this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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Completely harmless? C'mon.
There have been three accidents related to nuclear power generation, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukashima. There were a total of 33 deaths attributed to those three incidents (32 from Chernobyl and 1 from Fukashima.)
There are 58 deaths per terawatt-hour attributed to coal alone, mostly due to air pollution.
I'd say that nuclear power is very close to completely harmless in comparison. Certainly in contrast to its perception among the general public.
The death toll from Chernobyl is debated, but way higher than 30.. More like several or tens of thousands. Especially since you compare with air pollution deaths from coal.
Just shows how terribly it was built, I hope we learned since then
It's like saying airplanes are completely harmless. Compared to cars sure, you are much less likely to die in one, but it isn't a nill chance.
You're right, but it's all relative and almost anything could kill you. Eg, vaccines are also a fantastic answer to the title question. They undeniably save lives and are extremely safe. But they can still kill you in very, very, very rare cases. I'm not sure any answer to this thread could have a nil chance. Even the video games answer, there's been people who got so addicted to video games that they played them till they dropped dead (but that's obviously an utter insane extreme and obviously video games are very, very safe).