The risk is that there are occasionally nuclear accidents: Three mile island and fermi 1 meltdowns, both of which killed zero people. Chernobyl, which killed ~50 from ARS and up to 4,000 early deaths over the next several decades (on top of a few million cancers that would have happened anyway in the population). Fukushima, which killed up to one person. Can anyone name any fatal natural gas explosions? Any hydro dam failures that killed 100,000? How many people per year does coal kill by operating normally (~200,000). We as a society accept certain risks from our energy infrastructure because of all the good we get from it.
Here is a plot of how many thousands of days of life are lost by various things [1]. Note that nuclear is almost ridiculously low. This chart doesn't include the impact of climate change on human lives. Nuclear fission is a climate superpower, and we cannot be justified in neglecting this natural resource because we're afraid of something going boom.
TLDR: A factor of 100x improvement in nuclear safety goes from tiny risk to supertiny. Current plants are already safer than almost everything else we know. Some studies have more people dying from installing solar on their roofs than getting killed by radiation from nuclear fission plants.
Nice try downplaying the actual consequences of a reactor incident like Chernobyl.
Do I have to mention radioactive boars roaming in Bavarian forests again?
The billions in costs to an economy?
The only part I agree with you is that coal is a not an acceptable way to generate power.
There's now sufficiently cheap power generators that don't devastate whole areas for centuries to come. Let's use those instead of this old nuclear tech.
I highly recommend you read some recent info regarding Chernobyl [1]. I'm not downplaying it at all. I'm using quantitative numbers produced by teams of UN and WHO scientists.
RE cost: climate change will cost trillions. Nuclear power plants can prevent that cost.
"Centuries" is a persistent anti-nuclear myth. Again, see [1]. I don't think you're well justified in saying I'm downplaying Chernobyl when you're going on and saying stuff like this!
[1] https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/worlds-worst-energy-ac...
BTW: Will you move to Chornobyl to demonstrate that radioactivity is safe? Land is cheap here.
https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/worlds-worst-energy-ac...
Wildlife is thriving in my area too, because people abandon homes and move to cities instead.
However, if you like it, you can create similar exclusion zone near to you. Just vote for nuclear power and wait until next nuclear disaster.
People got cancers at increased rate, which is limited to less than two generations of damage. The range had expired a bunch of years ago.
Going into high mountains is a bigger radiation risk today.
As a bonus, you can just drive to Fukushima on a bike today and not even get a daily dose of some inhabited places in the US.
Reminder that coal has more radioactive waste over a decade than a nuclear plant does in its worst failure mode; and that worst failure mode is very unlikely with modern reactor designs (unlike Chernobyl and Fukushima)
100x isn't 100% though.
100 of these small reactors has the same risk as one large reactor. Perhaps higher, because like you, everyone goes around saying the risk has been designed out.
Though obviously one small reactor going boom is preferable to a big one doing the same.