> The Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) of the United States demonstrated pretty well what can happen if you shirk safety and that was just manufacturing pesticides.
> There's always that one meteorite.
But we just ignore the meteorite. Nobody has made any attempt to stop either of us being hit by a meteorite. We just let it fall where it may.
We've had safety standards shirked, we've had multiple disasters and the worst case scenario so far appears to be order-of-magnitude equal to a normal year of current practice using fossil fuels. It seems to be well within our tolerance for risk.
The issue here is that progress on one of the most promising sources of energy we have has been blocked and it is hard to find someone who can articulate a reason why, let alone a good reason. Between Germany and Japan we've had countries that appear to be more willing to risk deindustrialisation than just keep on with a perfectly acceptable nuclear status quo. It is madness. It is akin to trying to move civilisation underground to avoid the inevitable meteor strike that is going to wipe out humanity - we can't afford that expensive a risk mitigation and it doesn't seem clear that it would even help.
'We' is doing a great deal of heavy lifting for you there.
South Korea has fast build times, China has 100 reactors planned with 10(?) (IIRC) currently under construction, a large MW scale pilot SMR completed and tested for a year, ground broken for a low GW 2nd gen salt reactor based on the pilot, and plans for a large high GW third gen version waiting on the 2nd gen being completed and bedded in for any modifications to plan.
The economics vary by country and demand, here in Australia there's no economically feasible near term path for nuclear power gen. for a number of good reasons, not the least being the short term return from putting any available money into renewables and batteries - but this is a particular economic constraint setup that differs to other countries.
> There's always that one meteorite.
But we just ignore the meteorite. Nobody has made any attempt to stop either of us being hit by a meteorite. We just let it fall where it may.
We've had safety standards shirked, we've had multiple disasters and the worst case scenario so far appears to be order-of-magnitude equal to a normal year of current practice using fossil fuels. It seems to be well within our tolerance for risk.
The issue here is that progress on one of the most promising sources of energy we have has been blocked and it is hard to find someone who can articulate a reason why, let alone a good reason. Between Germany and Japan we've had countries that appear to be more willing to risk deindustrialisation than just keep on with a perfectly acceptable nuclear status quo. It is madness. It is akin to trying to move civilisation underground to avoid the inevitable meteor strike that is going to wipe out humanity - we can't afford that expensive a risk mitigation and it doesn't seem clear that it would even help.