[defensive7132]

I always supported nuclear power. It's just the best we have right now. Renewable power is all good and all, but technology is not there yet. Plus, many people in support of green energy never think about all the mining done for this and how it impacts and often destroys environments. It's OK when it's not your environment being hurt. :-)

Anyways, nuclear power is safer than people think. And most, if not all, nuclear power disasters were due to human error.

[aniviacat]

> most, if not all, nuclear power disasters were due to human error

How is this less of an issue? Are modern reactors not built and operated by humans? We have better sensors and more digital components now, which reduce the risk. But the risk for a wind turbine is, and always was, zero.

[defensive7132]

"risk of a wind turbine is, and always was, zero" seems like you need to check on how many people die a year while maintaining wind turbines.

Fukushima accident: corruption

Chernobyl: incompetence

Three mile island accident: that's a bit more nuanced than just human error, but nothing we haven't fixed already

SL-1: suicide-murder/human error

Those are the serious accidents. As you may see, all are perfectly fixable. Plus, current nuclear plants are more advanced. Now while you have on your mind these 4 accidents, consider that currently there are 403 in use plants and oldest one is over 60 years. All working with no issue.

[ViewTrick1002]

The difference is who gets harmed.

For solar and wind the general public generally can’t be affected by any accidents so the deaths are general work place hazards coming from working aloft with heavy equipment.

For nuclear power the public is on the hook for cleanup fees from hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars and the large scale accidents we have seen caused hundreds of thousands to get evacuated.

It is not even comparable. If I chose to not work in the solar and wind industry my chance of harm is as near zero as it gets. Meanwhile about all consequences from nuclear power afflicts the general public. Both in terms of costs, injuries and life changing evacuations.

[defensive7132]

If modern nuclear plants fail, they contain all hazards in a tomb under the plant. Fukushima was built not as it should have been due to corruption.

Your fear for nuclear plants failing is unreasonable. Do I have to mention again hundreds of plants running for decades without a problem?

[aniviacat]

How is human error fixable?

[defensive7132]

You mean corruption and incompetence isn't? It's not like someone accidentally pressed wrong button or something. There are clear issues which can be fixed with more regulations when building nuclear plants and who can operate them.

Can't say much for other two, since it's more just human error. One's more of a technical problem that was addressed poorly and other, too unique to happen again. People don't usually murder/suicide in nuclear plants.

[ponorin]

In the winter of 2022, France had to restart permanently shut down coal plants[0] and pump gas to Germany[1] for electricity because of a pipe crack that made half of their nuclear plants go into maintenance. Note that this was on top of curtailing energy use (funny enough, because of gas, not nuclear[2]).

You could say "that was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of event!" (I'd love to have machine without flaws but nuclear fusion would be faster) but, if it wasn't for the European grid, this could have resulted in prolonged emergency saving measures or possibly a (partial) blackout. Nuclear power is often touted as the stable one, but ironically, solar and wind would not suffer from this kind of problem because they are inherently variable in output. If energy storage for renewables was already a headache, imagine an energy storage system for nuclear.

[0]: https://apnews.com/article/europe-business-france-climate-an...

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230114183054/https://www.nytim...

[2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20240709121249/https://www.nytim...

[jahnu]

> Renewable power is all good and all, but technology is not there yet.

Actually it is and here is the best summary explaining why I know of:

https://www.volts.wtf/p/what-the-sun-isnt-always-shining

[AlphaGeekZulu]

"[...]And most, if not all, nuclear power disasters were due to human error.[...]"

And the remaining nuclear power disasters were due to unpredictable natural disasters.

So at what time exactly did we eliminate human error and unpredictable natural disasters, so that we don't have to worry about the dangers of nuclear power anymore? It seems, I somehow missed this two super important historic events...

[fabian2k]

Human error makes it worse. We can fix technical issues, it is much harder to fix human nature and all the potential human causes for safety violations.