As is every technological and scientific achievement humankind has ever reached and is relying upon. Replace nuclear reactions with, say, human flight and your statement remains just as valid. I don't see many people crying out for abolishment of planes, though.
I don't see many people crying out for abolishment of planes, though.
I think there's a tiny difference between a plane falling out of the sky and a nuclear reactor melting down. I'm sure you can spot it, too, if you think long and hard.
According to [1] roughly 15k people died in plane accidents over the past decade.
It doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that Chernobyl killed many more than that.
Furthermore a nuke meltdown renders a large area uninhabitable and leaves an economic footprint "slightly" bigger than a few planes coming down every year.
Quote from [2] (page 33):
Coping with the impact of the disaster has placed a huge burden on national
budgets. In Ukraine, 5–7 percent of government spending each year is still
devoted to Chernobyl-related benefits and programmes. In Belarus,
government spending on Chernobyl amounted to 22.3 percent of the
national budget in 1991, declining gradually to 6.1 percent in 2002.
Total spending by Belarus on Chernobyl between 1991 and 2003 is estimated
at more than US $13 billion.
Other Quote (same page):
Belarus, for instance, has estimated the losses over 30 years at US $235
billion.
I looked at your first source, and immediately noticed that the 2001 death toll does not count those who died in the WTC collapse (article states for 2001, 200 accidents, 1534 dead, so it doesn't include ground zero casualties). In order to make an apples-to-apples comparison, you really need to include the deaths of those in the buildings, those in the planes, the rescue workers with respiratory problems, and anyone else exposed to pollutants at ground zero.
After all, we're counting the fallout from Chernobyl, so we have to count the fallout from 9/11. Both are huge, (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime occurrences with massive secondary casualty counts.
And as far as economic costs, I believe you have to address the 9/11 costs.
Yes, I already regret jumping in on the math-game, when the real point I wanted to make was that this is an invalid comparison (apples/oranges) - sorry for that.
Plane crashes are created relatively equal in rate and magnitude.
Nuke crashes are nothing like that. We have only a single datapoint to draw from, and one that in hindsight almost seems like a relatively lucky one.
9/11 was a plane crash that wasn't like any other before it.
Yes, but think of the scales.
How many 9/11's does it take to match a worst-case scenario involving Tokyo (~35 million people)?
When I say "relatively equal" then I mean somewhere between 500 and perhaps a few thousand deaths from a plane crash. Whereas a nuke accident may range from 600k exposed to.. well, let's hope Fukushima gets its act together.
Yes, I am serious. I said the plane falling happens more often, not that it is worse as a singular event.
Unfortunately it is a problem with human psychology that we respond more strongly to a singular large event than to consistent low-level events.
Some of the discussion on this page has suggested Chernobyl killed around 60k, directly and indirectly. Certainly a tragedy, and a huge one at that, but it is also the only major nuclear disaster. The second worst (until we fully understand the current Japanese incident at least) remains Three-mile island, where there are no confirmed deaths I am aware of.
So, we're comparing approx 60k deaths, over the course of approximately 60 years, which works out as about 10k deaths a decade, against aviation accidents of, as you said yourself, approximately 15k a decade.
By those numbers, approximately 50% more people die each year from aviation accidents than from nuclear-power-related injuries. It's just that Chernobyl is a big story, but we hear about plane crashes all the time.
Unfortunately it is a problem with human psychology that we respond more strongly to a singular large event than to consistent low-level events.
I agree with that in general, although my opinion on this particular comparison differs.
we're comparing approx 60k deaths, over the course of approximately 60 years
Sorry to be nitpicking, but I'm not sure where the 60 years are coming from. However, since there's no hard data to rely on I'll even concede that plane accidents may have accounted for the same or slightly more "directly related" deaths in the same timeframe.
But: This is only a single datapoint. And a relatively "lucky" one.
The surrounding area around Chernobyl was sparsely populated and quickly evacuated. This is not representative for the locations of the majority of nuke plants, and certainly not for the Fukushima area.
If we imagine a worst-case scenario in Japan, with Tokyo right around the corner, then the second data-point could already change the equation in a drastic way.
This is why I think analogies to plane-crashes or traffic-accidents are invalid.
I don't see many people crying out for abolishment of planes, though.
But a lot of people, especially those who know anything about planes are always crying out for more safety. Both in mechanical terms, more plane inspections, and in human terms, more rest for pilots.
And I don't think many people here are arguing for the abolishment of nuclear power. That is a straw man.
I think what we all want is the safest possible nuclear power.
And this argument is between the people who willing admit knowing little to nothing and think things can always get worse, versus the people who keep arguing things are peachy and there's no way they can get worse, even as the situation has continued to deteriorate.
I think this boils down to an argument of "Shit happens!" vs. "Nah uh, engineering is magic!"
