> but the safety record talk always seems disingenuous
This is WHY I support nuclear, because of their safety record. All the people in all the nuclear accidents (or usage) ever that have died is far less than the yearly death from coal or oil or natural gas. As a death per TWhr it is even lower than solar[0]. So I'm a bit confused by the safety concerns. Having worked with nuclear materials, the reason it is so safe is because the safety levels are set to be much stricter than other energy sources, and by a lot. We've seen coal, fracking, and mining all create zones that won't be habitable for thousands of years.
Now we have reactors that produce thousands of times less waste than previous generation reactors. But you should also consider that the amount of nuclear waste is tiny. Over the last 60 years, the estimated total (radioactive and non-radioactive) waste is estimated to be about 445k tons[1] (324k tons need to be stored). In 2014 the US (just the US) produced 130m (that's million) tons of coal ash[2]. We're talking astronomically big differences in waste size. If we do a basic naive comparison that's coal _in the US_ is producing 18 _thousand_ times as much waste per year than the _global waste_ from nuclear. This is RIDICULOUS.
Saying "nuclear produces more waste and/or more damage to the environment and/or people" just signals one not paying attention to the damage caused by other resources. Sure, nuclear is scary, but the data says it is one of the safest, cleanest, and best sources of energy for our environment. And that's why people get up in arms about it, because the data is there and easy to find. And unfair comparisons are being made left and right.
This is more like saying that there's no consensus about climate change. Sure, there are people that disagree, but it is small. And to quote the wiki you posted (from the opening)
> The book was not peer reviewed by the New York Academy of Sciences.Five reviews were published in the academic press, with four of them considering the book severely flawed and contradictory, and one praising it while noting some shortcomings.
There is no consensus because the authors of the negative reviews are the authors of works heavily criticized in the book.
What you consider as a consensus forms, in fact, a debate.
This is not "some researchers publish, are criticized by the book, then the scientific community condemns the book, forming a consensus".
Nope.
It is in fact "some researchers publish, are criticized by the book, then the criticized researchers try to debunk the book, then the authors of the book answer to them".
One of the critics is Monty Charles. His own work, done for the UNSCEAR (a pro-nuke UN agency) in 2006, is heavily criticized in the book. He then criticized this book.
Another critic was published by Mona Dreicer, who worked for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (another UN pro-nuke agency) and the book criticized her work.
S. Jargin, another author of a negative review, sees flaws in each and every publication criticizing a powerful industry. For example asbestos is in his opinion not a concern and its use unduly prohibited.
This is WHY I support nuclear, because of their safety record. All the people in all the nuclear accidents (or usage) ever that have died is far less than the yearly death from coal or oil or natural gas. As a death per TWhr it is even lower than solar[0]. So I'm a bit confused by the safety concerns. Having worked with nuclear materials, the reason it is so safe is because the safety levels are set to be much stricter than other energy sources, and by a lot. We've seen coal, fracking, and mining all create zones that won't be habitable for thousands of years.
Now we have reactors that produce thousands of times less waste than previous generation reactors. But you should also consider that the amount of nuclear waste is tiny. Over the last 60 years, the estimated total (radioactive and non-radioactive) waste is estimated to be about 445k tons[1] (324k tons need to be stored). In 2014 the US (just the US) produced 130m (that's million) tons of coal ash[2]. We're talking astronomically big differences in waste size. If we do a basic naive comparison that's coal _in the US_ is producing 18 _thousand_ times as much waste per year than the _global waste_ from nuclear. This is RIDICULOUS.
Saying "nuclear produces more waste and/or more damage to the environment and/or people" just signals one not paying attention to the damage caused by other resources. Sure, nuclear is scary, but the data says it is one of the safest, cleanest, and best sources of energy for our environment. And that's why people get up in arms about it, because the data is there and easy to find. And unfair comparisons are being made left and right.
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d...
[1] https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-total-amount-of-nuclear-wa...
[2] https://www.epa.gov/coalash/coal-ash-basics