Yeah, its true that if you are involved in the coal industry you are much more likely to die than if you are involved in the nuclear industry.

Yes, day-to-day pollution from a coal plant (especially old ones) is much worse than day-to-day operation of a nuclear plant (which is why they need to be replaced).

But there is zero chance that an accident in a coal plant will affect more than (say) 1000 people, and yet there is at least a 1/12,000 chance [1] that it will affect 100,000+ with a nuclear station.

[1] The first commercial nuclear power station was commissioned in 1954. There are ~25,000 days since then, and there have been 2 INES Level 7 accidents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Sca...

Heh, the flip side is that there is a 100% chance that the pollution created by the coal plant over its lifetime will kill thousands of people. But to your point, that is an argument based on facts, not emotion. And emotionally the people living near the coal plant, while dying due to the effects of its pollution will not have been frightened that one day it might have an accident that would cause them to evacuate for a few months.

Obviously I agree that coal is a disaster. At the same time I don't think that replacing coal with nuclear power is acceptable.

However, since this thread is pretty much dead (except for us two!) I'll say this:

I'm not as anti-nuclear power as I might appear here. For example, I'll happily say that the panic associated with a nuclear leak is usually unjustified. I'll even go so far as to say that nuclear power might have a place in the future of power generation.

What I don't like is the uninformed cheerleading by many technophiles of nuclear power.

There are real risks associated with nuclear power, and they are grossly understated by those in the industry, which then gets parroted mindlessly by many. There are plenty of examples on this thread of blind acceptance of "facts" put forward by the nuclear industry (disclaimer - I'm not accusing you of this). A trivial amount of research is enough to raise pretty significant questions on them.

The trend towards blind acceptance of those claims, and the whole "nuclear is cool" thing is what I try & push back strongly against.

Why not look at the whole picture -- and factor in the day-to-day damage as well?

It seem coal's day-to-day damage surpasses even the nuclear disaster scenario.

Nuclear is often put forward as a solution - I'm pointing out the huge risks that has.