Radiation poisoning has a long tail, so it hard to calculate how many were killed by cancer and for how long. It doesn't mean that we easily discard long-term safety when talking about nuclear power.
No one rational wants to discard long-term nuclear safety, much less easily...
My worry is that we have swung collectively towards the very opposite, towards a demand for unrealistical level of one hundred per cent safety, unparalleled in any other modern activity (flights, medicine, construction, food...)
That is fine as long as you are willing to submit to a democratic process in the end.
Choosing your mode of transport is completely up to you as an individual, but power infrastructure is a common good and individual people should not be able to veto projects.
> I have no car, I don't fly on planes, I don't want to have a nuclear station near to me.
Even though you don't fly, a plane can still fall on you.
Wait! Hear me out -- in the entire history of the country, there have been a total of 13 fatalities as a result of accidents in nuclear plants in the U.S.[1], whereas aircraft falling from the sky killed:
* 23 people in Wichita when a B-52 stratofortress crashed into their homes in 1965 [2]
* 22 people died (including 12 children) when an F-86 Sabre crashed into a car and then slammed into an ice cream parlor in Sacramento in 1972 [3]
* 15 died when a DC-9 collided with a Piper mid-air and then slammed into a residential neighborhood in Cerritos, CA in 1986 [5]
* 13 died in 1967 in New Orleans when a DC-8 crashed into a private homes and a motel [6]
* 12 died in Evansville, Indiana when a C-130 crashed into the parking lot of JoJo's restaurant in 1992 [7]
* 10 people in an office building in Chicago in 1920 (but that was a dirigible)[8]
* 9 people on a freeway in Georgia 1977[9]
* 9 people in their homes in Chicago in 1959[10]
* 8 people in their homes in New Orleans in 1982[11]
* 7 people in their homes in New Jersey in 1972[12]
* 7 people in their homes in San Diego in 1978[13]
* 6 people in homes or parks in New York in 1960[14]
* 6 people in Miami in 1960 [15]
* 5 people in their homes in Queens in 2001 [16]
* 5 people in their homes in Minneapolis in 1956 [17]
* 4 people in an apartment building in New Jersey [18]
* 4 people on a bridge in D.C. in 1982 [19]
* 4 people in their homes in San Diego in 2008 [20]
* 4 people in their homes in Yorba Linda in 2019 [21]
* 3 people in a church in the San Fernando Valley in 1957 [22]
* 3 people in their homes in North Hollywood in 1962 [23]
* 3 people (two decapitated by helicopter blades and one crushed by aforementioned helicopter) in Hollywood in 1982 [24]
* 3 people who were attending a flight safety conference died when a cessna crashed into the conference building in Wichita in 2014 [25]
* 3 people in their homes in Gaithersburg, Maryland in 2014 [26]
* 2 people in a house in Minneapolist in 1950 [27]
* 2 people in their house died when a 737 crashed into a residential neighborhood in 1972 [28]
* 2 people in a trailer park died when a DC-10 crashed into them in 1979 [29]
* 2 people in car died when an MD-82 crashed into them in Michigan in 1987 [30]
* 2 people killed when a prop plane crashed into their home in New Jersey in 2013 [31]
And many, many other examples. So you see, not only is nuclear power safer than flying, it's much safer than being on the ground as well!
People in New Orleans still give directions by means of that 1982 crash site (i.e., a guy I wanted to buy a bike from told me, "turn left where the plane had taken out all those houses..."). I had to regretfully inform him that I was a) not alive then and b) did not know where it came down now that everything had been rebuilt.
