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So a true measure needs to combine these factors such as done with travel risk (fatalities per unit distance traveled, for example). By this measure nuclear is not safe. The biggest failure at a conventional plant (say an explosion) would affect at most a thousand or so people. The fact that direct fatalities from nuclear accidents has remained small, proves nothing except we have been moderately lucky until now.
I know nothing about nuclear plant design, (except for the fact that making the world's largest teapots shows the 19th Century mindset of engineers), but there are certain fail-safe things that could be used. Things like gravity are pretty reliable and don't depend on external power.
Human error is usually the cause of failures in most highly engineered systems, and thinking this can be prevented by better procedures is a utopian dream.
Unless there is a design that cannot meltdown or explode under any conditions than nuclear plants should be phased out. Do I think this will happen? No. In fact I think usage will increase. Policies not Politics ---- Daily Landscape
Here is the rub: conventional power plant design needs an external power supply for normal work, to keep up circulation (emergency generators are good enough for just that, emergency shutdown). Gravity might be used, and both the EPR and pebble-bed designs rely on it in case of emergency, but other technical problems come with the basic idea of those solutions. *Traitor*, n. A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.
The average level of radiation in the exclusion zone around Chernobyl is about one-third the level that Finns are exposed to naturally, and less than natural background radiation in parts of Spain and France.
It's a good thing Chernobyl evacuees didn't move to Finland--they would have tripled their dose!
You would expect the incidence of radiologically-induced disease to be high among the Finns, or among populations in Iran, Brazil, India, and China who live on geological formations high in uranium, thorium, or radium. But there is no increase in disease or reduction in life span attributable to the greater radiation these populations receive.
