Earthquake off Japan

[AniThyng]

This is a serious question here: Seeing as it is not only Japan that has had nuclear accident cover ups and scandals, can anyone really say that any level of rules and regulations would be enough to avoid worst case scenarios? I understand fully that we've lasted this long without many major mishaps that weren't caused by a absurdly powerful natural disaster, but it's always "if X is done", "if Y is secured", "if procedures are followed" etc etc, all because nuclear power one of those things that is really safe, except when it isn't.

For my country, I could build a solid case against us having nuke plants based solely on the history of shoddy construction and maintanince withoever ever needing to invoke nuclear radiation in of itself, sadly.

Edit: I recall a gas plant blew up due to an accident in the US a couple months or years ago and people on this board were playing the "hah, so what was that about nuclear being dangerous, behold exploding gas plant..."

[PeZook]

But that's the point, isn't it? Any large industrial site is chock full of deadly chemicals ; The list of massive industrial catastrophes is really long and has an amazing body count, for much the same reasons you listed why nuclear plants are not perfectly safe. I mean, come on: one drilling mishap and you get a ruined freshwater ecosystem around Lake Peigneur. And that was a math mishap.

The chemical industry in particular can poison the atmosphere, soil and water just as well if not better than radioactive isotopes. And isotopes at least have half-lives.

Except the nuclear industry is 50 years old (and those fifty years were coincidentally shadowed by the spectre of nucler apocalypse...), while the chemical industry is about three centuries old, so we're a lot more used to cleaning up after chemical spills than nuclear accidents, hence why people are not willing to enter even the sites that have been completely decontaminated.

[AniThyng]

But that's the point, isn't it? Any large industrial site is chock full of deadly chemicals ; The list of massive industrial catastrophes is really long and has an amazing body count, for much the same reasons you listed why nuclear plants are not perfectly safe. I mean, come on: one drilling mishap and you get a ruined freshwater ecosystem around Lake Peigneur. And that was a math mishap.

The chemical industry in particular can poison the atmosphere, soil and water just as well if not better than radioactive isotopes. And isotopes at least have half-lives.

Except the nuclear industry is 50 years old (and those fifty years were coincidentally shadowed by the spectre of nucler apocalypse...), while the chemical industry is about three centuries old, so we're a lot more used to cleaning up after chemical spills than nuclear accidents, hence why people are not willing to enter even the sites that have been completely decontaminated.

For what its worth, environmentalists are opposed to rare earth and toxic chemicals and carbon/co2 emissions as well. Of course we then run into the dilemma that ultimately this means they are opposed to modernity because lets face it, this computer is the end result of the supply chain that at many points involve deadly and toxic chemicals (with the dirtiest of them concentrated in the 3rd world, allowing the west to crow about clean industry) so yes, I do understand that at the end of the day, the logic boils down to "nuclear isn't really any more dangerous (actually safer!) then everything else we already do to sustain modern civilization, so...".

I'm just not really convinced anymore that anyone can really say these things "can't happen" because of engineering reason X and process Y. And admitting it's actually "these things have a very low probability of happening IF your government isn't stupid/private industry isn't greedy/workers get lazy/shit doesn't happen" will never be enough with radiation.

[PeZook]

Well, life is all about probabilities, but if a politician says "There's a very low probability of the Earth being hit by a death asteroid in the next 5 years", then the public hears "It's possible we are going to be hit by an asteroid" which then translates to "We WILL be hit by an asteroidin exactly five years".

And therein lies the problem. The public often demands perfect solutions to things it fears. Like, say, terrorism: it's not enough to reform your security services, oh no, we have to go fight them over there in that country and with overwhelming military force AND make sure there is no chance at all of a terrorist ever getting into the US!

[Pendleton]

This is why a lot of people I know who were pro-nuclear are now doubting their strategy. Even with a plant that had know flaws and in a First World country, we're seeing very little transparency or reason to trust anything that does come out. I hear NISA are doing their own independent readings, but are not releasing them. The government has been told to expand the exclusion zone and even consider Tokyo if the prevailing wind changes. Again, nothing.

I have been a fan of fast breeder reactors and passive cooling designs for gen. IV and above designs, though right now I question even the use of this technology if the authorities and operators cannot be honest. No one is going to trust nuclear energy with this latest debacle, and it isn't irrational to take such a position now after yet another disaster. Yet, the platitudes of "it can never happen here" ring out loud through the conflicting reports of just how bad this situation is.

The IAEA really does need a mandate to allow it to strong arm sovereign governments into doing what they recommend. If you have nuclear power, it can be ALL our problem, so you damn well better have the capability to deal with it, or avoid it altogether.

[Pendleton]

ISIS preliminary assessment of Fukushima fallout and projections.

[PeZook]

I have been a fan of fast breeder reactors and passive cooling designs for gen. IV and above designs, though right now I question even the use of this technology if the authorities and operators cannot be honest. No one is going to trust nuclear energy with this latest debacle, and it isn't irrational to take such a position now after yet another disaster. Yet, the platitudes of "it can never happen here" ring out loud through the conflicting reports of just how bad this situation is.

Oh, come on. You can say the exact same thing about large chemical plants, since they're operated by for-profit companies and we've had many a fire, explosion, leak and other mishap involving those. One of them killed as many as a quarter million people and maimed another half a million (so, more than all nuclear accidents combined AND the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki)

"The operators are not honest" is not a reason to abandon a technology altogether, it's a reason to rethink your regulatory framework.

The IAEA really does need a mandate to allow it to strong arm sovereign governments into doing what they recommend. If you have nuclear power, it can be ALL our problem, so you damn well better have the capability to deal with it, or avoid it altogether.

If we assume operators and government are not going to be honest, and the government regulating them to be in the pockets of the plant operators, how exactly is the IAEA going to enforce its will? War? Embargos?

[someone_else]

I'm just not really convinced anymore that anyone can really say these things "can't happen" because of engineering reason X and process Y. And admitting it's actually "these things have a very low probability of happening IF your government isn't stupid/private industry isn't greedy/workers get lazy/shit doesn't happen" will never be enough with radiation.

The point is what you get for that risk. If what you get is worth it, then noone will give a fuck about the risks. Cars kill every year more people than hundreds of chernobyl. But cars are cool. What about pesticides? Bhopal's disaster's death toll makes any nuclear disaster (and most other disasters anyway) seem a joke in comparison. Yet people get crazy only when discussing of nuclear stuff.
That was and has always been a nuclear-only problem. Much riskier shit killing hundreds every few years (coal mines for example) doesn't raise any eyebrow just because it wasn't "nukular".

The government has been told to expand the exclusion zone and even consider Tokyo if the prevailing wind changes. Again, nothing.

Note that if you relocate so much people you must place them somewhere else. They have already enough logistic problems with the tsunami already, this will be done only if really necessary.
Evacuating too much and even Tokio is dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it would also give the impression to uninformed morons (most investors and CEOs are, at least in this field) that people are being relocated not "preemptively", but because it's actually unsafe to stay there, and you know how bad would that affect the economy.
They need to keep economy as calm as possible if they want to have a future (and also have the money to help their own people and rebuild stuff destroyed by the tsunami, among other things).
Triggering panic in Wall Street is the last thing they need now.

[AniThyng]

I have been a fan of fast breeder reactors and passive cooling designs for gen. IV and above designs, though right now I question even the use of this technology if the authorities and operators cannot be honest. No one is going to trust nuclear energy with this latest debacle, and it isn't irrational to take such a position now after yet another disaster. Yet, the platitudes of "it can never happen here" ring out loud through the conflicting reports of just how bad this situation is.

Oh, come on. You can say the exact same thing about large chemical plants, since they're operated by for-profit companies and we've had many a fire, explosion, leak and other mishap involving those. One of them killed as many as a quarter million people and maimed another half a million (so, more than all nuclear accidents combined AND the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki)

"The operators are not honest" is not a reason to abandon a technology altogether, it's a reason to rethink your regulatory framework.

The IAEA really does need a mandate to allow it to strong arm sovereign governments into doing what they recommend. If you have nuclear power, it can be ALL our problem, so you damn well better have the capability to deal with it, or avoid it altogether.

If we assume operators and government are not going to be honest, and the government regulating them to be in the pockets of the plant operators, how exactly is the IAEA going to enforce its will? War? Embargos?

That is why some anti-nuclear people say that the best solution is to not have nuclear reactors at all, because with nuclear reactors you are looking at this sort of issues.

With regards to chemical plants and coal - it probably also does matter that there may be no alternatives to those chemicals, but there are alternatives(however weak) to nuclear power generation.

@something else:

Yes I understand what you are saying. I also can understand why people would not follow that line of thinking. And I don't for a moment think that people who are serious about environmentalism don't care about Bhophal or chemical plants. THere are protests right now in my country against a Rare Earth plant, that is every bit as relevent as the protests against nuclear. It's absurd to think people who are anti-nuclear power are also "pro/don't give a shit about those other dirty polluting industries."

[Simon_Jester]

This is a serious question here: Seeing as it is not only Japan that has had nuclear accident cover ups and scandals, can anyone really say that any level of rules and regulations would be enough to avoid worst case scenarios? I understand fully that we've lasted this long without many major mishaps that weren't caused by a absurdly powerful natural disaster, but it's always "if X is done", "if Y is secured", "if procedures are followed" etc etc, all because nuclear power one of those things that is really safe, except when it isn't.

For my country, I could build a solid case against us having nuke plants based solely on the history of shoddy construction and maintanince withoever ever needing to invoke nuclear radiation in of itself, sadly.

Edit: I recall a gas plant blew up due to an accident in the US a couple months or years ago and people on this board were playing the "hah, so what was that about nuclear being dangerous, behold exploding gas plant..."

Aren't you Singaporean?

Singapore is a lousy place to put a nuclear plant because it's a city-state: in the event of a disaster, having to evacuate any significant area around the plant would render the whole island uninhabitable.

That doesn't mean the same is true everywhere else in the world. Yes, we should be prepared to accept that once in a long while, a nuclear plant will fail badly enough to create a radioactive zone around the plant. Living in this zone will be unhealthy, much like living in an area contaminated by toxic chemicals- you don't see people living on the tailings pile from a mine very often either.

That is a good argument against building nuclear plants very close to heavily populated areas, or in the middle of a large city. It's not a very good argument against building the things at all.

The idea that a history of shoddy regulation and safety standards is an argument against building nuclear plants is very much region-specific: some places have more of a history of this than others. And the argument applies equally well with respect to all forms of heavy industry that have any potential for major industrial accidents, not just to nuclear power generation: there are very few kinds of industry that will be safe in a crappy regulatory environment when run by people with a slipshod attitude towards workplace safety and ensuring that a plant disaster doesn't hurt bystanders.

[AniThyng]

Malaysian, actually. The same argument does apply though - it's not exactly a very large country and anywhere you could site a nuclear plant is going to be near a population center in some way(the joke goes "if the ruling party wants it so badly they're free to build it in Putrajaya (the administrative capital, some 30 km away from Kuala Lumpur)". But of course they won't because no one wants to live next to a nuclear plant. ). That does underscore the internationality of the thing though - each and every ASEAN would be affected in some way if any of us had a nuclear accident on this scale. (vietnam of course is building a plant, as in indonesia.)

[PeZook]

That is why some anti-nuclear people say that the best solution is to not have nuclear reactors at all, because with nuclear reactors you are looking at this sort of issues.

With regards to chemical plants and coal - it probably also does matter that there may be no alternatives to those chemicals, but there are alternatives(however weak) to nuclear power generation.

Sometimes not building nuclear reactors is actually a good idea, like for tiny city-states. Sometimes it's not, like for gigantic countries spewing absurd amounts of CO2 per citizen into the atmosphere.

I know the political reality is such that nuclear power is going to die/be put on the sidelines in much of the civilized world. I am strongly opposed to saying it's rational to abandon nuclear power because of that incident, when the alternatives are worse (ie. coal, coal and...more coal. Possibly natural gas.), at lest at current technology levels.

In other words, abandoning nuclear (because of safety and environmental problems) in favor of coal, gas or oil (with all their safety and environmental problems).

[Simon_Jester]

Malaysian, actually. The same argument does apply though - it's not exactly a very large country and anywhere you could site a nuclear plant is going to be near a population center in some way(the joke goes "if the ruling party wants it so badly they're free to build it in Putrajaya (the administrative capital, some 30 km away from Kuala Lumpur)". But of course they won't because no one wants to live next to a nuclear plant. ). That does underscore the internationality of the thing though - each and every ASEAN would be affected in some way if any of us had a nuclear accident on this scale. (vietnam of course is building a plant, as in indonesia.)

Indonesia has a lot more room to work with, depending on where they put it; Vietnam less so, but they're large enough that they can certainly do it. The exclusion zone from a likely nuclear accident, given competent plant design and management, is significant but not huge. A paranoid idiot like AndroAsc can always imagine a bigger disaster, but that shouldn't set the tone of discussion.

As for living near a nuclear plant, I wouldn't particularly mind, but I take your meaning.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Malaysian, actually. The same argument does apply though - it's not exactly a very large country and anywhere you could site a nuclear plant is going to be near a population center in some way(the joke goes "if the ruling party wants it so badly they're free to build it in Putrajaya (the administrative capital, some 30 km away from Kuala Lumpur)". But of course they won't because no one wants to live next to a nuclear plant. ). That does underscore the internationality of the thing though - each and every ASEAN would be affected in some way if any of us had a nuclear accident on this scale. (vietnam of course is building a plant, as in indonesia.)

Indonesia has a lot more room to work with, depending on where they put it; Vietnam less so, but they're large enough that they can certainly do it. The exclusion zone from a likely nuclear accident, given competent plant design and management, is significant but not huge. A paranoid idiot like AndroAsc can always imagine a bigger disaster, but that shouldn't set the tone of discussion.

As for living near a nuclear plant, I wouldn't particularly mind, but I take your meaning.

Not quite. Indonesia is riddled with volcanos and faults throughout the country. It is pretty much on par or at least nearly on par with Japan when it comes to disasters historically.

[Simon_Jester]

It's not disaster hazards, it's physical space I'm talking about. In Indonesia there are places you can put a nuclear plant where if the plant fails and you have a zone rendered unsafe for habitation due to radioactivity, without having to evacuate major cities. In Singapore, this is not true- not enough room.

Ultimately, you can design plants to be extremely resistant to all sorts of disasters, including earthquakes and tidal waves. But it's still a good idea to put them in places where the consequences of a nuclear accident are merely bad, not nation-crippling. The larger your country is, the more ways you have of doing this.

[AniThyng]

It's not disaster hazards, it's physical space I'm talking about. In Indonesia there are places you can put a nuclear plant where if the plant fails and you have a zone rendered unsafe for habitation due to radioactivity, without having to evacuate major cities. In Singapore, this is not true- not enough room.

Ultimately, you can design plants to be extremely resistant to all sorts of disasters, including earthquakes and tidal waves. But it's still a good idea to put them in places where the consequences of a nuclear accident are merely bad, not nation-crippling. The larger your country is, the more ways you have of doing this.

There was a comment from someone, I can't remember if it was a local official or a resident in Fukushima that said obviously the plant had been built for Tokyo's benefit, but "it's not an accident that it is 200km from Tokyo".

That being said, now that we're all painfully aware that a nuclear crisis doesn't end just because you managed to SCRAM the reactor, what *does* a nuclear powered warship do if its forced for some reason to do the same to its reactor? Is it entirely possible for otherwise non-fatal combat damage to render it a radioactive hulk?

[PeZook]

Seagoing vessels have the notable advantage of being able to easily and quickly flood reactors with seawater. And yes, it's possible to destroy a ship with damage to the powerplant, though that's hardly nonfatal - conventional ships could also destroy themselves if a shot penetrated into the engine room and damaged something important. They still run on highly pressurized steam produced in gigantic furnaces.

There's few combat scenarios that could damage the nuke plant and not leave the ships a destitute wreck without the reactor contributing, anyway.

[Broomstick]

Some notable nuclear sea-going vessel accidents:

K-19, July 4, 1961 - reactor accident.
USS Thresher, April 9, 1964 deep dive accident, never resurfaced, later found in six pieces on the ocean floor.
USS Scorpion, declared lost on June 5, 1968, cause of sinking unknown, but the wreckage still contains a reactor and two nuclear warheads
K-431, August 10, 1985 - reactor refueling accident.

There are a bunch of others as well. If you've never heard of them, maybe it's because militaries are even better at keeping secrets than private corporations and governments.

[someone_else]

what *does* a nuclear powered warship do if its forced for some reason to do the same to its reactor?

In addition to what others said, nuclear-powered ships also have the capability of sinking and taking the nuclear plant with them in the depths. (which may be acceptable for subs and other smaller ships, not so much for a carrier)

The idea that a history of shoddy regulation and safety standards is an argument against building nuclear plants is very much region-specific: some places have more of a history of this than others.

Italy for example is one of those places where the risk that it will be shobbily built and poorly mantained and manned is too high to make it a sensible choice.

[Pendleton]

Oh, come on. You can say the exact same thing about large chemical plants, since they're operated by for-profit companies and we've had many a fire, explosion, leak and other mishap involving those. One of them killed as many as a quarter million people and maimed another half a million (so, more than all nuclear accidents combined AND the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki)

"The operators are not honest" is not a reason to abandon a technology altogether, it's a reason to rethink your regulatory framework.

This has already been addressed to an extent, but to reiterate, we need to have those chemical plants if we are to have the products that they support. We don't need to have nuclear to power our society. I would go so far as to say that society doesn't need the power it uses now, either, given the huge waste. Before a single penny is spent on nuclear build out, especially now, it would be far more practical to look at efficiency savings first, of which we can make plenty.

Obama has recently been talking up the energy debate in the US, I note. On the cards, yet again, is the reduction of America's oil dependence, mainly by relying more on domestic energy. No one ever seriously expects the president to propose they just raise the CAFE standards in line with every other major economy on Earth, which would save more in oil than you could ever get from the aged fields the US operates. Also, it seems we didn't just forget about TMI and Chernobyl, but also the oil disaster of barely a year ago, which seems to be only the bane of the NOLA residents now it's no longer news.

But of course, you make a perfectly valid point, especially when the Bhopal disaster is looked at, though I would put radioactive contamination higher on the risk ladder than any chemical poison. If Fukushima was a chemical spill, we'd be mopping it up now. You can't mop up a spill that can produce neutron beams.

If we assume operators and government are not going to be honest, and the government regulating them to be in the pockets of the plant operators, how exactly is the IAEA going to enforce its will? War? Embargos?

I'm no regulatory bigwig, so I don't profess to have an answer. However, I would like to see some way to better enforce these recommendations, since it's not a case of just Japan messing up Japan. It affects all of us to some extent, and I very much doubt the local neighbours of ASEAN would disagree with my stance here. There are plenty of contaminant risks in the UK and rest of the EU from Chernobyl still.

In any case, it seems more Putzmeisters are being flown in to the area via Antonov cargo planes. These are some of the world's largest construction machines, holding various records. They can be used for water spraying, but were designed primarily for slurries like concrete. Remember, if TEPCO has moved finally to a more sane approach of putting Fukushima out of its misery, rather than look at the bottom line and how they can salvage two of the six reactors, it's by no means a final solution. Entombment means they have to look after that site for the rest of our lives, their children's lives and probably their's. The costs from producing a sufficiently stable sarcophagus are large, with the Chernobyl refurbishment being over $1.4 bn at last count. As I already mentioned, this is a different situation to Chernobyl, being that Fukushima is a larger site of multiple hot reactors and pools still more or less intact, and in an area prone to tectonic activity and tsunamis.

Lastly, I'm trying to find a report that suggests the reactors did not survive the quakes perfectly intact, unless it's been retracted for being inaccurate.

[Steel]

This has already been addressed to an extent, but to reiterate, we need to have those chemical plants if we are to have the products that they support. We don't need to have nuclear to power our society.

You keep saying this, but you must be deliberately ignoring all the evidence presented to you so far.

For ANY given power output conventional generation guarantees more deaths than nuclear power.

You are saying that large numbers of certain deaths is a preferable alternative to a very small probability of a relatively small area being 'uninhabitable'?

This is to say nothing of the fact that coal power releases more of the dreaded radioactivity into the environment than nuclear power even before we get into the massive environmental problems and carbon emmissions other generation types have.

You can't mop up a spill that can produce neutron beams.

Yes you can, see chernobyl being cleared up by thousands of workers with less protective gear that would be required for a chemical spill.

[Pendleton]

You keep saying this, but you must be deliberately ignoring all the evidence presented to you so far.

For ANY given power output conventional generation guarantees more deaths than nuclear power.

You are saying that large numbers of certain deaths is a preferable alternative to a very small probability of a relatively small area being 'uninhabitable'?

This is to say nothing of the fact that coal power releases more of the dreaded radioactivity into the environment than nuclear power even before we get into the massive environmental problems and carbon emmissions other generation types have.

Can you show me the figures for this, please? Figures for nuclear power deaths from Chernobyl have been rated to over 900,000[1], so I would be interested in seeing how renewables have contributed to a similar number.

Additionally, I do not like the implication that questioning nuclear power equates to being pro-coal (although there are studies showing coal radioactivity pollution is vastly overstated).

Yes you can, see chernobyl being cleared up by thousands of workers with less protective gear that would be required for a chemical spill.

No, you can't. Not while it's producing neutron flux. That's the point.

Chernobyl was not undergoing criticality episodes. Fukushima is, unless someone can explain the isotopic decay profiles produced so far or why neutron beams had been reported over 1.5 km from the plant. Not that this matters when the conventional radiation levels are still far too high to go anywhere near. We're not talking top soil contaminants of low energy, long lived isotopes like Chernobyl. We're talking hot sources, and factored into any clean up is cost, which for a nuclear blowout on this scale, can be significant if contamination remains high.

[1]Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for
People and the Environment, Alexey V. Yablokov, Vassily B.
Nesterenko and Alexey V. Nesterenko, Annals of the New york
Academy of Sciences, vol.1181, 2009.

[Pendleton]

As expected, the problematic containment with the reactors and their decay heat could mean several decades before the cores can be safely removed and disposed of, assuming no further degradation of the containment vessel, RPV and coolant systems currently in place. This is not without precedent, as I have already brought up how decommissioning properly cooled down reactors can take decades done correctly. On top of that, my initial assessment in a concrete cap being a poor decision is confirmed. The decay heat and potential for explosive gas production is simply too high in this situation.

It is worth repeating that, regardless of the overall impact of any radiation or fallout from this site from now on, any further time spent simply maintaining the status quo means less public support for the nuclear industry. This is problematic for Japan given their poor energy resource situation and how nuclear is to remain a large contributor to energy production (note: one cannot attribute nuclear to producing a "secure" in terms of geo-politics, situation, due to the limited mines for fissionable material globally and supply bottlenecks). Right now, the natural disaster is still fresh in the minds of the populace. But what if a year from now, they are still reading of frequent contaminant leaks from Fukushima, or continued vigilant teams of technicians manning the site to ensure no further deterioration? These are issues most people, and certainly not the authorities or mass media, have truly contemplated, at least openly. An oil spill lasting months is one thing. What of a radiation threat lasting decades? This is why, even with future reactors (if they ever come to be) of safer design thresholds come about, such as gas cooled or liquid sodium types, there may be no stomach for their production.

There are now stories circulating reporting on major banks hiring nuclear scientists to allay fears within their staff ranks, for a price, of course.

[Dartzap]

Couldnt see this posted in the last few pages:
Beeb

Radioactive water is leaking into the sea from a 30-centimetre (12-inch) crack in a containment pit at Japan's quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, its operator Tepco has said.

The crack under reactor 2 may be the source of recent radiation in coastal waters, Tepco officials said.

They are preparing to pour concrete into the pit to try to stop the leak.

Japanese PM Naoto Kan has been visiting the area of north-eastern Japan worst affected by last month's tsunami.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director-general of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, told a separate news conference that Tepco was planning to pour concrete into the pit to seal the crack.

"With radiation levels rising in the seawater near the plant, we have been trying to confirm the reason why, and in that context, this could be one source. We're testing samples of water from the pit and from the sea near the plant, and we can't really say for certain until we've studied the results," Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director-general of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said.

[Steel]

[1]Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for
People and the Environment, Alexey V. Yablokov, Vassily B.
Nesterenko and Alexey V. Nesterenko, Annals of the New york
Academy of Sciences, vol.1181, 2009.

I see where the problem is here. Your source is actually a book that has never been peer reviewed, and the authors use very bad statistical methodology to get any vague support their wild claims. It is not a valid source.

Look up in this thread or in the deaths caused by power generation thread in SLaM for sources on the actual deaths caused by various power sources and events. For example, the actual number of people known or suspected to have been killed by Chernobyl so far is about 60. The total predicted deaths is 4-5000.

Renewables have high death figures as you need to build ridiculous quantities of them to get any power at all and construction (and maintenancce) is one of the most hazardous jobs. But due to the fact that falling off a roof or mining for materials to make solar panels is mundane means that hubdreds of times as many people can die before anyone cares.

That and for say hydro, the 'uninhabitable zone' is vastly larger than for a nuclear plant (and present every day the dam exists, not just after the the nuclear plant fails) if we set the same threshold of risk, as if the dam breaks you can flood a vast area killing hundreds of thousands(eg Banquio).