We do not even have to go as far as killed; injured will suffice[1]. The differences are extremely huge between fossil fuel vs nuclear.

[1] ... and it is on-going. It is happening right now.

We don’t actually do that, at least not in the USA. America’s industrial policy — until Trump — has been (politicians from certain areas of the country excepted) a gradual phaseout of coal and other fossil fuels. It’s taking time because West Virginia produces a lot of coal and their politicians have been assholes about it.

Fukushima, lack of insurance, and lack of waste storage facilities that no one wants to manage.

Not only designed decades ago (which the PWR also was) but the designers also cut corners, ignored its faults and pushed it through politically because it was cheap and the Soviet governments could meet their 5 year targets easier. Early incidents were treated with cover-ups.

"The RBMK was considered by some in the Soviet Union to be already obsolete shortly after the commissioning of Chernobyl unit 1. Aleksandrov and Dollezhal did not investigate further or even deeply understand the problems in the RBMK, and the void coefficient was not analyzed in the manuals for the reactor. Engineers at Chernobyl unit 1 had to create solutions to many of the RBMK's flaws such as a lack of protection against no feedwater supply. Leningrad and Chernobyl units 1 both had partial meltdowns that were treated, alongside other nuclear accidents at power plants, as state secrets and so were unknown even to other workers at those same plants."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RBMK

This. People have phantasm about Chernobyl that are straight out of their imagination, in a fear driven narrative that is very far from the reality. When you look into it, you find that deaths directly linked to the meltdown are contained to people on site and first responders. Even the army of cleaners suffer more from random life risk (alcohol, smoking, cardiovascular diseases, etc...) than anything related to nuclear meltdown induced health issues.

But people are ideologically driven against it, in a quasi-religious way (worse than actual soft religion followers actually). There is no way to properly argue with those people, just like flat earthers, so we get the current sentiment on nuclear.

At least it's changing and those people will go the way of the dinosaurs, I hope.

Defending nuclear by saying coal is worse is kinda weird and comes across as "motivated reasoning". Nobody worth listening to wants more coal.

> was

vs.

> projected

Irrational, perhaps, but also totally understandable and unlikely to change.

People fly but it requires a huge amount of trust to put yourself in someone’s hands like that, where if something goes wrong the results are catastrophic. People have faith in the regulations, they trust that the pilots are well-trained and the planes well-maintained, to the point where the chances of catastrophe are so small it overcomes their natural fears.

The same is true of the nuclear industry. The only thing making nuclear a remotely popular option is the extensive regulation which makes the risk to the consumer so small it outweighs their fears.

And the trouble is that it is up against solar and wind, where the cost is much smaller, and the absolute risk - if you discount people who choose to working to install them - really is very close to 0.

I think this line of thinking comes from a westernized world where all water is controlled.

Many dams have been built around the world not for power generation, but to control flooding. The power generation is a secondary concern.

In aggregate dams have saved far more lives, by managing flood waters.

The great thing in 2025 is that we don’t need either the dam or nuclear risk for our electricity needs.

Just build renewables and storage and the risk for the general public is as close to zero as we can get. The only people involved in accidents are those that chose to work in the industry installing and maintaining the gear.

We should of course continue to focus on work place safety but for the general public the risk of a life changing evacuation, radiation exposure or flood from dam failure does not exist.

I will use the "rabid" replies I got as evidence towards interests of minimizing the scare for nuclear because there's many other interests behind it and I doubt it would get a fair shake. A lot of political and economic interests are known to muddy the truth.

And this isn't the first time this happened, had a few debates before and out of nowhere quite a few people insist going as hard as possible, to no end, to dispel "misinformation", like that is what normal people do. I think you should be ashamed of yourselves for denying the pain and suffering of so many people "for a greater purpose".

>Radiophobia

I do not have this issue, I am not scared of a bit higher radiation, I understand the body can deal with quite a lot (compared to normal background).

I am scared of what could happen when humans and their politics get involved. There's more dangers than proper implementation, there can also be sabotage fears, as recent events have shown. I really don't understand why you'd accuse me of such a thing unless you're trying to smear me, which again...makes your rabid responses rather suspicious.