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ceejayoz | on: Ireland shuts last coal plant, becomes 15th coal-free country in Europe (2025)
Somehow that’s an often missed aspect of this. Yeah, ditching coal has a wide array of nice side effects. It has killed many, many more than the world’s nuclear accidents.
nixass | parent | next
Coal probably kills more people in a single day than all nuclear accidents ever combined
brynnbee | root | parent | next
It's worse than that, it's every 3 to 7 hours of fossil fuel pollution roughly equaling the total death toll of all nuclear power accidents in history (around 4000 indirectly, most from cancer resulting from Chernobyl - but there's only around 100 total in a direct way).
wolvoleo | root | parent
Probably but damage from nuclear accidents isn't only measured in deaths. No coal plant accident has caused an exclusion zone for 40 years.
woodruffw | root | parent | next
I think that depends on where you draw the line around the term "coal plant." There have been plenty of coal ash disasters that result in years of exclusion (for purposes of habitation, drinking water, fishing, etc.)[1][2][3][4]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Creek_flood

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_County_coal_slurry_spil...

[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_County_water_crisis

happosai | root | parent | next
Exclusion zones are great for nature:

https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/how-chernobyl-ha...

So The "worst case scenario" for nuclear power is creating a new wildlife park free from human interference.

robotresearcher | root | parent
Nature would enjoy that. The economy not so much, depending on location. Around San Onofre (decommissioned now), a 30 mile Chernobyl-size exclusion zone would cover big chunks of Orange County and San Diego County. The US government recommended a 50 mile exclusion zone around Fukushima. 50 miles would cover southern Los Angeles and millions of people.

So The "worst case scenario" for nuclear power is creating a new wildlife park free from human interference [and emptying out half of Los Angeles]

brynnbee | root | parent | next
If you look at net damage to the planet, fossil fuel burning energy sources kill literally 8 million+ people a year. Coal plants are vastly more radioactive than nuclear plants, and the effects of burning coal will have a vastly outsized share of damage to the planet in the long than nuclear. Its effects are just less concentrated to a single area.
catlifeonmars | root | parent | next
And not all nuclear plants are the same. I don’t think it’s reasonable at all to compare Chernobyl to modern reactor designs, just because they both use the word “nuclear”.

Apso not sure if you are including coal mining, and all of the deaths and negative health outcomes as a result of the industry

wat10000 | root | parent | next
Only because the damage is more diffuse.

Have you ever seen the common medical advice that pregnant women should avoid eating more than a few servings of seafood every week, and avoid certain kinds entirely, because they’re all contaminated with mercury? A huge portion of that mercury comes from burning coal. How’s that for an exclusion zone?

panick21_ | root | parent
Most of the exclusion zone is political nonsense. And overall coal has made much more areas much worse to live in. I rather live in the exclusion zone then next many coal plants.

Also there is a single case that happened from a non-western design. When looking at western countries like France, it shows how incredibly safe the whole industry is end to end.

ben_w | root | parent
Chernobyl's political nonsense was mostly down to the USSR wanting to deny that anything had, or possibly could, go wrong; if anything, the exclusion zone is the opposite of the western nonsense about nuclear power.

It's our unique freedom-themed nonsense, not the Soviet dictatorial-nonsense, which means we have radiation standards strict enough that it's not possible to convert a coal plant into a nuclear plant without first performing a nuclear decontamination process due to all the radioisotopes in the coal.

That said, perhaps that's actually a problem with the coal plants rather than nuclear standards: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-69285-4

> When looking at western countries like France, it shows how incredibly safe the whole industry is end to end.

Relative to coal, absolutely. But don't assume western countries are immune to propaganda on these things, nuclear reactors are there for the spicy atoms, not the price tag or public safety.

sunaookami | parent
Why even make it about nuclears vs coal? Both are bad, both are hazards and both are not green energy.
jodrellblank | root | parent | next
Because coal desposits in the ground have bits of Uranium and Thorium which are radioactive, they get concentrated in coal fly ash, and blow out the chimney in the smoke from a coal power plant, and kill people, they leach into the soil and waterways, and kill people.

That is, nuclear power plants only kill people by radioactivity in the case of an accident. Coal power plants do it in normal operation. As well as coal dust having a PM2.5 dust problem which kills people.

Make it about nuclear vs coal because people say coal is better than nuclear because it's not scary radiation, and it actually is.

> "Both are bad"

Nuclear generates more power from a Kg of fuel, with less CO2 pollution and fewer deaths. It's not bad, but even if it was bad it's not "both sides", it's much less bad.

[yes coal disasters also kill hundreds of people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberfan_disaster ]

ceejayoz | root | parent | next
Because people are petrified of nuclear but fine with coal. The opposite should be true.

I don’t think nuclear is the answer to things. But replacing every ounce of coal used for fuel with nuclear would still be a win.

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catlifeonmars | root | parent | next
What’s wrong with nuclear energy?
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Imustaskforhelp | root | parent
Respectfully, Can you tell me more about it because I genuinely don't know how you think Nuclear energy is bad. It's one of the cleanest forms of energy.

Is there any particular reason why you think Nuclear is bad in all honesty as its worth having a discussion here? Why do you feel Nuclear Energy is a hazard?

I understand if you feel Chernobyl or any event makes it sound dangerous but rather, Please take a look at this data on the number of death rates per unit of electricity production[0]

Oil is roughly 615x more deadly than nuclear. Nuclear, Solar and Wind (the renewables) are all less deadly and are 0.03,0.02 and 0.04 respectively and nuclear is a reliable source of energy source which can be used in actual generation.

Nuclear is very much a green energy. I'd like to hear your opinion about it.

[0]: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...