That seems like a little bit of a non sequitur to the topic in this particular thread chain.
Anyway, yes of course they happen. They happen in every power producing industry. It's hard to find good numbers of course as there's going to be some amount of error, but here's one [1].
The point isn't that in that report nuclear has fewer deaths than wind and solar as I'm sure that will cause an emotional reaction. The point is that it's so low and comparable. Even if it was 10x worse it would be worth the tradeoff of replacing coal.
Nuclear is our only choice for replacing industrial scale use of coal and oil. It's unfortunate that that's the case, but those are the facts on the ground currently and there's no sign of that ever changing. The way Wind and Solar generate energy are wholly incompatible with high temperature industrial uses where coal and natural gas are used let alone the problems of variability (batteries help, but there are limits and batter manufacturing at scale brings its own challenges).
If you're comparing Nuclear to Wind and Solar power generation, you're comparing power sources that don't compete. Nuclear is about replacing the worst problems coal and oil present us and staving off global warming. It's an extremely critical and underdeveloped resource and only gets safer and better with time. It would be erroneous to state any risk in a vacuum - you have to compare it with what's happening today.
To boot, almost every time a nuclear reactor is decommissioned, it is replaced by more fossil fuel plants, not by renewable energy. You can’t be seriously opposed to climate change and nuclear energy at the same time.
Does that mean hydroelectric dams should be shut down?
Over the many decades of nuclear operation, there have been two major incidents: Chernobyl and Fukushima. And Chernobyl could probably have been prevented with a containment building.
I live with-in 50km of a nuclear power station: I'll take my chances with nuclear over climate change, given the choice.
vlovich123|4 years ago
Anyway, yes of course they happen. They happen in every power producing industry. It's hard to find good numbers of course as there's going to be some amount of error, but here's one [1].
The point isn't that in that report nuclear has fewer deaths than wind and solar as I'm sure that will cause an emotional reaction. The point is that it's so low and comparable. Even if it was 10x worse it would be worth the tradeoff of replacing coal.
Nuclear is our only choice for replacing industrial scale use of coal and oil. It's unfortunate that that's the case, but those are the facts on the ground currently and there's no sign of that ever changing. The way Wind and Solar generate energy are wholly incompatible with high temperature industrial uses where coal and natural gas are used let alone the problems of variability (batteries help, but there are limits and batter manufacturing at scale brings its own challenges).
If you're comparing Nuclear to Wind and Solar power generation, you're comparing power sources that don't compete. Nuclear is about replacing the worst problems coal and oil present us and staving off global warming. It's an extremely critical and underdeveloped resource and only gets safer and better with time. It would be erroneous to state any risk in a vacuum - you have to compare it with what's happening today.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...
throwaway894345|4 years ago
throw0101a|4 years ago
The 1975 Banqian Dam failure: 26,000 dead from flooding, 145,000 dead from subsequent famine and epidemics, 11 million homeless:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure
See also:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hydroelectric_power_st...
Does that mean hydroelectric dams should be shut down?
Over the many decades of nuclear operation, there have been two major incidents: Chernobyl and Fukushima. And Chernobyl could probably have been prevented with a containment building.
I live with-in 50km of a nuclear power station: I'll take my chances with nuclear over climate change, given the choice.
DangitBobby|4 years ago
1. https://fantasticfacts.net/252/
kube-system|4 years ago
When coal powered plants kill people, we call it normal operation.