Hacker News Reader

Comment by calebegg | Hacker News Reader

The associated article has more discussion and context:

https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy

I really dislike their headline "It goes completely against what most believe, but out of all major energy sources, nuclear is the safest" because it ignores solar, water and wind energy which is likely to be the safest and far from insignificant today and in the future.

It is odd; isn't it? It's a rather substantial component of the world's energy and wind and water have safety implications, but it isn't even considered here.

Solar, wind, and water are all far more deadly than nuclear.

A more valid criticism might be to point out that radiation tends to kill slowly, while renewable deaths are fast (falls, drowning, construction accidents). The result is that nuclear accidents can be very disruptive without being directly deadly. (See the 160,000 people evacuated after Fukushima.)

1. I think hydro doesn't score so good after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

2. Wind is not without issues either: http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/AccidentStatistics.htm

3. And even more moralities with people falling down their rooftop installing solar panels.

Well then why not figure out the numbers so we can compare them to the others...?

The problem with these kind of statistics is that mere numbers mean very little, because the sources of the deaths are very different. Do you count roof work? Do you count mining? Do you count the creation of construction materials and their mining? How do you count cancer from slightly increased nuclear radiation? Especially when it's hard to prove whether it really comes from nuclear waste, but it certainly could be? And are birth defects deaths? Are miscarriages?

These are things that need to be addressed for these kind of statistics, or you end up comparing apples to oranges.

Still, I think everybody can agree that the death rates for coal and oil are insane. However you compare nuclear vs solar, coal and oil need to go.

Erentz's link to Wikipedia has the same table, but here's one from Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d...

Wind and solar are slightly more dangerous than nuclear, as of this data.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com