The irony of anti-nuclear protests in the 70's and 80's

The 1960's and 1970's saw the proliferation of nuclear power plants to meet the ever-increasing energy demands of the growing industry and population. It was, in fact, a time when society, especially western society, was moving towards a cleaner and more environmentally friendly direction.

There was always some opposition to nuclear power due to the perceived dangers, but the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 (which caused literally no deaths and no ill effects on either people or the environment) caused this opposition to go into overdrive. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people (especially hippies) organized large protests for years and years. Super-famous celebrities and music bands organized huge events dedicated to anti-nuclear messages. Politicians were pressured from all sides to reduce or even ban nuclear energy.

And, of course, the anti-nuclear protests exploded once again with the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. (The estimated total number of deaths, to this day, directly caused by this disaster is approximately 30 thousand. That's a quite sizeable number. However, consider that on average almost 30 thousand people die worldwide from car accidents every single day. This puts things a bit in perspective.)

These anti-nuclear movements have had a devastating effect on energy production and environmentalism, ironically enough. In the United States, for example, the number of new nuclear plants approved by the government plummeted after the Three Mile Island incident, and completely halted after the Chernobyl disaster for over 30 years (only very recently have a few new plants been approved for construction).

Do you know what kind of power plants were constructed in the United States instead of nuclear plants, to meet the ever-increasing energy demands? Coal power plants. Yes, I'm not even kidding. Coal power plants.

Other big countries, like Germany and Australia, are proud that they don't have any nuclear power plants. Most of their energy (especially Australia) is produced by burning coal instead.

The world was going towards a more environmentally friendly, but the anti-nuclear protests reversed this trend completely.

Do you know what's even more ironic? The pollution caused by coal plants causes orders of magnitude more direct deaths than all nuclear accidents that have ever happened combined. And that's not even counting the more or less indirect deaths caused by the pollution.