[tuukkah]

No, it's because a nuclear reactor has a small but real risk for a Chernobyl or Fukushima like event. We are not good at managing risks of this impact size: it's a slippery slope if small disturbances are not taken seriously. It's not unlike the reporting of near misses in aviation.

[NikolaeVarius]

Both events killed like less than a hundred people directly in total, maybe a few thousand if all externalities are accounted for. Meanwhile dam failures have killed several hundred thousand people. I've always wondered why anti-nuke people weren't also adamant anti-hydro as well.

[ryanlol]

> Fukushima like event

What was the impact of the nuclear reactor there?

[tuukkah]

"154,000 residents evacuated from the communities surrounding the plant due to the rising off-site levels of ambient ionizing radiation caused by airborne radioactive contamination from the damaged reactors." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_di...

[ryanlol]

Most studies seem to suggest that the evacuation ended up being much worse than doing nothing at all, no?

For example:

> “With hindsight, we can say the evacuation was a mistake,” says Philip Thomas, a professor of risk management at the University of Bristol and leader of a recent research project on nuclear accidents. “We would have recommended that nobody be evacuated.”

https://www.ft.com/content/000f864e-22ba-11e8-add1-0e8958b18...