Nuclear plant accidents have happened tho. Remember Fukushima? It was 13 years ago, not that long. It didn’t strait up explode like a nuclear bomb, and neither did Chernobyl, but still; contamination is a pretty big deal. You can argue that the risk isn’t that bad or that fossil energy plants also have risks; but you can’t just dismiss it as a superstition.
You get much more radiation and excess deaths from Coal and Natural gas plants than Fukushima and Chernobyl, it’s just that it’s not as obvious as it happens slowly over time.
In fact there are more deaths caused by wind energy sources than nuclear energy sources.
There was still 164,000 people who needed to evacuate 230 square miles. The land is contaminated and cleanup is proving difficult. Japan will be dealing with the environmental impact for a century I’d wager.
This one says, now it’s only 27 square kilometers ( fuck your stupid ass miles) https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/14/asia/japan-fukushima-katsurao-village-return-intl-hnk/index.html
And this is from 2022
Look up fly ash storage ponds. That’s just normal coal usage. Then look up fly ash spills. Then look up how much radioactive material is released into the atmosphere each year from burning coal. Compare that to the estimated amounts of radioactive material released into the environment from all the nuclear plant accidents, and tell me we still wouldn’t be better off switching all coal off and using nuclear.
Now, we don’t really have to do that, because we have other options now. But we definitely should have used more nuclear 50 years ago, just for the reduced cost of human lives.
Fukushima? It was 13 years ago, not that long. It didn’t strait up explode like a nuclear bomb, and neither did Chernobyl, but still;
fukushima was a BWR design, put on the coast of a place known for having tsunamis, and wasn’t properly equipped with emergency generators (they flooded, oopsies) which they couldn’t get to, in order to service the reactor, due to the roads being fucking yeeted.
Literally any other plant on earth is going to have a better outcome.