[BurningFrog]

Fukushima was a very extreme natural disaster striking at a precise location to expose that the Fukushima reactors were not fully ready for a theoretically possible but never in 1000+ years of Japanese history observed earthquake.

15,897 people died in Japan that day, in buildings, roads, and vehicles. None from the nuclear incident. Yet no one talks about how the building, road, and vehicle security failed and wants to ban those.

Sure, the Fukushima security could and should have been better. The industry has learned the lessons, as it does from all accidents. But even if it didn't, we could easily absorb accidents like these for once in a 1000+ years and still be the cleanest energy form there is.

The comparison with Chernobyl is no comparison. That was an unforced error on a calm spring night. Operators doing experiments on badly designed reactors with known flaws they were not informed about because it would look bad to spread the information that pressing a certain button in a certain situation was risky. So they pressed the button, and the reactor exploded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_an...

[vidarh]

We could have a Fukushima and a Chernobyl a year and it would still be a net improvement.

[BurningFrog]

In numbers of dead, you're right. In left behind "exclusion zones", it would become untenable.

[vidarh]

If the exclusion zones were made as excessive as Chernobyl, sure, but most of the Chernobyl exclusion zone is safe today, and most of the rest could be made safe with relatively little additional effort. With even a somewhat more reasonable exclusion zone, if that was the trade-off and we could save those who die from fossil fuel plants today, it'd be an easy choice for my part.

Of course it's not a realistic trade-off - it's "easy" to make plants vastly safer than either.