Fukushima was a good reminder that these “regulations” exist for good reason.

I highly doubt the regulations the GP is referencing would have anything to do with preventing an accident like Fukushima.

Regulations are not inherently bad, but they can be used in negative ways by those in power.

The devil is in the details, and we'll written and though out regulations are a great thing and are absolutely necessary for society to function. It's easy for the public to lose track and conflate good regulations with regulations that are poorly written, have intentional loopholes, or are mean to stifle an industry or technology by protecting the entrenched players.

> Fukushima was a good reminder that these “regulations” exist for good reason.

As if the Japanese nuclear market was deregulated? Japan is a developed country that loves bureaucracy so don't be afraid, there is plenty of regulation in every sector here.

And Fukushima was built to the requirements of 1970's, not those of today (which are much stronger).

Yes - and I think it's precisely that increase in regulations that the poster which they were replying to was complaining about, given that the 1970s were the last time nuclear seemed affordable enough to build. I've even seen the odd nuclear proponent on here outright advocating that we return to 1970s-era nuclear regulations.

For climate and environment, event that would be better than not building nuclear. But we don't need to do it so.

The plant was active and very well-maintained, and its operator even planned to extend it (2 more reactors). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Powe...

That’s what scares me. As far as I know Japan is pretty good at running infrastructure. If even they can’t get it right what will happen if we push nuclear as solution to climate change and less well run countries get a lot of nuclear plants? It’s pretty much guaranteed that some will blow up.

Exactly. The official explanation after Chernobyl was in substance "the powerplant was of a dubtious design and the operators were dumb and not disciplined". Fukushima is designed by Western corps (GE), built by US and Japanese serious megacorps, and operated by Japanese knowledgeable, very disciplined and service-oriented (rather than vodka-oriented) people.

Yes, but the original location of site would not be approved today, precisely because of the risk that actualised in the tsunami (even though it is an extremely rare an unlikely occurrence - a tsunami which caused large-scale devastation where the nuclear plant's problems were just a minor issue compared to the huge loss of life and material damage from tsunami itself).

Indeed, however it doesn't change much the logical conclusion drawn by many: the risk is not adequately managed, not sufficiently "under control", there are configurations leading to a disaster (dangerous material escaping, especially on a large scale). Even if such disasters are relatively rare (given the reactor.year activity), they periodically happen and many think that any new one may be even more catastrophic. Add to this that many, in the public, now know that not a single insurer or re-insurer accepts to cover nuclear risk.

As for the impact on health we will only be able to assess it when the last dangerous waste dispersed by the Fukushima disaster will be innocuous, the last induced-cancer known...

Radiation hazards are very real, as we saw graphically with Chernobyl. With Fukushima, we see that they're still real, but we realize we're doing a lot better. Fukushima accident is now estimated to cause up to 1 long-term death from radiation. Chernobyl killed ~70 first responders acutely and up to 4000 long-term.

For comparison with other energy sources, Banqiao dam failure killed 100,000 [1] and fossil fuels (84% of the world's total energy) kill about 4.3 million people every single year [2]. This is why hydro and fossil emissions are regulated too. The regulations are necessary and useful. The Clean Air Act of 1970 has saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and counting (from fossil air pollution deaths).

Just looking at numbers, we find that nuclear is ridiculously safe. The perception is way different though.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam#1975_Banqiao_Dam_f...

[2] https://www.who.int/airpollution/en/

There are many estimations of the effects of nuclear disasters, covering a very wide spectrum.

This one, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl:_Consequences_of_the...

The social/economic plane is known:

According to Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union spent ((...)) $35.7 billion in today's dollars) on containment and decontamination, virtually bankrupting itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Social_econ...

The number of deaths is clearly in nuclear energy' favor. But Chernobyl's area is now inhabitable for thousands of years, isn't it? If that is true, having large areas of earth uninhabitable for 1000s (or much more) years sounds to me like the ultimate disaster. I just wish I am wrong.

Chernobyl has 30km exclusion zone. Even if we mismanaged the reactor issues as badly again, we wouldn't be able to cover "large areas of Earth".

> Even if we mismanaged the reactor issues as badly again, we wouldn't be able to cover "large areas of Earth".

Chernobyl disaster was detected when a radioactive detector suddenly got ballistic in a restroom at 150 Km of Stockholm. This happened in the first 24 hours of an event triggered 1260 Km far away. Is the same distance than lies between Warsaw and Brussels and this is just the radius in a circunference dictated by chance by the dominant winds. Germany has still some parts closed to boar hunting by it.

It can cover large areas of Earth, and will do it really fast.

Your wish can come true. As our understanding of low-dose radiation improves, we can see that the prudent thing to do in most reactor accidents is to evacuate the area for a while (mostly to let the iodine decay) but then let people come back based on their risk tolerance. For instance, if a model tells you you may lose 10 days of life from living in a low-dose radiation field but you drive a motorcycle or eat red meat, you may be willing to move home.

Take a look at what it's like in the Chernobyl exclusion zone today: https://thoughtscapism.com/2019/05/08/what-about-radioactive...

Chernobyl's exclusion area has turned into a natural paradise in 30 years. It turns out that humans are more harmful to wildlife than radiation.