It is possible for nuclear power to be used, cleanly and efficiently.
It is NOT always clean and efficient because the machinery always seems to wind up under the control of idiots.
You can’t overcome the human factor here.
/thread hijack
“the machinery always seems to wind up under the control of idiots.”
Really? There are over 400 operating nuclear power plants in the world. How many serious accidents have there been in the last 50 years? It’s safest method of power generation in the world.
You can’t overcome the human factor here.
Back at the time of the Three Mile Island accident, a TVA spokesman sought to reassure citizens about the safety of their plant, stating that each and everyone of their techs was a high school graduate.
IIRC I did a spit take upon hearing that....huh, just wondered ifvthe writers of The Simpsons based Homer's job on that news item.
Decades ago the Army experimented in small reactors which could serve remote posts. They had a plant which could run with a three-man crew. One day, out in the isolated National Reactor Testing Station in central Idaho, the admin site received a warning from the Army site a few miles away. Personnel were dispatched. Everything looked normal but there was no one around and the responders’ dosimeters pegged out before getting near the reactor building. Through a window, they saw a couple of bodies lying in the building and immediately withdrew. Eventually they found the third crew member impaled by a control rod stuck in the ceiling of the reactor room. The investigation determined that one crew member was having an affair with the wife of another crew member. It was murder-suicide with collateral damage. The human factor is very relevant.
The Army was put out of the nuclear plant business, the site and bodies were buried under concrete and many of those helping the recovery exceeded their lifetime radiation doses and had to retire.