Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

The nuclear stans' focus on deaths may not be leading in the direction they want.

The way to account for the cost of deaths is by the "statical value of a human life", a finite quantity that is considered what would be reasonable to spend to avoid one death. The NRC uses a figure of $9 million when evaluating reactor safety systems.

Using that figure, deaths in normal operation contribute negligibly to the cost of energy from nuclear or renewables (but not for coal; there deaths contribute greatly to the real cost.) Because of this, if nuclear stans are focusing on deaths, what they're doing is implying that the $9 M figure is much too low. And that would imply that the NRC is not imposing enough safety systems on nuclear plants. I doubt this last point is one they'd be happy with.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: