Anything's possible. But statistically speaking, we're looking at a loss less total environmental damage from the few nuclear incidents that have happened vs. the damage caused by tons and tons of carbon and toxins being spewed by coal plants.

I like to think of it like car crashes vs. plane crashes. Plane crashes are much more publicized, and definitely cause more death/damage per occurrence than a car crash. But because there's so few of them, planes are still much safer overall than cars.

Of course it could happen here in Germany as well, still I don't understand how an accident caused by two extreme environmental catastrophes (really strong earthquake + record-setting tsunami) changes the accident risk for nuclear power plants in Europe. Also, turning off our nuclear power plants didn't make us much safer, as our neighbors have plenty of them just near our border, some of which (Tihange, Cattenom), are much older and unsafer than the plants we turn off here.

Not saying that it's a bad decision to turn off nuclear power plants, just saying the decision should be based on science not emotion.

Don't blame the quake and tsunami. Its water did take out the generators needed for the coolants, the plant was wide open for such an accident. NAIIC found the accident to be forseeable and that TEPCO failed to meet basic safety requirements. TEPCO even had two internal studies on the risk of Tsunamis and how to defend against them but management ignored those warnings. If those warnings aren't enough. Japan's coast is full of physical markers from past Tsunamis, indicating the top of those waves and where the safe ground begins. https://99percentinvisible.org/article/tsunami-stones-ancien...

That, however, needs to be part of the risk calculation as well, in my opinion. Even when there's enough technological solutions to make something like nuclear power sufficiently safe, you can still count on human greed or ineptitude to screw things up.

Tihange is the perfect demonstration that humanity can not handle the responsabilities that come with nuclear power generation. The chief of staff of the ministry responsible for extending the operations on this disaster plant just went through the revolving door for a plush 'job' at the plant's owner. The minister was not amused as he broke the unwritten rule to wait to cash out till after the General election.

The problem with telling people they need to be "more scientific and less emotional" when dealing with fear or threats, is that it doesn't work.

If they knew how to be more logical, there wouldn't be a problem in the first place. They don't. And just saying you "should" is not enough. It doesn't enable them to be more logical.

Communication that produces better outcomes requires to put the focus on why the threat isn't a threat and STOP. There is no need to tell people, beyond that they are illogical in the way they are handling fear. Good communicators, with the skill to reduce threat perception of everyone in the room do it all the time. And they produce better outcomes.

Why couldn’t something with an impact of Fukushima or worse happen in any other industrial plant? I.e. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppau_explosion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

I don't know anything about the design of Germany's reactors, but the Fukushima disaster was caused by a "zipper" effect of one easily preventable failure leading to the next.

For example, the ducts that vented hydrogen overpressure vented into the interior of the reactor building rather than outside. This lead to the explosions.

Because we don’t build nuclear power plants directly at the coast in a region prone to earthquakes and tsunamis.

Geography.

There are no tsunamis in Germany.

Historians disagree https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/forscher-warnt-vor...

There are no “real” earthquakes too.

There are real earthquakes in the Netherlands. Are you sure?

In the last 1000 years, there have been only three earthquakes in Germany that were magnitude 6 to 6.5. (1356, 1756 and 1911).

That once-in-200-years magnitude 6.5 earthquake is 400x less intense than the 2011 Japan earthquake. And yes, without a sea there is no tsunami risk.

Really? I would think they'd be incredibly destructive, if they ground liquified...

Fukushima was an extremely bad design in an extremely bad place, overseen by an incredibly mixed interest oversight agency.

France, Germany, and probably even the USA have much better cards to play. Heck, even China doesn’t trust itself that much in its nuclear power ambitions because of the huge cost corruption would bring.

France has Cattenom, a spectacularly bad nuclear reactor they conveniently built right at their eastern border (in a region with predominantly west winds).

If you mean this one (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattenom_Nuclear_Power_Plant), under incidents, the only fatal accident has been a fall onto a hard floor.

That feels like the ethical thing to do. If you are to build nuclear reactors, at least own the fallout.

West winds (Wikipedia tells me the English term is "Westerlies") blows towards the east.