Just because radiation causes different constraints on cleanup than oil on a large ocean or arsenic in the water table or issues in a space rocket means it is morally worse? That's the part I fail to understand, so long as the engineering continues to behave ethically behind all the systems in their design and construction and retrofit.
Literally no-one died at Fukushima. It is the only energy disaster I know of where no-one ended up dead.
This is strong circumstantial evidence that we are being too safe, because we implicitly accept a few deaths when things go wrong in, eg, coal (pollution & extraction deaths), solar ( mainly in installations not in operating), hydro (big-time risks).
Going from 1 death to 0 deaths on this scale is a huge marginal cost. It almost certainly outweights the benefits.
EDIT: We haven't had a solar disaster yet, but coal & hydro disasters happen and can be very bad indeed.
No so with nuclear. The impact is so much more serious when radiation comes into play.
> Valdez
Actually thousands of people were mobilized to contain the spill then clean up afterwards. It would have been a much better outcome if they didn't try to hide/downplay it for the first couple of days.