If you don't pursue safety in a way that is cost effective, you are killing people.[David Okrent]

We know the litany. Nuclear power is too slow. Nuclear power is too expensive. I propose another more grievous fault. Nuclear power is too safe, way too safe.

It is easy to show that, if society wants to be efficient in avoiding deaths, the amount of resources devoted to avoiding the marginal death in all hazardous activities should be the same. Otherwise we can shift resources from the activity in which the cost of avoiding a death is high to activities in which the cost of avoiding a death is low, and end up with less lives lost at the same overall cost.