Comment by immibis

Comment by immibis 5 hours ago

5 replies

The difference between nuclear and coal is that when nuclear has a horrible accident, it kills as many people right here and makes as much land uninhabitable right here as coal does in our enemy countries within its normal expected operation.

tedk-42 4 hours ago

Except for Russia, where else have deaths + land issues happened?

  • Retric 2 hours ago

    Not a commercial reactor but US lost 3 people trying to hand operate a small reactor with minimal safety: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1

    “On Tuesday, January 3, 1961, SL-1 was being prepared for restart after a shutdown of 11 days over the holidays. Maintenance procedures required that rods be manually withdrawn a few inches to reconnect each one to its drive mechanism. At 9:01 pm MST, Rod 9 was suddenly withdrawn too far, causing SL-1 to go prompt critical instantly. In four milliseconds, the heat generated by the resulting enormous power excursion caused fuel inside the core to melt and to explosively vaporize.”

    The industry didn’t just randomly get so risk averse there where a lot of meltdowns and other issues over time.

Natsu 3 hours ago

Meltdowns aren't physically possible if we're building newer types of plants, so there can't be a new Chernobyl or even Fukushima if we're using modern types of passively cooled plants.

  • Retric 2 hours ago

    There’s generally significant costs and asterisks around such claims.

    You’re much better off paying attention to site placement than trying to design something to safety handle getting covered in several meters of volcanic ash Pompeii style.