[natmaka]

> Just like more people are afraid of airplane accidents

This doesn't compute: avoiding being a victim of a plane accident is rather simple: don't hop on any plane and your are something along the .99999 covered.

Avoiding being threatened (and many generations after you) by a nuclear major accident or erring 'hot' nuclear waste is way (WAY!) more difficult.

[nottorp]

So you are walking to work right? If you avoid airplanes, why not extend this to cars?

[s1artibartfast]

I don't think it's a slam dunk for banning nuclear, but agree with the parent post that consent to risk is a valid part of the conversation.

Car or plane, the people most exposed to the risk have some choice in the matter - to fly, drive, or be around vehicles.

New considerations are introduced when those exposed to the risks of your choice maybe hundreds of miles away with no say, or even yet to be born.

[preisschild]

Its very similar. Most people "at risk" for a accident in a nuclear power plant are the workers. There are multiple redundancies that make sure dangerous levels of radioactive isotopes are not released to the public. Thats why every western nuclear power plant has required containment buildings basically forever. Chernobyl didn't, which is why it affected the environment / nearby people.

[natmaka]

No containment is perfect. In French nuclear plants it has to "contain" most of the stuff for at least 72 hours, but no one sees it as a sealed repository and it sure isn't.

[chickenbig]

> No containment is perfect.

You set the bar too high. Radiation isn't an all-or-nothing phenomenon; we are exposed to background radiation all the time, so expecting perfection is unjustified. Also a large portion of radioactivity that might escape comes from short-lived isotopes, making short term evacuation a possibility.

[natmaka]

The bar is the comparison with the other set of pertinent electricity-generating equipments: renewables.

The LNT debate isn't settled, effects of added background radiation is difficult to assess. Moreover the dust escaping from a nuclear plant may be inhaled, ingested... ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committed_dose ).

A "large portion" isn't all, and at Fukushima the nuclear accident-triggered evacuation officially made around 2200 victims.

[s1artibartfast]

The point I'm making is about consent and the mechanisms of decision making, not the actual risk levels involved.

[natmaka]

The misdeeds of some (nuclear...) do not constitute mitigating circumstances for others (cars...).

[moi2388]

It’s not. Example: I’ve never been in contact with nuclear waste, yet constantly breathe in the co2 from coal plants.

[natmaka]

Scoop: it now is not about "nuclear vs. coal" but "nuclear vs. renewables".