[xp84]

All forms of generation have downsides.

> Canada needs new power now. Not 15-20 years from now,

Building nuclear doesn't stop you from building whatever else you want. Though I assume that Canada being Canada, it'll take 15 years just to complete the requisite negotiations with every indigenous tribe and to arrive at a settlement with whatever environmental and assorted NIMBY groups are already warming up their lawsuit-filing laptops right now.

Also, you're predictably citing a couple of bad nuclear accidents, over like 70 years of nuclear generation. Both are actually pretty well understood. If we applied that risk management logic to forms of transport, you wouldn't even be allowed to walk anywhere.

[pfisch]

Chernobyl was almost the largest disaster in all of history. I'm not saying nuclear reactors are unsafe now, but the reality is that a true disaster at a nuclear power plant literally means the end of huge amounts of land, enough to end entire countries or large parts of continents. You can't say things like that about walking or other types of transport...

[AngryData]

To be fair Chernobyl was designed what, 15 years after the invention of nuclear technology? Even discounting all the politicial and management control problems, the engineering and scientific knowledge of nuclear reactor design was still in its infancy. Imagine if we judged the safety of automobiles on pre-Model-T cars. Or steam boilers and engines on the first 20 yearrs of their invention.

[foobarian]

Isn't that a little hyperbolic? Sure cancer rates will be elevated wherever the fallout blows but it's not going to end anything.

[stackghost]

Chernobyl's reactors were fundamentally unsafe designs from an engineering perspective, to say nothing of the perverse incentives at play because of the Soviet political system. We've learned a lot since the RBMK was designed in the 1960s.

[markvdb]

Not convinced. The problem is with the human layer of managing large complicated projects.

Nuclear could become less unsafe once humanity has found ways not to go commity horrble violence every other generation.

[stackghost]

>Not convinced.

What, if anything, would convince you?

[pydry]

>Building nuclear doesn't stop you from building whatever else you want.

It kind of does though, since it demands pretty lavish subsidies to be built at all and those subsidies would give WAY more bang for the buck if used on pumped storage, batteries, solar and wind.

You also have to cap liability in case of nuclear disaster. Private insurers won't touch nuclear power with a barge pole unless taxpayers are forced to pay for disaster cleanup. As a taxpayer Id rather not have that liability.