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Originally Posted by zakthor
Pro nuke people: Rather than cast doubt on the skeptical posters, can you address the issue being brought up about risk? Sure the probability of a failure is low, but consequences are so high as to be unacceptible? What sort of bond could be posted against possible future damage?
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To me (having worked at a nuclear plant and now working at a place that is heavily involved in the nuclear world), there is a huge misconception about the "consequences" of nuclear accidents. Three Mile Island was a pretty bad accident. How many people died as a result? How many people got sick? How much land around the plant is now uninhabitable? Fukushima was a really bad accident. Same questions. In the case of Fukushima, some workers got some significant dose (but far below levels considered lethal). The place is a mess, for sure, but the world did not come to and end. The earthquake killed 10k people. The nuclear accident didn't even make anyone sick (this seems to be up for debate, but I am skeptical), let alone kill them.
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I live in washington and hanford is a giant expensive mess. I'll start believing once it is cleaned up.
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Hanford is a whole different thing than commercial nuclear. I know. I work at ORNL. Weapons production is completely different than a nuclear plant. Hanford is a mess, I agree. That doesn't really have anything to do with commercial nuclear power, though.
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I'm sure all the human engineers at fukashima and cherynobyl were confident in their plants safety, doesnt count for much in the real world.
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The plant I worked at was the same design as Fukushima. I know a lot about it. It is a safe design. BWR-4s are all over the place. Fukushima was a perfect storm of things going wrong. And a cautionary tale, for sure. Chernobyl was literally an accident waiting to happen. No one in the west would even consider a reactor design like that.
Moving forward, though, you can't make decisions on the future of power production in the world using Chernobyl or Fukushima as reasons not to consider nuclear power. How many people die every year as a result of coal plants? A lot. We had a coal ash spill here a few years ago. Over 40 people have died just trying to clean that up! 40! How many people have died cleaning up Fukushima? Zero.