So how does that risk compare to the risks of burning fossil fuels?
And that doesn't take into account that occasionally you have to write off large inhabited parts of a country due to an accident, which really doesn't happen with fossil fuels.
The goal is to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, and maybe eventually some saner version of nuclear power and fusion. No easy solutions there.
Not that many people died in these incidents - because those zones were evacuated at great cost.
And to try and project the risk from accidents that happened so far is just foolish. The risk is really not computable because the chance is small (fat tail) and the consequences catastrophic. Additionally proponents want/need to scale up nuclear power (and thus the risk) by orders of magnitude to make a dent in carbon emissions.
And then, on top of all that, any small amount of actually bad intentions or simple incompetence throws off all the careful risk calculations.
The risk of a disaster is a different matter I don't want to get in to, I think people just fear what they don't understand. By this point, the people making and running the things know what they are doing in my opinion.
Also, oil spills make huge tracts of land unlivable, and unfortunately it's almost always fragile marine areas. Whereas the 'nuclear disaster zone' around Chernobyl is now teeming with life. Turns out humans are worse for wildlife than radioactivity...
I'm simple that way. Stuff that can kill me right now is a lot scarier to me than stuff that will raise the average temperature over the next few decades. I'd also prefer most of the governments in the world not to have ready access to fissile or even large amounts of radioactive material, just as a general precaution.
As the world gets more unstable due to climate change — an increased risk on pandemics, civil unrest, extreme weather events — do we really want abandoned nuclear power stations added to the mix?
So, don’t do either. use way less energy, rely on renewables and batteries for the rest.
I don't even like China engaging in large scale nuclear engineering, particularly because of how they screw up other sectors of industry.
All of which has happened. In my opinion, the risk of nuclear power in its current form can't be computed, even within a robust regulatory environment. Without a robust regulatory environment, or even instable regimes and regions, I don't think there is even a question to the answer of: No, please don't.
I can't tell to what extent you're being sarcastic. Your final sentence seems to have suffered during editing, but I gather you hold it as absolute that no unstable regime should have access to nuclear power, and that it is impossible to determine the difference between the risk of an unstable regime and a stable regime holding nuclear power, from which I infer that you hold it absolute that stable regimes should also not have access to nuclear power. Are you seriously saying that someone wanting nuclear power is legitimate grounds for war? If you were the leader of some country that would have about a 50% chance of success, would you declare war on Australia, now that they've announced they intend to pursue (limited, though surely particularly risky) nuclear power?
I don't want to categorically endorse nuclear weapon programs (or even civilian programs) as a reason to go to war, but I can understand why some countries believe so. Particularly in the case of Israel, when countries like Iraq and Iran have specifically and repeatedly said they want to destroy Israel. The nuclear programs in the hands of Iran, Pakistan and China are already troublesome. Their current governments might seem relatively "rational" about the whole thing, but they are authoritarian and who knows what will happen with their next crop of unelected leadership.
In less egregious cases, highly radioactive material is sufficient to build dirty bombs. A simple regime change, civil war or whatever in an unstable region with nuclear power could lead to a nightmare. Even less sinister, simple incompetence can lead to a mismanaged reactor or waste disposal, which in turn can have wideranging and catastrophic consequences.
Living with the risk of another "Chernobyl" is bad – but a global climate catastrophe would probably be much worse.
It is more something like
probability x cost x liquid_captial / (liquid_capital - cost)
Essentially if the cost is so high the insurer would take a massive hit. This is the same reason why normal people by health-insurance. Essentially the 'value' of money is not linear. The less money you have the more value a single dollar has.