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I agree that would be bad, but fundamentally as humans what we do is take things that are unsafe and make them safe. Hurtling through the air at 1000kph in a metal tube is inherently unsafe. Thanks to engineering, it's literally safer than the drive to the airport - let alone the walk.

If a coal tailings pond unloaded into the Thames you'd have a bad time. If a dam unloaded on Quebec City you'd have a bad time. If the strategic petroleum reserve exploded you'd have a bad time. You'd have unlivable areas, you'd have cancers, the whole deal. That's not a reason not to do something that science tells us we've made safer than - and lower carbon than - any other form of power.

[edit] I could just as easily say: "well what if a plane falls out of the sky for no reason over the parliament buildings" and that would be bad, but I have no idea why it would - similarly I have no idea why the spicy rocks going to town on each other in the reaction chamber of a nuclear reactor would get out. But in both cases empirical evidence, testing and refinement have led us to eliminate the reasons that's ever happened before from operating designs and to add a ton of safety mechanisms to mitigate the risk of unforeseen consequences.




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