This is the same problem/argument you have with the argument/perception of planes being unsafe.
In 2022 almost 43000 people died in “motor vehicle traffic crashes”. And yet many believe that Planes are much more dangerous to use than cars because hundreds of people die all at once in a Plane crash.
A Plane crash is automatically a sensation, something that doesn’t happen every day but a car accident happens every day but this isn’t reported as much because it is already a daily routine.
The same goes with the “Coal kills more than nuclear” argument which is even less likely to be grasped by the normal population.
I mean just look at the climate change denier who say “but it is snowing so climate change isn’t real” while at the same time complaining that each summer is so incredibly hot.
All of those things are so incredibly complex that the vast majority can’t understand and outright deny them because they read/heard somewhere that they actually can understand, that it is a hoax. I mean, I wouldn’t count myself to the people that understand climate change but I can understand that it will have a drastic impact on our lives if this goes on.
Apple and oranges. It’s unhealthy and unsafe to live near Chernobyl. It took nearly a decade for people to start moving back to Fukushima Prefecture after decontamination and subsides to lure people back.
The actual cost of a Nuclear disaster is incredibly costly.
It still requires mining, processing and it still produces waste, waste which has to sit at the site of the nuclear reactor or be transported across country to some other temporary site. To my knowledge there is still no permanent disposal site for nuclear waste in the United States.
I’m with you most of the way, but it’s also extremely unhealthy to live near a coal power plant. That’s why they keep building them in or next to neighborhoods where the residents are too poor to be able to effectively sue them for all the cancer and other nasty deaths.
I agree that we need to get away from coal and natural gas. I don’t think Nuclear is the answer though. You’re trading one set of major health and financial problems for another.
Agreed. At CURRENT technology levels, renewable energy is the most cost-effective, creates more and better jobs, can cover 100%+ of the world’s energy needs and is much more reliable and flexible than fossil fuel or nuclear to boot. All that on top of being the only kind that never runs out. Only thing missing is the political will to break with the fossil barons and their cousins the radioactive lordlings to make the transition.
I think it’s worse than that. We humans are inherently selfish and self-preserving.
People who live far away from any coal mines do not feel threatened by coal, because it will not impact them directly (besides fu**ing up the planet, of course, but that’s another issue humans have with big pictures and long term effect correlation to present small scale actions).
But most people can’t tell where a nuclear plant can be built, so it could be close enough to expose them to a risk of disaster?
Therefore: “Nuclear is more dangerous than coal (for my personal case)”
Holding up coal as a strawman argument in support of Nuclear power is a fallacy. Both are massively toxic in different ways. One does not legitimize the other.
Coal has the same yearly death toll and chernobyl’s total death toll. 80,000.
This is the same problem/argument you have with the argument/perception of planes being unsafe.
In 2022 almost 43000 people died in “motor vehicle traffic crashes”. And yet many believe that Planes are much more dangerous to use than cars because hundreds of people die all at once in a Plane crash.
A Plane crash is automatically a sensation, something that doesn’t happen every day but a car accident happens every day but this isn’t reported as much because it is already a daily routine.
The same goes with the “Coal kills more than nuclear” argument which is even less likely to be grasped by the normal population.
I mean just look at the climate change denier who say “but it is snowing so climate change isn’t real” while at the same time complaining that each summer is so incredibly hot.
All of those things are so incredibly complex that the vast majority can’t understand and outright deny them because they read/heard somewhere that they actually can understand, that it is a hoax. I mean, I wouldn’t count myself to the people that understand climate change but I can understand that it will have a drastic impact on our lives if this goes on.
Apple and oranges. It’s unhealthy and unsafe to live near Chernobyl. It took nearly a decade for people to start moving back to Fukushima Prefecture after decontamination and subsides to lure people back.
The actual cost of a Nuclear disaster is incredibly costly.
It still requires mining, processing and it still produces waste, waste which has to sit at the site of the nuclear reactor or be transported across country to some other temporary site. To my knowledge there is still no permanent disposal site for nuclear waste in the United States.
I’m with you most of the way, but it’s also extremely unhealthy to live near a coal power plant. That’s why they keep building them in or next to neighborhoods where the residents are too poor to be able to effectively sue them for all the cancer and other nasty deaths.
I agree that we need to get away from coal and natural gas. I don’t think Nuclear is the answer though. You’re trading one set of major health and financial problems for another.
Agreed. At CURRENT technology levels, renewable energy is the most cost-effective, creates more and better jobs, can cover 100%+ of the world’s energy needs and is much more reliable and flexible than fossil fuel or nuclear to boot. All that on top of being the only kind that never runs out. Only thing missing is the political will to break with the fossil barons and their cousins the radioactive lordlings to make the transition.
I think it’s worse than that. We humans are inherently selfish and self-preserving.
People who live far away from any coal mines do not feel threatened by coal, because it will not impact them directly (besides fu**ing up the planet, of course, but that’s another issue humans have with big pictures and long term effect correlation to present small scale actions).
But most people can’t tell where a nuclear plant can be built, so it could be close enough to expose them to a risk of disaster?
Therefore: “Nuclear is more dangerous than coal (for my personal case)”
Holding up coal as a strawman argument in support of Nuclear power is a fallacy. Both are massively toxic in different ways. One does not legitimize the other.