That’s the thing with regulation though, it’s easy to point out some positive effects but you don’t know about all of the societal advancement you may have snuffed out. Climate change could have been a footnote if we didn’t effectively regulate nuclear power out of existence in the name of “safety”.
> Climate change could have been a footnote if we didn’t effectively regulate nuclear power out of existence in the name of “safety”.
Even if 100% of global elextricity generation was replaced with nuclear, that wouldn't be true. You'd have to also replace (for instance) 100% of transportation with nuclear. (And that's assuming that the infrastructure construction and maintenance costs of doing all that are carbon neutral, too, and that the reduced demand and price for fossil fuels resulting from that shift doesn't open up new uses that get you back into problems, which—absent aggressive regulation—youd naturally expect it would.) [55% reduction is CO2 is needed, electricity is 27%, transportation 28%.)
Or maybe you are thinking that the absence of nuclear safety regulation would result in enough accidents to reduce the growth of population and industry enough to solve climate change, which I guess is a valid thought, if an extreme example of glass-half-full thinking.
