How do you make safe, cheap nuclear reactors? Bury them a mile deep

Re:How do you make safe, cheap nuclear reactors? Bury them a... by mythrwy on Tuesday August 27, 2024 @11:55AM (#41368933)

100,000 people dying one at a time over the course of a decade seems to have a lower public relations impact then 1000 people dying in a once-in-a-century spectacularly tragic accident. Even though the total casualties are higher.

Fentanyl is a prime example. I believe (from memory) over 100,000 people die of it each year in the in the US. Everyone knows it's a problem. We should "do something". But, we don't. Nobody cares enough (except as a platitude come election time). However if 1000 people died in a bomb attack (or similar) it would be top news for weeks and they would be scrambling the military and make us take our wedding rings of for scanning at airports.

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Re:How do you make safe, cheap nuclear reactors? Bury them a... by wordpad25 on Tuesday August 27, 2024 @12:32PM (#41369449)

It's also who is impacted, right, Fentanyl deaths are self inflicted

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Re:How do you make safe, cheap nuclear reactors? Bury them a... by mythrwy on Tuesday August 27, 2024 @12:40PM (#41369566)

True. Maybe substitute car accidents.

If 10% of people who died in auto accidents each year were to perish in one horrible spectacular event it probably would be "transformative" as far as public policy.

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Re:How do you make safe, cheap nuclear reactors? Bury them a... by LorenPechtel on Tuesday August 27, 2024 @06:38PM (#41374011)

Fentanyl is an issue because they are preventable deaths.

(Never mind that cracking down actually increases the death rate. And the fentanyl problem came about because of cracking down on heroin. Fentanyl is far cheaper to make and far easier to smuggle due to being much smaller. But it has a tendency to clump and thus when handled by street dealers they can't produce a uniform product.)

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