[shawabawa3]

It's worth noting that the Fukoshima disaster

1. Lead to basically zero direct deaths

2. Was caused by the forth most powerful earthquake to have ever been recorded in the world (since ~1900), and the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan

3. ~20,000 people died due to the Earthquake

Requiring a nuclear plant in Belgium to be safe enough to survive what caused the Fukoshima disaster is probably not a good use of money

[crote]

> 1. Lead to basically zero direct deaths

"Basically zero" is a funny way to spell "a few dozen".

It also led to a $187 billion cleanup bill - which is expected to grow by a few more tens of billions over the next decades.

> 2. Was caused by the forth most powerful earthquake to have ever been recorded in the world (since ~1900), and the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan

Sure, but Belgium has to be prepared for something like the North Sea flood of 1953 - which climate change is only going to make worse.

> 3. ~20,000 people died due to the Earthquake

Irrelevant.

> Requiring a nuclear plant in Belgium to be safe enough to survive what caused the Fukoshima disaster is probably not a good use of money

Correct, but a nuclear power plant in Belgium should be safe enough to survive the kind of disaster which is likely to happen in Belgium - which is very much a topic of debate.

If nuclear is so safe, how come nobody is willing to insure it?

[mpweiher]

> "Basically zero" is a funny way to spell "a few dozen".

The actual death toll of the accident itself is zero.

There was one incident of cancer that was ruled a "workplace accident" by an insurance tribunal that went through the press without much vetting.

However, this was for his overall work at the plant, largely preceding the accident.

The WHO says there has been and will be no measurable health impact due to Fukushima.

What caused a lot of deaths was the evacuation that almost certainly should not have happened.

"The forced evacuation of 154,000 people ″was not justified by the relatively moderate radiation levels″, but was ordered because ″the government basically panicked″" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiophobia

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095758201...

> If nuclear is so safe, how come nobody is willing to insure it?

Nuclear is insured. The German nuclear insurance so far has paid out €15000,- since it was created in 1957.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Nuclear_Reactor_Insuran...

For comparison, just the German nuclear auto-insurance pays out north of €15 billion per year.

There is a reason both Japan and Ukraine maintain and are actually expanding their nuclear programs.

[Kon5ole]

>Nuclear is insured.

You should read the article you linked to. It actually explains that nuclear is defacto not insured, and that is the reason why they have only paid 15000 euros in total.

The TLDR is that basically no matter what happens, the cost is covered by the government of the country the plant is located in, and secondly other governments.

This is course also true even if nothing goes wrong with the plants, future tax payers pay for decommissioning, maintenance, storage etc.

[ViewTrick1002]

None of this addresses the points made. It is talking around the subject by trying to shift the focus or narrow the perspective.

The cleanup bill is real.

The inability to get insurance is real.

The precautionary evacuation of entire cities is real.

The possibility of Fukushima scale accidents all depend on local conditions. And it may be as trivial as upgrades and component changes over the decades leading to safeties protecting the component rather than the larger system causing defense in depth to fail. Like happened in Forsmark in 2006.

Renewables and storage are the cheapest energy source in human history. There's no point other than basic research and certain niches like submarines to waste opportunity cost and money on new built nuclear power today.

[pqtyw]

> The inability to get insurance is real.

Which obviously doesn't prove what you think it proves...

[kalessin]

> The cleanup bill is real

This still feels irrational compared to other dangerous industries.

> The inability to get insurance is real

It's real, but how much of it is rooted in emotional fear or bad industrial policy?

> The precautionary evacuation of entire cities is real.

And that's one of the lessons to learn from the Fukushima accident, that's why Canada changed their evacuation plans to be more granular for example.

> Renewables and storage are the cheapest energy source in human history.

Storage gets very expensive as your share of renewables increases (because the capacity factor of storage goes down then). Having an amount of clean firm generation (nuclear) brings the overall cost of the system down.

edit: capacity factor might be the wrong term for storage, the point is their rate of utilization goes down and so does their profitability.

> There's no point other than basic research and certain niches like submarines to waste opportunity cost and money on new built nuclear power today.

I don't understand what we could effectively do with civil nuclear builds decades ago cannot be replicated today. Let's also talk about the cost of the transition to renewables in Germany please.

[otikik]

> ~20,000 people died due to the Earthquake

> Irrelevant.

Well, that needs more nuance.

You have to understand that Japan is unusually well prepared for natural disasters. From earthquake resistant building codes, to alarm systems, education, to building, to earthquake refuges. I would venture to say that it is the most earhquake-prepared country in the world (although I have no proof of that point and I don't feel like looking for evidence on that it). Earthquakes that would have killed hundreds in other countries are footnotes in the news in Japan.

The earthquake alone was not enough to bring down Fukushima; the reactors shut down, as designed. The earthquake wasn't the direct cause of many deaths. It is difficult to estimate given the circumstances, but tens or maybe hundreds.

So in in that sense, yes, the earthquake is irrelevant.

However, after the earthquake, came the tsunami. That did shut down the Fukushima backup generators. No generators means no cooling, which means meltdown.

The tsunami also killed the most people. Now, why is this relevant?

Because the Japanese have had drills and tsunami education for decades. They have seawalls, strong buildings, and prepared infrastructure. The tsunami hit the least populated areas of the coast. In short, they were aware, trained and prepared, and they were not hit where most people live.

And still, ~15000+ died. That gives an idea of the magnitude of the event.

[crote]

Sure, but Chernobyl didn't require a massive tsunami, and neither did Three Mile Island. On top of that there have been dozens of near-misses. On the other hand: what would have been the result of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami hitting a wind farm, or a PV installation?

Nuclear reactors are inherently a very risky business, with virtually unlimited damages if something goes seriously wrong. I'm sure all the reactor operators reviewed their flood procedures after Fukushima and a 1:1 repeat is unlikely, but why didn't they do so before the incident? What other potential causes did the industry miss?

In this case it was indeed a large-scale natural disaster which caused the accident, but how sure are we that some medium-scale terrorism can't do the same, or some small-scale internal sabotage or negligent maintenance? The fact that a Fukushima-scale nuclear disaster can happen at all is a major cause for concern.

[pqtyw]

> Sure, but Chernobyl didn't require a massive tsunami, and neither did Three Mile Island.

Three Mile Island was a success in the sense that even the worst case scenario the safety measures are sufficient to more or less fully contain it.

In Chernobyl's case... well yes it proves that if you let incompetent and stupid people build and operate nuclear power plants horrible things can happen.

[natmaka]

> Three Mile Island was a success in the sense that even the worst case scenario

No, as it involved a partial meltdown, not a complete meltdown.

[lesuorac]

It's a success. The redundant systems of 3mi meant that the 10 miles around it received the effect of a chest x-ray.

I mean we allow coal plants to vent radioactive material. Surely nuclear considering it an accident is an improvement.

[anonymars]

Thought experiment: imagine nuclear were 100 times as deadly as it is, but ten times more prevalent (supplanting other fossil fuels, or even hydroelectric)

What would be the net effect? (I think it would be roughly on par with gas or hydroelectric and an order of magnitude safer than other fossil fuels even with this extremely pessimistic hypothetical)

[pqtyw]

> What would be the net effect?

It wouldn't be a linear increase i.e. you can more or less estimate how many people would die per MWh produced in hydro, gas, coal etc. plants.

With nuclear if somebody dies that means a some sort of catastrophic event likely occurred regardless if a 1 or 100+ people die the reactor will be out of commission and it will cost a massive amount of money to contain it.

[anonymars]

I'm not following the argument for being able to estimate deaths per [T]Wh for hydro, gas, etc. but not nuclear. I think hydroelectric is especially analogous

[Mawr]

You're arguing based on pure hypotheticals.

> Nuclear reactors are inherently a very risky business,

Well, let me introduce you to airplanes — flying is inherently risky, and so many people have died on commercial flights. We should abolish it immediately!

> The fact that a Fukushima-scale nuclear disaster can happen at all is a major cause for concern.

Maybe. I'm more concerned about coal plants that are, as we speak, dumping metric tons of harmful materials, including radioactive ones, into the atmosphere we all breathe, which causes approximately 100_000 people to die each year.

These are real things happening right now, not some hypothetical problems that may happen, but haven't in the last 60 years of commercial nuclear reactor operations.

Seriously, all you can cling to are what, 2-3 major accidents in all this time? With negligible death tolls? Please. This is just concern trolling.

[otikik]

I was arguing about the fact that the number of deaths on the tsunami was relevant. I think you must have answered to the wrong thread.

[ToValueFunfetti]

>>1. Lead to basically zero direct deaths

>"Basically zero" is a funny way to spell "a few dozen".

Wikipedia asserts one "suspected" death, which I think is within bounds to call "basically zero". It does list a couple dozen injuries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident

[crote]

Just a few lines down:

> The displacements resulted in at least 51 deaths as well as stress and fear of radiological hazards

[pqtyw]

It's not clear the mismanaged massive evacuation was even necessary. In hindsight its like that less people would have died if they just stayed there for a few more days.

[parineum]

> If nuclear is so safe, how come nobody is willing to insure it?

Almost every plant is bespoke, leading each plant to have unknown failure modes and rates. Additionally, insurance works by pooling risk amongst a large group of individuals but the statistical uncertainties of failure rates (too few events) and low total rate of plants leads to an incredibly uncertain risk profile.

[mannykannot]

The claim made in your first sentence is actually a reason to be concerned.

[pqtyw]

The fact that it's impossible to estimate the risk because the failure rates are unknown is concerning?

Yes, more frequent failures would make it easier for insurance companies to estimate the risk and calculate premiums but I don't exactly see how that would be good thing...

[thrownthatway]

And also largely irrelevant to a possible future standardised fleet.

Also, obviously, that could lead to an issue with one being an issue with many.

[ETH_start]

The impression I've gotten is that almost all of the massive bills associated with nuclear power are because of an irrational fear of the radiation. Factoring in all the nuclear disasters and the radiations released from them, nuclear causes something on the order of 10,000 times fewer deaths than coal per megawatt generated.

[Kon5ole]

That's kinda like saying we can release the tiger from the cage because it hasn't killed anyone while it was in the cage.

[pqtyw]

No? It's like saying that its safe to have more zoos with tigers because tigers pretty much never get out of their cages and get a to kill people unless there is some massive fuckup (i.e. you let soviet engineers supervise your tiger)

[Kon5ole]

>No? It's like saying that its safe to have more zoos with tigers

No, then the original statement would have to have been "we should keep paying big bills so we can have safe nuclear", but it wasn't.

To be more direct, using statistics about incidents to claim something is safe a fallacy. Something extremely dangerous that is kept safe through effort and expense won't appear in the stats until you remove the effort and expense.

[peterfirefly]

After genetically engineering a super tiger and keeping it hungry.

[ETH_start]

Not quite, because there have been disasters and radiation leaks. And if the number of deaths per megawatt produced is 10,000 times less than coal, despite those radiation leaks, radiation leaks cannot be anywhere as dangerous as commonly perceived.

[Ray20]

> nuclear causes something on the order of 10,000 times fewer deaths than coal per megawatt generated.

If we demonstrate scientific honesty and begin to apply the same level of techniques that are used to obtain the result of "10,000 times fewer deaths than coal per megawatt", we can come to the conclusion that even a small accident at a small nuclear power plant can destroy life on planet Earth as a phenomenon.

[derriz]

“Better than coal” is a weak argument. Coal hasn’t been in the “game” for decades. The problem for nuclear isn’t anything irrational - it’s economics and operational and deployment flexibility - newer tech like solar PV, gas turbines, batteries and wind have created a new Pareto frontier for electricity generation and nuclear just isn’t anywhere near this frontier for any objective.

[thrownthatway]

> Coal hasn’t been in the “game” for decades.

What are talking about?

* China's installed coal-based power generation capacity was 1080 GW in 2021, about half the total installed capacity of power stations in China.*

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_power_in_China

India is the fifth-largest geological coal reserves globally and as the second-largest consumer, coal continues to be an indispensable energy source, contributing to 55% of the national energy mix. Over the past decade, thermal power, predominantly fueled by coal, has consistently accounted for more than 74% of our total power generation.

https://static.pib.gov.in/WriteReadData/specificdocs/documen...

[derriz]

The last new coal power plant to come on-line in the US was in 2013 at Sandy Creek - 13 years ago. The last new coal power station built in Australia - Bluewaters Power station was built in 2009 - 17 years ago. In Europe coal's share has dropped from over 40% of generation at its peak in 2007 - about 20 years ago - and has declined to about 9%. Coal's days are over - natural gas is cheaper and more flexible, while solar PV and wind are cheaper.

There is of course a large installed base - a coal plant will last 50 years. The fact that developing countries have large installed coal capacity is neither here nor there.

[WalterBright]

> It also led to a $187 billion cleanup bill - which is expected to grow by a few more tens of billions over the next decades.

Apparently wildlife is thriving in the radiation zone.

Intensity of radiation fades over the years (exponential decay). The bad stuff is gone fairly quickly. Decades means pretty low levels.

Just leave the radiation zone as a nature preserve, like the Chernobyl zone.

[pqtyw]

> Irrelevant.

How can that be irrelevant. The disaster was directly caused by a very specific external factor that was not properly accounted for when it was built i.e. it's not generalizable to all nuclear plants in different areas.

> If nuclear is so safe, how come nobody is willing to insure it?

Because it doesn't make sense from a risk management perspective, the risk is astronomically low and impossible to estimate, just like the potential damage which might be huge and again impossible to estimate. How do you even calculate the premiums or anything else for that matter?

[cogman10]

> Lead to basically zero direct deaths

Coal has lead to basically zero direct death, and a lot of indirect deaths. That's a bad way to measure the damage done by a power generation mechanism.

> Was caused by the forth most powerful earthquake to have ever been recorded in the world (since ~1900), and the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan

Yeah, crazy stuff happens and radioactive spills have longterm effects on the environment that are hard to address.

> ~20,000 people died due to the Earthquake

That's a non-sequitur.

> Requiring a nuclear plant in Belgium to be safe enough to survive what caused the Fukoshima disaster is probably not a good use of money

Japan has spent the equivalent of $180B cleaning up the mess Fukoshima left behind. [1] Decomissioning the old reactors and replacing them with the safer to avoid unexpected disasters which cost hundreds of billions does seem like a good use of money. Far better than just hoping something unexpected doesn't happen.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38131248

[leonidasrup]

It's always hard count indirect deaths.

We could for example argue that Japan, by stopping it's nuclear power plants for long time and replacing it's cheap nuclear electricity with expensive imported gas electricity caused more deaths than by direct radiological impact of Fukoshima accident.

"Be Cautious with the Precautionary Principle: Evidence from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident"

https://docs.iza.org/dp12687.pdf

"In an effort to meet the energy demands, nuclear power was replaced by imported fossil fuels, which led to increases in electricity prices. The price increases led to a reduction in electricity consumption but only during the coldest times of the year. Given its protective effects from extreme weather, the reduced electricity consumption led to an increase in mortality during very cold temperatures. We estimate that the increased mortality resulting from the higher energy prices outnumbered the mortality from the accident itself, suggesting that applying the precautionary principle caused more harm than good."

In term of money, you have look at the sums that Japan has been pouring into importing gas, which was needed to replace the missing nuclear power generation.

"With the Japanese government’s blessing, these companies are encouraging other countries to use more gas and LNG by investing US$93 billion from March 2013 to March 2024 in midstream and downstream oil and gas infrastructure globally."

https://energyexplained.substack.com/p/japan-1-how-fukushima...

[cogman10]

I pretty much fully agree.

I'm not actually arguing that Gen II plants need to be decommissioned immediately. I'm arguing that they need to be decommissioned and ideally replaced as soon as possible.

The process that takes can look like running the Gen II reactor while a replacement Gen IV reactor is being built and then decommissioning after the IV reactor is up and running.

I'm not against using nuclear, far from it. But I do think we need to actually have a plan about how we evolve the current nuclear fleet.

[thrownthatway]

> Gen II … need to be decommissioned and ideally replaced as soon as possible.

Why? The overwhelming majority of Gen II reactors aren’t on the east coast of Japan.

And the lessons learned from Fukushima Daiitchi can be applied elsewhere to mitigate similar risks.

My opinion is it’s more prudent to run the existing fleet for its economically useful life, remembering that reliable base load can have more value than intermittent wind / solar + (largely non-existent) batteries.

You also don’t get process heat not district heating from wind / solar + (largely non-existent) batteries.

[cogman10]

Gen II reactors everywhere are subject to war and sabotage. Places that are currently safe aren't always safe.

Fukushima was a demonstration that these reactors can still melt down. It doesn't take exactly fukushima to cause a meltdown.

The reason to prioritize decommissioning is because the new generations of reactors are completely safe. There can be no meltdown, even if they are explicitly sabotaged. Then the bigger risk becomes not the reactor but the management of waste.

What Gen II reactors are is effectively a landmine in a box. The proposed solution to avoid detonating the landmine is adding more pillows, buffers, and padding, but still keeping the landmine because it'd be expensive to replace.

I think that's just a bad idea. Unexpected things happen. They don't have to (and probably won't) look exactly like a Tsunami hitting the facility. So why not replace the box with a landmine with one that doesn't have the landmine. Yes it cost money to do, but it's simply safer and completely eliminates a whole class of risks.

[leonidasrup]

There are many kinds of Gen IV reactors. Which of the Gen IV reactors would you prefer? Which Gen IV reactor can not melt down, even if explicitly sabotaged?

[thrownthatway]

> Gen II reactors everywhere are subject to war and sabotage.

<eye roll> this is just bullshit.

Which Gen II reactors are subject to war, exactly?

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, where one employ was killed by a drone strike?

What’s the status of the four new planned(?) reactors at Khmelnitski?

Wikipedia seems to indicate that two new AP1000 reactors are under construction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytskyi_Nuclear_Power_Pla...

A country that is having a hot war with its neighbour Russia(!) is getting the fuck on with it, while the rest of the Western world still thinks windmills are cool.

[pqtyw]

> Coal has lead to basically zero direct death, and a lot of indirect deaths. That's a bad way to measure the damage done

By that definition housefires also lead to very few direct deaths if most people die due to smoke inhalation instead of burning alive.

Unlike with nuclear that, even if we entirely ignore CO2 emissions and climate change the remaining "indirect" damage due to pollution and long-term effects on the environment are largely know and quantifiable and are astronomically higher per MHw produced compared to nuclear power.

[thrownthatway]

> Coal has lead to basically zero direct death,

There have been plenty of direct deaths caused by coal power. Coal dust can be quite explosive and has caused a lot of deaths over the years. And plenty of coal fired boilers, both stationary and mobile (locomotives) and failed causing plenty of deaths.

[peterfirefly]

It's instructive (and scary) to google pictures of exploded boilers!

[philipallstar]

> > ~20,000 people died due to the Earthquake

> That's a non-sequitur.

I think this is to establish that the large number of deaths from the disaster weren't due to the nuclear plant, which people seem to assume.

[cogman10]

People assume it, I did not. Nor did I claim it. It is a non-sequitur because we aren't talking about deaths from natural disasters.

[thrownthatway]

We actually are.

There are plenty of smaller nuclear power reactor issues listen on Wikipedia, but the three big ones are Chernobyl, but that was an RMBK, which no one built except those crazy Russians, TMI which didn’t kill or injury anyone, and Fukushima Daiitchi which resulted in one death.

So we’re not really talking about deaths from nuclear power reactors, because there aren’t any, discounting Chernobyl because that won’t ever happen again.

So we must be talking about the deaths from that one natural disaster associated with the Fukushima Daiitchi meltdowns. Otherwise, I dint know what deaths you’re talking about.

More people injur themselves falling off ladders while trying to clean their solar panels than nuclear power ever will.

[cogman10]

You are, I'm not.

Good luck.

[thrownthatway]

Ok, which deaths from nuclear power.

State your case, enumerate them.

The idea that nuclear isn’t safe, and can’t be competitive in thr market is just nonsense.

Seventeen AP1000s are currently in operation or under construction. Four are in operation at two sites in China, two at Sanmen Nuclear Power Station and two at Haiyang Nuclear Power Plant. As of 2019, all four Chinese reactors were completed and connected to the grid, and as of 2026, eleven more are under construction.

It goes on…

Two are in operation at the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant near Augusta, Georgia, in the United States, with Vogtle 3 having come online in July 2023, and Vogtle 4 in April 2024. Construction at Vogtle suffered numerous delays and cost overruns. Construction of two additional reactors at Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station near Columbia, South Carolina, led to Westinghouse's bankruptcy in 2017 and the cancellation of construction at that site. It was reported in January 2025 by The Wall Street Journal and The State that Santee Cooper, the sole owner of the stored parts and unfinished construction, is exploring construction and financing partners to finish construction these two reactors. The need for large amounts of electricity for data centers is said to be the driving factor for their renewed interest.

Twenty-four more AP1000s are currently being planned, with six in India, nine in Ukraine, three in Poland, two in Bulgaria, and four in the United States.

China is currently developing more advanced versions and owns their patent rights. The first AP1000 began operations in China at Sanmen, where Unit 1 became the first AP1000 to achieve criticality in June 2018, and was connected to the grid the next month. Further builds in China will be based on the modified CAP1000 and CAP1400 designs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP1000

The fact is, nuclear power is a 21st century success story.

[mpweiher]

Yes we actually are talking about deaths from natural disasters.

The Fukushima nuclear power plant was destroyed by the Tsunami. It didn't spontaneously combust.

A lot of other infrastructure that was impacted/destroyed by the Tsunami claimed lives. For example, a dam broke due to the Tsunami and that dam breach killed 4 people. Which coincidentally happens to be 4 more than were killed by the nuclear power plant when it was destroyed by the Tsunami.

[cogman10]

IDK why you'd think a thread about how we treat and handle nuclear reactors in an article about decommissioning nuclear reactors should suddenly be about people that die from natural disasters.

More people die from car accidents and heart attacks. More people get radiation poisoning from sun exposure. Also non-sequiturs because we are not talking about that here.

It is very tangentially related because the nuclear accident in the current thread was caused by an earthquake that also killed people. Not something that affects the discussion about how we should handle nuclear plants in the future because "This number is bigger" is a meaninglessly point to make.

[mpweiher]

> a thread about how we treat and handle nuclear reactors

This is actually an article about Belgium taking over nuclear plants for restart.

> should suddenly be about people that die from natural disasters

How did we get to natural disasters?

Well:

You brought up Fukushima, where a natural disaster destroyed a nuclear power station. You also incorrectly claimed that Japan had "decided" to "decomission" "these" reactors, rather than "rebuild" them.

Right, and ultimately Japan has decided the safest and I assume cheapest route with these reactors wasn't to rebuild but rather to decommission. These reactors can be made safer, but they all still have a foundational design flaw which means the ultimate goal should be replacing rather than continually spending money reinforcing.

I think most people who read this interpreted this as "these" meaning "Japan's reactor fleet". Because that's the only interpretation that makes at least a little sense (though it is wrong).

It certainly can't mean the reactors at Fukushima, because those have been destroyed, there never was any question of "rebuilding" them and so no "decision" not to do that. And not due to some unfixable "design flaw", but due to a Tsunami that another plant of the same design withstood without damage.

So: we got to natural disasters because you brought up natural disasters.

And yes, technical equipment and infrastructure gets destroyed in natural disasters. Like that dam in Japan that killed 4 people when it was destroyed by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and Tsunami. Like that nuclear power plant that killed 0 people when it was destroyed by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and Tsunami.

[thrownthatway]

> More people get radiation poisoning from sun exposure.

What. The. Fuck. Are. You. On. About.

That has never happened.

Radiation poisoning. From sun exposure.

Are you ok? Would like some water? Do you want to sit down?

If you think that’s a thing, I don’t know what to say. I hope you don’t vote.

You should stop now before you embarrass yourself. Go away and do some reading. Come back when you’re read to play with the big kids.

We’re doomed!

[philipallstar]

Okay, but this isn't a one-on-one conversation. It's a public, multi-way message board involving people who will assume that.

[tshaddox]

> Coal has lead to basically zero direct death, and a lot of indirect deaths.

Huh? Are you not counting coal mining, which historically caused thousands of deaths per year and presumably still causes at least hundreds per year (not sure what info we have on that from China).

[StreamBright]

> Coal has lead to basically zero direct death

This is not true at all.

Direct Occupational Deaths (Mining & Accidents)

Even in a highly regulated environment like the United States, coal mining is not a zero-fatality industry. United States: According to the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), there were 8 coal mining deaths in 2025 and 10 in 2024. This is a massive improvement from 1907 (the deadliest year), which saw 3,242 deaths.

In countries with less stringent safety oversight, the numbers are much higher. For example, China's coal industry—though improving—has historically recorded hundreds to thousands of deaths annually.

In 2022 alone, hundreds of people died in global coal mine accidents.

Chronic Disease: "Black Lung" (pneumoconiosis) is still a leading cause of death for miners. In the U.S. alone, thousands of former miners die every decade from lung diseases directly caused by inhaling coal dust.

[WalterBright]

The Fukushima disaster could have been averted simply by putting the backup electric generators on a platform, and venting the hydrogen gases outside.

[mpweiher]

Yes.

Or not having your plant destroyed by the biggest Tsunami in recorded Japanese history, much larger than the size they planned for when they built the plant.

Or upgrading the seawall to the size mandated after scientists found out that Tsunamis of that size could actually happen, despite having no historical record of them. One of the reasons TEPCO was culpable.

A sister plant of the Fukushima plant actually survived a slightly higher crest and was even used as a shelter for Tsunami victims, because one engineer had insisted on the sea wall being higher.

German plants for example, despite facing no immediate Tsunami risks, have bunkered and distributed backup generators as well as mandatory hydrogen recombinators. Any German plant at the same location would have survived largely unscathed.

[WalterBright]

A larger seawall can still fail. Better to put the generators on a platform. Simple and cheap.

Another backup would have been a pipe leading away from the reactor, where one can, from a short distance, pump water into it and it would cool the reactor.

[ViewTrick1002]

Everything is "simple" with hindsight in mind.

After SL-1 we realized that that we needed to allow a reactor to fully shut down even with the most important control rod stuck in a fully withdrawn position.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1#Accident_and_response

[WalterBright]

> Everything is "simple" with hindsight in mind.

The fixes are still simple and cost little.

I used to work at Boeing on airliner design. The guiding principle is "what happens when X fails" and design for that. It is not "design so X cannot fail", as we do not know how to design things that cannot fail. For Fukushima, it is "what happens if the seawall fails", not "the seawall cannot fail".

Airliners are safe not because critical parts cannot fail, but because there is a backup plan for every critical part.

Venting explosive gas into the building seems like a complete failure to do a proper failure analysis.

[bumby]

>at Boeing on airliner design. The guiding principle is "what happens when X fails"...Airliners are safe not because critical parts cannot fail, but because there is a backup plan for every critical part.

And yet creating a culture that is vigilant and consistently applies due diligence is hard. To that point: Boeing identified the 737-Max MCAS as 'hazardous' in their analysis. Putting aside that 'catastrophic' was the more appropriate rating, they still did not appropriately design their system when that system failed. (By their own processes, 'hazardous' meant it should not be designed with single-point hardware failures)* That implies it is as much a human/cultural issue as a technical one.

* before any claims that the system was designed just fine because the pilots could have avoided the issue with the appropriate actions, those are administrative hazard mitigations which are generally considered less desirable than hardware fixes, especially when engineering mitigations are already installed but not used. Removing the hazard >> engineering controls >> administrative controls >> PPE. To the GPP point, hindsight is easy, managing risk, people, and processes is hard.

[WalterBright]

The backup for MCAS was simple:

1. restore normal trim using the thumb switches (which override MCAS inputs)

2. turn the trim system off.

The proof of that is that's what the crew did in the first MCAS incident, and they landed safely.

[bumby]

Check the previous note I left above with the * on why that is considered a poor mitigation.

Administrative procedures are bad mitigations in general but especially bad when a) it’s a safety critical issue and b) the hardware for an engineering mitigation is already installed. That’s like saying death could have been avoided if people would have just packed parachutes (PPE). Maybe true, but bad hazard mitigation.

[wholinator2]

I don't know but i feel like Nuclear reactors are something worth taking to the 99.99% percentile of safety. How much money does it really cost? And how does that money compare to the economic prosperity of the land that is currently radiation free. As well, i think us (assuming) not knowledgeable Nuclear engineers discussing the cost benefit of reactor safety should be basically locked out of the conversation. Plausible sounding soundbites are just too easily generated these days for anyone without credentials to have stake in these decisions.

[harrouet]

Nuclear is already at a much higher safety standard than 99.99%!

About costs: it is actually cheap. 95% of the average total cost of a MWh is in building the plant. Comparisons sometimes show the cost of a MWh from wind or solar, but is a fallacy because they assume an infrastructure on the side to ensure 24x7 power generation (i.e. they point out a marginal cost instead of average total cost).

[thrownthatway]

Yep!

Wind / solar + (largely non-existent) batteries are cheap!

Until you factor in the gas peaker plants that need to be built watt-for-watt unless you’re okay with poor people freezing in the dark, or melting in the heat. Because rich people can afford their own back up generators or on-site batteries.

[swiftcoder]

> How much money does it really cost?

The problem is as much time as it is money. We have reactors producing energy now, it will take a decade plus to replace them, and due to both climate policy and supply issues around the wars in Russia and the Middle East, we can't afford to do without the energy for that decade...

[simondotau]

And if that nuclear would be displacing coal power, you have to consider the health and environmental costs of that coal generation which you haven't displaced.

[thrownthatway]

> climate policy

Fuck climate policy.

There could be an earthquake any moment now that ruptures a massive natural CO formation that would eclipse any anthropogenic generated emissions in matter of hours. What have we done to mitigate that risk? Nothing.

There is a non-zero chance Earth will be relieved of the responsibility of harbouring complex life any moment now by a loose pile of gravel travelling at 60 kilometres a second. Zero mitigation.

Let’s work out this food-housing-energy deal for everyone before we mandate unaffordable unreliable energy that results in unaffordable everything.

Maybe your shielded from that because your own a mid six figure income at $UNICORN, but I guarantee you the rest of us have had enough of this climate change fucking bullshit luxury belief.

[pqtyw]

Air pollution has a direct negative impact on everyone's quality of life, I don't see why would you chose to decouple from "food-housing-energy". Coal would still be a bad deal even if climate change wasn't a concern.

[swiftcoder]

Hey man, I live on a small farm ~50km from the city, where we get to battle more and more wildfires every year, and it no longer rains enough to keep the water supplies flowing all summer. Climate change is a bigger issue for a lot of of the world than your personal experience might suggest

[thrownthatway]

> and it no longer rains enough to keep the water supplies flowing all summer.

It no longer rains enough?

Are you a time traveller?

Otherwise you can’t possibly know that.

When it comes to climate and weather, no amount of recent past data can reliably predict what’s going to happen next.

[swiftcoder]

I know that in the last 5 years, we've had 3 major droughts, and in the preceding 50 years, no droughts. This is more than sufficient evidence for me.

I'm not going to argue long-term weather cycles versus man-made climate change with you.

[pyrale]

> What have we done to mitigate that risk

Climate change isn't a risk that needs mitigation, it is not a contingency of hypothetical events. It is happening right now, and lives are already being claimed.

Maybe you are shielded from that and want to keep your lifestyle rather than adapting.

[thrownthatway]

> It is happening right now

We don’t actually know that.

We don’t have a second, identical Earth, where an industrial revolution powered by coal and oil and gas didn’t happen.

[pyrale]

Maybe you don't know it. The rest of us who can read scientific work have a pretty good idea.

[natmaka]

> 1. Lead to basically zero direct deaths

"Fukushima Daiichi Accident: Official figures show that there have been 2313 disaster-related deaths among evacuees from Fukushima prefecture. Disaster-related deaths are in addition to the about 19,500 that were killed by the earthquake or tsunami."

According to the "World Nuclear Association" (mission: to facilitate the growth of the nuclear sector by connecting players across the value chain, representing the industry’s position in key world forums, and providing authoritative information and influencing key audiences)

Source: https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-sec...

[tremon]

It would be a good idea to actually read the source you're quoting to see if it supports your case.

> 2313 disaster-related deaths among evacuees from Fukushima prefecture*, that were not due to radiation-induced damage or to the earthquake or to the tsunami, had been identified by the Japanese authorities. About 90% of deaths were for persons above 66 years of age. Of these, about 30% occurred within the first three months of the evacuations, and about 80% within two years.

> The premature disaster-related deaths were mainly related to (i) physical and mental illness brought about by having to reside in shelters and the trauma of being forced to move from care settings and homes; and (ii) delays in obtaining needed medical support because of the enormous destruction caused by the earthquake and tsunami.

[natmaka]

If, instead of the nuclear power plant, Japan had deployed photovoltaic panels or wind turbines, the evacuation would not have been necessary and some of these people would have survived.

According to the then Prime Minister nuclear experts announced to him, while the accident was unfolding, that "The reactors' accident could, in the worst case, have caused the evacuation of the entire population living within a radius of 250km, including Tokyo, a total of 50 million people" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naoto_Kan#In_media

Only the three least powerful of the six reactors were in operation at the time of the accident. Reactor #4 was off and unloaded.

Approximately 80% of the released cesium-137 (half-life: 30 years) was dispersed eastward by winds and deposited in the Pacific Ocean (far from human settlement), where the enormous volume of water and strong currents reduced its concentration. Other studies, such as those by Yasunari et al., confirm these undisputed facts, which are also accepted by nuclear agencies.

The sole cleanup may cost up to 660bn USD ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident_cle... ).

To begin with.

[shevy-java]

You write as if Fukushima was the only example. Take chernobyl: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

You are correct that there were only few deaths but there was radiation damage, and if you sum that up then Fukushima was definitely noticable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident

[thrownthatway]

Chernobyl happened, but it’s irrelevant to calculating risk for any other operational nuclear power reactor.

That RMBK was built by those crazy Russians who thought it was reasonable to not even bother with a containment vessel / building.

[testing22321]

> It's worth noting that the Fukoshima disaster Lead to basically zero direct deaths

Which was really just pure luck.

It was melting down. Humans could not go in to stop it, robots could not go in to stop it. Pure luck it didn’t go a lot bigger.

Also it resulted in severe contamination of ocean water, which will have impacts for a very long time

[thrownthatway]

> severe contamination of ocean water

No it didn’t

Like I said at the time, you could melt all of the cores down at the Fukushima Daiitchi site and dissolve them all in to the oceans and it would be undetectable in sea water.

The oceans weigh around 10^21 kilograms, and the six reactor cores at Fukushima Daiichi would weigh, what, several hundred tons and contain, what, several tens of tonnes of radioactive products.

We’re talking beyond parts per trillion.

[peterfirefly]

Greenpeace lied a lot about it at the time, though. Maybe that's where it comes from.

I wonder how much money it made Greenpeace. A million? Two million?

[simondotau]

> Which was really just pure luck.

It's the opposite of luck. They were very unlucky. The objectively extremely unlucky outcome occurred. Yes it could have been worse, and I suppose it could have been struck by a meteor too.

> it resulted in severe contamination of ocean water

Citation please. I suggest reading the relevant Wikipedia article in full.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discharge_of_radioactive_water...

[testing22321]

> It's the opposite of luck. They were very unlucky. The objectively extremely unlucky outcome occurred.

The tsunami and tidal wave that took out the generators were unlucky.

The fantastically lucky part was that it didn’t create an explosion and spew much more radiation into the air. We couldn’t do anything to stop it, just stand back and hope for the best.

that was immensely lucky.

[pvaldes]

Lets try to speak as adults about this.

1) There are at least 403 cases registered of Fukushima residents developing Thyroid cancers after 2011 and the study is still ongoing. This is five times the expected cancer ratio.

Of those at least 155 cases of malignant cancers happened in children (Sokawa 2024). We know that thyroid cancers are rare among young people... except in one special place were a sudden increase in similar cases was registered since the 80's. This place is called Chernobyl. Children that lived in towns around Fukushima daichi where the accident happened have three times more probability of suffering thyroid cancer than children that lived in towns farther from the plant.

2) Not the strong excuse that it seems, after the company was warned by scientists about the possibility of such earthquake and the urgency to improve their safety measures. They had a lot of time to fix it, and did absolutely nothing