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Not that I have an answer to offer, but this is interesting to me. Coal and other fossil fuel power plants have caused slow, irreparable harm to the environment

Not that I have an answer to offer, but this is interesting to me. Coal and other fossil fuel power plants have caused slow, irreparable harm to the environment and human lives, but because of its slow and plodding nature, many consider it superior to nuclear. Nuclear disasters are much more furious in short periods of time, but I'm not sure that compressed in to a single number, that nuclear has been more harmful per-power-produced as fossil fuels. Maybe someone can properly refute or corroborate that statement. But it feels like an airliner going down. The size of the tragedy is great which puts irrational fear of flying in to people's heads, when it's about the safest mode of travel that exists.

reirob 12y ago
Would be interesting to see a model to come up with such numbers. And it would as well be interesting how in such a model the nuclear waste is taken into account, especially the one that risks to pollute some day in the future. Such models might give us an idea of how many more nuclear catastrophes humanity can "afford". After Fukushima happened, I heard or read several times (without being able to quote, probably radio/TV) predictions that big nuclear accidents like Tshernobyl and Fukushima will get more frequent in the future, because (a) the reactors get older and (b) more reactors have been built in the mean time. I hope that future will prove these predictions wrong, but somehow I feel that hoping is not enough. And incidents like these where security limits are relaxed [0], don't really reassure. [0]: Quote from the article: "EDF was granted permission by the regulator in the summer to relax its graphite weight-loss limit at the Dungeness reactor in Kent from 6.2% to 8% after it came close to breaching the original safety margin."
anon1385 12y ago
The deaths caused by nuclear power aren't anywhere near the same order of magnitude as the deaths caused by coal: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/12/china-coal-emissions-smog-deaths http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/12/china-coa... >Emissions from coal plants in China were responsible for a quarter of a million premature deaths in 2011 and are damaging the health of hundreds of thousands of Chinese children, according to a new study. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/12/european-coal-pollution-premature-deaths http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/12/european-... >Air pollution from Europe's 300 largest coal power stations causes 22,300 premature deaths a year and costs companies and governments billions of pounds in disease treatment and lost working days, says a major study of the health impacts of burning coal to generate electricity.
cameldrv 12y ago
You might find this take on the question interesting: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/ipdf/10.1021/es3051197 http://pubs.acs.org/doi/ipdf/10.1021/es3051197 He shows that since the invention of nuclear power, it has saved 1.8 million lives relative to the obvious alternatives. Since its invention, nuclear power has killed about 5000 people. That makes it about 360x safer than deployed alternatives and yet, somehow nuclear is the technology that must justify itself on safety grounds.

reirob 12y ago

Would be interesting to see a model to come up with such numbers. And it would as well be interesting how in such a model the nuclear waste is taken into account, especially the one that risks to pollute some day in the future. Such models might give us an idea of how many more nuclear catastrophes humanity can "afford". After Fukushima happened, I heard or read several times (without being able to quote, probably radio/TV) predictions that big nuclear accidents like Tshernobyl and Fukushima will get more frequent in the future, because (a) the reactors get older and (b) more reactors have been built in the mean time. I hope that future will prove these predictions wrong, but somehow I feel that hoping is not enough. And incidents like these where security limits are relaxed [0], don't really reassure. [0]: Quote from the article: "EDF was granted permission by the regulator in the summer to relax its graphite weight-loss limit at the Dungeness reactor in Kent from 6.2% to 8% after it came close to breaching the original safety margin."

anon1385 12y ago

The deaths caused by nuclear power aren't anywhere near the same order of magnitude as the deaths caused by coal: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/12/china-coal-emissions-smog-deaths http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/12/china-coa... >Emissions from coal plants in China were responsible for a quarter of a million premature deaths in 2011 and are damaging the health of hundreds of thousands of Chinese children, according to a new study. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/12/european-coal-pollution-premature-deaths http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jun/12/european-... >Air pollution from Europe's 300 largest coal power stations causes 22,300 premature deaths a year and costs companies and governments billions of pounds in disease treatment and lost working days, says a major study of the health impacts of burning coal to generate electricity.

cameldrv 12y ago

You might find this take on the question interesting: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/ipdf/10.1021/es3051197 http://pubs.acs.org/doi/ipdf/10.1021/es3051197 He shows that since the invention of nuclear power, it has saved 1.8 million lives relative to the obvious alternatives. Since its invention, nuclear power has killed about 5000 people. That makes it about 360x safer than deployed alternatives and yet, somehow nuclear is the technology that must justify itself on safety grounds.