# Still support nuke power plants? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 14, 2011, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647 "2011-03-14T11:56:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 32
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/621 "2011-03-20T17:25:55Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > But, I love to be wrong. You must be a happy person then. > [@](#): > > For the supporters of nuclear power, is there any accident/disaster, of any magnitude, that would change your mind about nuclear power? > > If so, what would it be? > > I would bet money not a single supporter will answer those questions. This is typical bullshit human thinking. People are really, really bad at assessing risks. It is not about “one” accident. It is a measure of overall safety and likelihoods of bad outcomes. Lots of people die in hospitals due to crap they get in a hospital. You are still better off going most times. People are scared to fly when in reality they are far safer flying than they were driving to the airport. You do not look at the Canary Island air crash and think, “Well shit, lots of people died! Air travel should be banned!” When you look at overall safety and damage caused by various power generation schemes nuclear is rather safe. Yes, Chernobyl and (perhaps) this tilt the scale but even with them they are still far, far below the dangers imposed by other power generation methods (dams can be as lethal or more than a nuclear plant depending on circumstances). So, show a cite for nuclear power generation killing more people than other methods. Make it per megawatt produced. Saying my solar calculator never killed anyone is not the same as a nuclear power plant. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/622 "2011-03-20T17:30:36Z")
Like I said, a true believer won’t change their mind, no matter what. No disaster, no matter how large, how deadly, or how expensive, will change their thinking. Once they have determined something is true, nothing will sway them. Certainly not facts, science or reason. That is why they are a true believer. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/623 "2011-03-20T17:36:49Z")
Would you say that the same thing might hold for a true believer that we should not use nuclear power? ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/624 "2011-03-20T17:39:22Z")
Comparing nuclear accidents to driving a car is lame. They have nothing in common. Driving is one of the most dangerous things we do. Cigarettes are an accumulative poison. Before they kill you they diminish your life in lots of ways. You choose to smoke. The Fermi plant was built near me without my input. I am 33 miles away from a nuke plant with a troubled history. I am well aware that the operators will cut corners to make more money. They have been doing it for many years. I hope they don’t go too far. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/625 "2011-03-20T17:48:36Z")
> [@Raygun99](#): > > Would you say that the same thing might hold for a true believer that we should not use nuclear power? Yes, of course. A true believer is a true believer. Myself, I don’t have a problem with the nuclear reactors on subs and carriers, for scientific reasons. But I do find that they store the spent fuel in pools of water at the Navy bases a serious problem. Again, for scientific reasons. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/626 "2011-03-20T17:49:57Z")
This of course, puts me in the unpleasant position of getting shit on from both sides. But I’m immune to being flamed, so it doesn’t bother me. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/627 "2011-03-20T17:53:44Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Well let’s see… > > From your link the US currently uses 1,075 GW of power. If my math is right you’d need 430,000 of those wind turbines to meet that. > > And “ice free” areas"? I am not sure but I would not be surprised if you just cut out about 2/3 of the US where you can site these things. > > And, according [General Electric’s brochure](http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/wind_turbines/en/downloads/GEA17007A-Wind25Brochure.pdf) on those turbines you need a wind speed of 12.5 m/s (about 28 mph) for peak generating capacity. Anything under that and the power curve diminishes quickly. Given how wind is hit or miss (where do you know that the wind regularly blows at 28 miles per hour?) seems to me to guarantee that 1,075 GW of power you’d need a whole lot more than those 430,000 turbines. > > Then, to add to the problems, is power distribution. The farther electricity travels the more inefficient the system is. We lopped off 2/3 of the US that has ice (make it 1/2 if you prefer). Your transmission troubles will make these wind farms woefully inefficient. So, add yet more to that 430,000 number. > > Now to the cost. According [to this](http://www.windpowerengineering.com/news/general-electric-recieves-1-4-billion-wind-turbine-contract/) those turbines cost (doing some math) $4,142,012 each (let’s just say $4million). Not even sure that includes towers and installation. For your 430,000 turbines that’d cost $1,720,000,000,000 (trillion). As noted you’ll need a lot more than that. > > I had trouble finding costs on building a nuclear power plant but I [found this](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7180539.stm) which is Europe’s newest nuclear reactor built at a cost of about $4.5 billion. Two reactors will put out 860 MW each. So, just those two are a bit more expensive than the wind turbines for the same power. Except the station has two more reactors coming online. Reactor 4 was approved and would be another 1000-1800 MW. Nuclear starts looking better price-wise. > > As that article also notices 80% of the operating cost of a Natural Gas plant is the gas itself. Swings in the price of gas (which it does) would see your power bill fluctuate dramatically. As noted earlier the “cheap” gas available is running out in a decade or so. Yes, there is lots more to be had but it will become more expensive to mine thus raising energy costs. > > Again, I want to be clear that I am all for wind power and solar power and other technologies and would like to see them used where possible (i.e. make sense). Their use can mitigate the number of coal/gas/nuclear power plants we would have to build. > > I am just not seeing a way around nuclear power. Coal and gas are finite resources. I am not saying we are running out very soon but even if we consider a 100 year horizon we need to bring a lot of new generating capacity online in that time (need to replace the 70% that is currently coal and gas). Given such generating capacity takes a lot of time and investment (even wind…I imagine building 430,000 turbines would take awhile) we need to start now. Especially in nuclear, if we’d like to take advantage of safer and less expensive designs that are less polluting, the research and development needs to be started now. Well nice to see that you are conceding the point that the resource is more than plentiful enough throughout many areas of the United States and the world and that the issue is how cost-effective it is to exploit it. The [industry sources](http://www.windustry.org/how-much-do-wind-turbines-cost) agree that wind power ends up currently costing $1.2 to 2.6 million per installed MW of capacity - and you do need to oversize it. The nuclear industry generally quotes that [nuclear costs](http://scitizen.com/future-energies/how-much-will-new-nuclear-power-plants-cost-_a-14-2287.html) about $2 million per installed MW, although that article points out that recent price rises in the cost of the metals needed and construction costs have raised the costs to as much as $8 million/MW according to the utilities who would be building them, and that the actual costs of those already built were 3x as much as the industry had predicted and came in at $3 million/MW - not including the costs of waste fuel storage. And your European plant? [So far](http://nuclear-news.net/2010/02/15/olkiluoto-nuclear-plant-a-shining-example-of-folly-of-nuclear-costs/) up to $7.2 billion, a 60% increase over your cite’s quote … and still rising. But wind does need to be oversized and/or backed up with some natural gas - so let’s increase the cost of wind by 50%. It is still less than nuclear and investors are subject both to a more immediate payback (windfarms start producing from initial investment _much_ faster than do nuclear plants) and much less risky (construction delays, which seem to be the rule in nuclear). Wind isn’t right everywhere. Solar isn’t either. But we should use it, and other renewables, as much as we can, both in utility scale and distributed applications, build what nuclear we reasonably and cost-effectively can (which might keep up with what ages out), use storage technologies to maximize our use of the cleaner generation sources 24/7, and use natural gas to fill in the rest as we retire the oldest coal plants as fast as we can. ---
**Author:** ![TravisFromOR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cc9497/32.png) [@TravisFromOR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TravisFromOR)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/628 "2011-03-20T18:02:49Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Oh dear, this IS awkward. I guess you were unaware that the spent fuel rods are in reactor 4. > > The spent fuel rods that are in reactor 4. Yes, I can see where the confusion comes from if you were unaware of how the two are related. > > 😛 So, due to your ignorance on this subject you feel I need to eat some crow here? > > [Here](http://articles.cnn.com/2011-03-16/world/japan.nuclear.reactors_1_fuel-rods-fuel-pool-uranium-fuel?_s=PM:WORLD), let me help you out there 'luci: > > -XT The spent fuel rods are not in the reactor. They are in the same building as a reactor. If you had a weed wacker in your garage, would you say that it was in your car? ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/629 "2011-03-20T18:03:52Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > The [industry sources](http://www.windustry.org/how-much-do-wind-turbines-cost) agree that wind power ends up currently costing $1.2 to 2.6 million per installed MW of capacity - and you do need to oversize it. There is a LOT of misinformation about wind and turbines and costs. > [@](#): > > developers are constructing large wind turbines because > recent studies have shown that the energy generated by the wind > turbines pays for the cost of building a turbine within a matter of > months, irrespective of size That is from 2003 A lot has changed since then. The cost of adding another large turbine to an existing wind farm is so low, you won’t believe me if I tell you. You also get back your investment, including maintenance costs, so fast it’s not even funny. After that it is a lot of profit. A lot. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/630 "2011-03-20T18:05:49Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > All that tells us is hospital workers abandoned their patients. Not cool (and somewhat surprising they’d abandon people like that). > > Obviously other people went in and collected them so clearly some people were willing to go there. For one thing, the government [raised the allowable limits for emergency workers](http://www.adn.com/2011/03/16/1756438/radiation-level-soars-after-japan.html). > [@](#): > > As the crisis at the power plant entered its sixth night, the situation appeared to be deteriorating. One sign was that the Japanese government increased the maximum radiation dose that workers could be exposed to from 100 millisieverts to 250 millisieverts, describing the move as “unavoidable due to circumstances." If you look on that “Radiation for Dummies” chart the pro-nuke side is posting all over, you’ll also see that emergency responders are allowed higher exposures. Also: > [@](#): > > GSDF members rescued the 82 individuals, but seven of them later died at a refugee shelter. > > “The patients were in poor health and they were forced to stay at the hospital with no water and electricity for a long time. They became even weaker after being moved from one place to another,” Suzuki said. These deaths are directly attributable to nuclear power, not earthquakes or tsunamis or other force force majeures that have nothing whatsoever to do with Bhopal, which resulted in murder charges, among many other things. > [@](#): > > My guess is, statistically, you are in more danger driving to the hospital than being abandoned there. Yoda voice: “and this, is why you fail.” ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/631 "2011-03-20T18:15:28Z")
Oh, [more](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/business/energy-environment/29nuke.html) about that European plant you mentioned, from a year and a half and some cost over runs ago - > [@](#): > > After four years of construction and thousands of defects and deficiencies, the reactor’s 3 billion euro price tag, about $4.2 billion, has climbed at least 50 percent. And while the reactor was originally meant to be completed this summer, Areva, the French company building it, and the utility that ordered it, are no longer willing to make certain predictions on when it will go online. > > While the American nuclear industry has predicted clear sailing after its first plants are built, the problems in Europe suggest these obstacles may be hard to avoid. … In Flamanville, France, a clone of the Finnish reactor now under construction is also behind schedule and overbudget … For nuclear power to have a high impact on reducing greenhouse gases, an average of 12 reactors would have to be built worldwide each year until 2030, according to the Nuclear Energy Agency at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Right now, there are not even enough reactors under construction to replace those that are reaching the end of their lives. > > And of the 45 reactors being built around the world, 22 have encountered construction delays, according to an analysis prepared this year for the German government by Mycle Schneider, an energy analyst and a critic of the nuclear industry. He added that nine do not have official start-up dates. … > > … The project was initially budgeted at $4 billion and Teollisuuden Voima, the Finnish utility, pledged it would be ready in time to help the Finnish government meet its greenhouse gas targets under the Kyoto climate treaty, which runs through 2012. > > Areva promised electricity from the reactor could be generated more cheaply than from natural gas plants. Areva also said its model would deliver 1,600 megawatts, or about 10 percent of Finnish power needs. … Areva has acknowledged that the cost of a new reactor today would be as much as 6 billion euros, or $8 billion, double the price offered to the Finns. ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/632 "2011-03-20T18:24:17Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > Radiation, blah, blah. I’m not bothering with your links because I don’t need to learn about radiation. Quit obfuscating. I smoke cigarettes, and I live in a city full of cars that belch out all kinds of crap. I don’t care about a .000001 percent increase in my cancer risk at this point in my life. > > Radiation alone, is not my biggest beef with “Nooklur Americuh, fuck yeah!” So, in other words, you dislike nuclear for no good reason and neither logic, reason or facts will change your mind. Got it. Not really surprised. With that I am bowing out. Slee ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/633 "2011-03-20T18:29:27Z")
[Off shore wind farms](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/09/massive-wind-power-projec_n_794335.html) btw cost _a lot_ more - more like $4-5million/MW installed, but do not need to be oversized as off-shore winds are reliably strong. Still competitive to build with nuclear in today’s cost environment and with less time to ROI, less risk to investment, less operating costs, no spent fuel cost, no proliferation concerns, much less risk of catastrophic failure, and thus less insurance costs. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/634 "2011-03-20T18:31:34Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > So, in other words, you dislike nuclear for no good reason and neither logic, reason or facts will change your mind. > > Got it. > > Not really surprised. > > With that I am bowing out. > > Slee Well, if you can’t fight ignorance, at least drive it out of the thread. Next! ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/635 "2011-03-20T18:36:27Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Meanwhile, the first images of sick and dead radiation victims are leaking out of Japan. I don’t think the Japanese Government gets it. The internet isn’t going to be censored, what happened will end up getting put. I request a link. Because without evidence this just looks like more hysteria on your part. I will also state in advance that if these are workers from the power plant I will be sad but it won’t change my stance one bit. The only thing that will do that is if they’re civilians. So far as we know, no one outside the plant has been exposed to levels of radiation high enough to make one sick. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Hell, you almost certainly have radioactive materials in your home. If you have a smoke detector then there is radioactive material in it (Americium). In your home? Hell, we all carry around some minor radioactivity in our own _bodies_ - trace amounts of radioactive isotopes are a normal part of the environment, have been since the Big Bang, and we ingest a certain amount by eating and breathing. > [@](#): > > People used to make pottery and jewelry with uranium and you can still buy it. It’s actually a lovely sort of orange-red color. Very pretty. [link](http://carlwillis.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/orange_stuff.jpg) No longer recommended for daily use, though 😉 > [@FXMastermind](#): > > Plants take up Cesium137, and fires releases Cesium137 again into the air, it is everywhere, but only in small amounts. Smoking puts those small amounts into your lung tissue, where they can actually do damage. Eating it isn’t nearly as bad. But the higher up on the food chain you eat, the more cesium137 you ingest. It’s in beef, it’s in milk, its in polar bear milk, it’s in salmon, but just a little bit. Yes and no - some plants have an unusual affinity for it, too - spinach, for example, which is one reason why spinach is being monitored around Fukushima. It’s going to show up in spinach early, and in greater amounts than some other plants. Why spinach does that I don’t know, but it seems to have a great affinity for heavy metals - it also soaks up things like lead like a sponge. So … spinach may be more an issue than polar bear milk or salmon. I don’t know if tobacco shares spinach’s affinity for heavy metals or not, but if it does that could explain why smoking exposes you to more radiation than some other activities. I would also like a cite for your claim that inhaling cesium-137 is worse than eating it. Among other things, from a chemical standpoint cesium acts much like potassium when ingested, leading to it being distributed throughout the body, being utilized in its structure, and hanging around awhile before being excreted. As we don’t normally absorb potassium from our lungs I’m not sure that cesium enters the body via breathing rather than via ingestion. There’s plenty of other crap in cigarettes that can cause cancer, so I’m not holding the cesium up as a culprit without proof. ---
**Author:** ![bobgnote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ea666f/32.png) [@bobgnote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobgnote)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/636 "2011-03-20T18:48:50Z")
> [@MichaelQReilly](#): > > Yes. So far in this catastrophe no one has actually died and what radiation has actually escaped has been fairly low level. > > Meanwhile, how many people died mining coal this year? No nukes, by the numbers? By the TENS: Heard of either Al Queda OR Base 10? Do the damn MATH, class! 10 tribes, without 10 Commandments, with a 10 on the Richter Scale means, ‘NO NUKES!’ Class 5 or a tsunami means, ‘NO NUKES.’ Failure to control STUFF THAT HAPPENS, means: ‘NO NUKES.’ Got it? Nukes have no transforming cores, after all that Godzilla and Pokeymon! What is the excuse for failure, to design a core that comes apart, when a disaster strikes? Got VOLCANOES? Yes, you have! Heard of Yellowstone and Yosemite and Long Valley and La Palma? Any of the above will trash the US mainland. And then there are ALASKA AND HAWAII. What part of nuclear power need fry us, for having waste, which can kill us in an instant, but it lasts as a TARGET, FOR A MILLION YEARS?! Eat your spinach, before something poisons it. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/637 "2011-03-20T19:38:12Z")
It’s amazing that with two tremendous explosions, that blew three buildings all to hell, that nobody has died. They aren’t even in critical condition or anything. \Nuclear power really is safe!\ ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/638 "2011-03-20T20:17:27Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > It’s amazing that with two tremendous explosions, that blew three buildings all to hell, that nobody has died. They aren’t even in critical condition or anything. > > \Nuclear power really is safe!\ They are just irradiating the land into a permanent dead zone. They are spewing radiation into crops and milk in the surrounding area. The workers in the plant are are being irradiated thoroughly. Yep all is well. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/639 "2011-03-20T20:26:21Z")
> [@](#): > > Japan has invested untold millions in developing all kinds of robots, including machines that can work in hazardous places like nuclear power plants. All too often, they’ve proved to be expensive but useless prototypes. Tepco only has robots that can inspect reactor shrouds for cracks, according to Hasegawa. > > After two workers died and dozens were injured following exposure to radiation in Japan’s previous worst [nuclear accident](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokaimura_nuclear_accident), in September 1999 at a JCO uranium reprocessing plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, the government said it would develop remote-controlled robots to deal with leaks at nuclear facilities. [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938\_105-20044970-1.html](http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20044970-1.html) It’s unbelievable. No robots, no drones, no infrared cameras, the Japanese were completely unprepared for even a minor problem at a plant. Really harsh fact, they have a whole bunch of other reactors, just like theses, all along the coasts. On flat land. Next to an ocean that has a history of tsunamis. ---
**Author:** ![TravisFromOR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cc9497/32.png) [@TravisFromOR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TravisFromOR)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647/640 "2011-03-20T20:30:04Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > They are just irradiating the land into a permanent dead zone. They are spewing radiation into crops and milk in the surrounding area. The workers in the plant are are being irradiated thoroughly. Yep all is well. Skip the hyperbole, and actually debate. There’s a few people here that can support their anti-nuclear plant viewpoint. You are not one of them. By the way, I’m _still_ waiting for either a cite for your claim of core radiation being released, or for an admission that you made it up. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647.md?page=31) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/still-support-nuke-power-plants/574647.md?page=33)