Comment by binaryturtle
Comment by binaryturtle 12 hours ago
This is clean, until something goes catastrophically wrong.
(Which eventually it will. The more reactors, the more chances for it to happen.)
Comment by binaryturtle 12 hours ago
This is clean, until something goes catastrophically wrong.
(Which eventually it will. The more reactors, the more chances for it to happen.)
Data reported by Forbes put the death rates for nuclear power in the US below all other sources of energy including solar:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d...
The death rates are wildly different than the ones at the site you linked. I wonder what the reason is for the discrepancy.
The death rates might be a difference in units; the Forbes article is using deaths per trillion kWh, the other might be deaths per thousand/million kWh.
The difference in ranking might be down to how they model deaths from nuclear power accidents. One may be using the linear no threshold model, and the other may be using something else. We don't have an agreed upon model for how likely someone is to die as a result of exposure to X amount of radiation, which causes wide gaps in death estimates.
E.g. Chernobyl non-acute radiation death estimates range from 4,000 to 16,000, with some outliers claiming over 60,000. That's a wild swing depending on which model you use.
Sure, in deaths per unit energy. But the real risk of nuclear is financial. The tail risk is huge for any producer on their own, which makes insurance extremely expensive, and which means that usually only nations bear the full financial risk of nuclear.
The nuclear industry did say that this would happen but the reality was the exact opposite:
>According to research institute Fraunhofer’s Energy Charts, the plant had a utilisation ratio of only 24% in 2024, half as much as ten years before, BR said. Also, the decommissioning of the nearby Isar 2 nuclear plant did not change the shrinking need for the coal plant, even though Bavaria’s government had repeatedly warned that implementing the nuclear phase-out as planned could make the use of more fossil power production capacity necessary.
https://theprogressplaybook.com/2025/02/19/german-state-of-b...
Both those design types were operational in the 1960s in the US but have been shut down due to lack of performance and industrial interest. New interest has started today, but let's not claim the new ones are some kind of new improved tech that evolved out of our workhorse water cooled/moderated plants.
You are incorrect fortunately.
Western designs are safe, most Soviet-era ones are/were not. It's unfortunate that nuclear power still has this stigma, as it's like saying "all cars are unsafe" while comparing the crash test ratings of a modern sedan to a 1960's chevy bel aire.
That tsunami killed 20.000+ people, and spilled massive amounts of chemicals and toxic junk to the ocean.
Yet people keep fixating over the radioactive pollution, including evicting people from their homes for truly minor amounts of radiation.
Turns out the "worst case scenario" of nuclear accidents is jackpot for nature. By clearing Fukushima from humans, nature is thriving: https://www.sciencealert.com/animals-aren-t-just-surviving-i...
To put a number on it, linear no threshold models predict ~130 deaths as a result of the radiation (and are known to over-estimate lethalities at low doses).
Around 50 people a year die while clearing snow in Japan, so it's ~ twice as dangerous as shoveling snow in worst-case predictions.
The main reason is a combination of negligence by the owner of the plant and not enough enforcement of standards. The fukushima powerplant was known to have sea wall lower then required and as such was vulnerable to a tsunami (this was known for quite a long time) Combined with backup power in the basement (also against standards)
For an example of what happens to a reactor build according to safety requirements see the onagawa nuclear powerplant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_III_reactor states that the 1960 reactors are most used, today. In the west. Contradicting that western reactors are safe, while eastern designs are not.
The Chernobyl plant had known construction defects that could impair safety. These things would prevent a western plant from starting operation, but did not stop the Soviet plant from beginning operation:
https://inspectapedia.com/structure/Chernobyl_Nuclear_Disast...
They did not even have any automated safeties in place, because their philosophy was “faith in the worker” while the western philosophy is “humans are fallible”:
https://www.eit.edu.au/engineering-failures-chernobyl-disast...
They then ignored their own safety procedures when operating the plant, which ultimately is what caused the disaster.
Saying that Soviet designs being in the same generation as western designs makes them equally safe/unsafe is quite wrong when you look at the details. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was one mistake after another.
That said, the plant was designed by a country that shot down a civilian airliner that had strayed into their airspace due to a navigational error, when they knew it was a civilian airliner:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007
They had no regard for human life, so of course, they built things that are incredibly unsafe. There is no end of examples of them simply not caring about human life.
I'd say a reactor in inland Europe is far from the craziest place to put one. God forbid someone were to put one in the Pacific ring of fire... oh, wait...
Even accounting for the times things have gone “catastrophically wrong”, nuclear is many orders of magnitude safer per unit of energy than every other energy source except solar.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...