It’s ‘irrational’ in much the same way as people who worry about getting into a plane crash…while driving their car and talking on their cell phone. People are terrible at risk assessment and worry about all the wrong things…while NOT worrying about the things that are probably going to kill them. And the anti-nuke crowd has played on this to generate public sympathy (hell, I say ‘played’…but these fools are maybe worse at risk assessment than anyone).
So, I guess I disagree with you in principal. While I’m not saying that nuclear energy is without RISK…the FEAR of nuclear energy is complete irrational. As are most fears of low order probability events. JMHO of course.
Why? Let’s say the worst case scenario happens and all the waste in Yucca mountain escapes? How bad would it be? Well, locally it would probably be no picnic, no doubt. But really in the end it would just be a matter of a LOCAL environmental problem…and basically an engineering problem to clean up the mess. Myself, I think 200 years from now people will be looking into ways to get back into the various nuclear repositories…in order to harvest the stuff we call ‘waste’ today.
Well, that’s true…however, if the US becomes unstable politically our nuclear energy program (or lack there of) is going to be the least of the worlds worries. Again, it’s a matter of looking at risk and judging it rationally. Worrying about the US falling apart politically and then attempting to link that with nuclear power programs is irrational IMHO…for one thing it’s a pretty low order probability wise scenario. For another there are a LOT bigger risks if that happens.
I’m not trying to belittle your arguments here…but you are worrying about whether your teeth are clean while smoking 5 packs a day. Let’s say for a moment that the US completely melts down politically and can’t maintain it’s nuclear plants anymore. What is the worst that could happen? Well, they could be run at risk and without maintenence for a period of time…and they could (possibly) experience a major event. Probably not as bad as Chernobyl as our designs, even if pushed to ridiculous limit, wouldn’t fail that way. But lets say that one of our plants DOES do a Chernobyl through lack of maintenence (we are talking about a low order of probability stacked on something of the remotest chance coupled with a golden BB…but what the hell)…how bad would it really be?
Well, when Chernobyl blew it’s top several hundred people were killed (mostly rescue and fire fighter/response types, and mostly because they were poorly trained and equipped…but then the US is supposed to have sunk way down so maybe it’s comparable). A major city needed to be evacuated and the region is still uninhabitable in and around the plant. Strapped as the Soviets were (and the Russians are) they were still able to entomb the bad reactor…and are actually still producing energy out of the remaining reactor(s) IIRC.
That would certainly suck…but it would be a LOCAL disaster. Sort of on the order of Love Canal I suppose.
Now, think about the probability of that happening. We are talking about extremely remote here. First the US would have to pretty much melt down for maintenance to drop off enough to even make something like that possible. Then the plants would have to be run beyond their safety limits (instead of just shut down which is most like what WOULD happen). And then, considering modern reactor design you’d have to have a nearly perfect series of fuckups to get something remotely like Chernobyl.
Life is full of trade offs. There is no magic technology that is actually real, scalable and has no risks, no impacts. Every power technology has it’s risks and it’s impacts on the environment. Some of the new pebble bed reactor designs are about as risk free as I can think of…and yet, the US, afaik isn’t even seriously looking into them. Why? Because of this irrational fear of low order probability events…and the lack of understanding as to just how bad the disaster would even be if they happened.
There are valid concerns about nuclear power…but most of them are economic, not safety. Most opposition to nuclear power IS irrational and unfounded because it comes from ignorance and fear…fear generated on purpose and playing on peoples horrible abilities to rationally judge risk and assess the current technologies and their relative dangers and impacts.
-XT