Yes. Fukushima is similar to Two Mile Island. Hysteria all over the place, nuclear plants shut down, no more nuclear development, and all over maybe ONE casualty.
The Tsunami waves did terrible damage to Japan, and they wrecked that nuclear plant. But the amount of radiation released is negligible—although I’ve heard people say that you shouldn’t go swimming in the ocean off California if the currents are flowing the wrong way.
Nuclear power is far cleaner and safer than other kinds of power—and it’s basically renewable, if someone would just cancel the Jimmy Carter rules that say you have to take all the nuclear waste out and bury it. No, burial of most “nuclear waste” is not a requirement of nuclear power as such—it’s a Jimmy Carter regulation, and you can guess how much sense anything that he did makes.
Amen to that, Brother!
Years ago I worked at a nuclear power plant during a refueling (called an "outage"). We were doing routine maintenance while the reactor was shut down. Once the job was finished we had a container partially filled with "low level nuclear waste". We were required to weigh the container and certify that weight in triplicate. Three forms, three people verify & sign.
What was this "low level nuclear waste"? The power tools and hand tools used in the "hot" work areas are kept in the secure "hot tool storage" between "outages", stored in heavy polyethylene bags which are taped shut with duct tape. When we checked these out of "hot tool storage" at the beginning of the job we removed these plastic bags. These bags and duct tape were now "low level nuclear waste". Disposable booties and rubber gloves also made up a large part of the total.
If we came out of a hot area and a small piece of mildly radioactive dust or dirt on our protective clothing or booties set off the Geiger counter alarm, we used a strip of 2" wide masking tape, wrapped a sticky side out around a hand, to grab the offending particle. This now became "low level nuclear waste". The Geiger alarm was set to sound at a reading of 150 dpm. IF you go to a sporting goods store and check the replacement mantle for Coleman gas lanterns you will find they read 2000 dpm.
I just read this article about Fukushima — methinks there hasn’t been near enough hysteria over this mess, which could indeed play out to be an “On the Beach” scenario - no mention of GE as one of the incompetents here, but they should also be included. If you are anti-nuke or pro-nuke, it doesn’t matter - we need the Facts - we deserve to know what is really going on and why the MSM blackout.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article36649.htm
It is until it isn't. Then it's a real mess. The cost of failure is staggering. There's a major accident it seems like every 10 years. If you add up the total costs of nuclear it is far more expensive than coal and natural gas. It's in the cost range of wind power, which is why no nuclear plants are being built without a whole lot of government.
Dr Kemm’s opinion is very similar to that of a retired LRL physicist for whom I’ve done work from time to time.
But interestingly enough he has an elaborate fallout shelter in his back yard. (I know, different hazard)