The nuclear apologists don't seem to realize they would have a more effective argument if they just admitted what is obvious to anyone: that occasionally nuclear power causes terrible catastrophes. Perhaps someday in the bright shiny future it won't, but it certainly has for the last 65 years we've been using it. Then they could stack those terrible catastrophes up against what they see as the wonderful benefits of nuclear power, and reasonable people would have some choices to make. Instead, they run around with fingers in ears chanting "nyah nyah nyah no problems here", and reasonable people can only conclude that the analysis is missing some important points.
The only thing that rates as catastrophe is Chernobyl, so singular. And that was 56 direct deaths. Fifty-six. Fukushima, which is widely regarded as a "catastrophe" has zero direct deaths and so far it looks unlikely that effects on mortality will be statistically detectable.
What was the worst energy-generation catastrophe? Banqiao Dam, 1973[1]. 170,000 direct deaths. Or that coal explosion with >1000 direct deaths. On those types of scales, even Chernobyl doesn't actually register.
And when you take into account long term effects, there simply is no comparison. 100K deaths per T-kWH for coal, 90 for nuclear. So for every death due to nuclear power, there are 1000 deaths due to coal.
As dark as it is to argue about something like that, but Chernobyl caused many more deaths. Even the WHO predicted 4000, and that is one of the lower figures. This is heavily debated, but to say it was 56 is not even a base for discussion. The cleanup crews alone died in higher numbers.
Second: If you look at coal like that, you have to factor in all the deaths caused by nuclear energy, including uran production. That number raises fast as well.
Third: I never mentioned coal. Bashing against coal is a typical defence strategy of the nuclear industry, and something I see again and again repeated on HN. It's a very weak strategy imo: It is an obvious strawman, and many people who are against nuclear energy are also against coal.
Edit
Four: No, it is no case consistent logic. Something does not become not a catastrophe only because another thing is a catastrophe. It might become a lesser evil (that is not the case here), but that's as far as it goes.
> Even the WHO predicted 4000, and that is one of the lower figures. This is heavily debated, but to say it was 56 is not even a base for discussion. The cleanup crews alone died in higher numbers.
The WHO number is number of people expected to die prematurely as a result of Chernobyl. The deathcount he gave is an estimate of direct deaths. They mean very different things. The WHO number includes anyone who can be expected to die sooner, whether their life expectancy has been cut by a decade or a year. It's an important consideration, but it's not in any way directly comparable to the direct deaths numbers.
> Second: If you look at coal like that, you have to factor in all the deaths caused by nuclear energy, including uran production. That number raises fast as well.
Uranium mines used to be bad. In most present mines the amount of radon miners inhale is no higher than you risk in residential housing in areas with high natural occurence of radon. Even if you went back to unventilated mines to kill miners on purpose, it would still cause fewer radiation deaths than fly ash from coal plants, before even factoring in the other major causes of death from coal plants.
> Third: I never mentioned coal. Bashing against coal is a typical defence strategy of the nuclear industry, and something I see again and again repeated on HN. It's a very weak strategy imo: It is an obvious strawman, and many people who are against nuclear energy are also against coal.
It is relevant because power plants do not exist in isolation. If you shut down nuclear, it needs to be replaced. None of the alternative we currently have for base load are as safe as nuclear. So if you shut down nuclear plants over fears about them, odds are your replacement generation load will kill far more people. And a lot of places the goto replacement is still coal or oil/gas, which are some of the worst.
Stoking fears over nuclear is outright immoral, given the consequences such fears have already had. E.g. the nuclear phaseout in Germany has resulted in continued use of coal at much higher levels than otherwise, to the extent that assuming lethality quivalent to US levels, the phaseout has likely already killed several magnitudes as many as all nuclear accidents combined, on top of the environmental effects.
Actually, the coal thing in Germany is interesting. As a consequence of the end of nuclear energy they did construct new coal plants, against the protests of the very people that wanted the Atomausstieg. But the funny thing is that those new coal plants can't be properly used today, because they are just too expensive. Energy prices fell that low, thanks to green energy sources, that those new coal plants are not profitable anymore.
Sucks for the cities and energy companies that backed them, but is a win for society as a whole.
Even without those new plants, Germany's dependence on coal has been substantially extended in time. And it's not just Germany - the shutdown has also affected Germany's ability to export electricity, and so increased other countries depdency on more dangerous means of generation.
The death toll from Germany's shutdown is likely to be in the tens of thousands before the baseload capacity is fully replaced by safer alternativs.
No, 56 direct deaths. Check the Wikipedia article.
"56 direct deaths (47 accident workers and nine children with thyroid cancer) and it is estimated that there may eventually be 4,000 extra cancer deaths among the approximately 600,000 most highly exposed people."
> Even the WHO predicted 4000
(a) that is an estimate and (b) those are classified as indirect deaths, not least because they are estimated to occur over a span of 30-40 years. Also, these estimates are hard because cancer rates in the area have significant fluctuation due to other causes. And these are the estimates that were revised downward with every iteration of the report (every 10 years AFAICT).
So 4000 is the best number we have and, given the history of these projections, still likely to be on the high side.
> that is one of the lower figures.
It is likely to be the most accurate one, and they have been revising that estimate down with each report they publish. The other figures are generally from organizations with agendas to push and usually without any actual evidence.
> to say it was 56 is not even a base for discussion
Actually, that is the correct number of direct deaths, and the only ones where we can be certain of the causation.
> all the deaths caused by nuclear energy...including uran production
So nuclear is safer not just than coal (which is the main alternative), but also than oil, natural gas, biofuel/biomass, Peat, solar rooftop, wind and hydro.
And yes, it is logically consistent to say there are no "catastrophes" (plural) when there is only one event that rates as a catastrophe (singular). And yes, scale matters. When you are talking about catastrophes that take thousands or hundreds of thousands of direct casualties, events that have 56 direct casualties are probably not properly rated as catastrophes.
And when you include long-term effects, it is somewhat hard to rate as "catastrophic" something that's significantly safer than rooftop solar.
It's more that even Chernobyl is a tiny little blip compared to things like the Banqiao dam failure, even if you take some of the worst long term death toll estimates. And coal kills several times as many people every year in the US alone as what Chernobyl is projected to kill from the accident until the radioactivity released is all gone, even without any accidents.
Besides, why is the coal thing used as an argument? That's a good point to make when discussing with someone who wants to replace nuclear energy with coal. But I doubt anyone here has that goal.
Something like the dam does not compare, it is not one or the other, and it is not long-lasting damage.
Se his own answer. My response mirrors his. And there have been coal fires and explosions that have killed more people in single incidents too.
The point is that if you're going to worry about risks, the moral thing to do would be to get rid off coal even if your alternative is massive increases in nuclear.
> Something like the dam does not compare, it is not one or the other, and it is not long-lasting damage.
No it does not, it is several magnitudes more deaths and millions of homeless.
As for long-lasting damage, hydro projects are amongst the most devastating power plant projects we have, routinely displacing millions of people from their homes forever, submerging entire cities, destroying vast forest areas and animal habitats, and setting off ticking environmental disasters in the form of rotting vegetation releasing vast amounts of CO2.
So, no, dams do not compare - they are some of the least environmentally friendly options we have, and have killed a lot more people (even excluding Banqiao), and made far larger areas uninhabitable.
No, that's just not valid. One thing does not become less horrible because another thing is more horrible. The relative horribleness might change, the absolute does not.
If you are against coal and therefor for nuclear, that's your choice to make. I'm against both, and thus the whole "but coal kill people too" does not apply at all to my thinking.
The "but coal kills people too" - at magnitudes higher rate - factors in because it's not a matter of turning things off without replacing it. Turning off nuclear means coal continues to be used for longer.
The death rates of coal are so incredibly high that it is immoral and irresponsible to switch off nuclear plants - the way e.g. Germany is doing - as long as coal is being used. The same applies to fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent to well maintained hydro (the caveat being "well maintained" - build a dam and you sign up for eternal maintenance or putting towns downstream at risk of destruction), though the far bigger problem with hydro is environmental impacts and displacement of people.
The point is that these debates do not happen in isolation. It's not a matter of disliking one so we turn it off, and that's it. It's a matter of relative risk and relative damage. When you argue against nuclear, without giving another option, the reality is that today you argue for more dangerous, more lethal, more environmentally damaging options, because we are unable to build out sufficient replacement capacity of safer renewables, and lack sufficient storage capacity for them to be suitable for base load.
The number of dead from the panicked early decommissioning in Germany due to their dependence on coal, for example, will measure in the thousands, not just in Germany but across Europe - they can't contain their air. The decision was a staggering display of ignorance of the relative risks, and part of the reason why some of us get really upset about these debates. It's not hypotheticals - peoples fears are literally killing people.
Went for another thing through my comments, and will take the chance to add an answer here.
That table is not a valid source. That goes into the bigger pcuture of you deciding for yourself what fact is and what not, and starting to insult people from your "superior" position. I mean, I'm happy about that, it disqualifies everything you write, and I despise your position.
That tables only source is a Forbes Article which has no further direct reference for it. It is coming form the head of one single man. But somehow for you it becomes objective truth.
Also, it does not hold up even when just looking at it. There are no big explosions killing people for solar and wind energy. That means the deaths counted there include numbers like people falling from roofs during installation (even then, it's improbable high). However, the number for nuclear energy is that low that it is evident that deaths like "people having an accident on way to work" are obviously not included. And it does not show which numbers are taken for the accidents in three miles, the radiation leaks we had in Germany and France, Chernobyl and Fukushima. I would not be surprised if it were 0, 0, 56 and 0, which is ridiculous. It's one thing to criticize current medical radiation models, it is another to assume radiation is completely harmless.
> that occasionally nuclear power causes terrible catastrophes.
To play devil's advocate...so do cars. Tens of thousands of people die every year in the USA from car crashes, and millions more are injured. These numbers are greater than similar numbers from nuclear power.
The nuclear catastrophes which have occurred have largely been predicted. And were preventable. Both for Chernobyl and for Fukushima. Just like most car deaths and injuries in the 1950s were preventable.
And... coal plants put out more radiation and pollution than do nuclear plants. And the pollution from coal plants kills or injures more people.
No one is saying nuclear power is safe. But if you're going to claim it's terrible, you have to admit that there are many things we live with every day which are much more terrible than nuclear power.
Chernobyl happened during a reckless experiment and Fukushima was built in a Tsunami area.
I'm pro nuclear, but obviously I support prohibiting (and shutting down!) power plants in danger zones as well as procedures that make stupid experiments impossible.
I'm going to congratulate myself here. This is one of the best sorts of trolls: I told them what they were doing wrong that was making their argument ineffective, and that inspired them to do much more of it.
You do realize that just because you say something is wrong doesn't actually make it so. Right?
Who is "them", by the way?
> argument ineffective
Nope, the nuclear industry's existing strategy, which closely follows your ridiculous suggestion of admitting things that aren't true, has been extremely ineffective and has backfired. They thought that if they created standards that mandated extreme, one could say ridiculous levels of safety, the public would accept nuclear power as safe. The opposite happened: the high safety standards were taken as evidence of how terrible all this was.
And they backfired even worse in that the standards were so high that "keeping the public safe" using those standards actually exposed them to worse danger than looser standards would have. Oh the irony!
And yes, I also used to believe your take that, well, every once in a while there are horrible accidents. And unlike you I used to believe that those accidents, even if rare, were horrible enough to rule out nuclear power.
That is, until I looked at the actual numbers (and later the WHO reports on Chernobyl). And found out that not only are the amortized numbers ridulously better than anything else. Even the "catastrophes" were (a) both much less catastrophic than I thought and (b) other power sources had much worse catastrophes than I knew (because those aren't reported) and (c) most of the catastrophic effects were actually indirect and due not to radiation but to fear of radiation.
Did I mention the irony?
So I came around to the view (expressed very well by others in this thread) that not using a power source that is (a) safer than any other available on the planet and (b) >1000 times safer then the most widely used and readily available alternative is morally/ethically completely indefensible, downright repugnant.
Maybe it is a losing battle, but fighting that kind of ignorance is something I see as a moral imperative given the number of deaths that the fear of nuclear power is causing.
The anti-nuclear hysteria is in a class together with the anti-vaccine movement when it comes to potential public harm.
Even if you were correct about that (you're not! [0]), why would you persist in ineffective rhetoric?
[0] Nuclear power is never the best option, no matter what criteria is used. It's always more expensive, it always produces more dangerous waste, and it always poses more risk to the community than numerous competing options. Whatever lives you thought you might save with a nuclear plant, save billions of dollars and decades of development and just put in some wind or solar farms or natural gas turbines or some combination of those.
Even if the truth is ineffective, if the alternative is to lie I will persist with the truth in face of this type of ignorance:
> [0] Nuclear power is never the best option, no matter what criteria is used. It's always more expensive, it always produces more dangerous waste,
Irrelevant; the waste does far less damage than the alternatives.
> and it always poses more risk to the community than numerous competing options.
The death tolls shows clearly that this is false for every solution we have for base loads. When battery/storage technology gets far enough this may change, but as long as a single coal, oil or gas plant is active, reducing nuclear is a far greater risk to the community.
> Whatever lives you thought you might save with a nuclear plant, save billions of dollars and decades of development and just put in some wind or solar farms or natural gas turbines or some combination of those.
Wind or solar farms can not provide baseload without billions in investments in storage. Once we have that infrastructure, sure, then we can consider reducing dependence on nuclear. In the meantime they can not replace nuclear.
[0] You are citing yourself as a reliable source. That's pretty nifty.
> it always produces more dangerous waste,
False.
> it always poses more risk to the community
False.
> It's always more expensive
That one is closest to the truth, but also not really true:
"Some independent reviews keep repeating that nuclear power plants are necessarily very expensive,[26][27] and anti-nuclear groups frequently produce reports that say the costs of nuclear energy are prohibitively high.[28][29][30][31] This is despite the fact that in 2015 the cost of electricity in nuclear France is approximately the same as in Denmark and two-thirds of that in Germany.[32][33]"
