The aeronautical industry is improving safety all the time, and accidents prompt new safety measures. They don't scoof accidents without analysis and adaptation, saying "if you want to fly you must accept that some 787-MAX are crashing down from time to time, but still safer than traveling by car, we did the math". No, they landed the plane and adapted.
No, I don't
> The aeronautical industry is improving safety all the time, and accidents prompt new safety measures.
Yes, they do.
Note: we're still flying. The number of aircraft is increasing. And we don't turn aircraft into boogey men.
Had aircraft been treated the way nuclear plants are treated, we'd stop building most of them in the early 80s, and the construction of each new one would be met with strong opposition and campaigns to shut the entire thing down.
Quoting myself again:
Imagine if any other tech had the same fear-mongering. We'd never have a single hydroelectric plant after Banqiao dam failure that killed anywhere from 25 000 to 240 000 and left 11 million people homeless.
Also, it's worth noting that nuclear disasters remain dangerous for amounts of time ranging from "one generation" to "longer than human history so far", adding an extra element of catastrophe.
There are quite a few people who are afraid of flying, so afraid that they refuse to fly. That’s of course their prerogative.
The problem with nuclear power stations is that when they have serious accidents they don’t just affect the people who wanted to build them, they affect everybody, including the people who didn’t want them to be built, and even people in neighboring countries who didn’t even get a vote on it - depending on which way the wind blows.
So the nuclear power station has to be built as safely as the most fearful person demands.
Why do we keep building hydroelectric plants (and dams in general)? Why do we keep building coal plants which are more radioactive than niclear plants, and are often located in densely populated areas?
Why don't you apply the same logic to other things?
Getting on an aircraft involves taking a risk. You may die. People die every year because they boarded an aircraft. The risk is small, but it’s not zero. We are okay with people taking this risk because they chose to do it.
For nuclear power, small is not good enough, the risk of a serious incident such as Chernobyl has to be effectively zero. This is very expensive.
Hydroelectric is not really comparable, if you are not happy living downstream of a hydro plant then you can move somewhere else.
Nuclear fails in unpredictable ways. When Chernobyl happened, the whole of Europe held its breath to see which way the fallout would blow. The only way to escape the risk is heavy regulation or bans.
My pro-nuclear position is based on an assumption of baseline competence! This doesn't seem to actually be the case!
Hmm... We've been building cities for millenia, but look, in this event "45,700 buildings were destroyed and 144,300 were damaged by the quake and tsunami".
> Compare hydro-engineering, where it's common to design for 100-year events and even 500-year events
The 1975 Banqiao Dam failure was the collapse of the Banqiao Dam and 61 other dams in Henan, China, under the influence of Typhoon Nina in August 1975. The dam collapse created the third-deadliest flood in history which affected a total population of 10.15 million and inundated around 30 cities and counties of 12,000 square kilometers (or 3 million acres), with an estimated death toll ranging from 26,000 to 240,000. The flood also caused the collapse of 5 million to 6.8 million houses.
An earthquake and tsunami in the country who coined the term is now a "Black Swan event" to make an attempt at painting the nuclear power plants failure in favorable light.
Even more entertaining is that Fukushima lead to widespread changes across the industry around independent core cooling and gas filtration.
The regulators found systemic deficiencies in the industry, but let's roll that back!
As an example: A nuclear reactor in Sweden had a severe incident in 2006 when many of the "defense in depth" layers had been accidentally removed through freak occurrences and upgrades. Thus independent core cooling was not a Black Swan event, it was systemic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsmark_Nuclear_Power_Plant#J...
How many earthquakes do you know that move an entire island by 2.4 meters?
How many 14-meter tsunamis have there been?
"A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences"
> The regulators found systemic deficiencies in the industry, but let's roll that back!
Of course that is not what I'm saying. But do let the FUD roll.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_a...
Following that multiple studies showed that Fukushima could get hit by +15m tsunamis and suggested heightening the sea wall.
Now you are trying to redefine Black Swan to fit your narrative.
Take what the author said about COVID-19.
> According to Taleb, as it was expected with great certainty that a global pandemic would eventually take place, the COVID-19 pandemic is not a black swan, but is considered to be a white swan; such an event has a major effect, but is compatible with statistical properties.
Similarly, there is a great certainty that a +15m tsunami will hit any of the existing nuclear power plants in Japan. Fukushima was not a Black Swan, simply human negligence.
Ah yes. It's my bad. "The most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, and the fourth most powerful earthquake recorded in the world since modern seismography began in 1900" can never be classified as a Black Swan event, and I apologize for my mistake.
As for tsunami,
"The sea walls in several cities had been built to protect against tsunamis of much lower heights. Also, many people caught in the tsunami thought they were on high enough ground to be safe. According to a special committee on disaster prevention designated by the Japanese government, the tsunami protection policy had been intended to deal with only tsunamis that had been scientifically proved to occur repeatedly."
My apologies, this wasn't a Black Swan event either. Totally predictable, and not beyond what's normally expected.
> According to Taleb, as it was expected with great certainty that a global pandemic would eventually take place,
It's funny how all Nostradamuses "prove" their vague predictions only after something occurs.
What was it said about black swan events?
"The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight."
Since 1900 there have been at least 12 megatsunami with a height up to 1/2 a kilometre.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Lituya_Bay_earthquake_a...
The one you linked happened:
- in a narrow bay
- with a dual-slide that involved both a huge rockfall, and a huge release of sediment connected to a glacier breaking off
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It's also the first time I've heard of this event, and.... Just wow. Never thought it would be possible
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Edit: According to Wikipedia all megatsunamis recorded since 1900 were caused by landslides: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatsunami Only some of the landslides were caused by earthquakes.
Edit: but I agree with the "wow". I can't even imagine what a wall of water that tall would look like. That is just so outside normal experience.
They are extremely rare.
12 megatsunamis in 123 years spread over the entire surface of the earth.
And (b) holy crap that's terrifying.
If you can't build a nuclear plant, or a dam, while accounting for expected events, then maybe don't.
An earthquake of that magnitude, creating a Tsunami of that strength, striking in just the wrong place .. is very much a black swan event.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilFEKSZQv5o
By your 'logic' no dam can be built as they all stand a chance of a direct hit from a meteorite.
Risk-wise the Fukushima nuclear disaster cause less direct and indirect death than many accidents and natural disasers .. including deaths from, say, fertilizer depot explosions, oil rig accidents, etc.
The definition of a black swan event.
And yet the conclusion is, unsurprisingly, indistinguishable from "nuclear is bad, be very very wary".
Imagine if any other tech had the same fear-mongering. We'd never have a single hydroelectric plant after Banqiao dam failure that killed anywhere from 25 000 to 240 000 and left 11 million people homeless.