James Bond villains blamed for nuclear's bad image

This is the BBC doing what they do best, programming the minds of the masses with complete rubbish. Of course Fukushima, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl etc have nothing at all to do with this.

The evil villains in James Bond movies are being blamed for casting a long-lasting shadow over the image of nuclear power, says the president of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Prof David Phillips says that Dr No, with his personal nuclear reactor, helped to create a "remorselessly grim" reputation for atomic energy.

www.bbc.co.uk...

This is what the license fee goes on, mind control and propaganda. Note how this is in the "Education" section. Absolutely disgusting.

yep typical BBC

'Licensed to kill' .... your brain cells eventually !

And-my-phobia-of-braces-and-top-hats-Thanks-Odd-Job-and-Jaws.
Although-i-have-a-penchant-for-Xena-Onatop-and-the-girl-with-8-pussys

reply to post by Firefly_

The BBC is right about this.
I still remember the episode when Blofeld nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki... ruined the image of nuclear power for ever.

reply to post by Firefly_


imho its america who made nuclear a scary concept when they nuked japan like a bunch of animals!

and lest we forget the cold war!

So its got nothing to do with fukashima destroying the planet then

i also blame them for making me introduce myself surname first followed by my first name and surname together with an awkward pause inbetween
damn them

Nuclear isn't all that bad when compared to the deaths caused by other energy sources:

Energy Source Death Rate (deaths per TWh)

Coal – world average 161 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal – China 278
Coal – USA 15
Oil 36 (36% of world energy)
Natural Gas 4 (21% of world energy)
Biofuel/Biomass 12
Peat 12
Solar (rooftop) 0.44 (less than 0.1% of world energy)
Wind 0.15 (less than 1% of world energy)
Hydro 0.10 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy)
Hydro - world including Banqiao) 1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead)
Nuclear 0.04 (5.9% of world energy)

Source

While I do think James Bond movies are not responsible, the fear of nuclear among public is unwarranted and out of proportion. It is among the safest energy sources, even accounting for Chernobyl and Fukushima. But try to tell that to easily manipulated unwashed masses that have panic attacks when words such such as "nuclear" or "radioactivity" are uttered, because people tend to fear the unknown.

Blinky the fish from the Simpsons was also accused of giving nuclear power a bad name:

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/1a577d4a3f23.jpg[/atsimg]
I seem to recall the nuclear industry complaining about that when that episode aired.

reply to post by boncho

That's from a blog, are you sure those figures are credible? He's claiming 500,000 deaths a year from coal in China. I know people are dying from coal, but that sounds high.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


Probably not, given your break down. I grabbed that one quick.

I hate blogs.

But actually the number for China is only equal to 1 in 4000. Not ridiculously high for a place that is choked by coal pollution.

I don't know if that is the stat the blogger is going by though.

Originally posted by boncho
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

Probably not, given your break down. I grabbed that one quick.

I hate blogs.

.

edit on 12-1-2012 by boncho because: (no reason given)

lol iand here i was wondering....

reply to post by Arbitrageur


you guy's are quibbling about coal? doesn't deaths because of solar power bother more?

i followed the link but of course it's people falling off the roof while installing herp a derp
you'd think he'd provide the raw data/numbers at least

reply to post by DerepentLEstranger


I have no problem admitting an error.

The blog is a weak source, however, I did find a graphic produced by Scientific American that would do better with the credibility issue.

reply to post by boncho


my dear boncho you seem to have confused some stream of consciousness
and a morbid curiosity re actual # of deaths caused by solar energy

with an impugning of of your credibility and that of your source.

not the case, lol and much better graph second time around

reply to post by stopmakingsense


absolutely, that and the ordering of martinis has been bastardized. totally evil...

Its not James Bond movies, but Hollywood can indeed be blamed for perpetuating the "nuclear=dangerous" meme:
en.wikipedia.org...

While Chernobyl, Fukushima and TMI scared a lot of people, nuclear's bad image did not originate from any of these accidents. They certainly contributed to it though, but it started much earlier.

I think there is a couple of possible reasons that I can think of at the moment: radiation is extremely foreign to people (especially compared to say, combustion) thus it is extremely easy to speculate about and fear monger. In normal operation reactors are very clean, but the failure mode and consequences are often hypothetical and highly speculative. Fear sells. So do fossil fuels (who financed a lot of anti-nuclear material back in the day). Plus anything nuclear has some weird conspiratorial slant to it, perhaps that was due to Silkwood and such.

Examples:


Karen Silkwood

Karen Gay Silkwood (February 19, 1946 – November 13, 1974) was an American labor union activist and chemical technician at the Kerr-McGee plant near Crescent, Oklahoma, United States. Silkwood's job was making plutonium pellets for nuclear reactor fuel rods. She died under mysterious circumstances after investigating claims of irregularities and wrongdoing at the Kerr-McGee plant.

en.wikipedia.org...

So let's make a movie about it:

Silkwood is a 1983 American drama film directed by Mike Nichols. The screenplay by Nora Ephron and Alice Arlen was inspired by the true-life story of Karen Silkwood, who died in a suspicious car accident while investigating alleged wrongdoing at the Kerr-McGee plutonium plant where she worked.

en.wikipedia.org...

The other side:

In other words, she probably stole a small sample of Pu from the production area and self-contaminated herself. This would be consistent with her behavior as a union activist and troublemaker.

The other finding of significance is that the autopsy found a mixture of booze and barbituates in her blood and stomach that if extrapolated to full absorption, would have likely been fatal. Of course, it made much better press to say that she was run off the road and died under mysterious conditions but the fact is, she simply stoned herself and passed out at the wheel.

yarchive.net...

The China Syndrome

The China Syndrome is a 1979 American thriller film that tells the story of a reporter and cameraman who discover safety coverups at a nuclear power plant. It stars Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, Michael Douglas, Scott Brady, James Hampton, Peter Donat, Richard Herd, and Wilford Brimley.

en.wikipedia.org...

And other incidents like this:

In this incident, "60 minutes" came to IP obstensibly to film
a segment on construction delays at one of their facilities. They
spent quite some time filming the utility president and the plant manager.
Illinois Power cooperated with CBS but because they had a well-founded
distrust of the media, they tagged a camera team of their own along to
film over the shoulders of the "60 minutes" crew. As it turned out,
"60 minutes" was there to film material for a rabidly anti-nuclear
segment. That's OK, or at least somewhat ethical if that is as far as
they go.

The really disgusting part is that they edited the statements of the
president and plant manager, even to the point of inserting or deleting
the word "not" in order to make them appear to say the opposite of
what was really said. They also fabricated conversations by splicing
together sentences from several conversations taken in different contexts.
And they mixed one question with another answer.

IP was so outraged that they produced a video which showed in split screen
format, what was really filmed over the shoulder of the CBS crew, complete
with continous timecode, and on the other side, what "60 minutes" produced.
IP's intent was to buy commercial time on the networks to present their
case. None of the networks would sell them time so they've resorted to
distributing the video through word-of-mouth. Anyone truely interested
in the facts of this debate, especially as relates to the media, should
obtain a copy of this video, study it, and show it to as many people
as possible.

yarchive.net...

(I don't think IP exists anymore and I don't know what plant this was, I'm going to try to find out and see if I can get it on the web)

Also here's a documentary on the subject with emphasis on why a nuclear plant in the US took 16 years to complete due to construction delays and then was never allowed to operate:



I guess the point is, none of this is possible with mere coal mining or coal power stations even though they probably cause far greater harm (as shown in this thread and elsewhere).

reply to post by boncho


It's always good to read the comments on blogs like nextbigfuture. I usually find the comments on blogs more useful and interesting than blog posts themselves.