I do think that with onur current entitlement culture, any such cluster, once identified, will be seen as a magnet for damage seeking parasites, and they will waste no time in identifying a credibly dangerous industrial facility nearby to blame for such cluster - there will always be one, whether a power plant, chemical factory, waste treatment facility or other.

I have a very simple solution to this problem.  All such facilities should be located in upperclass neighbourhoods, gated communities, and the Financial Districts of the industrial metropoles.  Luxury condos should by law be located in clusters around potentially toxic industrial facilities -- golf courses too (of course, most golf courses are already toxic industrial facilities but that is material for a different diary).  That way, if there is significant toxic leakage, those affected will be well able to bear the cost of treatment and mitigation;  their well-known attentiveness to property value and neighbourhood amenity will ensure minute and scrupulous monitoring;  and should injury or illness ensue, at least those who benefit the most handsomely from the industrial entropy game will pay the price of their affluence, instead of shuffling it off willynilly onto lower income people.

In fact, I will promise to withdraw my objections to nuclear power on the day that the following conditions are met:

• every senior engineer, every CEO, every financier, every upper-level manager and honcho involved in a nuke plant project is required to live -- with their families, if any -- within 10 miles downwind of the facility.  their children are required to attend schools w/in 20 miles downwind of the facility.   ditto for any politician who lobbied to approve the facility.

• every senior engineer, CEO, board member, financier, holder of more than X $ of stock [pick a threshold around 1/2 year of wages for the lowest paid plant employee]  in said operation, is required to put in one month of paid time per annum working in the immediate operations of a uranium mine, sharing living quarters, meals, protective gear etc with the miners.  failure to report for this shift punishable by summary dismissal and stripping of assets.

the same should be required for all such operations -- I pick on nukes first because they are the hot topic of this thread.

then we might find out what a "true cost accounting" of the worth of a human life really is, and how safe the investors and rentiers really believe their facility is.  after all, if a chef will not eat in his own restaurant, or a carny barker will not ride on his own ferris wheel, then I would be wary of eating there (or riding on it) myself.

shortly after these laws are passed, mandatory military service for the children of all politicians will be enacted.  and doctors will be required to seek medical treatment for themselves and families at their own hospitals.

most people know enough not to sh*t where they eat, but alas most are all too willing to sh*t where someone else eats.  they shouldn't be allowed to.  localised and decentralised technology brings the "externalities" back inside, where they belong.

The difference between theory and practise in practise ...