Anyone who doesn't know that "nukes" refers to weapons not power sources should perhaps steer clear of offering opinions on the subject.<p>I stopped reading after this line:<p><pre><code> Some greens have wildly exaggerated the dangers of radioactive pollution.
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Firstly, "some greens"? A surprisingly snide remark from someone who <i>only just</i> become pro-nuclear.<p>Secondly, that's not even the point he then goes on to make? His argument is that what happened in Japan is below the safety guidelines. The worry of people who are anti-nuclear is that there is a possibility that something could happen to put the radiation levels <i>above</i> what is safe.<p>I'm not anti-nuclear personally, but the worry I have isn't that, if a small amount of radiation leaks for some reason that it will have worse effects than believed by scientists. My worry is that the accident/whatever could cause the leaks to be far higher, if that happens it <i>will</i> be a very real problem.
This article is bad.<p>There will always be unknown unknowns.
One such happened in Fukushima - an earthquake and tsunami exceeding design specifications; the earthquake logarithmically so.<p><i>This resulted in near total defeat of the safety protocols.</i>
Layers of containment designed never to be breached, were breached.
Rods in the nearby cooling pools even got hot.
Fundamentally, the plant operators lost control of the situation.<p>Yes, its probable the final number of lives lost will be low. But, <i>almost all the safety mechanisms were breached</i>.
With slightly more misfortune (perhaps another hydrogen explosion), much radiation could have been released, and many could have died.<p>Anyone (like Monbiot, the author) who argues that this incident increases faith in the safety of the nuclear power plant needs to read Feynman's minority report on the shuttle disaster.<p>When the safety systems, designed never to be breached at all, are 50% breached, you do <i>not</i> have a 50% margin of error.
<i>You have an extremely serious problem.</i><p>Is nuclear fisson probably going to be our medium term energy source? Yes; there are few better alternatives.
But we are going to have to be very careful about how we build them.<p>Finally, while I am not attacking nuclear power here, it is erroneous to reason about the relative safeties of technologies based purely on the historical track record.<p>What we should be thinking about is what the risk is in future; not what it has been in the past. If I told you I had an energy source that had a known 0.01% of ending the world, each year, but a clean 50 year track record, would you allow me to continue with it?
Of course not!<p>We must not make inferences about possible risks based purely on the track record, with no regard for improbable, but perhaps catastrophic, scenarios.<p>Thankfully, nuclear power is not the doomsday energy source some people make out; and I'm not arguing against it - just against the specious reasoning.
I always thought that the reactors survived a tsunami and a earthquake at the same time was pretty good. Damaged but still intact, I do think it will take awhile for the whole picture to emerge on what took place. It seems most of the news about the nuclear hazards are an echo chamber so there might be some real danger. Most of the safety systems were wiped out and it's still standing? I had imaged the reactor turning into a roman candle launching fuel rods all over the place. The entire picture has yet to emerge and yet people are talking about it like the show is over.<p>But then again most people commenting about the situation are pretty far away from Japan. Myself: I'm sitting in California. I'm sure if the San Onfre Plant started venting a small amount of radiation I would get a little edgy including a shift in perspective<p>An out of control/damaged nuclear plant is still a out of control/damaged nuclear plant. Radiation leakage or no radiation leakage. I would be mad if any radiation came my way due to someone cutting corners or just not caring, no matter the dosage.
I heartily agree with the main premise that Fukushima should be held up as a success story of the nuclear energy sector. However I found the whole local production vs grid section is a bit weak, certainly there are merits to both and each solution alone is not the answer.
By buying nuclear plants now, we lock into today's nuclear technology for the next 50 years (nuclear plants have 40-50 year life cycles). By investing heavily in renewables and a new power grid, we can continually improve renewable generation and incrementally add to and improve existing facilities.<p>Also, when a disaster happens, we can go "uh oh, 100 windmills fell over; man, we better wait until it's safe to go fix/replace them" instead "holy shit this could turn into a disaster right now unless we frantically try to control the situation and in doing so put several workers' lives in immediate and horrible risk!"<p>Every dollar wasted on nuclear power is a lost opportunity. Renewables can be vastly improved, several advances have already been made just not fully capitalized on. Nuclear power doesn't show the same promise. Maybe in 50 years it will, but now it looks like same old same old. In the meantime I keep reading how advances in solar cell technology and long distance power grids can tap into more energy than perhaps most expect.
Any technology that makes awful natural disasters <i>worse</i>, is not a technology I want to have around.<p>Also, a technology that makes it impossible for humans to be close to it in event of failure, is a bad idea.
Nuclear power is necessary to provide "bridge" energy until we can go fully green. We don't have the resources yet to meet all our needs using green energy sources, and nuclear is far better than fossil fuels. Also, modern nuclear plant designs don't have any of the dangers that reactors like TMI and Fukushima had. Those relied on active safety-- that is, there is something that must be done to stop the reaction, and if the safety devices fail or if some input, such as electric power, becomes unavailable, it becomes difficult to stop. Modern designs (pebble bed, thorium) have passive safety (i.e. the reaction stops if not continually supported).
1) The story is not complete yet.<p>2) Things other than a simple count of short-term fatalies matter.<p>How about we do a deal: stop deciding whether Fukishima is a good or bad thing at least until it's completely under control. We've already had the darkly amusing round where the pro-nuclear have said "See, perfectly safe, no nuclear explosion" and then there was one.<p>Wait for the chapter to be finished before claiming win or loss.