[christophilus]

Nuclear energy has a PR problem that is very hard to solve. It doesn’t help that movies dramatize it. From what I remember, the only people who died due to Fukushima were those that died of fear. The reality is that nuclear is remarkably safe, clean, etc.

[rusk]

I'd imagine the death toll from Fukushima will probably not be fully estimable for a few years yet.

[logfromblammo]

By human emotional calculus, it is better for a million people to experience on average 0.001 of a mortality event than for 1000 people to be killed outright.

When we measure such things in terms of "increased cancer risk" and "possible thyroid dysfunction", it is far easier to discount, particularly as young people are not tremendously concerned when people above a certain age die of diseases that are already typical in the aged.

So even if we knew it exactly, people would still care less. It might be more relevant if, instead of death toll, it could be given a money value derived from additional healthcare expenses for exposed individuals, because young people implicitly know that they are the ones who pay when old people get sick.

[Accujack]

Same thing for the death toll from coal burning plants. All that ash, deaths from that radioactivity and lung disease, deaths caused by global warming, etc.

If you look at a long enough time scale, anything can seem like a giant problem.

[Melting_Harps]

> From what I remember, the only people who died due to Fukushima were those that died of fear. The reality is that nuclear is remarkably safe, clean, etc.

Then you have a faulty memory, and a selective one at that because the crisis is still on-going; there were an estimated 2000 from evacuation alone:

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2014/03/01/editorials/f...

You think this is safe or healthy? 100k+ displaced people living in abject squalor in the 3rd richest nation on Earth? Often seen as less-thans by their fellow citizens due to the Meltdown:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpxtMBOiD6A

What's even more conflicting is that this year's Olympics are scheduled to take place in Tokyo, all the while the food is contaminated, as is the water (and the air if they're still doing regular debris burns that spreads it around the World).

The cancer rates, thyroid maladies and heart disease are all correlated to the radiation exposure, but they don't have an interest in monitoring this accurately and reporting it to the Public due to typical Japanese 'cultural norms.' So, in it a very defying sense of abnormal behaviour, Japanese house wives have taken to measure their neighborhoods, as well as the food and the vacuumed debris.

This is quite honestly a bigger part of why Humanity has to solve its energy crisis, Greta makes a good case for what their generation is left to live with, but being in between the two generations as a millennial and having been around for both Chernobyl and Fukushima, its hardly comprehensive of the true costs. That last video even delves into the Children of Chernobyl, they are reporting large frequencies of cancer and various immunological diseases. This is more the norm that I ever thought in surrounding areas, when I lived in Croatia it was also the same. When I lived in Germany their were patches of Earth that looked scorched that had been hit particularly hard due to the Fallout of Chernobyl. Many farming families in that area went Bankrupt due to it.

I honestly think people like you should only be able to have this opinion if you live near Nuclear Plants, for a decade at a minimum. You'll see first hand how perilous it could be, the infrastructure around coastal areas is another bottle neck that most don't consider an issue for things like evacuation until its too late; they often only have 1 way in-1 way out layouts.

Nuclear regulation is a joke, and is as entrenched and as corrupt as Big Oil. The legal system, in both Japan and the US, is equally as complicit as the Nuclear lobby and refuse to take preventive action, as was the case with why Fukushima was left exposed on the coastal area after TEPCO was warned, repeatedly by several studies, that is was prone Meltdown should something like that Tsunami happen. The Nuclear village/TEPCO/Japanese Government did nothing:

https://news.usc.edu/86362/fukushima-disaster-was-preventabl...

[christophilus]

There were no known deaths from accute radiation syndrome[0]. There were deaths from things like the tsunami, the evacuation, and stress, which was essentially the point I was trying to make. The nuclear part of the equation caused a lot of fear, but it was all of the other things (and maybe the fear itself) that caused the deaths. That said, you're not wrong about the long-tail effects being hard to quantify and measure.

> I honestly think people like you should only be able to have this opinion if you live near Nuclear Plants, for a decade at a minimum.

For what it's worth, I've lived near nuclear power plants for over 30 years, and have no problem living near them until I die-- which will almost certainly not be from radiation unless we have a nuclear war. I had more radiation exposure from the coal fired power plant in my childhood town than from any of the nuclear plants I've been around.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...