It's one of the things I've always stood on is that to date the worst atomic accidents we've seen in commercial power generating reactors beyond minor leaks, mechanical issues and incidents of mishandled materials all occurred on reactor designs that were old or were known to have issues, but risk analysis wasn't followed. Even for Fukushima which was the last major incident we had eleven years ago (and before that it was Chernobyl in 1986 and before that the SL-1 incident 25 years before
that, and that wasn't a commercial reactor) began generating electricity in the 80's and wasn't of any modern "post-chernobyl" regulatory design, besides a few changes to bring it into compliance for existing reactors. Following Three Mile and Chernobyl atomic energy products became one of the most high security and regulated energy systems on the planet. If anything happened it was ammunition for the anti-nuclear crowd that this was something never to be used. Following Fukushima we saw entire countries decide to defuel and accelerate decommissioning of their atomic power stations and convert to considerably less ideal power generating solutions like solar or wind, but even reconsider the use of natural gas and coal to fill the void from removing so much generating capacity from the grid. Were their plants old? Mostly yes. Were they unsafe? No. The public suddenly had their opposition and it went from an asset to a liability with absolutely no scientific reason. It was the sudden mindset that if it happened there, it could happen here too, which is completely baseless and undermines decades of work.
Most opposition runs along with NIMBY and lobbied fearmongering about "what if" in ways that take incidents that happened decades ago and portray as still possible tomorrow. It's powerful because it uses your own mind as a weapon, even if the data being used to come up with what you are imagining is misrepresented or incorrect entirely.
Look at Three Mile Island. It was a total core meltdown due to operator error on a full-scale facility at operating levels. While it did destroy itself it validated the design of then-modern containment systems. The release of radioactivity was trace, the materials that were released have half-lives that have long since cycled many times over and forget direct deaths, there was no longing effects on the local population. Even a president decided to waltz through the plant, proving a point that if there was a problem, he wouldn't be there.
Yet when it happened it was played as a national calamity. People believed it would explode like something from the Nevada test site and millions would die from immediate effects. The damage was not physical. It was mental. With something so large and blown out of proportion it was a wrecking ball organizations like Greenpeace could use and there was nothing that could be disputed.
Nobody wants atomic power because it
could be bad. That's it. It could be bad and as a result everything else is on the table, including prototype technologies that have been in development for decades which still barely prove their viability long term, or are as green as they imply. We've been trying to make Fusion work since the 40's.
Who here remembers the pilot project to generate electricity from the Burnaby trash incinerator? Who remembers how that went nowhere? Last I was out there the steam pipes still exit the west side of the site and run to a neighboring lot but they've long since been capped off.
I say hydroelectric is impractical in BC anymore because Site C took as long as it did to get through the approval process. Solar makes no sense on the coast at least and wind power
might work but we still have not solved its little problem of it being an on-demand source.
Atomic power would be beautiful. Small footprint, high output and proven.
It would just take 20 years to get approved and another ten to complete, now that it's been lobbied to death that
every and all parts of the approval and assembly bust be painstakingly cataloged, reviewed and monitored.
And this is BC. Even to build a bridge it takes a few years of public consultation.