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this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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Asklemmy
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Nuclear power in general.
Completely harmless? C'mon.
There have been three accidents related to nuclear power generation, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukashima. There were a total of 33 deaths attributed to those three incidents (32 from Chernobyl and 1 from Fukashima.)
There are 58 deaths per terawatt-hour attributed to coal alone, mostly due to air pollution.
I'd say that nuclear power is very close to completely harmless in comparison. Certainly in contrast to its perception among the general public.
The death toll from Chernobyl is debated, but way higher than 30.. More like several or tens of thousands. Especially since you compare with air pollution deaths from coal.
Just shows how terribly it was built, I hope we learned since then
It's like saying airplanes are completely harmless. Compared to cars sure, you are much less likely to die in one, but it isn't a nill chance.
You're right, but it's all relative and almost anything could kill you. Eg, vaccines are also a fantastic answer to the title question. They undeniably save lives and are extremely safe. But they can still kill you in very, very, very rare cases. I'm not sure any answer to this thread could have a nil chance. Even the video games answer, there's been people who got so addicted to video games that they played them till they dropped dead (but that's obviously an utter insane extreme and obviously video games are very, very safe).
It's just the radioactive waste we don't know what to do with and becoming a military or terrorist target parts that are dangerous.
No, we've known what to do with the waste for decades. Put it in cans, fill the can with cement, coat the can in cement, put the cans in a facility that is protected from geological events like earthquakes, and periodically check the cans/facility. In the US for example, The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository was being made before political pressure shut it down.
The waste issue is and always will be one of political pressure and ignorance by the masses, not an actual logistical issue
Political pressure comes in part from people like me who live around here and where they'd look for other sites. I don't want trucks full of nuclear waste constantly being trucked through my area (and your area!), I don't want to be viewed as a bomb target by enemies. I don't want trucks of nuclear waste around the country being viewed as dirty bomb targets.
Even without the political pressure, how is nuclear power clean when massive massive holes in the ground have to be created and maintained with huge trucks and cranes using fossil fuels so we have a place to store waste that will be dangerous for tens of thousands of years? Yucca Mountain has taken decades to approve and build, any other sites will likely also. Spent nuclear fuel having to be trucked across the country using fossil fuels and tires, at best can be converted to battery power.
Nuclear plants take a decade or more to build, we don't have that kind of time when it comes to climate change.
Nuclear power makes nuclear disarmament that much less likely
All of this is also assuming our current civilization continues for tens of thousands of years unbroken. If for some reason 500 years from now civilization broke down or was taken over and the average person couldn't read English anymore, how would we transmit the idea of everlasting danger in a geographic region to those who may see things very differently?