back

by worik·10y ago·view on hn ↗
Really this is silly. People who advocate nuclear power do not understand the difference between "risk" and "uncertainty".

"Risk" is where the probabilities of occurrence can be estimated and the consequences predicted.

"Uncertainty" is the set of other things going wrong.

Nuclear risk can be managed: We can contain a nuclear pile, we can design piping to withstand wear and sopply redundancy.

But with a nuclear power station if some thing unforeseen happens to the containment vessel the consequences are ruin and effectively unbounded catastrophe.

A coal burning stations are dirty polluting monstrosities (at their best) but it is all risk.

Not that I am advocating coal, I am not! But nuclear is no replacement. We are much better to do without energy than build nuclear power plants.

But the main incentive for nuclear power is making materials for bombs, IMO