Yikes.
I’m hopeful for the future but knowing how Uber capitalists work (I consider myself a capitalist too fwiw) it worries me that we will see worse disasters when private companies everywhere doing nuclear shit.
I’m hopeful for the future but knowing how Uber capitalists work (I consider myself a capitalist too fwiw) it worries me that we will see worse disasters when private companies everywhere doing nuclear shit.
This is why authoritarian governments are especially bad at polluting. Democratic governments are second-worst, since although they may be questioned and legally challenged, governments like to carve out a lot of exceptions for themselves (see things like the Kirtland AFB water pollution). Capitalists, with the power of limited liability behind them, are third-worst, but through careful management of incentives and regulations government can mitigate the issue better than it can mitigate itself.
>Initially Mayak dumped high-level radioactive waste into a nearby river, which flowed to the river Ob, flowing farther downstream to the Arctic Ocean. All six reactors were on Lake Kyzyltash and used an open-cycle cooling system, discharging contaminated water directly back into the lake. When Lake Kyzyltash quickly became contaminated, Lake Karachay was used for open-air storage, keeping the contamination a slight distance from the reactors but soon making Lake Karachay the "most-polluted spot on Earth".
> After the explosion, a column of smoke and dust rose to a kilometer high, the dust flickered with an orange-red light and settled on buildings and people.
[0] https://apnews.com/article/b771e863afa629be5139b65784b21aba
The government did at least most of the polluting. They contracted the cleanup to private companies.