[ClumsyPilot]

I am really tired of this line - the taunami killed 18,500 people. The reactor incident killed no-one through radiation and 32 people through physical injuries.

One failure of Banqiao Dam killed an estimated 240,000 people. That's more than all people who have ever died from anything to do with nuclear, reactors and bombs combined.

Air pollution kills about 2,000 people every single day.

Reactor incidents are like plane crashes - they get attention. Fissil fuels are like car crashes - they kill more people every day and noone gives a shit.

[Retric]

Killing people is hardly the only issue. Rendering large tracts of land uninhabitable is extremely expensive. All told 4 nuclear reactors have had major issues, 2 subs and 1 power plant run by the USSR, and then another one very recently by Japan. Plus several near misses.

That’s a significant percentage of total reactors ever built including what was considered a safe design. We could go 1000 years without another incident, but from an insurance standpoint what would you charge a new power plant next to NYC? That means you need them in an a less expensive area, but everyone feels their area is valuable. That causes vast NIMBY issues and heavy regulation.

In theory modern Nuclear should cost less and be both clean and safe, but people gonna people both inside and outside the industry.

[MagnumOpus]

> Rendering large tracts of land uninhabitable is extremely expensive

Have you ever been near a coal ash pond? You probably haven't because it is an extreme health hazard to get anywhere near it, as it is full of mercury, arsenic, heavy metals and occasionally radioactive slurry.

There about a thousand of these ponds in the US alone totaling maybe 100,000 acres. Meanwhile all the nuclear power plant waste ever produced could fit into a single large hangar...

[Retric]

Every nuclear accident was completely avoidable, but it’s not clear if future plant operators can avoid making similar mistakes.

The Chernobyl exclusion zone is 1,000 square miles. Fukushima had a much smaller exclusion zone but Estimates of radioactivity released ranged from 10–40%[163][164][165][166] of that of Chernobyl. The significantly contaminated area was 10[163]-12%[164] of that of Chernobyl.[163][167][168]

On 12 October 2012, TEPCO admitted for the first time that it had failed to take necessary measures for fear of inviting lawsuits or protests against its nuclear plants. That’s the core issue not physics.* ... A 2008 in-house study identified an immediate need to better protect the facility from flooding by seawater. This study mentioned the possibility of tsunami-waves up to 10.2 meters (33 ft). Headquarters officials insisted that such a risk was unrealistic and did not take the prediction seriously. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission warned of a risk of losing emergency power in 1991 (NUREG-1150) and NISA referred to that report in 2004, but took no action to mitigate the risk.[149] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disa...

France and the US have a solid nuclear track record, but so did Japan.

[m0zg]

I'm really tired of this line as well. Had they failed to contain Chernobyl, much of Eastern Europe would be contaminated for thousands of years.

It is true that today's reactor designs are much safer than RBMK, but I will prefer the reactor can can't go supercritical to one that can any day, especially if it's nearby.

[outworlder]

> but I will prefer the reactor can can't go supercritical to one that can any day, especially if it's nearby.

Newer design's can't go supercritical.

[drran]

Tsunami and earthquakes are not man generated events, so we can dismiss them. Yes, they killed a lot of people, but cancer kills even more: about 10 millions per year. In part, cancer is caused by contamination of food by radionuclides from reactor leaks (Chornobyl) and nuclear bomb testing.

[outworlder]

> In part, cancer is caused by contamination of food by radionuclides from reactor leaks (Chornobyl)

Sorry, this is just misinformation. Residual radiation worldwide from nuclear testing or Chernobyl is minuscule. We wouldn't even be able to detect anything if we didn't have incredibly sensitive instruments.

The sun is a much larger daily source of radiation. Or a banana.

[drran]

Radiation from Chornobyl affected large area, but not whole world. People die from radiation induced cancer in affected areas only, of course.

[FriskyAlter]

Yes, cancer did not exist before nuclear. We can blame cancer on nuclear plants and bombs. That's quality commentary.

[drran]

Radionuclides are major contribution to growth of cancer rate.

Quote: Radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons tests probably caused 17,000 cancer deaths in the United States in the latter half of the 20th century

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1849471.stm

[FriskyAlter]

"probably" 17000 in 70 years against 700 000 000 total cancer death. Pack it up, boys.

And if anything, that shows how bad nuclear weapons are, not the power plants.

[Retric]

The 17000 is US numbers and the US is a long way from 10 million cancer deaths per year. The point stands fine without using misleading numbers.

[FriskyAlter]

There are not many countries who did nuclear weapon tests and even those that did, did not do it in such numbers. Maybe russia, but I doubt that would push the numbers much.

[joncrane]

I believe that coal releases more radioactivity into the environment than nuclear energy.

[drran]

Quote:

McBride and his co-authors estimated that individuals living near coal-fired installations are exposed to a maximum of 1.9 millirems of fly ash radiation yearly. To put these numbers in perspective, the average person encounters 360 millirems of annual "background radiation" from natural and man-made sources, including substances in Earth's crust, cosmic rays, residue from nuclear tests and smoke detectors.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-...

[dougabug]

But the tsunami didn’t render large areas of land uninhabitable, as in the case of Chernobyl and Fukushima.

[bserge]

The nuclear incidents didn't, either. Decontamination of Okuma has been successful and residents are already returning.

Pripyat is an animal and vegetation haven. Really shows how dangerous our species is to the planet.

Point is, nuclear power plants, even the old ones, are nowhere near as dangerous as the media portrays them.

[dougabug]

The Chernobyl exclusion zone is 30km in radius. It’s not at all clear that serious effects do not extend beyond that, for instance to agricultural lands in Belarus.