These are difficult questions to answer with any hard data. The number of immediate deaths from nuclear power accidents, including leakage and contamination during fuel processing, probably counts in the low hundreds, including Chernobyl and radiation accidents on-board naval vessels. This is, of course, dwarfed by the number of lives lost by coal miners. The numbers “sickened” are harder to quantify; short-term illness from radiation exposure in the nuclear energy production and fuel processing cycle is probably in the low thousands, which is again several orders of magnitude less than harm done in the mining of coal and petroleum production. Longer-term chronic illnesses are much harder to identify because determining a proximate cause for cancer or other environmentally-influenced illnesses is subject to debate in the most controlled of circumstances.
However, setting aside greenhouse gas production, it is clear that the residual effects of nuclear energy pollution (particularly from the fuel processing cycle and containment failure in the case of a criticality excursions resulting in release of primary radiation or radioactive coolant into the environment) have persistent health effects for a potentially large population. The one major catastrophic excursion accident, the Chernobyl #4, sickened hundreds of people in the immediate vicinity and has had demonstrable long term health effects on much of of Northern Europe, the extent of which is still a subject of research and debate. Whether Chernobyl was a “one in a hundred thousand” event (as claimed by some) or less, the fact is that it was and continues to pose a very serious hazard. Similar accidents or near-accidents that had the same potential for contamination and hazard (such as the Windscale fire) are numerous, so even if the specific errors or defects that resulted in the excursion on Chernobyl #4 are addressed, there is still the possibility of a similar accident occurring elsewhere, especially in older or poorly maintained nuclear power generating and fuel production facilities. In failure effects and modes criticality analysis (FEMCA) terms, although an accident may have a low probability, should one happen it has the potential for a very high unmitigated criticality.
In general, while the effects of high intensity short term exposure to radiation are fairly well characterized (and have been subject to progressive reduction in “safe” levels as more information is known), the long term effects of persistent low levels are not as well understood, though the more we’ve been able to study it the more pernicious the effects are found to be. So even an escape of low grade radiation into the environment may be a significant public health hazard. Of course, there is also natural radiation hazards, such as radon gas, that the public may be exposed to independent of radioactive pollution from power generation, but long term radiation exposure is an apparently cumulative effect.
This is nothing but irresponsible handwaving and ostriching. Whether safety is “poor” or “good”, the criticality of a catastrophic excursion demands that it be “exceptional”, and the number of accidents and near-accidents in the literature demonstrates that current nuclear safety standards and practices in commercial power production don’t approach that level. (The US Navy has what I would describe as an “exceptional” safety record, owing largely to the almost-fascist and dogmatic safety program imposed by Adm. Hyman Rickover, who had a reputation of enthusiastically breaking the career of line officers who made even the slightest infraction. The (British) Royal Navy followed suit, creating a similar program and culture, whereas the Soviet Navy, clearly, did not, and suffered numerous and infamous catastrophic excursions.)
The problem of dealing with high level solid waste via vitrification is well-matured; dealing with mid-level waste, particularly liquid and gaseous waste from the fuel processing and enrichment cycle, on the other hand, is far from being “[just] political not technical.” The transportation, storage, and reduction or remediation of high and mid-level waste is an area that would need a great deal of work to deal with the increased likelihood of escapage with a much increased nuclear energy production. Increasing nuclear fission power production would also strain the already obsolescent current fuel processing capability to the limit or beyond, which will also result in compromised safety.
The story here isn’t that nuclear power is bad, and certainly it is more desirable with regard to production of greenhouse gases. However, it comes with hazards and costs are not negligible or “just political” in nature. Fission power may be a good supplement to other energy production methods in the near future, but ultimately we want to move onto energy production methods that generate less or no residual radiation, like solar, wind, tidal, and nuclear fusion.
Stranger