Furthermore, the effects of air pollution are more evident there so it's easier to sell the tradeoff, IMO(I know almost nothing about China, TBH).
There is enough to be worried about.
The CCP central leadership often responds to public opinion when local leaders are shown to be corrupt/incompetent (or scapegoated for other reasons).
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/rates-for-each-energy-so...
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-safest-source-energy...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d...
Even the old, poorly maintained, shitshow reactor park we have been stuck with has evidently been safer than everything else.
And this was predictable for a while since the deployment was just starting (e.g. most of the deaths are in the construction phase and then the panels generate for decades afterwards.) and the stat is in deaths per TWh.
Note that similar applies to carbon intensity, both pay up front in carbon terms and then work off that debt. Comparing old solar Vs newly installed solar is a similar fudge to nuclear vs solar, and gives misleading conclusions.
Nuclear is much better than coal, but it's hard to find a positive comparison to modern renewables without really cherry picking old data.
Clicked one link, 2012 data, another has 2012 in the URL. A third, published in 2018 is using the 2012 data, I think I've made my point.
More up to date:
I've seen that summary. I'm sceptical:
Their references (2007,2016) do exclude some significant accidents and do not account well for total accumulated deaths.
I have not researched any better sources myself, however.
The failure of just a single dam - the Banqiao in China in 1975 - killed more than 150,000 people.
Way more than all the deaths from nuclear power, ever.
[1] https://www.britannica.com/event/Typhoon-Nina-Banqiao-dam-fa...
Okay, let's look at Wikipedia[1]. Random example. Val Di Stava Dam Italy 1985, 268 fatalities. Many, many more than were killed directly by Fukushima, but fewer than were killed by the stress of evacuation.
Read the list. More than one dam failed, but the fatalities are accepted fatalistically and shrugged off. It seems like there is a double standard here.
Disclosure: I think that as of 2019 nuclear is uneconomic and not worth building, but if the choice is between nuclear and fossil fuels, nuclear wins hands down in safety terms.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure#List_of_major_dam_...
Anyway I don't think it makes sense to compare hydro where the risk dynamics are simple, to nuclear where they are complex and require great long-term competency to mitigate.
And this sort of ordeal may be way more of a concern with a nuke plant.
In particular Fukushima was in a stupid place, engineers were well aware of the the many 100s of years of experience with earthquakes in the ring of fire and calculated that a large expensive wall would be required to protect plant. The sensible place to put the plant was in a different prefecture.
Politics intruded, the plant was put in a stupid place, and the expensive wall was shrunk.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-58026038
They leak was minor and not a risk, but they fact that they didn't follow best practices speaks volumes.
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Tepco-Rem...
You cannot have a massively expensive and centralized energy source without having huge political, military (!) and economical implications. And risks of corruption and coverups.
There is no "intrusion". This is an intrinsic problem of such technology.
Also, it's a fallacy to think the CPC simply ignores popular sentiment. Fukushima had as much of an impact in China as it did in Japan - all new plants were paused (http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/16/china.nuclea...) and it may have factored into the decision to go all-in on solar and wind power over the past decade instead.
That's what I meant by:
> While China isn’t going to face similar voter pressure, one accident like Fukushima could make things really chaotic quickly.
The way to substantiate this is to look at data because otherwise it would lead to unnecessary scaremongering, precisely the things holding nuclear energy back amongst other reasons (cost, etc.)
Put it in another context with far greater consequences than Fukushima disaster - the current Coronavirus pandemic and possibility of links to Wuhan Lab, one accident and it shut down the world and caused millions of deaths. Far more than all nuclear tragedies combined. Not to mention, the economic toll and far reaching consequences of the society.
Kind of boggles my mind why the society doesn't look at Level 5 bio labs in the same exact or more serious way than Nuclear power plants. Even if Wuhan lab hypothesis is incorrect, we should have more resources and focus on how to make these GoF studies/Level 5 labs secure, and essentially as safe as nuclear power plants or better. Public awareness just isn't there.
Origins of Coronavirus should be investigated with 100x more rigor than 6 people touring the facility from WHO for 3 days only to see presumably a massive coverup.
Also nuclear is a brittle technology, disrupt society (refugee-crisis or a economic crisis) and the technology decays and degrades fast.
This applies to every electricity generation method except small-scale hydro, and maybe small pockets of coal.
Everything else needs advanced materials manufacturing - high-tech steels, fluids and ceramics for oil drilling and fracking, rare earth mining for magnets for wind turbines, all kinds of crazy stuff for PV.
Small-scale hydro and small-scale coal can't support society.