An Actual Scientist said:

It’s logical to accept some risk if there’s a benefit. Why can’t this same logic be applied to nuclear plants where the risk is much smaller and the likelihood of a real disaster of regional consequence is nill?

Human beings perceive and calculate risk in a very non-linear fashion. This may have been OK in prehistoric times but in the modern world, our perception of risk means we are often unable to evaluate risk properly. Making these decisions are almost entirely about how we absorb and process risk-related information and how we balance this out with rewards and gains.

People tend to base decisions more on vivid personalized detail rather than on information and data. However, when you switch on the television and witness the sorrow of those who’ve lost family members in an accident, your brain is going to fixate on that individual event and exaggerate the chances of a similar accident happening to you. But the point is if something is in the news, you shouldn’t worry about it. A major part of the very definition of news is ’something that hardly ever happens’. Just because TV news covers spectacular accidents but doesn’t cover individual heart attacks doesn’t mean that an individual’s chances of dying of the former are greater.

there have been some spectacular dam failures, but none of them got the same media attention as Chalk River, Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl did, and thus are perceived to be (to our inner Neanderthal) lower-risk events

        DV82XL said:

Yet literally millions world-wide have no issues with living downstream from large hydro dams, which failing, would wash them away to their deaths, like bugs flushed down a toilet.

Indeed, and it’s amazing that there is not nearly the same kind of wholesale opposition, fear, demand for security, claims of terrorist targets and all the other things that come with nuclear energy.

I’m not saying that I’m completely against hydro power, because in many circumstances it does provide excellent cost effective power, and if it’s done right, the enviornmental and safety issues are manageable.

However, if you are looking for a power source that in one fowl swoop and completely without warning can cause a massive local disaster and potentially kill thousands and leave thousands more homeless, hydro is it. It is not even like it has not happened before. Most dam failures occur during flooding or heavy rains, when an overflow or a breach can make a bad situation far worse.

Well engineered, well maintained dams are not prone to failure without warning, but that does not mean it does not on rare occasions happen. A modern, well built, properly designed dam can completely collapse, entirely without warning during otherwise normal conditions and release a localized super-tsunami simply because of an surveyed fault or unexpected changes in ground stability. It does not happen frequently, but it is never 100% assured that it will not happen.

The fact that people don’t panic over this is not necessarily a bad thing. Most understand the risk is small and that the risk of an unexpected sudden failure is even smaller. It’s logical to accept some risk if there’s a benefit. Why can’t this same logic be applied to nuclear plants where the risk is much smaller and the likelihood of a real disaster of regional consequence is nill?

        Mike said:

I also believe that the public is justified in being wary of having a nuclear power plant in their backyard.

Yet literally millions world-wide have no issues with living downstream from large hydro dams, which failing, would wash them away to their deaths, like bugs flushed down a toilet.

        Mike said:

but I’m sure you can agree that if a nuclear power plant did somehow manage to explode, it would kill tens of thousands of people at least.

What the hell are you talking about? I take it from your post you acknowledge that the core explosion at Chernobyl was the result of a heat buildup rather than a runaway nuclear chain reaction in the manner of a nuclear bomb. This is practically the worst thing that can happen to a nuclear plant. If you want to know how bad a nuclear power plant accident could possibly get, look at Chern,obyl. That was it.

There is NO POSSIBILITY of a nuclear power plant exploding like a nuclear bomb. None. Whatsoever. Learn something of the science behind nuclear power lest you make a fool of yourself again.

What I don’t get here is how you connect “Clean” and “Safe” like they’re one and the same. That is certainly not the case. And while I do agree with you that nuclear power is our best option atm, especially since natural gas is so damn expensive, I also believe that the public is justified in being wary of having a nuclear power plant in their backyard. Sure, so far the worst that’s happened was Chernobyl, which was a heat explosion, not nuclear, but I’m sure you can agree that if a nuclear power plant did somehow manage to explode, it would kill tens of thousands of people at least.

        Gordon said:

When the coal hoppers get very low and there’s a lot of crushed coal, there can be a lot of dust kicked up and coal dust in air can produce a surprisingly powerful explosion.

That’s not even limited to coal. Grain mills also used to explode in this fashion.
http://www.mnhs.org/library/tips/history_topics/73washburn.html

And they want “Clean Coal?”

        gmax137 said:

Conn Yankee was a Westinghouse PWR, not a boiling water reactor.

Sorry. I got confused there between CT Yankee and Millstone Unit 1 – Two reactors in CT that really didn’t need to be shut down.

Yeah, I was unaware that they spelled it with a K. It’s considered really kool and phun to spell things with different first letters. It shows how hip U R.

Criticality Incidents in the civilian nuclear industry: 1 – reprocessing, Woods River Junction

Steam explosions, steam pipe breaches or steam scalding – 6 (two different incidents, both at Surry Nuclear, separated by several years. It’s a coincidence that they were all at the same plant)

Reactor malfunctions, civilian – Zero

Reactor malfunctions, military and experimental – 3 in one incident in 1961 (SL-1)

Research and military Criticality Incidents: 6 total deaths, not including the civilian death at Wood’s River Junction.

I am aware of at least three other deaths in the sector that are not related to nuclear incidents. One was during construction when an equipment malfunction caused a bulldozer to slide down a hill and ended up in causing a fatal accident. The other two were similar. I believe one was caused by a gantry crane in a turbine hall and the other was some other similar construction accident.

        Moose said:

“There has never been a death of a worker at a US nuclear power plant due to reactor malfunction or a nuclear accident. “

Uh, sorry. Gotta call you on that one…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SL-1

The SL-1 incident was a military research project so the statement that there have been no nuclear related deaths in the American commercial nuclear industry is true.