That's too risk myopic a position for my taste. I like to compare it against impacts in other sectors. For example oil has a massive problem with leaks. There's on average 2 events per year (not including COVID 2020) that spill more than 700 metric tons. Valdez was 34k metric tons. Deepwater Horizon was ~200k, Castillo de Bellver was also in that range.
Burning coal releases ash into the air that is 100x more radioactive than nuclear waste (the byproduct of fission)!
By comparison, nuclear energy has had 3 notable accidents in 42 years with only one actually ending up to have any serious consequences. Waste is pretty straightforward to clean up & the byproducts can be repurposed into more fuel once the technology starts to roll out.
While I agree it's a scary technology because of its history, it's comparative safety seems significantly higher. To the point where the question is "why are we building any fossil fuel plants" (i.e. new plants under construction) but for some reason that always to get hijacked to "we should wait for renewables". I'd much rather have a nuclear power plant today (with all its challenges) coming online rather than anything using a comparative amount of fossil fuels & hoping to replace it with renewables later. One in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Burning coal releases ash into the air that is 100x more radioactive than nuclear waste (the byproduct of fission)!
By comparison, nuclear energy has had 3 notable accidents in 42 years with only one actually ending up to have any serious consequences. Waste is pretty straightforward to clean up & the byproducts can be repurposed into more fuel once the technology starts to roll out.
While I agree it's a scary technology because of its history, it's comparative safety seems significantly higher. To the point where the question is "why are we building any fossil fuel plants" (i.e. new plants under construction) but for some reason that always to get hijacked to "we should wait for renewables". I'd much rather have a nuclear power plant today (with all its challenges) coming online rather than anything using a comparative amount of fossil fuels & hoping to replace it with renewables later. One in the hand is worth two in the bush.