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Comment by kvakkefly | Hacker News Reader

It seems like you assume that other sources of energy are without waste and accidents. Nuclear power has by far the lowest number of deaths / produced energy and the total volume of waste is not that much. During all time of nuclear, the total volume of waste is about the annual waste produced by solar cells.

See a nice summary (with sources you can check) at https://energy.glex.no/calculator

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That's if things go well. If they don't...

Have you even looked at the statistics? The point kinda is that injury and death tolls tell you precisely how often it doesn't go well for different types of energy production (including the mining of resources, storage/dumping of waste, etc.). I can't imagine you wrote that comment knowing how much less risky fission is.

If a solar panel has a catastrophic incident, you replace it. If a windmill has a catastrophic accident, you replace it. If a gas plant has a catastrophic accident, you replace it and have five funerals.

If a nuclear plant has a catastrophic accident, Western Europe could be uninhabitable for generations. Likely? No. But completely possible.

This is pure fear mongering. There is no way for currently running nuclear power plant to make Western Europe (!) uninhabitable. Worst meltdown is that - meltdown. It stays where it happens.

the winds can carry the radioactive ash a long way. This was a huge concern in Chernobyl.

I know, I am from Russia. Even Chernobyl did not make much land uninhabitable, let alone Western Europe. Exclusion zone is 30 km.

And unlike natural disasters, chernobyl and others can be learned from, and currently running stations will not fail in such manner.

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