I'll take my chances with the nuc.
Worst imaginable nuclear accident just happened. And nobody died.
I'm noting that it was not the "Worst imaginable nuclear accident" by any standard. If the reactor One fuel ponds had been damaged, so that the 30 or 40 years of spent fuel melted/burned, and released radiation into the environment, that would be far worse. If all four reactors had released the spent fuel radiation, that would be far far worse.
That would roughly be the same as 1,200 reactor cores all going into the air, water, onto the fields and cities, not just of Japan at that point, but the entire world would be polluted. From one power plant disaster.
I'll take my chances with the nuc.
The serious problem is that a really bad disaster, with multiple reactors in a row, with decades of fuel rods stored right next to working reactors, the real serious problem is that it can snowball into the kind of thing that can destroy not only an entire country, but also damage the entire world.
It's like the doomsday machine from Strangelove.
I'm not saying that will always be so, but if you look at deaths per KWh, and I can think of no other meaningful standard except perhaps years of life lost per KWh and coal will be worse by either measure than nuclear power.
This assumes that for the rest of human history, no really bad disaster will ever happen with a nuclear power plant. Even with the worst case for oil and coal, (which we all agree are bad), just one disastrous release from a nuclear power plant can dwarf the damage. In a matter of weeks, the entire world can have death raining down from the skies.
And oil too. And if you factor in deaths due to bursting dams, hydropower isn't too safe, either.
I think everybody agrees that dams are a risk. The difference is a dam bursting in China doesn't threaten the northern hemisphere with pollution that will cause a billion deaths from cancer.
And we haven't even discussed the really worse case scenarios. If Fukushima I completely went up in nuclear flames, with fuel ponds breached and the entire plant exploding and burning, all 6 reactors abandoned, the radiation pouring out so bad nobody could get close to it anymore, not even with helicopters to drop water or boron or something, then the snowball effect becomes far worse.
Now we have the 4 working reactors burning and exploding, all 6 reactors fuel ponds burning, melting and releasing radiation.
The zone that can't be entered, even by suicide workers, willing to die, expands quickly to include Fukushima II power plant down the coast. Now there is another power plant abandoned, and it goes up in flames, all it's fuel and reactors in the same situation, no external power, and nobody able to get to the site to try and save them.
Now it's ten reactors, ten fuel ponds full of spent fuel, and it's all going to go into the air or ocean or ground water. Completely out of control. Like Fukushima I after they had to abandon the site due to radiation.
The panic and breakdown of social order, even in a country like Japan, reaches a level nobody has ever imagined. As the clouds of radiation spread, it's possible other power plants will be effected, maybe even abandoned.
Remember, this is all happening the day after the tsunami, with the country already in chaos. (and of course it can get far far worse after that)
Now that is a bad disaster. The kind nobody wants to imagine.
It illustrates why nuclear power poses risks and threats unlike any other technology used to produce electricity.
