Comment Re:above post: example of techie vs public disconn (Score 1) 442
The article I presented is in reference to the corrupt management culture that is in charge of nuclear assets. No they did not cause the earthquake nor did they cause the tsunami, I didn't realize I had to explicitly say that for you to follow my argument. What they did do was falsify safety reports. The same safety reports that nuclear proponents like yourself toss around to demonstrate how safe and wonderful nuclear power is. These are the same safety reports that they use to lobby congress to back loans and bonds on nuclear equipment. My contention is your argument is based on faulty information, as has been clearly demonstrated by your own post. Consequently, the idea that an educated person would naturally take at face value the pronouncement of the nuclear industry and always support the growth of nuclear power is false.
Pardon me for stopping your stream of bullshit here
You realize you're arguing with TEPCo management and the Japanese government right? I din't rate this nuclear incident at a 5. The parties involved with mitigating this disaster did. Further, the rating of 6 was determined by governing bodies of the appropriate nations I indicated. Its not my bullshit, its the bullshit coming from the industry you're trying so hard to promote.
And there are several medical radiotherapy accidents which caused more casualties (deaths and injuries) than Fukushima. Then there are military accidents such as nuclear sub accidents which are a mite bit worse. In other words, you can call Fukushima the "second worst nuclear accident" only if you are completely ignorant of nuclear history.
Lets forget that Fukushima is an ongoing incident; 11 days ago 3 of the failed reactors were rated as a 5 on the INES scale by the Japanese government. If all radiation release halted at that moment it would have likely been the second worst nuclear disaster in history. And you keep going back to deaths. Nuclear incidents are not rated solely by number of casualties:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Scale
If it were only by casualties, then by your estimate Chernobyl wouldn't be on the list would it? And by your own scale of casualties Kyshtym had none.
Well, I guess I need to point out that Fukushima has a touch less than 6% of all nuclear reactors on Earth.
No, you don't need to point that out, it was clear in my post I was refering to all the reactors on earth, I said that explicitly. Earth includes japan. Its strange to me I have to point out such simple facts to an "educated" individual.
And saying Fukushima 1 and 2 have a failure rate of 50%? Do you realize how stupid an assertion that is? First, they both "failed". They are contaminated with salt water, boric acid, and radioactive products, and everyone is saying they won't ever run again even if they weren't.
Second, if you had looked at it at the beginning of March, then both reactors had "succeeded" for 35 to 40 years. It's not like falling off a 40 story building and saying as the ground rushes up that you've been "successful" so far. Each year of operation is productive and gives something to society. Instead it's like saying a car "failed" because it gets wrecked in 40 years, completely ignoring how much it was driven around.
Once again, the context of my statement was clear, these reactors failed in the sense that they moved catastrophically far outside of their operating range and as consequence their failure will greatly impact the world economy and the ecology of Japan. My argument, which you are so charmingly obtuse to, is that the inherent flaw of nuclear power is the culture that employs it. This argument is beautifully demonstrated by the fact that the most technologically advanced culture on the planet extended the operational license of a 40 year old plant, managed by a company with a history of falsifying safety reports, in one of the most seismically active places on earth. Fukushima isn't the only nuclear plant operating on its second decade outside of its life expectancy. There are 27 identical reactors in the USA managed by people with roughly the same outlooks and organizational histories. If we are to increase our reliance on nuclear power, the number of incidences like fukushima will increase, that's simple arithmetic.
. Even if they're more common than we'd like, they cause surprisingly little harm
Only if your only metric is immediate casualties. When do you think the Fukushima prefecture will be inhabitable again? Thats a 452sqmi area that will be unable to produce economically for a decade. If the wind changes direction this accident will represent thousands of cancer cases that would not have been were it not for this power plant. What is the economic cost of 1000 cancer treatments? What about 10000 cancer treatments? Will TEPCo be able to recompense the 100,000 displaced families?
We have "incidents" with other sorts of industrial sites which also release radiation into the environment. Somehow we manage to maintain perspective with those. Coal burning plants release more radiation into the environment than a nuclear plant does. There are something like hundreds of coal fires burning uncontrolled in the world today (some which have burned for decades). Those are releasing, among other things, significant levels of radiation into the atmosphere
So nuclear is safe because something is worse? This isn't any sort of meaningful argument. It means we shouldn't burn coal either. I'm ok with that. And I happen to be of the opinion that humanity would be significantly improved by allowing fossil fuels and nuclear power to pay for their externalities and allow renewable resources to be what they are; cheaper. In the USA we pay $600 Billion/year for a military industrial complex whose nearly singular purpose, as I see it, is to protect fuel supplies abroad and prevent rampant nuclear proliferation (and, also in my opinion, not for altruistic purposes, but rather, to protect scarce nuclear resources.) Thats a cost that those industries should have to pay. Instead, people like you crow about how renewables aren't cheap enough to be cost competitive. Right, not cheap enough against the trillions worldwide used to indirectly subsidize non-renewable resources.
Irrational fear of radiation plus a litigation system that can scale to consume all your assets. That's why I'm pleased to live in a constitutionally-restricted representative democracy. At some point, you do have to say "Fuck you" to all the clueless people or you don't get anything done. Such a government allows you to do that while treating the clueless peoples' interests fairly
The fears aren't irrational. Your pollyanna stance on the nuclear industry is. And those "clueless people" have just as much right to an opinion on the matter as you do. Those "clueless people" happen to have a clue about just what kind of people are painting the pretty pretty nuclear picture. And those "clueless people" aren't as apt to buy the nuclear industry's bullshit.
We already know how to deal with nuclear waste: recycle it, reduce it, and if you need to throw it somewhere, put it in Yucca Mountain or a similar site
The people who live at those sites don't want it and the industry isn't offering anything to make it worth their while besides false assertions about the spent fuel's harmlessness. Meanwhile, how are we going to protect a spent fuel site for the 10,000 years transuranic wastes stay harmful? What institution has humanity ever created that has lasted anywhere near that long?
It's a display of remarkably mendacity for anti-nuke activists to lobby against these things while simultaneously claiming that the options don't exist.
They aren't saying they don't exist, they're saying they won't work to do what we need them to do.
That sort of game is a big reason that nuclear power has regained some of its luster over the decades.
Right, not rising fossil fuel costs, expanding energy demands or a multi-billion dollar lobby, its just those damn lying hippies. Just filthy, dirty, all powerful greenpeace membership having, treehuggers. You;ve clearly got an accurate understanding of the world. I concede to you sir. Nuke baby nuke.
