tarik

I'm not so sure it's 'uninhabitable', personally, but let's say it is. How does the Chernobyl make a relevant example when it violated known safe designs and known safety procedures of the time, which were lower than today's standards?

The relevance to me is only that if you do something stupid, you can expect disastrous results. I'll certainly agree with you that if you don't build a nuclear power plant at all, you won't even have the possibility of such a disaster, but what alternative do you offer?

I like solar energy, but it isn't economically feasible on the scale required.

I like wind energy, but same same. And do you know how many birds wind farms apparently kill. Environmentalists are starting to get up in arms about that too.

Tidal energy is nice idea, but a joke unless you do it in ways that have significant environmental impact.

Geothermal is cool (hot?), but why is it ok to use nuclear energy when the planet provides it, but not when humans do? And it only works in a few locations.

Hydroelectric has lost favor because of the damage it does to river ecologies.

More coal and natural gas plants? They're part of the problem and could be considered gross polluters.

I would have no problem living near a plant, but there's so much uninhabited land in the US that this is hardly worth being entered into the argument one way or the other.

I do agree, that another incident is inevitable. However, in 60+ years, the only incident of significance has occurred when people deliberately ignored known safety designs and protocols. And that incident has caused less damage and deaths than a lot of other natural and human caused disasters that I can think of that we are happy to allow and even defend in our lives.

In 2002, nearly 71,000 people were killed by automobile accidents in the US and the UK alone. Yet we don't consider banning cars even though every year they kill on a scale comparable to all the nuclear incidents in history (including the bombs) and certainly pollute more than all the nuclear power plants and nuclear bombs have done to date in history.

This has been seriously considered, especially since 9/11. So let's assume that they get through all the background checks required to work at the controls of nuclear plant. I mean, anything is possible, right?

Let's also consider that the Three Mile Island incident was caused largely by human errors and that automatic safety equipment that they cannot disable is largely what prevented a disaster.

Let's also consider that lessons learned from that incident and other studies and incidents over time have caused numerous design changes and changes to safety procedures.

Go read some of the supplied references above about how a nuclear plant functions and the different kinds of accidents that can occur and what some of the safeguards there are and then you tell me, how much damage could they really do?

Honestly, it sounds to me like an argument made based on fear rather than knowledge and an analysis of real risk factors, at least based the facts you offer as a counter point so far.

Let's look at some facts about this incident.

I love how the AP writer put "significant change" in quotes. Obviously they're not good with numbers. There are approximately 1,101 billion gallons of water in the Pacific Ocean alone.

315 gallons of water one-billionth (about 90,000 Bq) the legal limit flushed into the sea after a 6.9 quake? Let's also give Greenpace the benefit of the doubt and also assume that their unquoted sources are correct and raise that radioactivity by 50%. Ok.. one and a half-billionth (135,000 Bq) the legal limit.

FWIW, medical patients who receive high doses of radiation for treatment of various cancers receive doses in the MANY millions of Bq (around say 250 million). So even if it were concentrated, the spilled waste didn't have enough radiation to treat cancer.

I haven't done the research, but one can probably find seawater along ocean vents that is naturally more irradiated than this.

BTW, worse quakes several years ago in India didn't even cause enough vibration to shut down some of the high tech hardened plants there, much less cause a leak. They put the buildings on rollers.

I agree that one cannot account for all possible accidents, but I'd also say all current evidence suggests that the dangers are largely predictable and manageable, particularly compared to many of the alternatives.

But if you have alternatives to offer, I'm open to hearing them and lobbying for them.

I plan on adding solar panels to my house, but again, they don't work at night, aren't all that efficient, and placed in a desert or even at sea at the scale required (this is easily calculated) to meet societies needs would have a huge environmental impact that I believe is would be undesirable.

Sarcasm feels good, but isn't so useful in making a real factual point.

It's not a conspiracy that prevents cheap and easily renewable electricity from succeeding. If the economies of scale are there, it will radically change the energy industry, and the industry knows it and is actively researching many more sources of cheap and easily renewable energy because they know that if it can be found, they will make that huge profit that Neil mentioned and seems to find deplorable.

The pioneers that are using bio-diesel and other sources are admirable and far sighted and may be on the cutting edge of future energy sources, but today they pay far more than the average consumer for their energy and also refuse to acknowledge the environmental impacts of their sources which are negligible today largely because the scale is minuscule.

Regards,