was a reactor that even at the time would never have been permitted to be built in the west. Not even close. It was inherently unstable, with the positive void coefficient, and had no containment. And the kinds of shenanigans that were ordered at Chernobyl also are not permitted. TMI was a meltdown. There was no effect outside the plant. And nuclear safety was improved significantly after TMI. Fukushima will have no health effects in the Japanese population. All the adverse health effects and the vast majority of the financial damages are due to the unnecessary evacuation and the shutdown. "Relocation was unjustified for 75% of the 335,000 people relocated after Chernobyl." "Relocation was unjustified for the 160,000 people relocated after Fukushima." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957582017300782 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095758201... “By now, more Japanese have died from the closing of Japan's nuclear power plants following the 2011 Tohoku quake than from the tsunami and the earthquake combined, which was about 20,000 people.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2019/10/31/shutting-down-japans-nuclear-plants-after-fukushima-was-a-bad-idea/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2019/10/31/shutting-... In terms of money, just 5 years of the reactor shutdown cost the Japanese more than $200 billion. That is the vast majority of the financial damage. Take that to 10 years and you are at $400 billion and that's assuming constant prices. The "Atomausstieg" has cost Germany more than €500 billion. So what is disproportionate? Nuclear energy is cheap, clean and safe. https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy

Kon5ole 2y ago
>The majority of health effects from Chernobyl were from the evacuation, not the accident. Check the WHO reports. No, 6000 cases of thyroid cancer from Chernobyl were not caused by the evacuation, it was caused by the fallout. And the topic you are trying to dodge is that nations all over europe had to spend money to screen for these cancers for decades after Chernobyl, they had to feed wildlife special food, sanitize large areas of land and so on. The EU even had to pay for a new sarcophagus, despite never haven gotten a single kwh from Chernobyl. And it hasn't stopped costing money yet. Nothing else (at least in peacetime) that humans do can have such consequences from mistakes made by a few individuals. We see the same hidden costs in Sellafield, where Norway - who exports power to the UK, they don't get any - are volunteering to pay for Sellafield since an accident at sellafield could have severe effects on food production near Oslo, the capital of Norway. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/05/sellafield-nuclear-site-leak-could-pose-risk-to-public https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/05/sellafield-... Notice how the 2.5 billion pounds of yearly hidden costs I told you about earlier here is described as a "shoestring budget". The hidden subsidies given to nuclear power is found everywhere if you just scratch the surface a little bit. In summary; precisely because it's not clean, it's also neither cheap nor safe.
- mpweiher 2y ago
  Once again: not according to the WHO (and other studies). Just read up on the actual science. "The psycho-social impact of disasters and emergencies has been well documented. It has been reported to be the Chernobyl accident’s main public health impact that affected the largest number of people." https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/documents/publications/1986-2016-chernobyl-at-30476d83ab-985d-416f-b936-576b0c0ca17f.pdf https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/documents/publ... "Relocation was unjustified for 75% of the 335,000 people relocated after Chernobyl." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0957582017300782 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095758201...