Posted on 04/04/2011 7:56:47 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Pollution from coal-fired power plants is responsible for more than 100,000 deaths per year, whereas the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant is unlikely to kill a single person.
People are getting nervous about nuclear power in the wake of the problems at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, questioning whether nuclear power is a sensible option for energy production in light of the perceived risks.
It has been three weeks since the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. There have been problems at the Fukushima plant with cooling, gas explosions (not nuclear), and radiation leaks – all serious issues, but so far no one has died. The earthquake and tsunami have killed more than 10,000 people.
In fact, the disaster shows how safe nuclear reactors actually are. Reactors designed half a century ago survived an earthquake many times stronger than they were designed to withstand, immediately going into shut-down (bringing driven nuclear reactions to a halt). But the radioactive products in the reactor keep decaying, producing heat, so they must be cooled.
The real problems began when the tsunami took out all the back-up generators that were meant to provide power to circulate the coolant. Loss of site power is the worst-case scenario for a nuclear power plant, so for Fukushima this was the worst crisis imaginable. New reactors have improved safety features, including passive systems that allow cooling to take place without power.
Radiation leaks are undoubtedly serious. But it is worth remembering that we are subjected to background radiation every day as a result of natural processes – some people more than others. Those living in UK areas with a lot of granite rocks, such as Cornwall, will have higher exposure than those who live somewhere like the Thames Valley.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
I apologize for the “drivel” reference - it was a knee-jerk reaction after reading your: “ the thousands of people in Russia who die from Chernobyl and other Russian nuclear pollution hot spots.”
I thought we were talking about deaths from energy production, not weapons. And focusing on what may or may not have happened in the secretive Soviet Union is hardly relevant, both because as you say we really can’t know everything that went on, and it’s not how we run our country. What was deadly in the soviet union was not the particular industries you talk about but the system - the government - that created and ran them. And as bad as that was, the secret police and the gulags were a lot worse.
But getting back on topic, here’s the 10 year assessment of Chernobyl from the NEA:
“The acute health effects occurred among the plant personnel and the persons who intervened in the emergency phase to fight fires, provide medical aid and immediate clean-up operations. A total of 31 people died as a consequence of the accident, and about 140 people suffered various degrees of radiation sickness and radiation-related acute health impairment. No members of the general public suffered these kinds of effects.”
According to the WHO, of the people that contracted thyroid cancer nine have died.
So we have a total of 40 people dead - this from the worst accident ever. All the other nuclear accidents have contributed 0 deaths. Compare this to an airplane going down, or coal mine disasters, or chemical plant explosions, or people killed in car accidents. It is trivial!!
The part that is not trivial is the psychological fear that people have of nuclear accidents as summarized by the NEA:
“An important effect of the accident, which has a bearing on health, is the appearance of a widespread status of psychological stress in the populations affected. The severity of this phenomenon, which is mostly observed in the contaminated regions of the former Soviet Union, appears to reflect the public fears about the unknowns of radiation and its effects, as well as its mistrust towards public authorities and official experts, and is certainly made worse by the disruption of the social networks and traditional ways of life provoked by the accident and its long-term consequences.”
Based on the actual data presented on mortality rate of the various energy sources, this fear is IRRATIONAL. But it’s there nonetheless.
It’s there because you can’t see or feel radiation, and it’s such an unknown that people fear it, because, not being able to see it or feel it, you can’t protect yourself against it. Additionally, because nuclear accidents are so rare, unlike mine explosions, airplane crashes, people falling off roofs, car crashes, etc, when they happen it’s a big deal and the press plays up all the old fears. You could say that the nuclear record for safety is its own worse enemy.
Hilarious! Dispute the accounts of people who were there (The Battle For Chernobyl) who tell us 600 pilots died, 2500 miners died etc. (and listen to the body count go up throughout the film) with the conjecture that it was the screening effect! So consuming radioactive material, receiving huge doses while standing in the fallout for a MayDay celebration have no ill effects??? IT’s sad but many people live their entire lives in radioactive contaminated areas in Russia - the heartbreaking documentaries on birth defects and illness are there and no- sadly they are not the result of the screening effect. Oh I could post again the information I have posted elsewhere but those who support radiation as vigorously as you are just not going to accept that. It has to have an amazingly PERFECT history of PERFECT management and PERFECT transparency. Our plans for new plant designs will likewise be perfect, our testing and responses during a crisis will be perfect etc. Even when you are watching Japan’s workers make human errors - we’ll be the perfect ones!
I have been back and forth on the nuclear issue because my background is in science. But reading up on the Chernobyl disaster and Russia’s horrific history of radioactive pollution and watching the Japanese contend with TEPCO’s silence and denial for which they have since apologized has directed my attention to the actual problem of nuclear energy - the people. People who need to deny the actual damage that has occurred and people who deny that humans are imperfect and manage radiation imperfectly. In the eyes of the vigorous supporter - those of us who count actual costs are just looking at the wrong set of numbers or are too backward. Those of us who say humans are flawed and hence their management of that kind of power are likewise flawed are just ‘scared and ignorant’. I cringe to think of how those people whose lives have been destroyed by Russia’s management of nuclear power would react to hear that the way their people and their countries sufferings are really just a screening effect.
Hilarious! Dispute the accounts of people who were there (The Battle For Chernobyl) who tell us 600 pilots died, 2500 miners died etc. (and listen to the body count go up throughout the film) with the conjecture that it was the screening effect! So consuming radioactive material, receiving huge doses while standing in the fallout for a MayDay celebration have no ill effects??? IT’s sad but many people live their entire lives in radioactive contaminated areas in Russia - the heartbreaking documentaries on birth defects and illness are there and no- sadly they are not the result of the screening effect. Oh I could post again the information I have posted elsewhere but those who support radiation as vigorously as you are just not going to accept that. It has to have an amazingly PERFECT history of PERFECT management and PERFECT transparency. Our plans for new plant designs will likewise be perfect, our testing and responses during a crisis will be perfect etc. Even when you are watching Japan’s workers make human errors - we’ll be the perfect ones!
I have been back and forth on the nuclear issue because my background is in science. But reading up on the Chernobyl disaster and Russia’s horrific history of radioactive pollution and watching the Japanese contend with TEPCO’s silence and denial for which they have since apologized has directed my attention to the actual problem of nuclear energy - the people. People who need to deny the actual damage that has occurred and people who deny that humans are imperfect and manage radiation imperfectly. In the eyes of the vigorous supporter - those of us who count actual costs are just looking at the wrong set of numbers or are too backward. Those of us who say humans are flawed and hence their management of that kind of power are likewise flawed are just ‘scared and ignorant’. I cringe to think of how those people whose lives have been destroyed by Russia’s management of nuclear power would react to hear that the way their people and their countries sufferings are really just a screening effect.
I guess you really don’t have any choice but deny the evidence because the facts weigh against your assertions. How could you acknowledge the death and suffering from Chernobyl and Russia’s policies and still insist that those of us who say there is cause for concern are irrational. You are backed into a corner so you must insist that history never happened.
I SAID: “ the thousands of people in Russia who die from Chernobyl and other Russian nuclear pollution hot spots.”
YOU SAID: I thought we were talking about deaths from energy production, not weapons.”
Actually I was specific about nuclear pollution - that is what happens to radioactive material once it is no longer in use - doesn’t matter whether it was from weapons or energy production. Apparently you decline to acknowledge the catastrophic effects of Chernobyl in the documentary I linked to. And the links of how Russian’s treat nuclear wastes - the ‘so many people were dying and sick’ that they relocated towns along a radioactive river...never happened? Hmmm...I can see the strength in your tactic...just say it never happened. How simple.
“And focusing on what may or may not have happened in the secretive Soviet Union is hardly relevant, both because as you say we really can’t know everything that went on, and it’s not how we run our country. “
Oh it’s really not disposed of that easily. Large tracts of radioactive lands, long histories of death and illness destroy your assertion that there are x number deaths from coal and X number deaths from gas etc. but look at how safe nuclear energy is! You compared coal pollution to nuclear pollution. But London recovered from streets blackened with coal but vast areas of Russia are permanently (for all intents and purposes - that’ according to experts who point out you’d have to remove the soil from the ground and bury it....where?) uninhabitable and when forest fires or droughts put the radiation back into the air - new areas are again contaminated. Oh I know we are not Russia but there are SOME similarities. Russia didn’t inform it’s people when they were standing outdoors within easy view of the smoke stack next to the crater sending radiation their way - it wanted to keep them calm so they opened up the new Ferris wheel and let them ride it! High into the radioactive air! There’s the attitude in Japan, Russia, and on this board that presupposes that normal people are simply incompetent and incapable of understanding information so the information is not given to them. Russia denies it’s grim history and supporters embrace their denial with vigor. At the end of the video series, that Documentary (Battle For Chernobyl) recounts how the international nuclear body listened to the bare facts as presented, acted stunned, revised the numbers drastically downward. Well I guess that was to be expected in hindsight - they were pro nuclear power at all costs. The panel rejected the bare facts and reduced the radiation reported to 1/10th the original etc. This is the history of the vigorous supporters of nuclear power - revise the numbers downward, ridicule ‘outsiders’ as too ignorant to understand, don’t tell them because they just won’t ‘get it’. Call them emotional or irrational etc. That impetus to mock, deride and ignore - anyone who points out to natural human fallibility must be discredited.
Human errors lead to explosions and cave ins when speaking of coal. When speaking of human error in relation to nuclear energy, then it can lead to portions of land being permanently uninhabitable - Chernobyl is still a ghost town, even though they did try to clean it, and the original site of devastating death and injury - if the victim’s own words are to be believed. There are, based on what happened to the health of the liquidators (people who cleanup up the Chernobyl area) in Russia, no plans to continue cleaning efforts on the vast expanses of unlivable land in Russia.
It’s quite disturbing to hear those interviewed on the Youtube series assert that no human deserves to go through what they went through - and then hear nuclear power supporters suggest it never happened. Yes the Soviets denied all but a few casualties and those who need to cheerlead nuclear power in spite of the facts will grasp at those little numbers very appreciatively.
The efforts of heroic Japanese and support from foreign nations is making it less likely that large portions of Japan will become permanently unlivable - but the battle isn’t won yet. I am getting the feeling that the perilous battle they have been fighting will also be discarded by supporters - never happened, all is well, everything under control, never was in danger. etc. I hope for the best possible outcome for them - no human should experience the problems they are having with radiation.
I worked with radioactive cesium in college - the ‘public safety officer’ pointlessly exposed me to radiation when he could of just told me the process instead of opening the can and lifting out the source with a ten foot pole. I made no complaint at the time - I understood that I was X feet away from a source giving off X radiation for X minutes. He could have spared me that dose but he didn’t. Oh and then he didn’t mean to drop it (it was hard to hold with that grasping pole) and as it rolled closer to us in the lab, we crowded into the corner of the room - where there was no exit. But the man was trying to perform his job ‘perfectly’ so he didn’t return the source to the lead canister for awhile as he crept closer and closer to the source as he tried to knock the dust off of it (it picked up some big dust bunnies when it rolled). And then, when he thought I wasn’t looking, he dusted it off with his BARE HAND. He has no idea what dose he received but he had to know if he was ‘trained’ and received a permit etc. that required him to handle it with a 10 foot pole that he should not touch it with his hand. But if asked about it - I’m sure he’d say it never happened and my eye witness account could be discounted as ‘ignorance’ or ‘exaggerated fear’ etc.
People are human, designs are made by humans, decisions - by humans, emergency responses - human again. Unless you talk to a vigorously pro nuke person who INSISTS that no one has EVER been harmed by it, we have the answers now and we are different blah blah blah. What I hear is - we still won’t acknowledge lessons learned and we will function with 100% precision - even in an earthquake with the power out following a tsunami and what’s more - we won’t tell the public what is really going on (emergencies etc.) because they are outsiders and therefore we don’t trust them to think etc. Coal energy’s history is laden with error and yet we’ve never faced the potential for disaster that Russia did with nuclear energy production - as the minutes counted down and they raced to avoid contaminating the entire water table of Russia and Europe with radioactivity. Oh and that part of the video where they said ‘half of Europe would become unlivable’ had they not been able to avert a second explosion. Oh what do they know - they were just nuclear physicists who were there handling the crisis at the time.
Oh yes, the NEA has indeed discredited themselves completely by endorsing the Soviet need to falsely portray the number of actual deaths and reducing the levels of radiation exposure to 1/10 of what was reported. Once it becomes part of the NEA - why then EVERYONE can claim it. There’s video of a helicopter pilot flying right into the direct path of lethal radiation - he becomes disoriented and the copter crashes upside down into the reactor with 4 people on board - yeah the Russians denied that those four were casualties of chernobyl too. Nothing to see here...move along...unless you watch the Nova Series and find out that the ‘sarcophagus’ that they built over the reactor is...ah...unstable and if it collapses...will send a dense plume of radioactivity over them again.
Thousands died, thousands more suffered, but they’ve got the number down to what...31? As long as governments and supporters need to distort reality THAT MUCH to justify their desires - something is REALLY wrong with nuclear power.
***The real options are coal or nuclear.***
-Coal produces hydrocarbons that are carcinogenic. An average US plant throws out 220 tons per year.
-Coal mining is hazardous and produced casualties every year.
-An “average” US coal plant, even with scrubbers produces ~500 tons of small sized soot particles, 170 pounds of Hg, 225 pounds of As, 114 pounds of Pb, 4 pounds of Cd it throws into the air per year.
-Coal mining has other health risks such as from coal dust itself (inhalation) and coal dust explosions etc.
-Coal powered plants produce in volume and weight >100,000 times the refuse in sludge etc. compared to nuclear power. Within this sludge are in part highly toxic and carcinogenic organic compounds.
-Coal burning produces H2SO4, the primary culprit for acid rain.
-Coal burning produces NO, NO2 and HNO3, another culprit for acid rain but also a contributor to smog.
-Coal burning produces CO2, and CO.
-Coal burning produces other toxic and hazardous chemicals such as dioxin ( tetrachloro- through octachloro- dioxins and furans )which are also set free into the atmosphere.
-Coal mining often involves strip mining and the quantity required mined is in excess >100,000 times that for nuclear.
Sources:
http://www.epa.gov/ttnchie1/ap42/ch01/final/c01s01.pdf
http://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/ghg_report/
http://www.msha.gov/MSHAINFO/FactSheets/MSHAFCT2.HTM
As to the reasoning of people that have their hair on fire about nuclear power now: Anything goes wrong with nuclear power = cause for concern. Every day coal plants spewing crap into the air = no concern.
There is no such thing as an energy solution without costs and risks. Even the so called “green” alternative sources (a gravy train for many- GE is milking that cow for all she's worth) have environmental impacts and safety concerns associated with them beyond their reliability and cost issues. It is the later two aspects combined with the fact that there is a diminishing return on investment and low energy density that is their true undoing. Green power is an ideological movement and gravy train, nothing more. The real backbone of “ALL” industrialized nations opting out of nuclear is coal: Germany, Australia, Poland........ It's really simply an issue between nuclear and coal, that's it! Politicians can have their picture taken in-front of wind and solar farms all they want, but the demand for cheap and reliable power remains.
As to Fukushima. Unless you work there, unless you're the GE engineer that designed the reactor, unless you're one of the responders on site working there, all you know is second hand information. Nearly everything we get is speculative, sensationalist, factually incorrect in part and incomplete. So, what are you basing you arguments on? News headlines and what your friends and family all feel. This sort of crap: http://www.kktv.com/news/headlines/Radiation_Detected_in_US_Airports_118216979.html (near where I live)
My pewny high school honors and two semesters in college physics combined with a collateral duty as NBC officer in an Infantry unit (little 2 week training course- I wasn't an NBC officer) taught me enough to know that much of what I read is simple BS. OMG, OMG they found radiation at our airport! OMG, OMG, the fuel rods are exposed! OMG, OMG, The China syndrome! OMG, OMG......(Real story lines or headlines I base my OMG's on BTW) What if I tell you I can already PREDICT (not all, but some) future headlines!?!? Believe that? Wanna bet? Soon you'll read about traces of "X" in mothers milk........ I have more. FYI- If you have prostate cancer and are seeded, you'll set those detectors off at airports, that go off 580,000 a year because of their sensitivity. The granite coutertop everyone wants in their home, yeah that tends to radiate slightly....... Do you know that what they use in smoke detectors is actually pretty darn radioactive, like far more than any of the run off from Fukushima........? I hope you don't plan on living or vacationing in parts of CO soon where the natural background radiation is higher than at ground zero (Trinity test site). Anything "nuclear" get the smart ones among us worried.
"Green" = good
"Nuclear" = bad
Got it.
(Sources)
http://www.bardurological.com/patient/faq.aspx?bUnitID=1
http://www.royalfree.nhs.uk/pdf/cancer/Radioactive_seed_implant.pdf
http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/sources/smoke_alarm.html
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/trinity/trinity50_1.html
[Anyone think these bozos have a clue about what they are doing? I don’t.”
If you are such a genius, perhaps you should volunteer to go over there with RummyChick and stop the leak by yourself? Obviously you guys are smarter than fifty trained Japanese engineers on site.
I guarantee you are so smart you do your own toilet plumbing, right? Fix your own car?
Courts are human, and they too they can't sentence someone because they might make a mistake also, right?!
What a bunch of ignorant relativistic gibberish.... Humans with a mind make decisions and realize that even waking up and driving to work poses a risk = (Magnitude x probability). They make decisions based on costs and benefits, where risks are considered. They weigh the alternatives and then make a pragmatic decision, something some people can't do anymore.
“Apparently you decline to acknowledge the catastrophic effects of Chernobyl in the documentary I linked to.
What is the credibility of this documentary? In a 20 year retrospective (International study) they talk about 32 - 50 dead from the immediate high level exposure and a “marginal” (As in statistically noticeable and with a probable correlation but not significant) increase in some diseases for those exposed after the incident around the reactor. BTW- Today Chernobyl is a sort of natural habitat with wild life all over the place. Yes, you can even take a tour: http://tourkiev.com/chernobyltour/
Seriously, I can't watch the video at work. What are they up to now? It was “HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS WILL DIE!” Is it now “MILLIONS HAVE DIED?” 32-50 vs. millions, just a slight variance.
“Actually I was specific about nuclear pollution “ Pollution by definition as used in the eco vernacular is the consequence of any human activity. To the eco crowd the goal is minimization of any human impact of their green tree goddess, not the safety and well being of humans.
“And the links of how Russian’s treat nuclear wastes “
That highly dangerous and scary waste comes from where? Buddy, what do you think they mine in places like Uranium City Canada? Nuclear power is straight from mother earth herself. Go green, go nuclear! There, I used the word “green,” feel better about it now? If I took all the evil waste and ground it up and simply sprinkled it all over the nation, dilution itself would take care of the issue. The so called waste and other fissile material is largely (like 99.9%) from the earth in the first place! Simply more concentrated.
“long histories of death and illness destroy your assertion that there are x number deaths from coal and X number deaths from gas etc. but look at how safe nuclear energy is! “ Very safe, and unlike you, he can back his claim with real numbers, not imaginary ones.
” being permanently uninhabitable “ What planet do you live on? Hell, Trinity test site where they lit a nuke would be safe to live at were in not still an active range. It's open twice a year to visit BTW: http://www.nmts.org/rides/trinitySite.htm (I know, it's a conspiracy and it's actually really really dangerous....... but they don't want us to know! They revised the numbers downward) In all your “open mindedness” if you were interested, they do the tours twice a year, very nice: http://nuclearmuseum.org/
“There’s the attitude in Japan, Russia, and on this board that presupposes that normal people are simply incompetent and incapable of understanding information so the information is not given to them.” Let me ask you this, doesn't the hysteria in our media, the ignorant ideas surrounding nuclear power, weapons etc sort of prove they are right? If they gave tours of the power plant near where I live (Comanche Peak) someone like you might chain himself to a cooling tower.
“It’s quite disturbing to hear those interviewed on the Youtube series assert that no human deserves to go through what they went through - “ Rational people look for correlations, risks and find pragmatic solutions to problems affecting them. I hope my children don't die from a vaccine, the probability that something could happen and that this includes death is real. Does that mean I should not vaccinate them? After all, I hope they never have to go through what some of those people suffer and die from when they do react to these vaccines in various ways.
You make no sense....... Why don't you go talk about your “feelings” to a grief counselor, after all you appear to be stricken hard by those pictures from Japan and Chernobyl video's that are so scientific and factual.
Oh Red6 - Remember me? I am the one who said I would scan for your close minded pre-biased straw man argument laden posts and skip them. So....skip!
Oh another biased straw man argument laden post by Red6 for me to SKIP!
Your arguments, the reasoning behind your positions are awesome!
“For the eight years prior to 1986, only five cases of childhood (less than 15 years old on the day of accident) thyroid cancer were seen in Minsk, which is the main Belarussian centre for thyroid cancer diagnosis and treatment for children (De94). From 1986 to 1989, 3 to 6 cases of thyroid cancer in children were seen annually in Belarus. In 1990, the number jumped to 31, to 62 in 1991, then to 87 in 1993. By the end of 1998 the total had reached over 600 in Belarus. “
Do you know the real reason why begging in the 70s in Western nations and later in the East block the rates for certain cancers, asthma etc really went up? DIAGNOSTICS. Kids were dying of leukemia in 1860, no one knew better. The kid just died. Many diseases have increased on paper because of the availability of diagnostic equipment as well as identification of disease. Hell, AIDS was killing people for a while and no one really knew what it was and that wasn't all that long ago! When the wall cam down in 1989, they were still using reusable syringe's in the DDR, officially they had no AIDS and guess what, once unification happened, the hepatitis rates shot through the roof, not because of the West, but because it simply wasn't tested, reported and tracked prior to that. You're talking about the East Block in 1986.....
No one looking before 1986, genius!
*** America, look at this man “ransomnote,” this is the result of a poor public education.
Still trying, Red6? I explained in my post 34 why, after reading your post 30, your posts were not worth my time. You destroyed your credibility upthread and insist on having it back now? Skip!
What will it be, coal or nuclear? Can you at least answer that for us?
Or are we going to power our economy with rainbows and pixy dust after we save all that power from inflating our tires?
What will it be, coal or nuclear? Come on, give us an answer.
ransomnote,
I didn’t read all the bunk ransomnote was spewing but the great majority had to do with the Soviet Union’s ill managed nuclear weapons program and has no collary to a modern nuclear power program. He may be a “man of science” but he knows little about nuclear power and radiation.
No answer is a perfect answer. No one in their right mind will claim that nuclear power is perfect or without some risk and costs, but neither are ANY of the alternatives. Which answer maximizes our net benefit/gains and minimizes our net costs/risks.
Realistically (Unless we go into the pixy dust and rainbow power fantasy land that is only held back by a grand conspiracy) the two alternatives are: nuclear and coal.
Given the two alternatives, what is your choice?
Japan = nuclear
Australia = coal
France = nuclear
Germany = coal
Poland = coal
See a trend here?
Again, what will it be, coal or nuclear? And believe me, if you answer coal you'll get riped to pieces not because people are close minded, brainwashed and stupid here, but because you CANNOT construct a reasonable argument that looks at all facets of coal and claims it is safer and cleaner.
Your point seems to be that if you handle radioactivity irresponsibly like the soviets did many people will die.
You can make the same point regarding just about any human activities - burning coal, wood, oil, driving cars, dams, overeating, etc, etc.
My point is you handle any new technology with the appropriate level of responsibility and you weigh the costs and benefits and if the benefits outweigh the cost you do it. You’ll make mistakes along the way and learn from them.
My opinion regarding nuclear energy is that the benefits outweigh the costs - definitely in terms of life and also economically. There is a strong political agenda against nuclear - which is the same that’s against coal, oil, hydro and just about any other form of energy that actually works (including solar and wind - now that they’re actually getting to the threshold of being feasible).
Years ago, I lived in a little housing plan that had just two roads in and out and both put you right up against a railroad yard. I never thought much about it until one morning on the way to work I glanced over at the tracks and saw a dozen or so tanker cars with placards saying they were carrying chlorine.
This article claims that coal fired plants kill a 100,000 people a year -- I doubt that, but even if true, it is only after many decades of constant exposure to emissions. And other people get their hair on fire about small amounts of radiation that may or may not cause a cancer decades in the future.
Now if something crashed into those chlorine tankers sitting on that rail yard that morning, I would have died right then and there, and depending on what direction the wind was blowing that day, no one in that little housing plan could have escaped either.
Now that is what I call risk. Not 'statistical' possibilities like emissions from a coal plant, or radiation exposure.
Still trying, Red6? I explained in my post 34 why, after reading your post 30, your posts were not worth my time. You destroyed your credibility upthread and insist on having it back now? Skip!
In reality you don’t have an argument.
Thanks for clarifying that to everyone.
*waves* I’m over here! You seem to be addressing me in the third person?
Portions of Russia are permanently radioactive and thousands of people have died from it, and even more suffer horribly from it. I don’t know why the red herring ‘weapons program’ has turned up twice on this thread now - as if nuclear waste contamination of large portions of Russia, and her people, would be ok if only we new the source of the nuclear waste was originally civilian and not military. The problem of nuclear waste remains despite the herring invovled.
The information re Soviets is provided to rebut the preposterous claim that nuclear power has historically proven to be completely safe.
I then made the comment that there are social and human similarities among the various cultures, Russia, Japan, the US that indicate the problem is not the source of the radiation but is instead it’s management.Personally I disapprove of Russia’s management and I give Japan much higher marks. But where Russia has Russian pride, Japan has a culture of perfection where it’s not alright to admit things are not under control so they didn’t tell anyone that the worst case scenario - no electricity and reactors over heating - was in progress. They have since apologized to the world for that. They have good design for the most part (yes locating the switch box below flood levels was an error but I can’t say no other nation would make the same error. They didn’t make an error because they are Japanesse, they made an error because they are human) are making fairly normal human errors and I hear plenty of people on the sidelines suggesting that the US would not make human and cultural errors under the same conditions (tsunami, power outtage etc). Modern corrolaries abound.
The history of radioactivity in science is one of underestimation - it’s easy and human to do. Every time more was learned about the mysteries of radiation, a new, lower ‘safe’ level was set. That history continues to this day. Personally, I was in support of nuclear power in my college days fully believing that we would have the issue of nuclear wastes and live power management solved by now (actually by the year 2000 or so). Many technological hurdles have been successfully navigated but the factor I did not count on causing a problem, the human factor, remains. And it shows up on threads where people take the indefensible position that ‘Chernobyl was worse and only 31 people died from it....’. If you have to deny the literal suffering of a nation that is still battling to find the money to build another layer of containment over the lead sarcophagus guarding Chernobyl BEFORE the present one collapses and coats the countryside and her people with another layer of radiation - the social issues, human issues, political issues etc. have simply not been addressed. And on several FR threads - there are those are vehement against any discussion. They cling to the ‘official’ Soviet count of 31 fatalities because they have to. The actual results of Chernobyl plays havoc with their self serving assertions. So we have no progress to brag about in this key area.
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