I’m not going to weigh in here with a big technical discussion, or attack any previous points made - those that are against nuclear probably wouldn’t listen anyway.
But my 2 cents worth?
We are now more than a week into this, things seem to be coming under control, there is no massive explosion, fire or anything else reducing vast swathes of countryside to rubble or making the entire prefecture uninhabitable for generations to come.
Even after one of the largest earthquakes in recorded history, a tsunami that was much larger than anyone expected could happen, a powerplant design that is OLD and widely considered less than safe or ideal, a company that appears less prepared than they could have been there is still nothing that would be considered “disaster” on a global scale.
There are some localised events, and even granting what seems to be a worst case scenario of the health effects right now - they are still less than a person would get from a lifetime of smoking, or what would be the result of a major chemical plant fire. And this is one of the three worst nuclear accidents in history?
Just today in my local paper there was another coal mine disaster listed.
For my money, nuclear is where its at.
And for people that want to talk about wind or solar, what about countries like Japan - with their size and energy needs, where exactly do you expect them to site the plants?
What about a country like Singapore? Where would you like them to put the millions of solar panels needed?
Just like the question to nuclear advocates, “Is there anything that will change your mind?”, the request to show one credible news source trying to alarm anyone, or fear mongering, it won’t show up.
If there was one single effort to alarm people, by the media, I would have already linked to it.
The question isn’t about “do you still support nuclear plants?”, because a true nuclear person won’t change their mind. No matter what.
And even when somebody tries to tell me the media is hyping the story, and playing on fears, and what ever it is the pro nukers accuse them of, they can’t actually show you any evidence of it.
But please continue, it’s quite entertaining. Really.
Nice evasion but I will answer it as I answered it before.
The judgment is not made with one occurrence.
Planes crash yet we still fly.
Cars crash yet we still drive.
Chemical plants explode yet we still make chemicals.
And so on…
It is a cost/benefit analysis.
Yes, people die in all sorts of ways in a modern, industrialized society.
I posted a cite earlier that showed, per terrawatt hour, nuclear plants are among the safest means of power production there is. If you discount Chernobyl (because it was a distinctly and uniquely shitty design) the calculation plummets.
So, show me a trend, show me that nukes are killing people out of all proportion to other power generation means and then you’ve got something.
Honestly, you have been safer with nuclear plants than if they had built coal plants instead.
You will live longer because of nuclear plants than if coal plants were built.
I’m going to take that as an answer, that you are serious about it. Thanks.
Let me explain what I think you are saying. “If someone was to show me statistics that point to more people being killed by nuclear power plants that being killed by other power production plants, then you have something.”
Never mind the cores. Those spent fuel pools are the big danger. Those pools do not have containment, other than water and the concrete of the pool itself.
Low water = breach of containment.
No water = meltdown disaster involving many, many times more fuel than simply the fuel from a single reactor, a la Chernobyl. There, I said it. I’m not superstitious!
The roofs of those reactors are gone kiddies. That’s what was between that fuel, and us. There is no super-duper containment shell over those pools.
Six spent fuel pools. That’s the worst case. Sounds like they’re getting water into the pools, and unit’s 5 & 6 have cooling restored. I do get the impression the US, whether it was based on our own imagery, or just our analysis based on what was known, was very concerned Japan wasn’t taking those fuel pools seriously.
I was simply citing a worst case. I’m not arguing that is going to happen. I heard last night (I thought) that they’d restored cooling to 5 & 6 so that’s a big relief.
All energy plants including coal plants are run by huge corporations that cut safety, buy regulators and cut corners whenever they can. TEPCO is probably not the worst.
If you can get real regulation and inspection, that would be very helpful. But that will never happen.
One quarter of American plants are leaking. They all have tanks of fuel rods and other radioactive waste. that problem wont go away either.
They take ten years to get on line . Then, if like so many think, that they are safe ,why can’t they get Wall Street to invest in them? The building loans have to be guaranteed by the tax payers.
The cost of plants is enormous. They all have huge cost over runs too.
It just seems like a dangerous and expensive way to boil water.
They are potential targets for terrorists too. Look how much damage can be caused by blowing a reactor up.
They are so expensive to build because of the protests, the hurdles, the legislative challenges and the general nimby-ism of building them. Then people point to the cost of this to justify further complaints, challenges, protests which leads to more cost over-runs ad naseum.
Also, I would suggest another major problem is the general uncertainty surrounding it. Given what is happening in Japan right now, what do you think would be happening to the stock of a nuclear powerplant under construction? Would you be willing to invest with that sort of uncertainty - not relating to the cost / benefit of a nuclear powerplant, but to a shift in publlic sentiment totally outside of your control?
I thought the evacuation number was closer to 80,000… when did it increase?
However, the levels are low enough that if you had to go outside to go somewhere or get something done, or if you did eat a serving of food from the Fukushima area, it’s not going to make you sick. It’s just better to avoid all that, as radiation isn’t something you should seek out. And pregnant women and children especially should be shielded.
The Japanese government makes this information available to people rather than hiding it, and the chicken littles declare the sky is falling and the government is for some inexplicable reason hiding a much greater threat. Really? If the intent was to hide stuff why bother saying anything? Why bother evacuating? It’s not like you can see/smell/hear/taste/touch radiation, if they said nothing people wouldn’t know. What a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.
It’s like pollution alert days - the authorities say they air will be poor quality, limit outside activities, those at special risk (respiratory disorders, heart disease) please stay indoors. The difference is that people have some perception of air pollution, so when they go outside about their business they can tell, well, it’s not too bad or oh, it’s worse than last week. Only this time it’s radiation which people can’t sense and don’t understand and there’s always that part of the crowd that likes to scare people needlessly.
You are aware that a significant part of the evacuation area around Fukushima was hit by the tsunami, right? Some of those people would have been in shelters anyway, the difference is that the shelters they’re at are a little further away than they would be otherwise.
And yes, some of the area has intact homes. Yes, the evacuation is inconvenient. But, you know, if there were a major wildfire in the area people would need to be evacuated, too. Again, the government can’t win - if they evacuate people to provide maximum protection for their health they’re the bad guys. If they don’t evacuate people they’re the bad guys. Even when they do evacuate people those just a little further out scream they’re being left to die and want to be evacuated so the government are the bad guys again. I swear, some people would want the whole country evacuated, or maybe the planet.
By dealing with the power plant they ARE helping civilians. The sooner it is dealt with the sooner people can go home and start rebuilding. During a disaster you don’t get to pick and choose which messes need to be attended to. You deal with what is actually on the ground.
This is true - the nuclear problem needs to be dealt with. It IS serious. It is not, however, the end of the world or a mass casualty event no matter what the fear-mongers would have you believe.
In internet arguments such as these it seems some people aren’t happy with the middle ground - they want you to be extremely on one side or the other. Well, I agree it’s serious, but not as serious as some folks make it out to be. I don’t think the Japanese government is as forthcoming as it should be, but I don’t think there’s a vast conspiracy to hide massive clouds of radiation - for one thing, they can’t, there are too many others monitoring the situation. The Soviets tried that during Chernobyl and Europe kept saying “you’re lying - WE can detect that radioactive cloud.” We aren’t seeing that disparity here. The power company I trust less, but then, they’re being watched, too.
