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Comment by vbuwivbiu | Hacker News Reader

bollocks is it

Exactly.

We have two INES 7 incidents 25 years apart. Nuclear is 11% of world electricity generation and is concentrated mostly in technologically developed countries. Spreading that into developing world and to 100% of power generation, we'd have a chernobyl at least every 2.5 years. And given the wars and civil unrest, probably more.

The figures in the article are already specified per watt-hour. So expanding to 100% of power generation would not change the conclusion. Even if we had a chernobyl every 2.5 years, that could still add up to a better safety rate than other energy sources.

If vast fallout national parks are your thing, sure.

People still live in the exclusion zone, and most of it has lower background radiation than high altitude cities people don't think twice about. The other reactors kept operating for years. The Chernobyl exclusion zone was and is excessive. Even if it wasn't, the cost in land would still be perfectly fine even if you had one every year and quarantined each area for a century.

The problem is not so much background radiation, but polluted produce you consume and poorly mapped hot spots. But sure, if that's your thing. I'll pass.

I don't think you understand the point I'm trying to make. All energy sources have dangers, but nuclear has the least danger in proportion to the amount of energy it gives. A few large disasters are not inherently worse than many small disasters. Just because nuclear disasters create a more dramatic scene than other types of disasters, doesn't mean that the overall harm is greater.

"The least danger" is poorly qualified here. The article certainly does no justice with straightforward, apples to apples comparison.

Only not. We don't build plants like the one in Chernobyl anymore.

I remember a lengthy and much upvoted post in r/worldnews explaining how Westinghouse designs are much safer than Chernobyl. The day before Fukushima blew up.

And most of the harm from Fukushima was the evacuation.

The wind blew into the sea. With Chernobyl it blew over my hometown: I have two family members with thyroid issues.

I'm sad for their misfortune but arguing against nuclear won't do any good for them, on contrary as this article states nuclear is safer than the other major energy sources. A family is a small sample size too. Of course we should also look into other studies of the energy sources total effect on humanity, to be sure. I think we have to see the big picture and not focus on our bubble.

I see an analogy to car and plane safety when comparing coal and nuclear safety. Car accidents are more frequent and damage can vary, while plane accidents are seldom but often severe. It is difficult to foresee the future, but we have the past that give us a good indicator of what will save most lives.

I feel for them. But with coal many more would have died from pollution. With more dams the contribution to climate change (gas released from rotting vegetation) would damage the planet, millions would be driven from their homes, and the risks of dam failures would keep being driven up and over time likely cause more deaths (as it has in the past). With more rooftop solar, more people would kill themselves in installation accidents.

It's not a situation where shutting down nuclear just magically prevents deaths, because the demand for power is still there. It is a matter of shifting the risks elsewhere. And the numbers are clear that nuclear is far safer than most of the alternatives (most - it's not clear for example if that'd be the case for larger solar installations; it's rooftop installations that seems to be the biggest problem with solar).

This doesn't mean we should uncritically build a ton of nuclear plants, but e.g. delaying the decommissioning of coal plants to take nuclear plants offline, the way Germany did, is tantamount to mass murder given what we know of the relative risks.

That's not especially ironic. The Fukushima reactors that failed were designed by General Electric, Toshiba, and Hitachi in the early 1960s. Westinghouse was not involved.

Nuclear power continues to demonstrate a very low risk to human life per TWh of electricity generated, including Chernobyl and Fukushima. That said, it's probably best for nuclear advocates to acknowledge that sufficiently incompetent/malicious humans and/or exceptional natural disasters can lead to large unplanned releases of fission products from any reactor. And then to re-emphasize that the actual risks to human health are still lower for nuclear power than for any fossil-based power system.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-...

We could have a Chernobyl every year and still kill fewer people than coal plants alone do today.

We'd likely release less radioactive materials into the air too - a lot of current coal plants pump huge quantities of uranium dust into the atmosphere.

Relatively few people die annually as a direct consequence of coal plant catastrophes. The pollution risks are extrapolated and gradual, just like the much less studied long term risks of non-lethal fallout exposure.

We're not talking about direct consequences of catastrophes. We're talking about life cycles, and about an existential risk to our species. There are some deep, deep pockets interested in diverting attention, narrowing the timeline of analysis, and changing the problem scope. As open source enthusiasts we should recognize this for what it is: good old-fashioned FUD.

(Edit for clarity: I'm not accusing you personally. I'm simply skeptical about where our received wisdom about the dangers of nuclear comes from.)

Despite your disclaimer, it does sound personal: can't really be read in any other way.

But talking about FUD, the article compares immediate deaths of nuclear accidents versus long term effects of coal pollution.

And relatively few people die annually as a direct consequence of nuclear catastrophes too.

The directly attributable number of deaths from nuclear plant catastrophes is <100 worldwide over the history of nuclear power plants.

The vast majority of projected reduced number of life-years from Chernobyl (a number that's keeps regularly being adjusted down) is down to increased risks of cancer that have turned out to be overblown, but will certainly end up having contributed the majority of deaths.

What I think happens is techies love neat, advanced, elegant (even if on paper) solutions to complex problems. Nuclear certainly ticks all the right boxes, so there is a great appeal to it. Huge incentive to gloss over messy real world outcomes.

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