this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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There have been 3 fairly dangerous and catastrophic meltdowns rendering partial or whole plants inoperable within 4 decades. These meltdowns have caused long term environmental damage, killed people, etc.
If you're averaging almost a meltdown a decade, and where each time we have been lucky it hasn't been worse, I reject any claims that this is a safe technology that we have under sufficient control for it to make sense, especially when we have such cheaper and less dangerous ways to get the power we need now.
If you're including Chernobyl in that list, it was a hopelessly out-of-date design and the operators basically did everything they could to make it melt down as part of some kind of misbegotten "safety test."
If you're including Fukushima, that one didn't actually kill anyone. Though the tsunami that caused it killed over ten thousand.
Do you happen to know how many people get killed by hydro dams bursting, or by the side effects of coal power plants? Or the environmental degradation caused by the chemicals required for manufacturing solar panels? Nothing's completely safe, but nuclear power happens to be one of the safest by comparison.
Now compare that with the amount of people killed by conventional power generated or how much of the planet was damaged when a spill occured. Bet the numbers don't look so bad when you compare the two. Hell, let's take it a step further and include the cancer causing effects of power generation on the people living in the vicinity of plants.
Nuclear has its problems, but quit spreading FUD.