Comment by mgfist
3 hours ago
Those numbers are still in the single digit thousands. Meanwhile how many deaths have been caused by fossil fuel emissions (both carbon, and local, and radiation). Very very hard to predict, but you see estimates going up to the many millions.
Would you argue that Bhopal was a nothingburger because it is dwarfed by residual emissions worldwide over decades?
These are consequences from single incident, for a power source that has minuscule share of generation worldwide. The second similar event had also led to exclusion of substantial territory and only avoided massive health effects due to wind pattern towards the ocean.
And if nuclear proliferated more to geography prone to low safety culture and warfare the toll could up considerably.
Either way nobody argues for replacement of nuclear with coal in this day of age. Renewables are the fastest growing energy sector.
Bhopal helps my argument. The consequences of that were far worse than Chernobyl and yet I’d bet for every 1,000 people who have heard of Chernobyl only one or two would know about Bhopal.
I'm not sure how that matters even if it was true. Here I am clearly aware of both. And if I were not, does it make people less dead?
If nuclear became #1 power source and instead of 25 year cadence we had IAEA scale 7 events every 1.5 years, would you still argue it's a net win?
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