On the other hand it's important to weigh the risks of nuclear power fairly, relative to other power sources. These reactor accidents are novel, noteworthy, and dramatic, but how serious are these accidents in proper context?
Jumbo jet crashes are similarly dramatic and noteworthy, yet air travel remains one of the safest forms of transportation available, by a significant margin. Is the same bias for flashy and scary events happening with nuclear power?
Fukushima and Chernobyl are notable, but so is the failure of Fujinuma Dam (also due to the Tohoku earthquake), and the failure of Banqiao dam, and the Texas City disaster.
So far the record of the non-Soviet civilian nuclear power industry compares favorably with that of other industries and power sources, even including extrapolating some rather severe further evolutions of the Fukushima reactor disaster factored in.
Oh, I agree. The amount of mercury that coal consumption puts out is horrendous -- and a permanent blight. And coal ash is one of the nastier industrial waste products we've managed to create. (I won't start down the C02 discussion, here, but of course it's another huge factor.)
That's one reason I specifically cited renewable energy (and I'm skeptical that geo-thermal really applies in this regard, long term). If you want nuclear energy, we have the solar system's biggest fusion reactor at our disposal. Just divert some of its output on its way to becoming kinetic (including heat) and chemical energy, to do what we need. Yes, there are problems, but progress -- even in the face of meager funding -- has demonstrated that they are solvable.
"yet air travel remains one of the safest forms of transportation available"
Doesn't that depend on how you measure it, like accidents per miles or accidents per hours? Even if it would be safest by miles, I don't think it would follow that the safest way to get to work every morning would be by plane. It only works because airplanes go long distances, and accidents most frequently happen during starting or landing. In short, the comparison is not even very useful.
The question is also do we have to fly so much/do we need so much energy. If there were no airplanes, would people just travel the same distances by car? I doubt it.
Whether you measure by hour or by mile air travel is still comparatively safe (1/4th as many fatalities per hour and 1/60th as many fatalities per mile, compared to automobiles).
> Whether you measure by hour or by mile air travel is still comparatively safe
The problem with that measure is that air accidents don't correlate with either hours or miles, but with takeoffs and landings.
The comparable incident for cars is probably intersections.
Yes, each plane trip involves only one takeoff and landing while each car trip usually involves multiple intersections, but that just means that simple comparisons don't tell us very much.
What's important for humans is whether spending time in an airplane or in a car is more dangerous and whether choosing to use an airplane or a car for a trip is more dangerous. In either case the airplane is safer than the car.
Most car crashes occur near the home, at distances that make air travel impractical. Who drives to the airport to fly 3 miles? Comparing "car miles driven on trips" to air miles would be more enlightening.
As was explained, it is a function of the number of takeoffs and landings. Therefore it only holds because airplane trips tend to be a lot longer than trips with other vehicles.
this is a testament to safety measures in aviation, not to some inherent safety of air travel.
inherently, 99.9% of people will die if plane was to collide with another plane or ground. That number is inherently much lower for car collisions.
so if we talk about nuclear safety, yes it is very safe compared to some other energy sources. But it also so much more dangerous when nuclear accidents happen than anything else.
"But it also so much more dangerous when nuclear accidents happen than anything else."
This is a facile assumption but it's almost certainly false. The Banqiao dam disaster killed 25,000 people directly, and destroyed 6 million buildings (it caused 145,000 further deaths due to famine). Such a disaster far outstrips even Chernobyl, which was about as maximally bad as any nuclear reactor accident can be (runaway fission reaction generating massive amounts of radionuclides; no worthwhile reactor containment structures; the reactor core melting down, catching on fire, and spewing huge amounts of radiation into the wind).
now please factor in duration and affected area and population into account when talking about severity of nuclear accidents, the same way you factored in hours and miles when you wrote about aviation safety.
Jumbo jet crashes are similarly dramatic and noteworthy, yet air travel remains one of the safest forms of transportation available, by a significant margin. Is the same bias for flashy and scary events happening with nuclear power?
Fukushima and Chernobyl are notable, but so is the failure of Fujinuma Dam (also due to the Tohoku earthquake), and the failure of Banqiao dam, and the Texas City disaster.
So far the record of the non-Soviet civilian nuclear power industry compares favorably with that of other industries and power sources, even including extrapolating some rather severe further evolutions of the Fukushima reactor disaster factored in.