No, one couldn't. Chernobyl was a perfect storm of negligence and incompetence and still killed less than 60 people, including fallout cancer deaths. Nuclear reactors are not bombs.
I'm all for nuclear but let's be honest here, many more people died prematurely because of Chernobyl, the nuclear cloud were all over Europe, the thousands of people who were on site to contain the disaster got very high doses of radiation too.
> In the published estimates below, studies have utilised a methodology termed the 'linear no-threshold model'
The numbers already round to 0 when compared to pretty much any other industrial process we undertake. Then on top of that the model used is the LNT. That model needs extraordinary evidence to support its wild assumptions. I haven't been able to find a source for that evidence yet.
LNT is a paranoid model. Under the LNT, building with granite is killing people through increased radiation. The airplane industry has probably killed more people with radiation under the LNT model than Chernobyl has. We have yet to picket airports for their radiation risk.
The unproovable deaths from Chernobyl may as well be ignored. We don't count that sort of statistical hypothesizing for any other anything that is comparable to building a power plant.
> While there is rough agreement that a total of either 31 or 54 people died from blast trauma or Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS) as a direct result of the Chernobyl disaster (see § Differing direct, short-term death toll counts), there is considerable debate concerning the accurate number of deaths due to the disaster's long-term health effects, with estimates ranging from 4,000 (per the 2005 and 2006 conclusions of a joint consortium of the United Nations and the governments of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia), to no fewer than 93,000 (per the conflicting conclusions of various scientific, health, environmental, and survivors' organizations).
More like "up to 4000" in a population that would have had millions of cancer deaths says the UN scientist group (like IPCC but for Chernobyl) and nearly 1,000,000 says one whack-job who anti-nukes picked up and pointed at for years.
Nope. It was 60 from short-term ARS, plus "up to 4000" early cancer fatalities over the decades in a population where a few million would get natural cancers anyway. [1]
If you're going to say stuff, please provide credible references. There are some whackjob studies that say 1000000 died from Chernobyl, but they've been discredited by the scientists of the UN working groups. Even Greenpeace doesn't believe that number. UNSCEAR is the Chernobyl equivalent of today's IPCC for climate change.
Questioning one's credulity without any factual basis to discredit the argument at hand is a form of ad hominem attack. I've noticed these are common when the topic of nukes comes up. Everyone who disputes any industry claim is labeled an idiot, a whacko, etc. Not a great debate technique, IMHO.
That's exactly what the climate change deniers say about the IPCC studies. In this case, I am quoting UN groups of scientists and you are throwing up wired articles. There is some level of respect for scientific consensus that we need to have. Certainly, skepticism must be considered, but people who keep throwing up fringe skeptical articles on highly politicized information eventually appear to be lacking good faith.
You have to understand that pro-nuclear people are lambasted with popular culture that's highly anti-nuclear. Simpsons, MacGyver, Captain planet, HBO, Peter Paul and Mary wishing we had more wood stoves, everything. You can see why we might be a little more sensitive to misinformation. We have more work to do to get the science out there.
And I would say that those of us who are equally well informed and still opposed (ie: Arnie Gunderson) also have more work to do to get the truth out there. It's good to live in a place where we have that option.
The fact is that the nuclear industry is dying out all over the world. It's not a fact they want to admit, but still a fact, regardless.
Accidents of the Fukushima level are only ok if they don't affect where you live. Fear of such an event is not irrational, with most of today's plants approaching or exceeding their design lifespans.
Global warming affects everyone regardless of where we live. That's a much bigger existential threat than nuclear accidents. More environmentalists are starting to understand this.
Lots of nukes getting built outside the USA. In USA economics of cheap natural gas are causing closures. This is stupid and should be adjusted by counting carbon as an externality in the market.
