Nuclear technology’s role in the world’s energy supply is shrinking

Re:Nuclear technology’s role in the world’s energy supply is... by SCLeo on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @06:41PM (#26405978)

If we scale up nuclear by 10 times, so that all power generation is handled by nuclear power plants, and we are extremely unlucky that we have 10 Fukushimas every year, and even if you count all the 1700 (non-radiation-related) death/Fukushima, we are still at 17,000 death/year, which is significantly lower than the number of death caused by fossil fuel power generation. (A quick Google search yielded 8.7 million/year).

Hell, even if you count all the people that have to evacuate for each Fukushima, we are still only at 4 million people moved/year vs. 8.7 million people death/year with fossil fuel power generation.

There are three more things to keep in mind:

1. I don't think we will have anywhere near 10 Fukushimas every year.

2. A lot of those stressed related death and evacuations are due to overly precautionary measures.

3. Death is much worse than having to relocate.

Yes, nuclear power generation does kill. However, the point is, it is significantly safer than fossil fuel.

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Re:Nuclear technology’s role in the world’s energy supply is... by kergonath on Tuesday March 09, 2021 @07:04PM (#26406156)

If I am not mistaken, this is a massive under-estimation of the number of deaths related to fossil fuel, as I do not think it includes things like victims of freak weather events (droughts, hurricanes, heat waves) that are a consequence of burning fossil fuels. AFAIK the 8 million figure includes only deaths from direct pollution.

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