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At the same time, it is also true that the principal alternative to nuclear power is coal. And coal is an environmental catastrophe all its own. Coal changes our climate. Coal is dug from mines that collapse and kill miners. Coal ash emits more radioactivity than nuclear waste, reports Scientific American. Coal burning accounts for 92 percent of smog-creating nitrogen oxide in our air, 97 percent of the fine particulates we call soot, 100 percent of the toxic mercury.

One way or another, coal is estimated to shorten between 8,000 and 34,000 lives in America every year.

The hazards of coal are less spectacular than the hazards of nuclear, in just the same way that the hazards of driving are less spectacular than the hazards of flying. Our minds seem to be wired to fear rare but spectacular hazards much more than we fear more familiar but more lethal hazards. That tendency explains bad energy policy. It does not excuse it.

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