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Even if you account for chernobyl and fukushima the death count from nuclear is orders of magnitudes less than the death count from coal, oil, solar, etc. We ov

Even if you account for chernobyl and fukushima the death count from nuclear is orders of magnitudes less than the death count from coal, oil, solar, etc. We overregulated nuclear because the risk of nuclear disasters feels scarier than the real risk of deaths downstream of airborne particulates. There are tradeoffs to every safety regulation on nuclear and those tradeoffs include more climate induced disasters, a sicker population, long term higher energy costs, etc.

margalabargala 2y ago
Tell us more about the death count from solar. Is it all people falling off roofs?
- dmoy 2y ago
  Pretty much yea. So not exactly a fair comparison because e.g. grid level solar doesn't necessarily involve roof climbing. But given current installation base, it's like 3x more deaths per unit energy than wind.
  - hgomersall 2y ago
    I don't know how reliable it is, but the first link I clicked on contradicts your assertion: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...
  - margalabargala 2y ago
    Got a source for that?
kristiandupont 2y ago
>nuclear disasters feels scarier I am in favor of more nuclear power and I know very little about the field, but this argument never resonated with me. If the Chernobyl series paints a reasonably realistic image of what could have happened had they not contained the melt down, we are talking "better part of a continent being uninhabitable for thousands of years". When that is the potential risk, comparing death counts from non-catastrophic scenarios isn't what we should be looking at.
- scarab92 2y ago
  > When that is the potential risk It's not a realistic risk. Chernobyl was absolute worse case. A massive reactor, with no containment structure (it was essentially in a shed), with a flammable solid state moderator, and no passive cooling. Yet, Europe is not uninhabitable today, infact the above-natural-background radiation in Europe is almost entirely coming from burning fossil fuels, not from Chernobyl.
internet_points 2y ago
you forgot hydro, which is the current leader for worlds deadliest power plant disaster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure orders of magnitude worse than Chernobyl and Fukushima put together

margalabargala 2y ago

Tell us more about the death count from solar. Is it all people falling off roofs?

dmoy 2y ago
Pretty much yea. So not exactly a fair comparison because e.g. grid level solar doesn't necessarily involve roof climbing. But given current installation base, it's like 3x more deaths per unit energy than wind.
- hgomersall 2y ago
  I don't know how reliable it is, but the first link I clicked on contradicts your assertion: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...
- margalabargala 2y ago
  Got a source for that?

kristiandupont 2y ago

>nuclear disasters feels scarier I am in favor of more nuclear power and I know very little about the field, but this argument never resonated with me. If the Chernobyl series paints a reasonably realistic image of what could have happened had they not contained the melt down, we are talking "better part of a continent being uninhabitable for thousands of years". When that is the potential risk, comparing death counts from non-catastrophic scenarios isn't what we should be looking at.

scarab92 2y ago
> When that is the potential risk It's not a realistic risk. Chernobyl was absolute worse case. A massive reactor, with no containment structure (it was essentially in a shed), with a flammable solid state moderator, and no passive cooling. Yet, Europe is not uninhabitable today, infact the above-natural-background radiation in Europe is almost entirely coming from burning fossil fuels, not from Chernobyl.

internet_points 2y ago

you forgot hydro, which is the current leader for worlds deadliest power plant disaster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure orders of magnitude worse than Chernobyl and Fukushima put together