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Re:After 600 hours 64 workers at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear... by jdkee on Sunday March 20, 2022 @05:55PM (#30747081)
Western democracies, Japan and South Korea are politically stable so power plant disruptions due to armed conflict on their territories are likely a relatively low risk.
Re:After 600 hours 64 workers at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear... by KennyBlanken on Sunday March 20, 2022 @08:40PM (#30748588)
The US and UK nuclear programs - commercial and military - are littered with incidents, many of them fatal or releasing significant quantities of radioactive waste. In one case, someone was likely murdered as part of a coverup (google Karen Silkwood.) The attitude during much of the US nuclear program was "you're either with us or you're for those commie bastards."

In Japan, TEPCO demonstrated a long-running, stunning disregard for safety that led to the Fukashima disaster (and it was not Japan's first nuclear power plant disaster, either): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_disaster#Pri...

And as a reminder, Chernobyl happened because a bunch of engineers were basically engaged in a dick-measuring contest, likely to satisfy some apparatchik.

I'd say the world's nuclear power programs have demonstrated extensively that humans as a whole can't handle the responsibilities, and now we have numerous, much safer alternatives.

It's an absolute miracle we haven't had an accidental detonation of a nuclear weapon near a population center given bombs have even been released from planes, in some cases with multiple safety systems satisfied - and that the permissive action link system was almost completely bypassed by petulant air force commanders who had weapons set to (I wish I were making this up) codes of all zeros.

Re:After 600 hours 64 workers at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear... by natmaka on Monday March 21, 2022 @04:29AM (#30751644)
Re:After 600 hours 64 workers at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear... by danhor on Sunday March 20, 2022 @06:37PM (#30747475)
If prosperous (as that's usually a match for a low chance of armed conflicht) nations mostly expand to non-fossil energy sources that aren't available/viable for developing/poorer nations, this is an issue since their power system won't profit from a large amount of research & investments on how to run a non-fossil fuel based system.

With the energy usage of non-western countries exploding quickly this could be a major hinderance to stopping climate change if all prosperous nations go all-in on nuclear and discourage other countries from doing so because of the risk.

A non realistic scenario tbh, it's very unlikely that e.g. germany will construct new nuclear power plants and a lot of not-very-stable countries already use nuclear power as we're seeing right now.

Re:After 600 hours 64 workers at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear... by pvaldes on Sunday March 20, 2022 @07:16PM (#30747825)
Russia has been politically stable for the last 20 years also
Re:After 600 hours 64 workers at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear... by KennyBlanken on Sunday March 20, 2022 @08:29PM (#30748457)
Russia has had several significant nuclear material release incidents in the last twenty years, only detected because the waste/fallout plume reached monitoring sites outside the country. The most recent was the 2018 disaster involving a nuclear torpedo.

Russia has used its reactors to produce materials to conduct political assassinations on foreign soil, which have ended up injuring and contaminating many innocent people.

Re:After 600 hours 64 workers at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear... by himinlomax on Sunday March 20, 2022 @07:38PM (#30747993)
Poisoning and harassing political opponents does not strike me as particularly stable.
Re:After 600 hours 64 workers at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear... by throwaway6532 on Sunday March 20, 2022 @06:41PM (#30747509)
What about Russia? What if famine strikes and the nuclear engineers at a given power plant starve to death?
Re:After 600 hours 64 workers at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear... by pasquinelli on Sunday March 20, 2022 @06:16PM (#30747256)
politically stable for now. how long is the average period of political stability?
Re:After 600 hours 64 workers at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear... by kingkawn on Sunday March 20, 2022 @07:50PM (#30748085)
That you cite Japan as an example of reliable nuclear safety after Fukushima…