Nuclear is boring
A new slogan for the renaissance
Everyone tries to make nuclear the cool new thing. What if we tried making it boring?
Per terawatt-hour (TWh) generated, nuclear results in 0.03 deaths. That’s 820 times fewer deaths than from coal.1 Even gas, which burns much cleaner, is just short of 100 times deadlier than nuclear, after accounting for air pollution’s health effects.
Three nuclear accidents shaped the public’s imagination. All three are misunderstood.
Fukushima: No one died from the reactor explosion or the nuclear release. Only one radiation-related death has been reported. The cleanup has gone well, and the natural background radiation in high-altitude places, like Colorado, is now higher than Fukushima’s background radiation.
Three Mile Island: No one died in the reactor failure, nor have radiation-related deaths been found. The other reactor continued operating until 2019, when it closed for economic reasons (and may come back online soon).
Chernobyl: A true disaster that was possible because the Soviet reactor’s design included positive feedback loops that allowed a runaway reaction when combined with operator error. Today’s reactors use negative feedback to shut themselves down in emergencies. Estimates vary, but it’s likely that between 4,000 and 16,000 people died. Every death was preventable.
Yes, nuclear should be safe. More importantly, it already is. Rather than making the next 100 nuclear plants exciting, we need to make them normal. Just another tool in the energy toolbox.
Nuclear is boring.
Death rates include deaths from accidents and air pollution. Note that brown coal is the common name for lignite, a lower energy density and so a more polluting and harmful type of coal than other types of coal.