Human0815The Nuclear Disaster in Fukushima killed already ca. 1.200 People,
mostly the older ones and People in Intensive Care!
Bad as that is, 1200 is a fraction of the 30,000 coal kills in the US every year.
Once more: The old people didn’t die of radiation, but lack of electricity (applicable to any power source obstructing a tsunami)
I know this because: Old people are highly resistant to radiation because their cell division has almost totally slowed (one reason why it takes them
months to recover from e.g. a broken arm). But it’s also how they are resistant to radiation (because any cells that are damaged, have little chance
of growing enough to harm them, within their remaining life time).
Leo Strauss “The damage is permanent.”
What’s really silly is…
1. Carbon dioxide levels have doubled since the industrial revolution. There is no realistic way we’ll get that CO2 back, just like there’s no
realistic way we’ll put the radiation from Fukushima or Chernobyl back either. Be it oil, or even gas (relatively low carbon) the problem is the
same. It’s easy to imagine how climate change can kill more than nuclear’s combined death toll –times hundreds. Worst of all the permanently
damaged land will not only be FAR greater in size, but it won’t even become a wildlife zone like this one:
www.youtube.com... rather most (particularly in poor countries) is scheduled to become desert. The difference with C02’s
damage is not that it is less, but it’s more subtle, and more likely to affect people who’ve never (even half) enjoyed the benefits of
electricity.
2. The radiation emitted from coal ash is also permanent. Very permanent (as being natural) it will primarily be long half-lives. Therefore Victorian
coal burnt in London, will do almost exactly the same damage today, it did then.
3. Coal also contains high levels of mercury, arsenic and other nasty’s…
According to a USGS report " recent estimates indicate that of the approximately 200,000 tons of mercury emitted to the atmosphere since 1890,
about 95 percent resides in terrestrial soils, about 3 percent in the ocean surface waters, and 2 percent in the atmosphere.
www.mine-engineer.com...
It is estimated, that in the US, about 87% of all new mercury emissions come from combustion, and this includes forest fires and other natural
occurrences. However, in the United States, coal fired power plants do emit 48 tons of mercury per year.
www.mine-engineer.com...
Furthermore…
Whilst the damage may be permanent, the incurability of cancer (most probably) isn’t.
“With nuclear power the inevitable human mistakes cannot be undone in worst case scenarios. It really is just that simple.”
Is
“it” really that simple?
Nuclear energy is not one single entity. It is an almost infinitely wide variety of different technologies. The safest being the Pebble Bed Reactor
A pebble-bed reactor thus can have all of its supporting machinery fail, and the reactor will not crack, melt, explode or spew hazardous
wastes. It simply goes up to a designed "idle" temperature, and stays there. In that state, the reactor vessel radiates heat, but the vessel and fuel
spheres remain intact and undamaged. The machinery can be repaired or the fuel can be removed. These safety features were tested (and filmed) with the
German AVR reactor.[6] All the control rods were removed, and the coolant flow was halted. Afterward, the fuel balls were sampled and examined for
damage and there was none. en.wikipedia.org...
Basically you can take an axe to it, and it still won’t go into meltdown. It’s flaw is that it consumes vast amounts of fuel. This problem can be
overcome by reprocessing, or different designs
en.wikipedia.org...
In any case: (Unlike accident prone reactors) nuclear waste is responsible for almost no deaths.
All the last 3 reactors have caused disasters (3 mile island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima) have two things in common: Designed in the late 1960’s and
fully constructed by the early 1970’s.
If a car designed in the 1960’s and built in the 1970’s is unsafe, do you not think it’s a bit unfair to judge all modern cars the same?
The Biggest Problem…
Is that the people criticising nuclear seem to know
extremely little about it. Many might (vaguely) know the Light Water Reactor because its
use is so frequent.
Here’s the killer aspect: There are flaws with (some) modern reactors which could & should be designed out. The problem is this will never
happen, so long as you people don’t know where to place your criticism.
All I see on this Japan forum is a sick competition to make the most depressing (and often factually absurd) claims, as possible.
Nobody asks the most normal & useful question, which is: “How to avoid what went wrong, happening again?”
(Because of Fukushima) humanity could have had an international law, by now, which said: “No new reactors, built after Fukushima, will lack Passive
Safety Systems” (i.e. systems free the need for human involvement).
(As an expert in nuclear reactors) I myself wouldn’t advocate this. What I would advocate is a law where no new reactors, are not built underground
(same designs –just in a hole). Had this been a law when 3 mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima were all built, then almost no radioactivity would
have escaped. It’s really that simple: Radiation can travel through (some) soil, but radioactivity (i.e. the radioactive particles) are too big, to
even do half a meter.
Even without these laws…
In Fukushima’s case the answer (always) was: Don’t build Boiling Light Water Reactors in an earthquake zone, and if you do, build the emergency
generators so they are waterproof, or at least above ground, so they don’t get submerged, and provide them with more than 90 minutes of fuel!
The Japanese people do not deserve what happened. But oh boy, did the Japanese government earn their current headache!!! There were (after all)
copious, loud, warnings…
newsfeed.time.com...–-35-years-ago/ The failings of the Fukushima nuclear reactor were
so substantial that three General Electric scientists who helped design the now imperilled reactors resigned from the company.
That’s bad!
In order for well paid, well-meaning scientists, to give up their jobs 35 years ago.
Both Chernobyl and Fukushima were caused by governments giving the same level of respect towards their people, (as you or I) would towards productive
insects.
Both disasters are therefore as much about technology, as they are about governments. Bad governments will always exist, but bad technology needn’t
–but only if you know where to place your criticisms! Instead of opposing all nuclear technology, a wise person (or movement) should oppose
the most dangerous versions –whilst advocating the others as there’s between little, to nothing, wrong with them.
Of course: This takes far more brain & effort than simply making mindless criticisms, and often equally as irrational fear stories. It’s all noise
to those of us in authority, and the fact (that even now) the anti-nuclear movement can’t-(or will not) articulate an intelligent argument (despite
not lacking them) confirms, that in all probability, it’s combined efforts are going to go to waste –just the protests of some wild animal (well,
at least as far as Britain & America are concerned).
As for the other countries: Their abandonment of nuclear energy is to our serious, economic advantage. In all probability our governments
should covertly support their anti-nuclear movements –in fact I suspect they are (particularly in Germany).
edit on 090705 by Liberal1984
because: (no reason given)
