First U.S. nuclear reactor built from scratch in decades enters commercial operation in Georgia::ATLANTA — A new reactor at a nuclear power plant in Georgia has entered commercial operation, becoming the first new American reactor built from scratch in decades.
To be fair we have seen multiple disasters in the past including Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima, which have serious and long lasting effects. I’m not against nuclear power but we can’t pretend the downsides are just made up or blown out of proportion.
Have you ever compared the impact of Fukushima compared to the tsunami that caused it?
Other than that, even if we assume rectors keep being old tech from the 60s, never using newer generations of rectors that can be inherently safe: Who cares about a bit of contaminated area, very localized, every few dozen years, when the alternative is a global climate crisis?
More people died in the evacuation of Fukushima than died fighting the meltdown, which was arguably 0.
However, Japanese people are very anti-nuclear so their media made it seem that the impact was horrific when, aside from the exclusion zone, wasn’t all THAT bad. However, losing that land was a big hit to a small country.
They are sort of blown out of proportion when you take into account modern safety protocols.
Chernobyl and three mile island were user error, fukushima was force majeure.
Since then they’ve been piloted widely. France has about 50 reactors and a laundry list of smaller errors that we’ve since learned from.