By this logic the minuteman missile is harmless. It hasn’t killed anyone, right?
Nuclear power has the potential to cause orders of magnitude more damage than any other power plant.
Again, what has happened is irrelevant, the risk is all about what could happen.
I didn't post aggregate deaths from different power sources, I posted deaths per terawatt-hour of energy produced!
This figure includes deaths from every nuclear accident, and yet it shows getting energy from nuclear power is orders of magnitude safer than getting the same energy from the fossil fuels that have replaced nuclear power in countries that have phased them out. (like germany)
Not at all, i am very familiar with this argument, but it’s flawed.
It doesn’t matter at all how many people have died so far. It is entirely irrelevant for determining the risk.
Most of the nuclear plants that make up that base rate were built when nuclear regulations were much much more lax than they are now, and yet Nuclear ends up with the safest track record out of all energy sources.
Because it only looks at what has happened, not what could happen. And what could happen is the interesting thing.
Before Chernobyl happened, the statistics didn't tell us it could happen. Before Fukushima happened, the statistics didn't tell is it could happen.
They happened anyway. The next thing that happens will similarly be completely independent from anything that happened before.
So - what happened before is irrelevant. What COULD happen is relevant.