Ok sure, I know what you mean, you can't separate out costs. But imagine we could say -- how much would it cost to produce nuclear power that killed as many people yearly as natural gas plants do, per unit of energy produced? Everything on top of that is extra safety. But really, it wouldn't even be expensive to be much safer than that. When you look at the deaths per unit of energy produced, nuclear is right down there with wind and solar: https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy
The reason we still have to run coal and natural gas plants is to cover the times that wind and solar aren't producing. Nuclear is a substitute for coal and natural gas, not wind and solar. Because we're shutting down old nuclear plants and not building new ones, coal plants are still going up in many parts of the world. Even if nuclear was ten times as dangerous, it would still be a net win on safety compared to natural gas and especially coal.
But also, my understanding is that a whole bunch of these deaths were at Chernobyl. From the article I linked:
The deaths from Chernobyl, 35 years ago, were due to unforgivably bad reactor design that we‘ve advanced far beyond now. There were zero deaths from radiation at Three Mile Island or at Fukushima. (The only deaths from the Fukushima disaster were caused by the unnecessary evacuation of 160,000 people, including seniors in nursing homes.)
Did you check out the article from my original comment? It does explain things much better than I can. And about your last point of the sweet spot of safe efficiency -- Jack Devaney, the author of the book that the article is about, is currently partnering with the government of Indonesia to produce nuclear power that's cheaper than coal: https://thorconpower.com/ The website is pretty generous with info, and doesn't set off my bullshit/vaporware detector. Maybe it's already happening.
The reason we still have to run coal and natural gas plants is to cover the times that wind and solar aren't producing. Nuclear is a substitute for coal and natural gas, not wind and solar. Because we're shutting down old nuclear plants and not building new ones, coal plants are still going up in many parts of the world. Even if nuclear was ten times as dangerous, it would still be a net win on safety compared to natural gas and especially coal.
But also, my understanding is that a whole bunch of these deaths were at Chernobyl. From the article I linked:
The deaths from Chernobyl, 35 years ago, were due to unforgivably bad reactor design that we‘ve advanced far beyond now. There were zero deaths from radiation at Three Mile Island or at Fukushima. (The only deaths from the Fukushima disaster were caused by the unnecessary evacuation of 160,000 people, including seniors in nursing homes.)
Did you check out the article from my original comment? It does explain things much better than I can. And about your last point of the sweet spot of safe efficiency -- Jack Devaney, the author of the book that the article is about, is currently partnering with the government of Indonesia to produce nuclear power that's cheaper than coal: https://thorconpower.com/ The website is pretty generous with info, and doesn't set off my bullshit/vaporware detector. Maybe it's already happening.