Re:Is Nuclear Power Worth the Risk?
by LatteLazy on Monday December 23, 2019 @08:48AM
(#21863540)
Risk isn't a single unified, fungible, quantifiable thing. We can't properly consider it or make decisions including it without understanding that.
A one in a million change of killing one million people is fundamentally different to a 100% chance of killing one person, even though the average outcome is the same.
You also can't get an honest assessment of risk without asking people to put their money where their mouth is: everyone considers themselves above average drivers, yet insurance companies won't touch some people (often those most convinced they're the lowest risk).
There are major economic and political concerns around any large project too, those add risks not present in the technology itself, and they don't just add new, clean, quantifiable risks, they also multiple (or reduce) existing risks in ways no one can predict or understand.
Before we can try to talk seriously about nuclear (or any other large project with a complex risk profile), we need a better understanding of risk itself. Any article that doesn't start at that point is (at best) uninformed chatter or (at worst) clickbait designed to start arguments.
A one in a million change of killing one million people is fundamentally different to a 100% chance of killing one person, even though the average outcome is the same.
You also can't get an honest assessment of risk without asking people to put their money where their mouth is: everyone considers themselves above average drivers, yet insurance companies won't touch some people (often those most convinced they're the lowest risk).
There are major economic and political concerns around any large project too, those add risks not present in the technology itself, and they don't just add new, clean, quantifiable risks, they also multiple (or reduce) existing risks in ways no one can predict or understand.
Before we can try to talk seriously about nuclear (or any other large project with a complex risk profile), we need a better understanding of risk itself. Any article that doesn't start at that point is (at best) uninformed chatter or (at worst) clickbait designed to start arguments.