[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.

[natmaka]

A nuclear accident with far more devastating consequences is possible.

The debate isn't about "nuclear or coal?" but about "nuclear or renewables?"

[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

[peterfirefly]

Should we include this case?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure

[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?