Of course it should take a freak event to take out a nuclear power plant, it shouldn't happen every second Sunday. But I would also expect it to be an event that doesn't happen regularly every few hundred years [1].
We should hold nuclear to the standard of hydroelectric power. The potential energy of elevated water behind a dam is on par or greater than nuclear accidents, and past dam failures has costed way more lives than nuclear has.
In 2017, California had a major accidents with their Oroville Dam and evacuated of 188,000 people living downstream. This can be compared to the 154,000 evacuated from Fukushima. The United state and the state of California can be compared to Japan and the Fukushima Prefecture. Why did both countries, wealthy as they are, fail to meet the safety standards that a required of them? Both occurred during unexpected natural events.
One occurred during the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, and the fourth most powerful earthquake in the world since modern record-keeping began 100 years ago. The other occurred during Northern California's wettest winter in over 100 years. I suspect the first one to be more rare, through both include "hundred years" as a key factor.
I suspect however that the wrong conclusion to make is to define both dams and nuclear to be inherently unsafe technologies that we can't use because people might die. They are dangerous, and historically a lot of people has died, but they are also significant safer than burning fossil fuels. More people has and will die because of fossil fuel, and until we stop burning fossil fuels we should deploy any and all alternatives.
> a major accidents with their Oroville Dam and evacuated of 188,000 people living downstream. This can be compared to the 154,000 evacuated from Fukushima
You're being disingenuous here. The waters would have flowed to the sea and most people would have been back inweeks if not days. No one's going back to Fukushima's neighborhood in decades.
If anything this can be ascribed to resilience of nuclear generation. The tsunami in question killed (in a first world country, no less) many thousands of people.
The outdated nuclear plant located in the midst of the disaster killed none.
belorn|4 years ago
In 2017, California had a major accidents with their Oroville Dam and evacuated of 188,000 people living downstream. This can be compared to the 154,000 evacuated from Fukushima. The United state and the state of California can be compared to Japan and the Fukushima Prefecture. Why did both countries, wealthy as they are, fail to meet the safety standards that a required of them? Both occurred during unexpected natural events.
One occurred during the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, and the fourth most powerful earthquake in the world since modern record-keeping began 100 years ago. The other occurred during Northern California's wettest winter in over 100 years. I suspect the first one to be more rare, through both include "hundred years" as a key factor.
I suspect however that the wrong conclusion to make is to define both dams and nuclear to be inherently unsafe technologies that we can't use because people might die. They are dangerous, and historically a lot of people has died, but they are also significant safer than burning fossil fuels. More people has and will die because of fossil fuel, and until we stop burning fossil fuels we should deploy any and all alternatives.
sfifs|4 years ago
You're being disingenuous here. The waters would have flowed to the sea and most people would have been back inweeks if not days. No one's going back to Fukushima's neighborhood in decades.
korantu|4 years ago
The outdated nuclear plant located in the midst of the disaster killed none.