Scrabbone

“Overall, based on statistical modelling of the radiation doses received by workers and local residents, a total of 4000 deaths will eventually be attributable to the Chernobyl accident”(Pflugbeil, S. (2006). Chernobyl – Looking back to go forwards: the September 2005 IAEA Conference. Medicine, Conflict and Survival, 22(4), 299–309. https://doi.org/10.1080/13623690600945230) “Environmental fallout from the accident affected cropland, forests, rivers, fish and wildlife, and urban centres. In the three countries most affected, nearly 800 000 ha of agricultural land was removed from service, and timber production was halted on nearly 700 000 ha of forest.”(Pflugbeil, S. (2006). Chernobyl – Looking back to go forwards: the September 2005 IAEA Conference. Medicine, Conflict and Survival, 22(4), 299–309. https://doi.org/10.1080/13623690600945230) “Studies have found that exposed populations had anxiety levels twice as high as normal, with a greater incidence of depression and stress symptoms.”(Pflugbeil, S. (2006). Chernobyl – Looking back to go forwards: the September 2005 IAEA Conference. Medicine, Conflict and Survival, 22(4), 299–309. https://doi.org/10.1080/13623690600945230)

I’m sorry but I didn’t have the time to find the values for Fukushima as well. There are a lot of different numbers, but I think these are also validated by the UN and WHO and are pretty informative

In your argument as to when a nuclear power plant kills people, as I see it, you consider the period too short. It may be that few or no one dies from the direct explosion, but the worst thing about the accidents is the immense amount of gamma radiation. Radiation deaths often do not occur immediately, but only after some time. It is therefore difficult to estimate how many deaths are due to radiation from nuclear catastrophes, but to estimate it with one death is definitely too low in my opinion. The number of deaths from nuclear power is certainly not comparable to solar or wind power due to its magnitude.

Firstly you are just picking up on my first point and secondly no one would have been harmed in either disaster if a wind farm had been set up.

In theory, nuclear power generation may be safe. In practice it is not. There were two major catastrophes that killed thousands, first in Chernobyl and then in Fukushima. Fukushima wasn’t that long ago either. In practice, one should not underestimate the irrational greed of managers. There are calculations of how much damage insurance for nuclear power plants would cost. Since the risk, which can be calculated from the damage multiplied by the probability of occurrence, is very high because the damage in an accident would be so incredibly great that companies cannot afford it and always taxpayers have to save them, which shows the risk the taxpayers bear with nuclear power plants. Many nuclear power plants are very old and extremely expensive to maintain. So you would have to build new power plants in order to install the latest safety technology. Incidentally, the new security technology does not help against invaders either, as can be seen in the Ukraine. This super great security technology is enormously expensive. Renewable energy sources are simply unbeatably cheap because you get the energy from the earth and the sun as a gift. It is already the case that countries with many renewable energy sources, such as Denmark, are depressing the European energy market with their cheap electricity, and conventional energy sources are not getting prices that low. Then there is the biggest problem, nuclear waste. Uranium 235 and its fission isotopes are harmless after 1 million years. So the nuclear waste has to be guarded for 1 million years. Labor costs are bigger than money in the world exists and most countries don’t have repositories because it’s impossible to find a safe place for the next 1 million years. From the generated energy one also has to subtract the large amount of energy that is consumed firstly by the enrichment of uranium in gigantic centrifuges and secondly by the creation of uranium in mining. Only vehicles with combustion engines are used for this and the mining itself emits a lot of CO2. In addition, the uranium deposits are not that large given our high energy consumption. That is why India is researching thorium reactors, but none of them are productive yet. I think fusion reactors are a much better way to spend research money. Nuclear power plants need a lot of water for cooling. In view of the climate change, there were big problems in France last year to cool the nuclear power plants because the rivers did not deliver enough water due to little rain. As a result, many power plants had to be shut down and electricity had to be imported at great expense. By importing uranium from abroad, one also becomes extremely dependent on other countries and on their uranium prices. As you can see, given the huge advances in renewable energy sources, I think nuclear power plants are very poor options for generating energy.

I didn’t know that one. Thanks for the laugh

Interesting, I have not had this problem yet