Re:Safe Enough?
by XorNot on Sunday July 02, 2023 @05:27AM
(#36559805)
And yet nobody consented to climate change. I certainly didn't. They also don't consent to PM2.5 from uncovered coal trains running through residential areas. Nobody consents to being downstream of a hydroelectric dam...
[ Parent
| on HN ]
I wasn’t saying that we can’t have nuclear power at all. I was saying that we can’t nuclear power that is as risky as aviation. If that makes nuclear unviable, then so be it.
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.