[Ettvatre]

> I've worked in oil & gas, and the deaths come primarily from human error

The article says:

> Deaths related to air pollution are dominant, typically accounting for greater than 99% of the total.

I understand that you are talking about a subset of the data the article are talking about. But if 99% is due to pollution then it sounds like your subset is not so relevant.

[codingdave]

Thank you, I had missed that.

While that does strengthen the point of the chart, it doesn't invalidate my concerns. It was almost 10 years ago now, but I recall an incident that made national news, when a gas hub in Texas exploded, and there were impressive, but sobering, photos of flames shooting 500 feet into the air from the resulting fire. That is one worst-cases for oil & gas. Some of the spills we've had from tankers are other worst-cases. And they do happen.

So again, I need to know what the worst-case for nuclear is before I'm going to be sold on it. Because if it scales to the capacity of our gas industry... something will happen. And we need to know what it will be and be ready to handle it.

[solveit]

That's nowhere near a worst case for oil&gas. It's the most visible spectacular case. The worst case is mass extinction events due to climate change. The worst case that's actually happened is a million deaths/yr due to air pollution. Accidents are barely a blip in the calculus, the bulk of the damage happens even when everything is working as intended.

[codingdave]

You don't have to sell me on the poisonous nature of oil & gas. It is a given that those are bad ideas and need to go away. The real debate is wind/solar/geothermal/hydro. Once pollution and climate change is removed from the equation, accidents absolutely come into the calculus.