"So in those cases past experience is a very important input into the decision, even if not perfectly correlated."
Of course it is, which is why modern reactor designs have incorporated safety features based on these accidents and older designs have been retrofitted (with some exceptions that are legitimately concerning). It's entirely true that it is impossible to predict every mode of catastrophic failure, but that does not mean it's impossible to create designs that are resilient to unplanned disasters. No type of power plant can be perfectly safe, but
for assessing practical safety records, in terms of deaths / TWh generated, even estimating conservatively nuclear power is safer than any other source of power (including wind and solar). Some references for this:
Of course it is, which is why modern reactor designs have incorporated safety features based on these accidents and older designs have been retrofitted (with some exceptions that are legitimately concerning). It's entirely true that it is impossible to predict every mode of catastrophic failure, but that does not mean it's impossible to create designs that are resilient to unplanned disasters. No type of power plant can be perfectly safe, but for assessing practical safety records, in terms of deaths / TWh generated, even estimating conservatively nuclear power is safer than any other source of power (including wind and solar). Some references for this:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...
https://ourworldindata.org/what-is-the-safest-form-of-energy
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all...