>Partly I think nuclear triggers a cognitive bias where humans will tolerate ongoing low-level shittiness, but really struggle with large catastrophes, even if the catastrophe is far less damaging than the ongoing low-level damage.
How come hydroelectric dams don't get treated this way? In 2019 a dam in Brazil had a catastrophic failure that cost the lives of 270 people. In 2019! In 1975 a dam failed in China and the death toll is estimated between 80,000 and 240,000.
All of this ignores the ecosystem destruction that building a dam and flooding a valley does. All of that plant life will die and the carbon goes back into the cycle.
Yet I don't see hydroelectric dams getting nearly as much push back from activists. Why?
Hydro disasters have been large, but are tangible/sensible, immediate, and resolve relatively quickly (days for rescue, months for recovery, possibly a few years for rebuilding).
Banqiao is now home to 17 million people (after 40 years, largely achieved within a decade or so). Meantime, Chernobyl still hasn't seen complete containment (after 34 years), and Fukushima hasn't begun initial cleanup (after 9 years). The two nuclear sites will be obligatory nature preserves for centuries, containing still-lethal risks.
The specific failings at Banqiao were virtually all managerial and political, not technical; poor engineering, inadequate safety provisions, underestimated environmental and operational risks, poor contingency planning, unforseen perfect storm (literally), severed communications, insufficient warnings, no community disaster preparation, inadequate rescue and recovery. None of these failures are specific to hydro, all apply to nuclear power, and as non-engineering problems there is no technical fix that makes them go away.
In Banqiao, about 25,000 people died in the immediate innundation. Another 150,000 died in the following weeks of starvation and disease. There's no great mystery as to how such deaths are avoided: floodwaters are mitigated by high ground and evacuation centres; starvation and disease by food, water, and medical stocks; and rescue & recovery by trained teams and equipment. Reestablishment of communications, transport, and utilities is critical.
China at the time was desperately poor, politically dysfunctional, and gambled hugely on risk and lost. Other major hydro disasters tend to share these traits.
As do many regions looking to nuclear power for salvation.
> How come hydroelectric dams don't get treated this way? In 2019 a dam in Brazil had a catastrophic failure that cost the lives of 270 people.
Brumadinho wasn't a hydroelectric dam; it was a dam containing leftovers from iron mining (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brumadinho_dam_disaster for details). Apparently, this kind of dam has a very different design from hydroelectric dams (according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailings_dam, "Unlike water retention dams, a tailings dam is raised in succession throughout the life of the particular mine.").
Hydroelectric dams are huge infrastructure projects, and they're almost impossible to build these days because of political concerns with huge public pushback. France and Finland have built nuclear reactors recently. When was their last hydro dams built?
China got huge pushback from both environmental and human rights organizations with diplomatic tensions. Ethopia is on the brink of war because of their huge hydro project.
How come hydroelectric dams don't get treated this way? In 2019 a dam in Brazil had a catastrophic failure that cost the lives of 270 people. In 2019! In 1975 a dam failed in China and the death toll is estimated between 80,000 and 240,000.
All of this ignores the ecosystem destruction that building a dam and flooding a valley does. All of that plant life will die and the carbon goes back into the cycle.
Yet I don't see hydroelectric dams getting nearly as much push back from activists. Why?