by natmaka | 2025-05-24 03:58:00+00:00
>> A "large portion" isn't all

> Setting the bar too high.

The major underlying point is a comparison: renewables vs. nuclear. And on those accounts (effect of a major accident, waste...) renewables are clear winners.

>> The LNT debate isn't settled > up-coming ICRP modernisation

Not sure about this. This "modernisation" is, AFAIK, stagnant ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Commission_on_Ra... ). Moreover quite different hypothesis are more and more widespread ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gofman ).

>> Moreover the dust escaping

> What sort of dust is this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radionuclide

Some escape during a nuclear major accident, and very few want it in the air they breath, the food they eat, the water they drink... Even most of those believing this will cause no harm may prefer clean air, food, water...

>> Fukushima nuclear accident

> In hindsight how many of these people needed to be evacuated?

Nobody knew at the time, and they even considered that evacuating the entire region may be necessary! ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naoto_Kan#Fukushima_nuclear_ac... ).

Moreover even obedient Japaneses may, during a major nuclear accident, not be willing to obey to "please stay and wait!", especially from those who previously said "the nuclear plant is safe, there will be no problem.'.

In any case even magnificent armchairs' experts babbling 'they could and should stay and wait" years after the event cannot change History.

> How many people died from overheating due to a lack of electricity in the years after Fukushima?

This perspective also leads to preferring renewables as the will to shut down nuclear reactors during such accident, for the lack of an immediate full explanation, and also the imperative to do so after discovering some generic defect), all play for renewables.

The pressing (financial) necessity of building reactors in series (of units as identical as possible, in order to reduce unit costs) reduces their heterogeneity and thus the robustness of the fleet, to the point of making a "generic defect" one of the industry's fears, as the discovery of a defect can coerce int shutting down all reactors of the model concerned.

This is what happened in France at the end of 2021 with the shutdowns of N4 reactors due to as recently in France after discovering stress corrosion cracking ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France#Crisis... ) is specific to nuclear. If all the reactors in the fleet were N4, they would all have been shut down!

During and shortly after the major nuclear accident at Fukushima, all other nuclear reactors in Japan were shut down as a precaution and remained so for years. Most of them are still down in 2025, some claim that they are restarting but, 14 years after the accident, the hard facts are clear: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-nuclear... , reflecting the lack of enthusiasm of the population.

Let's check the trend. Share of produced electricity in Japan:

2011: 75% fossil fuels, 15% nuclear, 10% renewables

2024: 68% , 8.3% , 23%

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/elec-mix-bar?time=2011&co...

Wind, solar... sources do not pose such a threat because they cannot trigger a catastrophe, so discovering a problem does not mean shutting down all units of the type in question. The heterogeneity of renewable source types (solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, etc.), that of equipment manufacturers and models (wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, etc.), as well as the unit sizes of the latter, which are smaller than those of a nuclear reactor, and their geographical dispersion, increase the robustness of the renewable energy fleet: the probability that a large part of the fleet will break down, develop a fault, produce nothing, etc., is minimal.

No lack of electricity => nobody dies due to the lack of electricity.