On the other hand, assuming the industry doesn't completely stagnate, "X was an older and unsafe reactor design in comparison to the newer ones we have today" will always be true.
I'm not worried about another Chernobyl. We've had one already, all reactor designs have been tested over and over again to avoid a repeat. The real risk is in all the small and seemingly insignificant things working together in unexpected ways. There will always be a nonzero chance of an incident, and due to the nature of nuclear reactors the impact of an incident is essentially unlimited.
Think of it like commercial airliners. Are they safe? Yes, absolutely. They are the safest method of travel available. I have zero worry about my safety when stepping on an airplane. But despite the tiny odds airplanes do crash from time to time, simply because there are so many of them.
An airplane crash has a smouldering crater and a few hundred dead as its result. Not great, but not terrible either: as a society we build a monument and move on. Would we still be flying airplanes if - no matter how unlikely - a crash meant that an entire city would become uninhabitable?
Good hypothesis, I would like to believe the general census would be no. Just because the impact of thought of it occurring is more devastating than the pro of flying to destination in one. I wouldn't want to fly even if there was a .1% of failure whereby it could catastrophically destroy many lives.
I don't refute that we couldn't move on. as we can take the result, analyse and not repeat. Learn from it and move on. Next plane crash causes less crater.
However a nuclear implosion you can't move on and nor is it over once it's occurred. How do you move on from a nuclear imposition? Japan and Hiroshima? They're still fighting the aftermath today and that was a nuclear bomb the same significant difference.
But if the reactor is a protected to 99.9% efficiency and that 1% could cause a aftermath that lasts forever, sure you can take the data like the plane crash and ensure it doesn't make the same sized crater but the results of the first are still devastating. Unlike the plane which is now old news.
If nuclear was a requirement and that other sources of energy were a scarcity then it would be different. But where by we have acres of desert we are not researching enough in to how to harness the energy, have oceans where winds blow, water is nearly endless, do we research that on a large scale for data centres?
It doesn't make sense for nuclear. Technically yes, you are making clean energy but at what expense and on a very dirty political basis.
I'm not worried about another Chernobyl. We've had one already, all reactor designs have been tested over and over again to avoid a repeat. The real risk is in all the small and seemingly insignificant things working together in unexpected ways. There will always be a nonzero chance of an incident, and due to the nature of nuclear reactors the impact of an incident is essentially unlimited.
Think of it like commercial airliners. Are they safe? Yes, absolutely. They are the safest method of travel available. I have zero worry about my safety when stepping on an airplane. But despite the tiny odds airplanes do crash from time to time, simply because there are so many of them.
An airplane crash has a smouldering crater and a few hundred dead as its result. Not great, but not terrible either: as a society we build a monument and move on. Would we still be flying airplanes if - no matter how unlikely - a crash meant that an entire city would become uninhabitable?