> Regarding the irrationality of the fear of current nuclear reactors, requiring active intervention (with control rods) to prevent nuclear meltdown is a genuine and justified cause for concern (as evidenced by Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima).

Fear of nuclear is irrational. Chernobyl was the single worst nuclear accident in the history of the world and UNSCEAR projects a death toll of no more than 4,000 [3] from the original accident (which directly killed about 50) onward. A large amount of them are suicide by people who fear they were “contaminated” when the most likely cancer, thyroid (due to radioactive Iodine-131 released) has a 98% survival rate [4]. Better than some flu years. That's what they were taking iodine pills for -- to saturate the thyroid so it didn't take up any of the Iodine-131.

Three mile island killed nobody and Fukushima killed 2-12 (almost 600 died from the actual quake). We learned from all 3 incidents and incorporated substantial additional safety measures for future designs.

The worst hydro accident by comparison, the Bangqiao Dam failure killed 230,000 people instantly. [2]

Nuclear has an order of magnitude fewer deaths per TWh than solar (it’s 10X safer than solar panels, yes) and two to three orders fewer than hydro and coal. [1].

Nuclear is no question the safest and most environmentally friendly energy source in the world by all metrics, and especially carbon emissions.

Of course I’d love to see thorium cycle explored too but we'll never get the funding with negative sentiment towards nuclear. It should be respected, not feared.

[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/d...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_Chernobyl_dis...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thyroid_cancer

Those are some interesting facts. I've generally been on the side that nuclear is not safe because I don't trust governments to build things safely if nuclear ever became mainstream. I'd expect multiple bidders to show up, some corrupt under the table deal happens, politicians takes a massive cut for themselves, project runs under budget, over time, and the infrastructure built gets dumped onto an area close to areas with higher rates of poverty, and what's built constantly has leaks or contamination of the environment around it due to structural errors.

That said, my confirmation bias never led me to consider how the situation could play out similarly for any other form of energy. So thanks for articulating those facts so clearly.

Nobody wants to be the elected official who irradiated their constituency, which cuts both ways. That means very little nuclear gets built, and what does get built is super safe -- and very expensive.

> Nobody wants to be the elected official who irradiated their constituency

Ummm... I wish it were that straightforward but I can't be confident of that. Power doesn't balance out as much as we'd like it to. There are a lot of elected officials who are ok with doing as bad to their constituency and they get away with it fine. And by get away that might mean they don't get another term but they take their money and go live a life of leisure. No jail time, nothing of major consequence. And usually they'll keep playing the political corruption game using the connections built up. (Eg: bringing in "preferred investors" for a "commission")

Reality around political power is ugly af :(

I don't doubt there's a lot of FUD around the perils of nuclear power but as someone that had to take iodine pills in 1986 I have to ask if you accounted for the large number of people that were forcibly moved out of their home as a result of the accident at the Chernobyl power plant?

Have you normalized all those costs with the number of power plants of various types?

It may be that in absolute numbers nuclear power has been safer than anything else but it may also be that as a result of Chernobyl and other accidents they fell out of favor and didn't see as much use as other power generating methods which in absolute numbers have had a higher number of victims.

The death count is per terawatt hour of electricity generated, and nuclear currently provides 6% of all the power generation capacity in the world. Relocations were not accounted for, however if we're talking scale, slightly more people were relocated (300,000) around Chernobyl as died in Bangqiao.

But what about perceptions! People’s perception are what counts in a democracy, not the objective fact.

Your perceptions change when you receive new facts, shouldn't they?

I don't have the time at the moment to source both points I want to make, but I read them both recently while reading about nuclear power.

1 - to your point about nuclear being the most environmentally friendly, I don't see how this is true compared to wind and solar.

Nuclear power produces nuclear waste.

Nuclear power requires significant amounts of fresh water.

2 - one of the primary reasons to not build a nuclear power now is that wind and solar are actually cheaper per MWh compared to operating an existing nuclear power plant.

That being said in my opinion, highly influenced by the book Drawdown, is that we will need to build a lot of nuclear power plants in order to meet world electricity demands.

> To your point about nuclear being the most environmentally friendly, I don't see how this is true compared to wind and solar.

Pollution comes from e-waste as panels are replaced, mining/tailings and less-than-environmentally-friendly materials used to make PV panels. Most commercial PV panels are Cadmium Telluride. Cadmium is of course highly toxic and carcinogenic, and as panels get better, they're swapped out and that material has to go somewhere.

Wind, pollution comes from mining and refining rare-earth metals like neodymium that are required to make the magnets in the motors. While rare earths exist all over the world the majority are mined in China because China is willing do deal with the toxic war zone left behind [1]. E-waste is a problem in this industry too although I'd wager smaller.

> Nuclear power produces nuclear waste.

Very small amounts relative to the amount of power generated due to its sheer unparalleled energy density. A uranium fuel pellet (1/2 in. height and diameter) contains the energy equivalent of 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas, one ton of coal or 149 gallons of oil.

Yucca Mountain, had they opened it, would have solved this problem in perpetuity.

[1] https://e360.yale.edu/features/china-wrestles-with-the-toxic...

How do you safely and securely get the spent fuel to Yucca? Leaving aside accidents it seems securing the entire road or rail route would be a logistical nightmare. It would be quite a tempting target for bad actors. And a the kind of target against whom assymetric effort would yield “effective” results (for the bad actor)

Attacking any bridge or tunnel will easily create more casualties, with the added benefit(?) that they are essentially sitting ducks, unlike nuclear waste (which will move only once every few years or so, following some confidential route).

If you're aiming for maximum environmental damage, just attack an oil pipe or oil tanker at port.

I just don't see the terrorism angle for nuclear waste. There are far more juicier targets.

And far less protected ones. There's an entire department of the government dedicated to trucking this waste around, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Not to mention that stuxnet proved that we can quickly go from “look at all this desalinated water and zero carbon footprint!” to “crap, we just built tons of honeypots for state level hackers to hold our entire population hostage to the threat of nuclear meltdown triggered by sabotaged software”

That's not actually what a honeypot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeypot_(computing)) is.

That's in computing. And it's close enough. We would probably HAVE honeypots to deter exactly this.