Frankly, I have heard that argument many times. I know other fuel sources cause deaths too. Gas tanks can explode, fossil fuels exhaust gasses can be poisonous, oil can leak into the sea, and so on.
And still I'd rather be exposed to all of those risks than worry about one nuclear explosion. As I said, the consequences can be just too horrible, for too many people.
I'd love to move on from fossil fuels to something else, but not something that can cause such disasters.
Any production of electricity is going to result in deaths. It is simply the nature of the immense scale modern society operates on. Coal power plants release pollutants that shorten the lives of tens of thousands of people a year. Coal mining kills thousands and devastates environments. Have you seen the picture of mountains that were leveled for coal in West Virginia?
Most of the mercury in fish originates from coal-burning power plants. [1]
Do you fly? A single airliner accident can kill hundreds at a time, but cars kill many more people a year. Somehow it's more acceptable for people to die one or two at a time in great numbers.
You have the full right to disagree with me; I voiced my post as my personal opinion. But you're very rude to say my mind is clouded. I simply don't like large downside risks.
No matter how you compute statistics, a nuclear meltdown is a big downside risk. It can happen, and if it happens it's extremely destructive. It's an event with a small chance of occurence but with great consequences.
That's qualitatively different from something like traffic accidents. The chances of those happening are much higher, but if they happen, they affect at most a few people, They won't turn your city into a 'wildlife reserve' for years to come.
Even though the total amount of people that die of traffic accidents is higher, to me it's less scary. The risks are more manageable: you have some degree of control over it (drive safely) and the consequences are visible.
It's not a personal attack and now you're using a strawman argument to deflect my response (I'm not saying you don't have a right to voice a personal opinion, simply that you aren't looking at this objectively). If you read the link I posted you'll see that what you think is a "large downside risk" only seems that way because of a perception fallacy - we believe incidents like nuclear explosions and airplane crashes are much riskier than everyday risks like lung cancer deaths and car accidents.
