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this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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IIRC Chernobyl amounted to about 46 people dead from the disaster itself, (the Fukushima incident did not kill anyone at the time it occurred IIRC, three mile island didn't kill anyone) and while it did release a lot of radioactive material that did result it more cancers/excess mortality, coal burning releases about ten times more radioactive material than a nuclear reactor (coal has trace amounts of radioactive material in it). So even if we're just comparing the hazards of radiation nuclear is probably the better/cleaner option if there's a robust and quick response after incidents.
Yes coal is indeed very bad and needs go away immediately. But I'm not so sure if coal being bad makes radiation cancers from Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island, Sellafield, etc etc etc not worth caring about.
Some nuclear disasters are a bit overstated honestly. Like Three Mile Island was a tiny amount of radiation. Coal ash releases more radiation regularly. It’s just part of our normal “accepted” energy production and doesn’t get the media focus.
They're definitely worth caring about (and for) but I'd say it's really important to put the dangers of nuclear power in the context of what we're already doing, and it's magnitudes safer. While I feel like we should be pushing for more renewables regardless, at the same time nuclear's still really viable because it doesn't have the availability (renewables are weather dependent) and storage (you can just keep running it on demand) issues.