[jwie]

Nuclear power is not without risk. Those risks are far more attractive compared to the risks of not using it.

Nuclear power is far simpler than people would intuitively believe. The nuclear reactor boils water at scale, the steam spins an electric generator via a steam turbine. The steam plant side of things is well understood technology, almost 170 years old at this point, nuclear power itself is about 70 years old. As technologies go, it's incredibly simple, and thus far less prone to error.

It is fearmongering to suggest or imply that there's catastrophe right around the corner of every nuclear reactor. This is just not so. It's not possible to have the kinds of nuclear disasters people are afraid of. Fatalities from nuclear power measure around 100 per thousand terawatt hours, far lower than any other power production source by orders of magnitude.

There is simply no evidence that nuclear power is dangerous, and a lot of evidence to suggest it is the safest, most effective power source we have created.

[makeitdouble]

> There is simply no evidence that nuclear power is dangerous

Wait, what? You even started your own reply with “Nuclear power is not without risk.”

> a lot of evidence to suggest it is the safest, most effective power source we have created.

A lot of evidence also suggest the opposite. Again, you took the time to explain how technically nuclear was simple, without engaging with the context it is used in.

PS: Fatalities per thousand terawatt hours is an interesting metric, except it completely ignores non lethal effects (cancers can be survived, and might also not be attributed to exposure officially, same way low dose exposure don’t have obvious consequences that feed the numbers), and environmental issues that don’t lead to standard air pollution, like soil and water contamination for instance. Basically that’s looks like a feel good number to discredit coal, but isn’t that relevant in any other context.

[jwie]

Its a full footprint measurement. Coal miner deaths for instance count against it. A study attempted to aggregate fatalities from atmospheric effects from emissions.

It does make nuclear look particularly good, but this is also because it is so energy dense that effort is efficiently allocated. It makes everything except oil and coal look good on a chart.

Most of the deaths attributed to nuclear are more steam plant accidents that also happen in coal plants. Operators are far more likely to die from steam, rotating equipment, or hydraulics than radiation doses. But the energy density of nuclear more efficiently allocates fatalities.

Nuclear power is not dangerous in the same sense that parachuting or commercial flight is not dangerous. You are exposing yourself to lethal forces, but with proper procedures, engineering, and training these activities are safe, even at scale.

[makeitdouble]

> Its a full footprint measurement.

Nope, I was interested and looked at a few publications compiling it, and as its name says it only takes directly attributed deaths into account. Albeit it will count air pollution and particles from coal operation as leading to deaths. An example of that: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-ener...

Of course that number also relies on governments providing the stats, and no gov wants to give accurate numbers on what’s happening with nuclear waste for instance, or water pollution. Even now the JP gov. is in half denial as it would be a further economical catastrophe to fully own it.

A way better number would be the maintenance, healthcare and environmental cost per energy produced, which would put nuclear way behind anything but fossil energy.

[chelical]

Wind and solar numbers should also include amortization for deaths during power outages and deaths caused by peaker plants.

[makeitdouble]

To me that whole notion of “# of deaths by xxxx” is starting to look so absurd. Would we compare fry pans by looking at the number of death per meals cooked ? Even going for a pure lead sprinkled with Teflon flakes pan wouldn’t give us any interesting number by that metrics, and I feel energy production is basically the same.

There needs to be more granularity than “death”, and the numbers need to come from somewhere else than the government also involved in running the plants.