alt Hacker NewsEvery time I see something interesting about nuclear power, comments like this pop up. Which makes me skittish.
We need responsible growth. We need to acknowledge that there is no magic bullet for power generation, just managed risks. We need to acknowledge that those risks exist for all power sources, to varying degrees, and take different forms (whether it is the environmental impact or reliability of the power grid).
I was being a little flippant there - but I think we've gone way too far in the "nuclear is risky" direction, largely because of Chernobyl, which was a) a very specific disaster caused by a perfect storm of bad decisions and bad luck and b) not that deadly. In the US about as many people die every year due to coal pollution as have yet (or will ever) die because of Chernobyl. About the same number die in Europe every year because of a lack of AC. Those are just invisible risks that we accept already and we need to start seeing them.