Imagine if Chernobyl happened in the middle of Europe (it _can_ happen again). Imagine if large parts around it became uninhabitable for hundreds of years.
This risk is not captured by a single deaths/TWh number, so please stop comparing this when debating (current) nuclear energy options (not talking about future designs or even fission-based plants)
The Fukushima disaster nicely demonstrated that there is lots of risk, but the incredible severity of the release at Chernobyl is probably going to be historically unique.
(Fukushima released quite a lot of material, mostly leaking Cesium into groundwater (and then the ocean). Chernobyl released several metric tons of fuel directly into the atmosphere...)
So you're saying the Fukashima incident is completely acceptable? Oh yeah, tons of irradiated ground water is fine because it's leaking into the ocean, what is this 1800s logic? Why do we care about plastic garbage, it's way out in the ocean!
Fukushima took a horrific natural disaster and from memory roughly doubled the economic cost. An area of land has been sterilised, which is not really that scary when you consider 71% of the surface of the earth is ocean and already uninhabitable - we manage fine.
There are massive social costs of displacing ~half a million of people all at once; added about 25% to the displacement caused by the original tsunami. Realistically, the government evacuation was probably the unacceptable part of the story. It was clearly excessively paranoid.
The health impacts of living next to Fukushima for 10 years and though the disaster appear to be less damaging than living in a coal mining region for 10 years.
As an engineer, theoretically I could in my life time screw up a decision and be responsible for killing 10 people. I'd much rather have Fukushima on my conscience.
To put it bluntly; if the situation is assessed without an anti-nuclear lens then yes Fukushima was acceptable. Not completely acceptable, as obviously they could have done better. And this is after scouring the history of the nuclear industry across the entire globe and picking the 2nd worst incident, ever.
No, I said The Fukushima disaster nicely demonstrated that there is lots of risk.
But people should analyze the risk as it exists, not shout about another Chernobyl. That a wealthy, stable nation failed to account for a situation with pretty strong historical evidence is not encouraging. And then there were multiple relatively inexpensive ways that Fukushima could have been better prepared.
> But people should analyze the risk as it exists, not shout about another Chernobyl
Well as you said, there are a lot of consequences and risks even if it's not another Chernobyl.
> And then there were multiple relatively inexpensive ways that Fukushima could have been better prepared.
And this is what it really comes down to. Can nuclear power be made safe? Yes, but typically stupidity, profits, and capitalism take precedence. Again, in the US nearly all operation nuclear power plants are operating past their designed life and have cracks larger than the allowable tolerances. Power plants are expensive to build and profitable to keep running so just like every other capitalist business/plant, you invest barely any money into fixes/repairs, you instead spend money on bending the rules to stay in business longer, and you run it into the ground, typically until failure. At the end of the day the owner of the company can declare bankruptcy, shut down the company, and go on with his life on some island away from any repercussions from the destruction caused.
This risk is not captured by a single deaths/TWh number, so please stop comparing this when debating (current) nuclear energy options (not talking about future designs or even fission-based plants)