The reason to be against nuclear energy is quite simple - human error.

Unlike flying, we’ve not shown nuclear energy to be sufficiently idiot-proof for many people to be comfortable with it. That and the fact that radiation is invisible, which makes it somehow almost paranormal.

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dijit 3 days ago | parent [-]

The main problem of course is that coal is killing much more people than any nuclear disaster ever did (per unit of energy delivered).

But because it’s so spread and so normalised and not so bombastic, we don’t even consider it.

The number of lives saved by using nuclear energy is easily in the tens of thousands even with disasters like Chernobyl.

Although of course it has to be stated that the USSR moved to heaven and earth to solve the problem… and if they hadn’t, then the entire continent might be dead today.

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nilslindemann 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

And brown bears are less dangerous than cars because fewer people are killed by them. If you see a car, RUN. They are dangerous. Brown bears, not so much. Go ahead, pat their fur, statistically this is safe.

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dijit 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

It’s important to understand the qualifier per unit of energy.

The correct parable for you would have been the number of bear deaths vs interactions with bears weighed against number of car deaths vs interactions with cars.

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nilslindemann 2 days ago | parent [-]

You mean, number of deaths per incident? Yeah, that makes sense.

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fl7305 a day ago | parent [-]

With that logic, we should put 100.00% of all public funding into protecting us against world ending asteroids.

	▲	1718627440 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		One day we might wish we did.

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fl7305 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not apples to apples.

Just being near a potentially aggressive bear is a bad situation.

Being near a car or a nuclear power plant is not a bad siuation.

Of course you should run in the other direction if you're close to a potentially aggressive bear.

Same thing if you're in the path of an out of control car, or near a nuclear power plant accident.

But you've got to separate the "probability of bad situation occurring" from the "severity of the bad situation when it does occur".

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mbs159 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You generally can't really pet a wild brown bear, since they are not interested in humans and would avoid you. You can't run away from it either, since it can outrun you easily

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fl7305 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

By your logic, it's wrong to spend many billions per year on traffic safety. It should go into bear safety instead.

"Average deaths per TWh produced" is a good yardstick to me.

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mensetmanusman 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

This analogy is probably wrong.

	▲	nilslindemann 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		No. You just have an irrational fear of brown bears.

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2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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