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Thought experiment: imagine nuclear were 100 times as deadly as it is, but ten times more prevalent (supplanting other fossil fuels, or even hydroelectric) Wha
by anonymars 6mo ago
Thought experiment: imagine nuclear were 100 times as deadly as it is, but ten times more prevalent (supplanting other fossil fuels, or even hydroelectric)
What would be the net effect? (I think it would be roughly on par with gas or hydroelectric and an order of magnitude safer than other fossil fuels even with this extremely pessimistic hypothetical)
- pqtyw 6mo ago> What would be the net effect? It wouldn't be a linear increase i.e. you can more or less estimate how many people would die per MWh produced in hydro, gas, coal etc. plants. With nuclear if somebody dies that means a some sort of catastrophic event likely occurred regardless if a 1 or 100+ people die the reactor will be out of commission and it will cost a massive amount of money to contain it.
- anonymars 6mo agoI'm not following the argument for being able to estimate deaths per [T]Wh for hydro, gas, etc. but not nuclear. I think hydroelectric is especially analogous
- peterfirefly 6mo agoShould we include this case? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure
- anonymars 6mo agoWhy wouldn't we?