No. Human deaths due to nuclear power number less than a hundred. Even extrapolating eventual cancer deaths (dubious), it’s less than ten thousand. Solar panels killed more people than nuclear power plants ever have! People installing them on roofs occasionally fall to their deaths. It also makes firefighters reluctant to chop holes in the roof when the house is on fire, for fear of electrocution. Watt-per-watt, nuclear is about the safest power source we have, even after the all the accidents, because it would take so many other plants to compete with a single nuclear plant.
No. Human deaths due to nuclear power number less than a hundred.
Eh, no. That’s only true accounting direct exposure deaths. According to the UNSCEAR website: “In addition, according to the UNSCEAR 2008 Report, the majority of the 530,000 registered recovery operation workers received doses of between 0.02 Gy and 0.5 Gy between 1986 and 1990. That cohort is still at potential risk of late consequences such as cancer and other diseases and their health will be followed closely.” and that’s only for Chernobyl. So we don’t really know how many deaths will be directly related to nuclear plants, just because their consequences are very long term.
Are you going to say that the nuclear power plant is the worst choice here?
That is a thing I’ve never asserted. To restore my initial argument: the very same presence of nuclear power plants makes the world more fragile, because eliminating a percentage of the population (say, a third as with the Black Plague or 90% as with smallpox in South America) runs the risk of eliminating people who know how to run and maintain the plants, thereby creating multiple nuclear accidents.
eliminating a percentage of the population … thereby creating multiple nuclear accidents.
I would argue that if you suddenly lose something on the order of half your population, nuclear plant accidents are not going to be the thing you should worry about.
Besides, nuclear plants are over-engineered and have multiple automatic failsafe systems. If most of the humans stop coming, the reactors will shut down by themselves (or the remaining few humans will shut them down).
The only really big nuclear reactor accident (Chernobyl) happened because the operators deliberately disabled a whole lot of safety systems which got in the way of something they wanted to do.
The only really big nuclear reactor accident (Chernobyl)
The only? I’d agree that Three Mile Island was a minor case, but Fukushima was definitely severe. There were meltdowns and explosions (chemical, due to the hydrogen the high heat cracked off of the cooling water). It will cost billions over decades to clean it up.
Besides, nuclear plants are over-engineered and have multiple automatic failsafe systems.
Yes, I don’t expect this to be an issue in the event of a plague. Fukushima’s automated safety systems detected the earthquake and did SCRAM the reactor, but then a freaking tsunami destroyed the backup generators powering the cooling pumps before the fuel had time to cool down. Many Japanese died that day, but that was because of the water, not the uranium.
Nuclear meltdowns are disasters because they are expensive, not because they are deadly. The panic during the ensuing evacuation is probably the most dangerous part.
I’m confused what you mean by “that’s only for Chernobyl”. In any case, from your own reference: “Among the residents of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, there had been up to the year 2005 more than 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer reported in children and adolescents who were exposed at the time of the accident, and more cases can be expected during the next decades. Notwithstanding the influence of enhanced screening regimes, many of those cancers were most likely caused by radiation exposures shortly after the accident. Apart from this increase, there is no evidence of a major public health impact attributable to radiation exposure two decades after the accident. There is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure.”
We do know how many deaths will be directly related to nuclear plants insofar as their operation up until now, and gilch stated how many that is.
“That’s only for Chernobyl” means that the UNSCEAR report was related only to the Chernobyl accidents, but there has been more nuclear accidents for which we haven’t had the time yet to discover their long-term impact. Anyway, I stood corrected that the total mortality was “under than a million”, given the appromixation of the data we have, it’s likely they will stay (barring no more accidents) in the range of 10k ~ 20k.
No. Human deaths due to nuclear power number less than a hundred. Even extrapolating eventual cancer deaths (dubious), it’s less than ten thousand. Solar panels killed more people than nuclear power plants ever have! People installing them on roofs occasionally fall to their deaths. It also makes firefighters reluctant to chop holes in the roof when the house is on fire, for fear of electrocution. Watt-per-watt, nuclear is about the safest power source we have, even after the all the accidents, because it would take so many other plants to compete with a single nuclear plant.
Eh, no. That’s only true accounting direct exposure deaths. According to the UNSCEAR website: “In addition, according to the UNSCEAR 2008 Report, the majority of the 530,000 registered recovery operation workers received doses of between 0.02 Gy and 0.5 Gy between 1986 and 1990. That cohort is still at potential risk of late consequences such as cancer and other diseases and their health will be followed closely.” and that’s only for Chernobyl.
So we don’t really know how many deaths will be directly related to nuclear plants, just because their consequences are very long term.
Eh, yes. “At potential risk” is very different from “human deaths due to”. The obligatory xkcd might be useful for you.
And how is this different from e.g. living in cities? That, too, puts you “at potential risk” and I’m sure there are very long term consequences.
Plus, the usual nirvana fallacy. Nuclear plants have downsides? Sure they do. But let’s do a proper comparison:
Nuclear power plant
Coal power plant
No power plant at all
Are you going to say that the nuclear power plant is the worst choice here?
That is a thing I’ve never asserted.
To restore my initial argument: the very same presence of nuclear power plants makes the world more fragile, because eliminating a percentage of the population (say, a third as with the Black Plague or 90% as with smallpox in South America) runs the risk of eliminating people who know how to run and maintain the plants, thereby creating multiple nuclear accidents.
I would argue that if you suddenly lose something on the order of half your population, nuclear plant accidents are not going to be the thing you should worry about.
Besides, nuclear plants are over-engineered and have multiple automatic failsafe systems. If most of the humans stop coming, the reactors will shut down by themselves (or the remaining few humans will shut them down).
The only really big nuclear reactor accident (Chernobyl) happened because the operators deliberately disabled a whole lot of safety systems which got in the way of something they wanted to do.
The only? I’d agree that Three Mile Island was a minor case, but Fukushima was definitely severe. There were meltdowns and explosions (chemical, due to the hydrogen the high heat cracked off of the cooling water). It will cost billions over decades to clean it up.
Yes, I don’t expect this to be an issue in the event of a plague. Fukushima’s automated safety systems detected the earthquake and did SCRAM the reactor, but then a freaking tsunami destroyed the backup generators powering the cooling pumps before the fuel had time to cool down. Many Japanese died that day, but that was because of the water, not the uranium.
Nuclear meltdowns are disasters because they are expensive, not because they are deadly. The panic during the ensuing evacuation is probably the most dangerous part.
That was caused by the fourth strongest earthquake in the world in half a century, so it’s not something you’d expect to happen particularly often.
Once every 12 years or so..? :-)
Once every 12 years or so somewhere in the world. Near enough a nuclear reactor to cause trouble, not so often.
Once per decade per planet (i.e. 2e-10/km²/yr) is “particularly often”?
I merely quantified your “not particularly often” :-)
In terms of money, yes, but in terms of lives lost, no.
I’m confused what you mean by “that’s only for Chernobyl”. In any case, from your own reference: “Among the residents of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, there had been up to the year 2005 more than 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer reported in children and adolescents who were exposed at the time of the accident, and more cases can be expected during the next decades. Notwithstanding the influence of enhanced screening regimes, many of those cancers were most likely caused by radiation exposures shortly after the accident. Apart from this increase, there is no evidence of a major public health impact attributable to radiation exposure two decades after the accident. There is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure.”
We do know how many deaths will be directly related to nuclear plants insofar as their operation up until now, and gilch stated how many that is.
“That’s only for Chernobyl” means that the UNSCEAR report was related only to the Chernobyl accidents, but there has been more nuclear accidents for which we haven’t had the time yet to discover their long-term impact.
Anyway, I stood corrected that the total mortality was “under than a million”, given the appromixation of the data we have, it’s likely they will stay (barring no more accidents) in the range of 10k ~ 20k.