Maybe not the plants themselves, but plenty of miners have died from black lung and mine explosions and cave ins..
I'm not a tree hugger by any stretch of the imagination, nor am I fan of nuclear power. I just couldn't let that comment 'Never heard of a power plant killing anyone' go by.. Anything that man does to affect the environment kills something whether it's us or some form of animal life.
Underground coal mining used to provide a lot of jobs where I live, but after the last underground explosion in 1992, they've all been closed for a couple decades now. 17 men died in that particular mine. The last big underground mine that closed laid off 3300 men all in one shot.
The joke around here is that...if you re-opened one of the dangerous underground mines again, there'd be a line of men waiting to go work in them. The dangers have been forgotten...but the good paying jobs have not.
(And lets be honest...the industrial 'workplace' is much safer today than it was 20-30 years ago...by a long shot).
We still produce a little of our own coal by strip-mining....but the rest comes in by ship from places like Venezuela....or Pennsylvania?...anyway, it seems ridiculous...but it works, and my lights are still on...lol.
I'm not pro-nuclear...but I'm not really against it either. If it wasn't for Three Mile Island and Chernobyl (Or more recently, Japan)...I think there'd be a whole lot more nuclear plants around. I think...someday in the future...the general public is going to have to develop a stronger stomach for nuclear power (as "green" power) if they want wide-spread removal of coal fired power plants...
I dunno...sooner or later, after we're all trippin' over windmills, somebody will realize that they just can't replace fossil fuels with wind (although I suppose it's fine as a "supplemental" power supply).
I'm no tree hugger either...but I am a realist...lol. I believe that there IS a balance to be had with all things. As dumb as some of our politicians appear to be...I surely don't envy the positions many of them are in with trying to "please" all;).
Rem