alt Hacker NewsI think Fukushima rather than Chernobyl looms over us as a more realistic disaster that could happen again.
When you look at the data though, its political fallout was much worse than the actual toll on human life, etc. Fukushima released a small about of radiation into the environment. But modern reactors don’t have the same runaway reactivity flaws that Chernobyl did.
Not zero risk. But not the level of risk resulting in half a continent potentially being uninhabitable.
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Would Chernobyl have realistically made half a continent uninhabitable had the Soviets not taken all measures to contain it? Or is it more worse case fear mongering nuclear has always had, while oil tankers s[ill into oceans, pipelines leak into national parks, people die from polluted air, and climate change continues to grow worse?
Fukushima was the result of the biggest earthquake in 1000+ years of Japanese history occurring where the resulting tsunami knocked out the backup generators at the plant.
Such an extreme set of outlier events could happen again, of course, but it's not very realistic.