Can you say what effect you want comparison with? For example, acid rain has created huge problems in watersheds far away from the original power plants.
I'm talking about a sudden catastrophic global effect. To some extent we got lucky with Chernobyl and it was contained, have yet to see with Fukushima.
You lost me, how can a nuclear power plant create a catastrophic global effect? As far as I can tell there isn't any way for Chernobyl to have been worse than it was but would love to hear your thoughts. Email is in my profile.
That's the thing, though. They have many Chernobyls worth of effect over the long term, and will continue to do so. Meanwhile, Chernobyl helped nuclear facilities become far safer.
Surprising that nobody here acknowledges the black swan nature of nuclear power. The comparative average is precisely not the point.
FWIW I once had dinner with an architect of one of the early nuclear plants. They had been lied to about the prospects of a solution to waste disposal and no longer considered it a sensible approach.
Yeah, anytime someone says "once in a million years" and isn't an astronomer I would doubt those numbers. My money would be on "the number we need so people don't freak out".
On the other hand, it's also easy to overstate the magnitude of a disaster. To the best of my knowledge, no one actually died of radiation exposure from the accident (and probably no one will at this point). There are expected to be a number of deaths (somewhere between 15 and 1100) from increased cancer rates in the larger population. I would hope these weren't included in the "one in a million" claim.
