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Nuclear power in general.
Completely harmless? C'mon.
There have been three accidents related to nuclear power generation, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukashima. There were a total of 33 deaths attributed to those three incidents (32 from Chernobyl and 1 from Fukashima.)
There are 58 deaths per terawatt-hour attributed to coal alone, mostly due to air pollution.
I'd say that nuclear power is very close to completely harmless in comparison. Certainly in contrast to its perception among the general public.
The death toll from Chernobyl is debated, but way higher than 30.. More like several or tens of thousands. Especially since you compare with air pollution deaths from coal.
Just shows how terribly it was built, I hope we learned since then
It's like saying airplanes are completely harmless. Compared to cars sure, you are much less likely to die in one, but it isn't a nill chance.
You're right, but it's all relative and almost anything could kill you. Eg, vaccines are also a fantastic answer to the title question. They undeniably save lives and are extremely safe. But they can still kill you in very, very, very rare cases. I'm not sure any answer to this thread could have a nil chance. Even the video games answer, there's been people who got so addicted to video games that they played them till they dropped dead (but that's obviously an utter insane extreme and obviously video games are very, very safe).
It's just the radioactive waste we don't know what to do with and becoming a military or terrorist target parts that are dangerous.
No, we've known what to do with the waste for decades. Put it in cans, fill the can with cement, coat the can in cement, put the cans in a facility that is protected from geological events like earthquakes, and periodically check the cans/facility. In the US for example, The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository was being made before political pressure shut it down.
The waste issue is and always will be one of political pressure and ignorance by the masses, not an actual logistical issue
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Political pressure comes in part from people like me who live around here and where they'd look for other sites. I don't want trucks full of nuclear waste constantly being trucked through my area (and your area!), I don't want to be viewed as a bomb target by enemies. I don't want trucks of nuclear waste around the country being viewed as dirty bomb targets.
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Even without the political pressure, how is nuclear power clean when massive massive holes in the ground have to be created and maintained with huge trucks and cranes using fossil fuels so we have a place to store waste that will be dangerous for tens of thousands of years? Yucca Mountain has taken decades to approve and build, any other sites will likely also. Spent nuclear fuel having to be trucked across the country using fossil fuels and tires, at best can be converted to battery power.
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Nuclear plants take a decade or more to build, we don't have that kind of time when it comes to climate change.
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Nuclear power makes nuclear disarmament that much less likely
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All of this is also assuming our current civilization continues for tens of thousands of years unbroken. If for some reason 500 years from now civilization broke down or was taken over and the average person couldn't read English anymore, how would we transmit the idea of everlasting danger in a geographic region to those who may see things very differently?
Sorry I somehow just saw your response. Here's mine:
- Nuclear waste being trucked through my area is completely fine because not only has it already been contained and simply being trucked to it's longterm storage site, it's not some glowing ooze that's super hard to keep from seeping into places. It's a solid. Have the trucks stay away from running water and don't drive on days that it's raining, and even if there's a crash it's not gonna get into the ecosystem. Add to that, the alternative for baseload power has been fossil fuels, which are shown to not only be more hazardous to the immediate area and people, but more hazardous to the planet. So the options for the past several decades has been between a verifiably bad thing, and a verifiably not bad thing. This is just more either uninformed or alarmist rhetoric.
- A similar question can be turned around on solar, what with the huge amount of material that needs to be mined in toxic processes for the rare earth metals that are needed for photovoltaics + battery banks. And you're complaining about needing tires for moving nuclear waste? Really? The addition would be negligible compared to what's already on the roads. This is just grasping at straws.
- We don't have that kind of time because people like you have been preventing us from building safe plants for decades. This is the same kind of energy as when republicans defund government agencies and then use the now lower productivity of the agency as an example of governments being bad at jobs. We've lost time because you've been holding our head underwater.
- Realistic nuclear disarmament is a pipe dream that gets obliterated with 5 seconds of thought. The countries we truly want disarmed will never do such, and better countries disarming would just lead to those first countries becoming emboldened to use their arsenal. The only realistic result of nuclear disarmament is a nuclear war perpetrated by dictators.
- If human civilization breaks down to the point that top security assets are unmanageable, there's far worse issues going on than nuclear waste getting into the ground water in a couple specific locations. Not to mention a scenario like you bring up would have to have humans falling back to the stone age, at which point the change in quality and length of life from the nuclear radiation a leak would bring wouldn't be very substantial compared to their stone-age alternative.
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