I think when talking about nuclear accidents, there is too much a focus on the actual death rate, but not on the impact of the evacuation area.
For example, if you look at Cattenom Nuclear Power Plant location on a map and create a 80 km radius exclusion zone, Luxembourg, as a country probably ceases to exist. This is not something that could happen with a catastrophic failure of wind turbines or solar panel.
By definition, nuclear plants are near coastal areas or a river, so prone to ocean rising water (or tsunamis), floods or droughts.
This is something that is harder to evaluate than simply a death count.
I believe this is less relevant for the US, where I assume there is enough space left in sparsely populated areas, but in denser areas like in Europe or South East Asia, it seems to be a bigger factor.
It's hard to make a call about when to evacuate in the midst of an accident. I tend to think short-term evacuation in things like Fukushima makes lots of sense. But then let people move back based on science of low-dose radiation. There's a lot of misinformation about radiation and public information. If you say something like: "The dose rate you will get if you stay is thought to take about 10 days off your life, vs. 4000 days if you drink too much booze" people may not evacuate as much.
You could even say: "Fear of radiation is more dangerous than radiation itself"
Just a nit, as petre said the 80km number you use as a radius seems high. Chernobyl was 30km, Fukushima looks to be between 30-40km on it's longest stretch. But even the more realistic 30km number is still more than enough to potentially hit most of southern Luxembourg where all the population is, if that's the way the wind was blowing.
The implication of France having a nuclear accident that causes damage to neighboring Luxembourg is that France is at fault and owes reparation to Luxembourg. Or that France should not be allowed by international law to do something like this that puts Luxembourg at risk.
If that's the case we must also accept the same thinking for the nations affected by climate change against the largest emitters of CO2. Which will put many nations, including Luxembourg which is a huge emitter of CO2 per capita (above the USA) on the hook. Things are complicated.
Fair enough, 80 km is some kind of absurd extreme value, but Luxembourg city centre is about 25 km from Cattenom, so you can at least expect some real estate upheaval at the very least.
At the tiny, tiny scale of risk we are talking about I'm not certain it makes sense to worry. Statistically, the inhabitants of Luxembourg are more at risk of being driven out by hostile forces (they were invaded in WWII, for example) than threatened by a nuclear disaster.
Not to mention that of the 2 major nuclear disasters we've had, half were caused by a less-than-once-in-a-generation tsunami. If something that disastrous hits Luxembourg ... I dunno, the situation would already be pretty grim. And all this is assuming they actually need to be evacuated, which is debatable in itself.
Fun fact, it is possible to build a world-class city in 40 years [0].
The 80km (actually 50mi) evacuation requirement was made up by the complete idiot Gregory Jaczko, at the time, unfortunately, chairman of the NRC, but still stupid enough to think that zircalloy can burn in air. Yes, this stupid and corrupt man has done a lot more damage than any nuclear power plant ever could.
Can you please not blame a technology for the idiocy of a professional liar?
For example, if you look at Cattenom Nuclear Power Plant location on a map and create a 80 km radius exclusion zone, Luxembourg, as a country probably ceases to exist. This is not something that could happen with a catastrophic failure of wind turbines or solar panel.
By definition, nuclear plants are near coastal areas or a river, so prone to ocean rising water (or tsunamis), floods or droughts.
This is something that is harder to evaluate than simply a death count.
I believe this is less relevant for the US, where I assume there is enough space left in sparsely populated areas, but in denser areas like in Europe or South East Asia, it seems to be a bigger factor.