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Comment by crote | Hacker News Reader

Sure, but Chernobyl didn't require a massive tsunami, and neither did Three Mile Island. On top of that there have been dozens of near-misses. On the other hand: what would have been the result of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami hitting a wind farm, or a PV installation?

Nuclear reactors are inherently a very risky business, with virtually unlimited damages if something goes seriously wrong. I'm sure all the reactor operators reviewed their flood procedures after Fukushima and a 1:1 repeat is unlikely, but why didn't they do so before the incident? What other potential causes did the industry miss?

In this case it was indeed a large-scale natural disaster which caused the accident, but how sure are we that some medium-scale terrorism can't do the same, or some small-scale internal sabotage or negligent maintenance? The fact that a Fukushima-scale nuclear disaster can happen at all is a major cause for concern.

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> Sure, but Chernobyl didn't require a massive tsunami, and neither did Three Mile Island.

Three Mile Island was a success in the sense that even the worst case scenario the safety measures are sufficient to more or less fully contain it.

In Chernobyl's case... well yes it proves that if you let incompetent and stupid people build and operate nuclear power plants horrible things can happen.

> Three Mile Island was a success in the sense that even the worst case scenario

No, as it involved a partial meltdown, not a complete meltdown.

It's a success. The redundant systems of 3mi meant that the 10 miles around it received the effect of a chest x-ray.

I mean we allow coal plants to vent radioactive material. Surely nuclear considering it an accident is an improvement.

A nuclear accident with far more devastating consequences is possible.

The debate isn't about "nuclear or coal?" but about "nuclear or renewables?"

Thought experiment: imagine nuclear were 100 times as deadly as it is, but ten times more prevalent (supplanting other fossil fuels, or even hydroelectric)

What would be the net effect? (I think it would be roughly on par with gas or hydroelectric and an order of magnitude safer than other fossil fuels even with this extremely pessimistic hypothetical)

> What would be the net effect?

It wouldn't be a linear increase i.e. you can more or less estimate how many people would die per MWh produced in hydro, gas, coal etc. plants.

With nuclear if somebody dies that means a some sort of catastrophic event likely occurred regardless if a 1 or 100+ people die the reactor will be out of commission and it will cost a massive amount of money to contain it.

I'm not following the argument for being able to estimate deaths per [T]Wh for hydro, gas, etc. but not nuclear. I think hydroelectric is especially analogous

Should we include this case?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure

Why wouldn't we?

You're arguing based on pure hypotheticals.

> Nuclear reactors are inherently a very risky business,

Well, let me introduce you to airplanes — flying is inherently risky, and so many people have died on commercial flights. We should abolish it immediately!

> The fact that a Fukushima-scale nuclear disaster can happen at all is a major cause for concern.

Maybe. I'm more concerned about coal plants that are, as we speak, dumping metric tons of harmful materials, including radioactive ones, into the atmosphere we all breathe, which causes approximately 100_000 people to die each year.

These are real things happening right now, not some hypothetical problems that may happen, but haven't in the last 60 years of commercial nuclear reactor operations.

Seriously, all you can cling to are what, 2-3 major accidents in all this time? With negligible death tolls? Please. This is just concern trolling.

I was arguing about the fact that the number of deaths on the tsunami was relevant. I think you must have answered to the wrong thread.

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