Nuclear waste is not as dangerous as you think. One, its contained within a very small area (which increases its lethality but substantially decreases your risk of exposure). Two, some waste products decay alpha particles which are basically harmless unless consumed. Three, some waste products have short half-lives which increases their risk in the short term but substantially decreases their risk over a 500 year period. Four, most deaths from nuclear waste would be slow and probabilistic (e.g. 18% increase cancer risk for an individual with high exposure) whereas deaths from some other power source would be immediate and devastating (e.g. flood, destruction of habitat).

I don't mind hydro. I don't particularly like the habitat destruction but they provide tons of clean power and tons of fresh water. But those dams have to be maintained for those 500 years. A collapse of a dam is pretty catastrophic.

> One, its contained within a very small area (which increases its lethality but substantially decreases your risk of exposure).

There are two cases to consider. Accident and normal waste. Accidents aren't nearly as contained. Normal waste is contained for now, but what about long term? We are looking at time length longer than any government has been stable.

>Two, some waste products decay alpha particles which are basically harmless unless consumed.

...some...

Also, what vectors could these particles enter into food when you consider their lifespan?

>Three, some waste products have short half-lives which increases their risk in the short term but substantially decreases their risk over a 500 year period.

But to what extent are these the ones being pushed for?

>Four, most deaths from nuclear waste would be slow and probabilistic (e.g. 18% increase cancer risk for an individual with high exposure) whereas deaths from some other power source would be immediate and devastating (e.g. flood, destruction of habitat).

Are we really suggesting that the death isn't comparable because it is a long term probabilistic? Imagine if some company dumping sludge into drinking water was making the same argument. Would we find it acceptable?

> We are looking at time length longer than any government has been stable.

98% of radioactive waste is "safe" after 40 or so years. After 40 years the radiation is 1/1000th of its initial waste state. The 1,000 - 10,000 year period generally cited is for the radioactive products to decay back to their original ore's radioactive intensity.

> Also, what vectors could these particles enter into food when you consider their lifespan?

Russian FSB.

> Are we really suggesting that the death isn't comparable because it is a long term probabilistic?

Yes. Would you rather die now or have a 10% increased chance of developing a cancer that may or may not be treatable 10 years from now?

>Actually, we already are to some extent with trans individuals. While most groups that support LGB also include the T, there are a few who do not and take offensive.

That isn't the comparison being made.

> Nuclear waste is not as dangerous as you think.

That'll be great news for all the governments who haven't come up with a plain "solution" that'll definitely work for all the time it needs to work, because only God could really make sure of that:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-level_radioactive_waste_m...

> It is widely accepted that spent nuclear fuel and high-level reprocessing and plutonium wastes require well-designed storage for periods ranging from tens of thousands to a million years, to minimize releases of the contained radioactivity into the environment.

Compared to tens of thousands, 500 years sounds great. Though you do have a point in that dams are not great, either, because 500 years are a long time, too.

But a risk being "probabilistic" also applies to dam accidents, since not every single last person in the wider area of it dies. I know it sucks either way, but having cared for cancer patients, I would rather drown in 5 minutes than over the course of months like one might with lung cancer.

The UN estimates (https://www.un.org/press/en/2005/dev2539.doc.htm) 4,000 deaths total for Chernobyl.

The EPA estimates zero deaths for Three Mile Island.

The worst dam failure in history (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam) killed somewhere between 150,000 and 230,000 people. Hydro has a big head start.

The main purpose of those dams which were built right after 1949 in Huai river basin was flood control, not power generation. The dam you link, was built in 1958, but the power generators were installed almost ten years later at 1968, the electricity was just not the the priority for those dams. And it was not just one dam failure, but multiple dam failures, 62 dams in total failed in this extreme weather event, Banqiao was just the largest one, and only one with power generators at the time. After dams lost, there were constant floods in downstream areas, and almost all dams were rebuilt in 80s and 90s.

The 150k-230k death toll most likely is estimate for whole flood event, not just for this dam. We can say that if the constructions of the dams or coordinates between dams were better death toll can be much lower. But if dams were not existed at all, for that level of heavy rainfall, some people at some specific locations may be alive, but for the whole basin, I don't think there will be a huge difference.

Chernobyl is so different from a modern reactor, that it's not really useful to judge to current risks with existing reactors, let alone planned new Gen III+ reactors which are orders of magnitudes safer.

In fairness, the same is probably true for dams, as well - we've gotten a lot better at engineering them.

Recent California flooding makes me question this.

Yea, people talk about not being able to fully predict nuclear disasters, then turn around and claim sun, rain, and wind are totally predictive enough to rely on. I get that the risks vary, but man, a lot of people really don't understand statistics and probability.

And in particular the recent near-failure of the dam in Oroville. That could've significantly impacted hundreds of thousands of people.

The UN estimates for Chernobyl are based on the known bad LNT model for radiation exposure. Anything approaching 4,000 is unlikely if you apply more realistic models.

To clarify for others - LNT refers to "Linear No Threshold", the most conservative [0] model for assessing deaths from radiation exposure. Under LNT, if some amount of radiation leads to a 1% chance of death, 1/10th that amount leads to a 0.1% chance of death. This is most likely overly conservative, as cancer rates in the states do not seem to vary with radiation exposure as would be predicted by LNT.

So 4,000 is a good upper bound, if anything.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model

Thank you for the further explanation. However, I think that it could also be referred to as a "wildly exaggerated upper bound." Although I understand what you're saying, it's a terrible upper bound to use for risk assessments, or anything that you need to make sound engineering decisions based on. The true number of deaths from Chernobyl, outside of the actual plant fatalities, is likely closer to 0 than to 4,000.

Are those UN estimates time bound to any period of time and if not, what assumptions do they make of the future?

Also, per the Wikipedia link they included following famine in the numbers killed. Is that accurate?

The Chernobyl death toll estimates have been widely criticized as wrong because of the influence of the Soviet government trying to hide the problem. Some estimate the death toll to be at least an order of magnitude higher, and the area is still uninhabitable today many decades later.

The UN's estimate from 2005 is unlikely to have had much Soviet influence in its preparation.

How much data/information that the UN used was able to be influenced by the Soviet Union and its records? genuinely curious, I have no idea where the UN estimates come from nor a particular thought/agenda on the matter