I'm not sure that's such a clever analogy. First, because traffic deaths is an issue most places with cars, both due to drunk-driving (obvious failure mode), and other more complex/random failures. And while a drunk driver can (and do) kill a family of careful drivers/a pedestrian -- a nuclear plant failure is more akin to the terrible accidents we've seen with derailed trains carrying crude oil, see eg: http://uk.businessinsider.com/crude-oil-train-derailments-20...
What we do know, is that all current states able to build nuclear reactors, have suffered from incompetence, corruption and other systematic errors when it comes to large contracts. I've seen no evidence that this has changed.
So it would seem that effective disaster mitigation should account for our current reality: We can't store nuclear waste safely, we can't transport it safely, and we can't build nuclear reactors that are safe enough, given the high risk of disasters.
I don't think there are any obvious solutions to world energy supply; higher efficiency, less waste are a given (easy to say, hard to implement). Fundamentally, we need to move away from "thinking oil" -- I don't think highly concentrated liquid fuel traded on a (physical/geographic) global market is part of a sustainable future.
On the other hand, I don't think we'll replace air freight with Zeppelins - so clearly we'll need some kind of combustion. Maybe hydrocarbons created with electricity, or in combination with biofuels - some manner which is more carbon neutral. And in a way that doesn't destroy our food chain. Local transportation in the form of electric trains and cars, in preference to hydrocarbons. The US is a parody of efficient transportation, but I'm not very hopeful for reform. Even in little Norway, car-sharing hasn't been particularly successful -- poor city planning and habit means that people waste time sitting in long traffic jams, one person to a car. There are quite a few areas ripe to be made more effective with existing technology. But if we can't muster the will to kill the idea of one car per adult, I don't see much hope for other areas.
Nuclear power is plenty safe when compared to other sources of power. The 'incompetence, corruption and other systematic errors' apply to all large power projects. Dam failures displace and kill people, coil mines collapse and kill people.
Efficiency can help, and long term I'd love to find even safer sources of energy. However, we need to start building more nuclear power plants to reduce pollution and global warming so we can prevent even bigger catastrophes.
> The 'incompetence, corruption and other systematic errors' apply to all large power projects.
I'm not convinced "large power projects" are a good idea in general. I think many small power projects are a better idea. Depending on the geography, micro hydro-electric can be a great power source, with little ecological impact, and no disastrous failure mode.
What we do know, is that all current states able to build nuclear reactors, have suffered from incompetence, corruption and other systematic errors when it comes to large contracts. I've seen no evidence that this has changed.
So it would seem that effective disaster mitigation should account for our current reality: We can't store nuclear waste safely, we can't transport it safely, and we can't build nuclear reactors that are safe enough, given the high risk of disasters.
I don't think there are any obvious solutions to world energy supply; higher efficiency, less waste are a given (easy to say, hard to implement). Fundamentally, we need to move away from "thinking oil" -- I don't think highly concentrated liquid fuel traded on a (physical/geographic) global market is part of a sustainable future.
On the other hand, I don't think we'll replace air freight with Zeppelins - so clearly we'll need some kind of combustion. Maybe hydrocarbons created with electricity, or in combination with biofuels - some manner which is more carbon neutral. And in a way that doesn't destroy our food chain. Local transportation in the form of electric trains and cars, in preference to hydrocarbons. The US is a parody of efficient transportation, but I'm not very hopeful for reform. Even in little Norway, car-sharing hasn't been particularly successful -- poor city planning and habit means that people waste time sitting in long traffic jams, one person to a car. There are quite a few areas ripe to be made more effective with existing technology. But if we can't muster the will to kill the idea of one car per adult, I don't see much hope for other areas.