> A giant earthquake AND a tsunami hits the plant and not a single person is killed

This IS the worst problem with nuclear, a denial complex of the size of Jupiter.

Two workers Kazuhiko Kokubo and Yoshiki Terashima were killed directly by the tsunami, as other >15.000 japanese. At least 20 among the thousands of workers involved where injured by radiation, some where severely burned. Other died by sudden leukemia of course quickly tagged as "non related with Fukushima". 230.000 people can't still return to their homes and live in temporary refuges and are vulnerable to depression. Stress-related illnesses and other maladies had killed about 1,656 people in Fukushima Prefecture since the tsunami. I bet that living in a refuge for years takes a toll to your health.

> For me it reinforced the fact that nuclear energy is one of the most tightly regulated industries in the world in terms of safety.

The one-damned-single-page safety plan of fukushima was all except a good example of "a tighly regulated industry"

This comment taught me that 100,000 people still unable to return to their homes five years later is no big deal...

And if you actually believe that "not a single person killed" bullshit, I got a bridge to sell you. Death from cancer is still death, even if it takes a year or two.

> Death from cancer is still death, even if it takes a year or two.

Yes, but even those are monitored. And the expected increase in cancer deaths over the next several decades due to Fukushima is still modeled to be fewer than 100 people.

I think parent post is downplaying things a bit, but I'd take the risk of 100k people bring displaced by a nuclear accident over 100's of millions of people being displaced by climate change.

I totally agree. But when we have the option to not displace anyone, I prefer that. Nuclear technology is to me at best a transitional technology to fill the gap until solar is ready to take over. And it seems solar kind of is already.

I'm not arguing for taking nuclear reactors offline, but it's not clear to me why we should build new ones if solar is cheaper and cleaner. Of course large scale electricity storage is still an issue for solar, and I can understand solar isn't the best option for cloudy countries, but I do think it's important to look beyond nuclear.

If we can get there with mostly solar, I'd be all for it. I just hope we don't get into a situation of perfection paralysis where we wait so long for the perfect solution that the adequate solution doesn't get implemented and we end up with worse consequences.

Well before the disaster, there was a report that stated that the backup generators would be flooded by a powerful tsunami, and recommended improvements to fix that. TEPCO chose to ignore that report.

This is one of the dangers of a technology that is inherently centralized. It puts control of safety in the hands of a large, uncaring, faceless entity.

For that reason, decentralized technologies like solar are a better choice for where to spend money on energy.