What if the Chernobyl disaster never happened? (DO NOT Add potitics to this discussion, or I will report your post))

[Darnok]

Answer is very simple... where are photos and videos made after disaster? With all those drones and cameras today we should have 360 degrees panorama views or some other selfies from site near power plant... unless someone is taking lots of money for nothing.

I read somewhere that EU is paying 800 millions of EUR per year to maintain power plant structure and protect us fro radiation.

[Tex_NL]

12 minutes ago, Darnok said:

Answer is very simple... where are photos and videos made after disaster? With all those drones and cameras today we should have 360 degrees panorama views or some other selfies from site near power plant... unless someone is taking lots of money for nothing.

I read somewhere that EU is paying 800 millions of EUR per year to maintain power plant structure and protect us fro radiation.

Are you just trolling or are you seriously asking for Chernobyl drone/phone footage?
The Chernobyl disaster happened in april '86. There where no camera phones or drones back then. And the soviet government only admitted something had happened a few days after. Footage like what you're asking for simply does not exist.

I don't know your age but I guess you're not that old. And you might not be aware there actually was a time, not that long ago, before cellphones and computers. Just as an example here are the specs of the Apollo Guidance Computer. The one that shot Armstrong to the moon and back.

Invented by	MIT Instrumentation Laboratory
Manufacturer	Raytheon
Introduced	August 1966; 49 years ago
Discontinued	July 1975; 40 years ago
Type	Avionics Guidance Computer
Processor	Discrete IC RTL based
Frequency	2.048 MHz
Memory	16-bit wordlength, 2048 words RAM (magnetic core memory), 36,864 words ROM (core rope memory)
Ports	DSKY, IMU, Hand Controller, Rendezvous Radar (CM), Landing Radar (LM), Telemetry Receiver, Engine Command, Reaction Control System
Power consumption	55W[1]:120
Weight	70 lb (32 kg)
Dimensions	24×12.5×6.5 inches (61×32×17 cm)

2MHz, 32 kilograms and the size of a CRT television. Even the most basic smartphone runs rings around it.

Edited February 13, 2016 by Tex_NL

[Darnok]

7 minutes ago, Tex_NL said:

Are you just trolling or are you seriously asking for Chernobyl drone/phone footage?
The Chernobyl disaster happened in april '86. There where no camera phones or drones back then. And the soviet government only admitted something had happened a few days after. Footage like what you're asking for simply does not exist.

I don't know your age but I guess you're not that old. And you might not be aware there actually was a time, not that long ago, before cellphones and computers.

I was talking about photos and videos made today. Are you aware that today that power plant is draining lots of money? Structures that are build in there should be showed to public.

[Tex_NL]

Posted on youtube half a year ago.
Search for it and you will find it.

 

Edited February 13, 2016 by Tex_NL

[fredinno]

2 hours ago, kunok said:

I said today as 13/02/2016, not as currently, sorry for my english. And that mix is with all the government regulations against renewable energies (seriously guys I can't talk about energy in spain without entering in politics).

All the nuclear plants here are very old, and we can stop all of them tomorrow, there are enough combined cycled plants for all the energy we use.

Yes, and the data I gave you was for 2015. I doubt so much has changed in 1 year.

And if you stop all nuclear power in Spain tomorrow, you will have many angry residents w/o power .

 

2 hours ago, micr0wave said:

In my opinion, digging in waste (nuclear or not, doesn't matter) is the same as closing your eyes and say "I can't see it anymore, it's gone".

Looking away won't solve things.

As others mentioned before, if Chernobyl never happened some other plant would have taken that place (to be honest, there were enough accidents before and after as well as other fountains of constant contamination).

The decrease of nuclear power plants will happen anyway, when the ore concentration falls under a certain level it will not have a positive power output anymore due to the effort that has to be taken for refining the ore into useable levels and all the other things that are involved into higher risk industries.

And putting it under a power plant is better? Ocean dumping is banned, last time I checked.

The Canadian Shield is a good place to dump this stuff- few live there, and it's extremely stable bedrock.

http://www.natureconservancy.ca/en/where-we-work/ontario/our-work/canadian-shield.html

Lest not forget, renewables do major environmental damage too. Even nuclear fusion produces radioactive waste in the form of casket containers.

1 hour ago, RocketSquid said:

1) Coal plants consistently release more radiation than a functioning nuclear plant. A 1000-MW plant dumps 5.2 (metric) tons of uranium into the atmosphere per year, including approximately 34 kg of U-235. This means that we get over one Chernobyl worth of nuclear fuel release (not one reactorful, and only for fuel) per 177 coal plants per year.

2) Coal, oil, etc will likely run out before uranium does. Also, Uranium holds a lot of energy. A LOT. Also, you can just as easily say that one day we'll run out of silicon for solar panels, or out of steel and concrete for wind turbines and hydroelectric dams (Exaggeration). We have ~90 years of uranium, ~115 years of coal, and ~55 years of oil and natural gas from the reserves we currently have found.

Also, CANDU can run on Thorium. The primary problem is all the light-water reactors out there.

1 hour ago, kemde said:

Even if that's true, a single accident will make an area uninhabitable for decades, spoil the whole foodchain and kill thousands. Up to now i know of three such accidents, i'm sure there are more to come and there were and are probably a whole lot of smaller leaks that don't get in the news.

Nope. People are still living just fine next to the Three Mile Island Plant (which is still partially operational).

And the http://www.pureearth.org/blog/radiation-101-what-is-it-how-much-is-dangerous-and-how-does-fukushima-compare-to-chernobyl/

http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/11547/20141230/fukushima-radiation-to-reach-highest-levels-by-end-of-2015.htm

Fukashima radiation levels are between the levels of "safe" and "attributable to increased cancer risk" and are likely to become habitable again for humans without increased cancer risk in a decade or two - Cesium 137 has a 30.7y half-life.

1 hour ago, Elthy said:

The number of those dying from renewables is even lower...

Or is it really? http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/lachlan-markay/2011/03/17/inconvenient-truth-wind-energy-has-killed-more-americans-nuclear

[kunok]

 

2 minutes ago, fredinno said:

And if you stop all nuclear power in Spain tomorrow, you will have many angry residents w/o power .

No, well maybe we need a week, but seriously, we have so excess generation capability in the combined cycle power that it's doable. It's a somewhat a collateral effect of the huge real estate bubble of here, we had another bubble of combine cycle gas plants.

[Green Baron]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

Nope. People are still living just fine next to the Three Mile Island Plant (which is still partially operational).

And the http://www.pureearth.org/blog/radiation-101-what-is-it-how-much-is-dangerous-and-how-does-fukushima-compare-to-chernobyl/

http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/11547/20141230/fukushima-radiation-to-reach-highest-levels-by-end-of-2015.htm

Fukashima radiation levels are between the levels of "safe" and "attributable to increased cancer risk" and are likely to become habitable again for humans without increased cancer risk in a decade or two - Cesium 137 has a 30.7y half-life.

 

 

Yes, TMI was managed just barely, that was luck among bad luck, the margin was small, the supercritical state was close at hand (minutes) and chances were great that a metropolitan region could have become uninhabitable like Chernobyl. The problem is quite evident here: risks are taken too lightly and that's why i say nuclear desasters will happen again.

 

Yep, that's the typical "calm down everything will be just fine" type of "information". There is other "information" which is probably as worthy/worthless as the above:

http://naturalsociety.com/6000-increase-cancer-rates-fukushima-site/

http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2211716/fukushimas_cancer_epidemic_the_reality_revealed.html

http://enenews.com/times-child-cancers-5000-after-fukushima-disaster

 

A neutral information might be this:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-nuclear-cancer-idUSBRE91R0D420130228

or this:

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/fukushima-anniversary/thyroid-cancer-rates-higher-kids-near-fukushima-nuke-plant-study-n440801

I don't have the time for a thorough research right now.

It will probably take a few decades until we get a reasonable view on the impacts of Fukushima. See e.g. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0959804994902968

Be it as it may, have a nice morning/day/evening, i quit this discussion :-)

 

ps.: Just to make you guys and gals jealous: i live on an island where i can totally rely on the suns radiation for electricity and hot water. The next nuclear power plant is 1500km away.

 

edit: this is not a political statement, the links do not reflect my personal opinion, they are examples of differing statements, well, except for the science link. My personal opinion is this: I see the risks of nuclear (fission) power outbalamce the benefits by far. Fullstop.

Edited February 13, 2016 by kemde

[GeneralVeers]

4 hours ago, Tex_NL said:

If Chernobyl had never happened people would probably be not so irrationally scared of nuclear power.

Before Chernobyl happened, some people were already scared of nuclear power. Others were not.

Now that Chernobyl has happened, some people are still scared of nuclear power. Others are still not.

Short version: nothing's really changed outside of the Chernobyl area.

 

4 hours ago, Tex_NL said:

our best option to fight global warming.

Don't even start.

[pxi]

4 hours ago, Darnok said:

Answer is very simple... where are photos and videos made after disaster? With all those drones and cameras today we should have 360 degrees panorama views or some other selfies from site near power plant... unless someone is taking lots of money for nothing.

I read somewhere that EU is paying 800 millions of EUR per year to maintain power plant structure and protect us fro radiation.

3 hours ago, Darnok said:

I was talking about photos and videos made today. Are you aware that today that power plant is draining lots of money? Structures that are build in there should be showed to public.

If you want videos from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, I highly suggest giving Bionerd23's youtube channel a perusal.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC966ccV08PVAmZRhcC0SU8Q

Below is a video of hers specifically on the New Safe Containment structure.

As for 'someone taking lots of money for nothing', it took years of scientists expressing concern over the state of the sarcophagus (there were holes in it big enough to drive a car through) before the new safe containment project finally got off the ground.

You are aware that it's fairly easy to visit the site as a tourist?  That fact alone would seem to put most conspiracy theories to rest.

Edited February 13, 2016 by pxi

[RocketSquid]

5 hours ago, micr0wave said:

yes, and that might reveal why coal isn't an alternative.

Uranium has to be enriched to be able to be used as fuel in the power plants, once the raw material falls below a certain level you'll have to invest more energy to bring the concentration up to useable levels. There will probably still be enough raw material to build all the panels and windmills when mankind has long vanished since it isn't really used up like fuel gets used, e.g. sand contains silicon and we have lots of it on this planet.

The stated number is based on the amount of U-235, aka reactor fuel. In other words, we have 90 years of fairly high quality uranium ore left.

[PB666]

injecting pototics into the discussion, you do know that you can go back and edit your title and correct misspellings. Chernobyl was a god send, its going to be the largest temperate wildlife refuge in Europe.

As one venerable old woman said, the animals dont scare me, the radiation dont scare me, its the people that scare me.

 

[RocketSquid]

Honestly, I want to see AHRs in use for power generation. Honestly, they're pretty much magic. They can run on natural uranium, or on less than half of a kilogram of U-233 or P-239, meaning they can be powered by the waste from other reactors, and they can handle having their control rods removed in a matter of milliseconds.

[mikegarrison]

It is insulting to put in the title that you intend to police this thread by reporting posts. That's not the way to encourage anyone to join you in a discussion. So I'm not watching your video.

[Guest]

We wouldn't have such amazing memes!

On a serious note:

We would have probably had another disaster similar to it.  It changes a lot of laws and regulations.  It may have been in the USSR, maybe the US.  Either way, another would happen.  Its like asking if the Columbine shootings never happened.  That also changed rules and laws..

[PB666]

3 hours ago, CliftonM said:

We wouldn't have such amazing memes!

On a serious note:

We would have probably had another disaster similar to it.  It changes a lot of laws and regulations.  It may have been in the USSR, maybe the US.  Either way, another would happen.  Its like asking if the Columbine shootings never happened.  That also changed rules and laws..

would have, certainly you haven't forgotten about Fukashima dai-ichi.

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, PB666 said:

would have, certainly you haven't forgotten about Fukashima dai-ichi.

I know, but it would have happened earlier than that, and it wouldn't have been caused by a natural disaster.  Still, good point.

[SomeGuy123]

The question is like asking "what if the Challenger never blew up".

When you analyze real life disasters, they are virtually never caused by "black swan, 1 in a billion" fluke events happening in isolation.  Almost always, there are several causes, and the real risk of the disaster - as a result of a number of consistently made mistakes - was actually high enough that it was inevitable.

The RBMK reactor had a number of faults.  It used graphite as a moderator and was vulnerable to odd phase changes.  It had a design flaw where inserting the control rods would increase reactivity.  It had a positive void coefficient at some power levels.  The safeties could be overriden without requiring physical rewiring of the plant's computers.  The computers were too slow.  The control rod motors were too slow.

And on top of all these faults - making a meltdown a real likelihood - it had no secondary containment.  

So maybe the big disaster would have happened in 1990, or 1996, or some other more recent year.  It was still basically a certainty.

 

Edited February 14, 2016 by SomeGuy123

[Frybert]

You don't learn by not making mistakes.

[SomeGuy123]

20 minutes ago, Frybert said:

You don't learn by not making mistakes.

No, but it helps to isolate your mistakes and not to toy with things that contaminate your living areas without taking appropriate precautions.

I think if humans ever need to do nuclear power on a large scale again, they should build the reactors in remote areas and have trains to get the workers to work (kind of like the tram at the start of Half Life...).  Expect from day 1 for some of the reactor cores to fail, and design them to handle melt downs gracefully.  Have reinforced concrete that can take the heat underneath the core, with channels to send the corium into separate holding areas so no one portion is a critical mass.  Make the whole reactor partially underground so it's easier to bury it.  Put distance between each core so you can avoid the area where a core has failed and continue to operate the rest of the reactors.

And if this is more expensive than solar + wind + natural gas peak plants, well, maybe we should just not use nuclear power at all.

Edited February 14, 2016 by SomeGuy123

[fredinno]

10 hours ago, kunok said:

 

No, well maybe we need a week, but seriously, we have so excess generation capability in the combined cycle power that it's doable. It's a somewhat a collateral effect of the huge real estate bubble of here, we had another bubble of combine cycle gas plants.

 

10 hours ago, kemde said:

 

Yes, TMI was managed just barely, that was luck among bad luck, the margin was small, the supercritical state was close at hand (minutes) and chances were great that a metropolitan region could have become uninhabitable like Chernobyl. The problem is quite evident here: risks are taken too lightly and that's why i say nuclear desasters will happen again.

 

Yep, that's the typical "calm down everything will be just fine" type of "information". There is other "information" which is probably as worthy/worthless as the above:

http://naturalsociety.com/6000-increase-cancer-rates-fukushima-site/

http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2211716/fukushimas_cancer_epidemic_the_reality_revealed.html

http://enenews.com/times-child-cancers-5000-after-fukushima-disaster

 

A neutral information might be this:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-nuclear-cancer-idUSBRE91R0D420130228

or this:

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/fukushima-anniversary/thyroid-cancer-rates-higher-kids-near-fukushima-nuke-plant-study-n440801

I don't have the time for a thorough research right now.

It will probably take a few decades until we get a reasonable view on the impacts of Fukushima. See e.g. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0959804994902968

Be it as it may, have a nice morning/day/evening, i quit this discussion :-)

 

ps.: Just to make you guys and gals jealous: i live on an island where i can totally rely on the suns radiation for electricity and hot water. The next nuclear power plant is 1500km away.

 

edit: this is not a political statement, the links do not reflect my personal opinion, they are examples of differing statements, well, except for the science link. My personal opinion is this: I see the risks of nuclear (fission) power outbalamce the benefits by far. Fullstop.

 

7 hours ago, RocketSquid said:

Honestly, I want to see AHRs in use for power generation. Honestly, they're pretty much magic. They can run on natural uranium, or on less than half of a kilogram of U-233 or P-239, meaning they can be powered by the waste from other reactors, and they can handle having their control rods removed in a matter of milliseconds.

 

6 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

It is insulting to put in the title that you intend to police this thread by reporting posts. That's not the way to encourage anyone to join you in a discussion. So I'm not watching your video.

 

7 minutes ago, SomeGuy123 said:

No, but it helps to isolate your mistakes and not to toy with things that contaminate your living areas.

I think if humans ever need to do nuclear power on a large scale again, they should build the reactors in remote areas and have trains to get the workers to work (kind of like the tram at the start of Half Life...).  Expect from day 1 for some of the reactor cores to fail, and design them to handle melt downs gracefully.  Have reinforced concrete that can take the heat underneath the core, with channels to send the corium into separate holding areas so no one portion is a critical mass.  Make the whole reactor partially underground so it's easier to bury it.  Put distance between each core so you can avoid the area where a core has failed and continue to operate the rest of the reactors.

And if this is more expensive than solar + wind + natural gas peak plants, well, maybe we should just not use nuclear power at all.

http://www.anglesey-today.com/why-are-nuclear-power-stations-built-in-remote-areas.html

Yes, there are, actually, built FAR away from people nowadays, due to NOBODY wanting these- may be a good thing, though. Power plants in general are built away from big cites, as few want power plants near cities (old ones were built closer in though). Things like coal plants are built near mines to make coal transportation costs lower.

 

And renewable are expensive, even after so many years of development, due to one thing: energy density is very low (aside from hydro and geothermal, but those are more location-limited), and you need hundreds of them and lots of land to produce a relatively small amount of power. http://www.windontario.ca/

http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-Center/Nuclear-Statistics/Costs-Fuel,-Operation,-Waste-Disposal-Life-Cycle

Wind: 13.5 cents per kWh

Nuclear: 0.76 cents per kWh

Wind is ~17.8x more expensive than nuclear.

6 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

It is insulting to put in the title that you intend to police this thread by reporting posts. That's not the way to encourage anyone to join you in a discussion. So I'm not watching your video.

...Yeah, I kind of agree- on the other hand, this is a topic that easily goes into politics, which is banned by this forum- and we've had threads locked more than once for that. So we can't really blame Spaception for his harsh no-politics rule.

[Spaceception]

13 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

It is insulting to put in the title that you intend to police this thread by reporting posts. That's not the way to encourage anyone to join you in a discussion. So I'm not watching your video.

Politics aren't allowed in the forums, and I don't want this thread locked.

[micr0wave]

6 hours ago, fredinno said:

http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-Center/Nuclear-Statistics/Costs-Fuel,-Operation,-Waste-Disposal-Life-Cycle

Wind: 13.5 cents per kWh

Nuclear: 0.76 cents per kWh

Wind is ~17.8x more expensive than nuclear.

when the 0.76 cents number comes from the linked article your comparison is wrong.

It says "The average fuel cost at a nuclear power plant in 2014 was 0.76 cents / kWh.", wind (fuel) comes a bit cheaper than that.

 

[fairytalefox]

Guys, I'm afraid not many of us are ready to discuss power generation. It isn't just complicated, it's helluva complicated. Saying "we have wind generators, we can scrap NPPs" is like saying "we have fireworks, let's fly to Alpha Centauri".

First, yeah, the more wind and solar generation you have, the less nuclear power you can use, but at the same time the more peaking generation you need, and peaking generators run mostly on totally non-renewable and ecologically unfriendly hydrocarbons.

Second, energy generation these days is probably the most politicized topic ever, I'm not kidding you; everything they say on TV and other media on this topic is either blatant lies or partial truth (which is an euphemism for "even more dirty form of lie"). Who are "they"? You see them, you know them. No politics on this forum, so Scheherazade's shutting up.

Third, as @SomeGuy123 already mentioned, Chernobyl reactors (RBMK-1000) weren't exactly the most foolproof contraptions possible. Mostly because they were designed in 50's with "quick and dirty" motto in mind. The 1986 incident wasn't the first of it's kind, it was preceded by almost the same, except not catastrophic events on Leningrad NPP. Ironically, the Chernobyl reactor blew up during scheduled stopping sequence; they were stopping it in order to install safety additions, to prevent disasters of exactly this type. So, if it didn't happen that day, it would never happen.

Fourth, digging radioactive waste in isn't wrong at all. Ever heard of lava, that molten rock thing inside this planet? It is hot and molten because inner part of the planet is full of hot isotopes. It's where they belong. So digging in, I mean really deep, is THE solution.

Fifth, that Fukushima reactor performed extremely well during the earthquake. It properly stopped and began cooling. The problem was not with the reactor itself, but with totally not nuclear auxiliary generators. They were damaged by a tsunami a couple of hours after the earthquake. With no energy for proper cooling, the reactor, after some time, did what it did.

The problem is not with reactors being nuclear, the problem is with people being idiots. As always. You see a problem, you look for an idiot who causes it. A rule of a thumb. We should not fight nuclear energy, or terrorism, or drugs, or whatnot. We should fight idiocy and ignorance. When we defeat them, everything will be fine and even better.

[Kerbart]

It’s really easy, but as this forum is filled with people who understand hard core science but not psychology, most do not understand.

• You cannot see, feel, hear or smell radiation
• In large amounts, radiation can kill you
• We have to trust scientists when they tell us that the radiation about powerplants is perfectly safe and hardly exceeds what is in the environment already. Because we cannot see, feel, hear, etc, etc.
• We are also told by scientists that nuclear power plants are absolutely safe, and nothing, nothing, can ever, ever, ever happen
• And yet we have two large areas (Chernobyl and Fukushima) that are unfit for people to live for generations to come, due to radiation contamination resulting from a mishap at a nuclear power plant.

I’m sure if you add up all fatalities dues to gas explosions, reduced life span of air contamination, driving off the road because of the glare of solar panels, getting whacked by the blades of a windmill, etc, you will probably have more fatalities than Chernobyl and Fukushima combined. But that is not how public perception works, and the nuclear industry does not seem to get that.

Don’t get me wrong, I think nuclear energy is the answer to a lot of the energy problems we are facing today. The biggest problem is that the fears the public has are not as irrational as nuclear proponents like to think. Accidents are downplayed, kept silent, understated. Why? If it’s so safe shouldn’t you be blasting “this and this happened, but as usual, nobody was ever remotely in danger, because the system worked. Again.” Instead we hear later about these kinds of incidents instead of when they happen. It’s promising that the nuclear industry itself doesn’t trust its safety features, apparently. For nuclear energy in its current form to be safe, you need to be damn near perfect. And history has proven that you cannot trust that perfection to be there all the time. It’s good enough for statistics; the probability that you will encounter a nuclear disaster in your backyard is basically zero. But look at what happens when the Powerball jackpots hits $500M; “the public” has no understanding of probability. To not take that into account is foolish, and counterproductive. And here we are.

The tragedy will be that when, at one point, there is truly safe nuclear power (Thorium reactors seem the way to go but I have no clue how viable the technology is), it will still have a hard time being accepted as the non-experts don’t know to what extend they can trust the experts when they’re telling it’s “safe.”

Edited February 14, 2016 by Kerbart

[fredinno]

1 hour ago, Kerbart said:

It’s really easy, but as this forum is filled with people who understand hard core science but not psychology, most do not understand.

• You cannot see, feel, hear or smell radiation
• In large amounts, radiation can kill you
• We have to trust scientists when they tell us that the radiation about powerplants is perfectly safe and hardly exceeds what is in the environment already. Because we cannot see, feel, hear, etc, etc.
• We are also told by scientists that nuclear power plants are absolutely safe, and nothing, nothing, can ever, ever, ever happen
• And yet we have two large areas (Chernobyl and Fukushima) that are unfit for people to live for generations to come, due to radiation contamination resulting from a mishap at a nuclear power plant.

I’m sure if you add up all fatalities dues to gas explosions, reduced life span of air contamination, driving off the road because of the glare of solar panels, getting whacked by the blades of a windmill, etc, you will probably have more fatalities than Chernobyl and Fukushima combined. But that is not how public perception works, and the nuclear industry does not seem to get that.

Don’t get me wrong, I think nuclear energy is the answer to a lot of the energy problems we are facing today. The biggest problem is that the fears the public has are not as irrational as nuclear proponents like to think. Accidents are downplayed, kept silent, understated. Why? If it’s so safe shouldn’t you be blasting “this and this happened, but as usual, nobody was ever remotely in danger, because the system worked. Again.” Instead we hear later about these kinds of incidents instead of when they happen. It’s promising that the nuclear industry itself doesn’t trust its safety features, apparently. For nuclear energy in its current form to be safe, you need to be damn near perfect. And history has proven that you cannot trust that perfection to be there all the time. It’s good enough for statistics; the probability that you will encounter a nuclear disaster in your backyard is basically zero. But look at what happens when the Powerball jackpots hits $500M; “the public” has no understanding of probability. To not take that into account is foolish, and counterproductive. And here we are.

The tragedy will be that when, at one point, there is truly safe nuclear power (Thorium reactors seem the way to go but I have no clue how viable the technology is), it will still have a hard time being accepted as the non-experts don’t know to what extend they can trust the experts when they’re telling it’s “safe.”

Only certain Thorium reactors, like LFTR, are fully safe- other things compatible, like CANDU, with Thorium, are still capable of meltdown.

And yeah, people have a fear of nuclear because it's not really easy to understand where the power is obtained- unlike for fossil fuels and renewable, where it's usually very obvious (aside from a few exotic thing like high-altitude wind). Remember, nuclear fission was only discovered in the 40s.

And you can sense radiation when you start vomiting from radiation.

Also, Fukashima is actually habitable, as long as you are willing to have a somewhat increased cancer rate of a few % (actual can depend). A town near Fukishima has recently been declared OK to go back to, after being evacuated. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/11725300/Thousands-of-residents-to-return-home-following-Fukushima-nuclear-disaster.html So, "generations" is far too long- I'd say less than one generation for the areas closest to the plant.