Chernobyl: Horrible Soviet-era reactor design that was never approved in the West.

No member of the general public or plant worker has ever been killed by a Western-designed power reactor. That's a better safety record than any other source of power. We've got 60 years of experience. There have been three major accidents, two of which produced no loss of life whatsoever.

This is an overstatement. A crane at Fukushima fell down killing a few people, and a couple of workers died of heatstroke (due in part to radiation suits).

As for Chernobyl, you forgot to mention that in addition to design flaws, they were performing a scientific experiment well outside the safety parameters at the time of the disaster.

Installers fall from roofs quite often...

The Fukushima Daiichi power plants used a half-century old design which was already scheduled for decommissioning and that was subjected to one of the most powerful natural disasters in all of human history.

Even so, nuclear power has yet to cause as many deaths as Hydro power or coal.

We can build better, safer reactors. We already do. The surest way to make sure we continue operating the least safe reactors is to put unnecessary roadblocks in the way of building new ones.

> We've had clean, green, safe, carbon-neutral energy for nearly 60 years.

And whether the original design used for those failed facilities was created today or 60 years ago is irrelevant if today, right now, they can cause dirty hazardous life-threatening disasters. Which again, clearly and directly disproves your claim.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power...

Yes, all systems fail. Fukushima was hit by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and a 10m tsunami, which is about the worst environment imaginable and it almost survived intact. Most newer technologies would have been unaffected, or at least shut down into a safe state.

And yes, you can come up with nightmare scenarios for every technology. Fukushima experienced one in a dilapidated state and just about came through unscathed. Add in another 30 or 40 years of science and engineering and the chances of a nuclear disaster effectively become zero.

Compared with the pollution and deaths associated with coal, I know which side I'd rather be on.

Edit: OK, only now read the Wikipedia link. So your point is that Fukushima was not operated properly? Well that is exactly my point. Even if in theory you could design a secure system, it won't work out in reality. "The system" is not only one reactor, it is the whole system of society that operates it.

Just look at the way the US handles airport security after 9/11 and after the shoe bomber and underwear bomber (naked body scanners). The same way they will handle nuclear power plant security. If there is a problem, they will fix that particular problem and totally miss the big picture. (And every country also, just mentioning the US because their airport failure is so well known these days).

And another Edit: if they knew Fukushima was not safe before the accident, why did they not shut it down? Think about it, and then extrapolate to other nuclear plants.

And how did they sell Fukushima to the public when it was built? I am sure they claimed it was safe at least back then.

Coal and natural gas may have a constant payout that remains relatively low, rare, and random, perhaps a uniform distribution, and it's average value may be bigger than the distribution of nuclear.

But the issue with nuclear is that its distribution might look like an enormous Dirac Delta function, and when it hits, it takes out many people even wiping out entire communities, if not regions, for hundreds of years.

As a species we are probably used to hearing and feeling badly about the random ape being struck by lightning or forgetting to tend his fire and burning his tree down and being able to move on.

But when we find an entire village is suddenly gone, their part of the forest gone, and strange unknown diseases attack us when we move through the now forbidden zones, we feel differently.

Similarly, Fujinuma dam broke on March 11, 2011 due to the same disaster, resulting in several deaths and lots of additional destruction. Does that get tallied against the hazards of hydroelectric power or against the hazards of enormously powerful earthquakes?

First of all, how many people has nuclear taken out, even including Chernobyl? According to the WHO and the IAEA, Chernobyl was (or rather, will be) responsible for about 9000 deaths. This includes the people killed by acute radiation exposure and the expected number of people killed by premature cancer from sub-acute radiation exposure over a period of 20 years. This comes out to 450 deaths per year.

By comparison, the Bhopal disaster killed approximately 3000 people immediately, and 8000 people in total from gas-related injuries. It's not at all clear to me that nuclear is more dangerous than other "everyday" technologies like chemical plants and oil refineries.

As for the effects of radioactive contamination, well, chemical contamination can be just as long-lived. Just look at your average Superfund site.

There's nothing special about the risks of nuclear energy. We tolerate the exact same risks with many of our current technologies. It's just irrational fear tied to the anti-nuclear weapons movement that's driving the freeze on new nuclear construction.