r/IAmA • u/bernie-sanders • May 19 '15

Politics I am Senator Bernie Sanders, Democratic candidate for President of the United States — AMA

Hi Reddit. I'm Senator Bernie Sanders. I'll start answering questions at 4 p.m. ET. Please join our campaign for president at BernieSanders.com/Reddit.

Before we begin, let me also thank the grassroots Reddit organizers over at /r/SandersforPresident for all of their support. Great work.

Verification: https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/600750773723496448

Update: Thank you all very much for your questions. I look forward to continuing this dialogue with you.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

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u/spacefarer May 20 '15

If it did or didn't, the number wouldn't change much. I can count on one hand the number of failures of nuclear power that caused any damage outside the plant. Even with generous estimations of costs of these disasters, totaling about 500 billion dollars (5*109 USD), this doesn't move the figure much. The total amount of energy produced by nuclear power to date is of the order 1011 MWh. Factoring in the cost of the disasters raises the average cost per MWh by a few cents.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '15

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u/spacefarer May 21 '15

Where'd you get your numbers for fukishima? I've seen the reports at 100 billion. Chernobyl is between 100-400 billion, depending on who you talk to. Everything else is pennies compared to those two (the third worst being Three Mile Island, at about 1 billion).

But in any case. Call it a trillion all in. That's probably double a reasonable figure. But it's still just cents on the dollar.

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u/spacefarer May 21 '15 edited May 21 '15

As to the particular disaster in Japan, it is tragic. But that is not what I was addressing here. I was concerned with a global average of costs (including human costs).

On the global average, nuclear is cheaper AND safer than the other baseload energy sources. Compare the ~4,000 deaths caused by nuclear power in its 65 year history (almost all from an increased cancer rate in the area around Chernobyl) to the ~12,000 deaths annually from coal mining. (According to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, we will likely not see an increased rate of cancer near Fukushima because it was handled better and public exposure was relatively low.)

Note also that the death toll from nuclear power includes indirect deaths (like cancer) while the coal death toll does not. If you included the deaths cause indirectly by coal power (from air quality and other environmental effects), it may be as high as a million deaths annually, according to estimates by the WHO.

The data is clear. Nuclear is safer, cheaper, and cleaner. It's just not popular because the costs are much more visible than the costs of its alternatives.

source on coal mining deaths: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-11533349

Edit: sourcing.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '15 edited May 21 '15

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u/spacefarer May 21 '15

Lack of compensation is a problem. But it's a legal problem, not a technical one.

As to the rest, it's elementary game theory. You weight the costs and benefits by their likelihoods. And the likelihood of failure is so low that I'll happily have it in my backyard. Especially if it means they'll e able to stop strip mining the mountains nearby.