[faeriechangling]

Nuclear power plants continue to have a DRAMATICALLY better safety record than the lignite plants that Germany continues to operate, so your argument doesn't make sense to me. Dramatic as in we could have a yearly nuclear meltdown worldwide and the safety record would still be better.

If anything you're more pointing out how hysterics over nuclear safety ended up endangering lives in practice by promoting the use of more dangerous forms of energy which don't arouse public fears as much since they kill people in an indirect and gradual way with unclear causation. Whereas nuclear kills people directly and suddenly with obvious causation.

[bayesian_horse]

You ignore fat-tail risks. The incident in Fukushima is already hugely expensive and the expense keeps growing.

Relying on past frequencies for future risk assessment is dangerous, especially when there is this high of a cost. Especially on the organization level of the decision makers: Maybe on average the risk for the global population is acceptable, but if a country like Germany loses part of its territory to a nuclear accident, that would be huge tragedy for the country and its economy. Germany is NOT replacing nuclear with lignite 1:1, much less in the long term. Anyone who says so is lying. And even those plants MAY have more risk, but that risk is hugely more predictable!

[faeriechangling]

I am accounting for fat tail risks, I'm literally accounting for a nuclear accident happening every year, how is that not a "Fat tail risk"? The plausible fat tail of nuclear accidents being the everyday of lignite is the problem, the death toll of lignite is in the ballpark of 1000x higher. Having CONSISTENTLY 1000x higher deaths is not really a merit.

Sure nuclear meltdowns making territory unusuable sucks, but the mining does actually present a fair amount of ecological damage itself, and I think there's more metrics than potential territory loss. Notably lignites causes more radiation to enter the atmosphere, but unlike nuclear, this isn't neatly concentrated in one area people can just stay out of, which isn't conducive to people not dying.

I could maybe humour the argument that nuclear waste storage (Even accounting for these being very little of it, there will be very little of it for a very long time) or especially nuclear power plants encouraging nuclear weapons development being fat tail risks, but accidents, no. We're never going to see dramatic nuclear meltdowns even get close to causing the death toll of lignite, it just is way too implausible.

[_ph_]

It is not only the death count. Large parts of Bavaria are still contaminated from the Chernobyl accident. They decontaminated most fields, but mushrooms and especial wild boar from the forests (they eat the mushrooms a lot) are only to be eaten with care (and the pigs should be all checked for radiation whether they are safe for eating at all, but of course that doesn't always happen).

[rhn_mk1]

I agree that it's not only the death count, but what do you do with contamination caused by fossil fuels? The radioactive isotopes released by burning coal are released gradually and everywhere, not concentrated into a certain region. If you want to eat mushrooms at all, you will eat mushrooms with coal-related contaminants. How much damage is that worth?

At least with Chernobyl, you can escape contamination by avoiding Bavarian mushrooms.

[bayesian_horse]

You are still assuming that the only alternative to nuclear power is coal power.

That right there is a big fat lie and makes all your arguments worthless.

[_ph_]

Right, the alternative are renewables and if the previous governments had not screwed up the transition, coal would play a much minor role now.

[bayesian_horse]

I'd like to see some sources for the claim that this death toll is so much higher - on a per kW basis. And even that assumes that scaling up the number of nuclear plants scales the risk up linearly, which is probably impossible because regulations, standards and democratic participation would have to be lowered.

[rhn_mk1]

How would you convince me to take a guaranteed small cut to my life quality compared to taking a very low chance of earlier death?

In the end, the high impact risks of nuclear are of extremely low probability, and they compound better than fossi fuels: we have 1 30km-radius exclusion zone and some smaller non-exclusion cleanup efforts for some 1PWh(? can't find the number right now) of energy total. When an event like that happens, the affected population is tiny, and they are able to move out at a moderate one-time cost.

Meanwhile, fossil fuel generation downsides are inescapeable: every plant decreases the quality of life for every person, and we cannot escape it. How many people have died early because of the unescapeable, permanent health damage for each PWh of energy produced? There's no exclusion zone at all, so there's no ability to pay a one time price and be spared the long-term effects.

Which kind of generation has "this high of a cost"? What should be the average damage to the population which we take as a baseline?

[bayesian_horse]

You're still lying about the alternatives to nuclear power. You are still underestimating the impact of a nuclear disaster. You are still underestimating the risk of a nuclear disaster. These things have always occurred more frequently than expected, and we haven't seen anyone intentionally blow up a nuclear facility yet. The possibility for someone to actually make that happen intentionally (as supposed to the also criminal but less intentional neglect in the case of Fukushima) makes the risk calculations around nuclear impossible.

[rhn_mk1]

I'm not estimating anything, I'm asking you to provide the proof of coal's superiority over nuclear. If the numbers are so clear in favor of coal's guaranteed damage against nuclear's risks, you should have no problem convincing me.

So go ahead, show us the estimates. And if you say that estimating is impossible, then why do you insist my estimate is wrong? Sorry, I'm not buying the "impossible" part. Show us the data and the reasoning.

[bayesian_horse]

My point is actually that the risk of coal is calculable and the risk of nuclear is not. And if you provide any estimate, it is most certainly wrong, because it is based on false and dangerous assumptions.

Yet you repeat the lie that coal power is the only alternative to nuclear. That convenient lie is the core assumption between most or all your arguments.

[rhn_mk1]

Estimates are by definition most certainly wrong. And despite that, you think your high estimates are better than my low estimates. By your own logic, you're wrong and lacking an argument. Claiming that coal is better than nuclear is wrong by your own logic.

And if there are wrong assumptions stopping a wrong estimate, then certainly replacing them with right assumptions will make an estimate less wrong?

Also, please show where I say that coal is the only alternative or shut up. I'm only talking about coal because it's such a weak hill you chose to die on.

[illiarian]

You are spreading FUD and fearmongering about nuclear.

We've had 60 years of nuclear and thousands of reactors. Still waiting for those terrorists I guess.

> as supposed to the also criminal but less intentional neglect in the case of Fukushima

Which is also a load of bull, mostly. I wish all criminal neglect was on the same level as Fukushima, really: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35711895

[dang]

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