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by Ographer 879 days ago
This take may be way off base but instead of trying to avoid 100% of nuclear incidents, shouldn't we be comparing the relative risk of nuclear environmental damage to the guaranteed and ongoing environmental and climate damage done by burning 200 million tonnes of heavy oil every year?

Maybe a few sunken nuclear reactors is already a better alternative? Again, I may be completely wrong, just seems like something that isn't being discussed.

3 comments

In an ideal world, maybe so. But we haven't managed to clear the hurdle for ground-based power production so upping the ante to something that can sink would be even more challenging.
I'm with you on the sunken ones in deep water.

The "smeared along a beach or headland" ones are more worrying. What if the storm gets the reactor above the water line? What if a houthi anti ship missile wrecks/ignites the reactor compartment? What if armed men burst out of some of the 20000+ containers and deliberately try to engineer a disaster?

The golden ray (a car transporter) capsized in calm waters in a sheltered bay and the cleanup cost $850m. Fukishima is a twelve figure number.

Chernobyl on the rocks would be uninsurable.

Or just use hydrogen or hydrogen derived syn-fuels without any of the disadvantages.