People don't understand nuclear power = fear of the unknown.
Anything natural is good, man made / artificial evil and bad, nuclear power = man made and artificial. Americans are so conditioned to this that the mere stimulus of a color, i.e. “green” already sets off a Pavlovian effect in many.
Things relating to big business are evil. Nuclear power = big business.
Anything relating to defense and especially nuclear weapons is bad. Oak Ridge and many of the early nuclear plants were designed with the intent to make fissile material for nuclear weapons. Nuclear power = nuclear weapons.
What the writer says can be factually backed up: http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/mining/statistics/discoal.htm In the US alone, more coal miners died in 2010 ALONE than what nuclear power has cost in lives in the US since it's inception. Discounting cancer from hydrocarbons produced by burning coal, coal dust and the associated lung diseases, the H2SO4 (acid rain) and CO2 as well as the sludge >100,000 the left over waste by weight and volume........... nuclear is in terms of safety record actually very safe and it's a simple matter of how one counts the casualties. Events like Three Mile Island actually are testaments to their safety. To a large degree even Fukushima, which seems incomprehensible to many since something went wrong, right? Yes something went wrong, yet the fail safe systems, equilibrium seeking and triple containment designed reactors where even in a worst case scenario it just sort of fizzles into the ground is actually proof of concept and design when what was supposed to happen did happen after a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami slam into 40+ year old reactors.
Bottom line, when it comes to nuclear power some will hold it to a zero flaw, zero consequence standard but they will overlook the downsides of coal, which is the only viable alternative.
But as I stated before, what you're really doing here is arguing against a “feeling” and a fad. You can't win this argument with reason because the people you're arguing with aren't thinking. They are essentially sensing and it's a combination of a mass consensus and media hype that defines what they really think. They repeat the same things to one another and look for affirmation in each others feelings.
Ok so you have a low opinion of people with opinions other than yours. Check.
And you dismiss any other opinion than your as feeling rather than rational though. Check.
You present straw man arguments. Check.
You eliminate any interest in discourse with you thusly:
“You can’t win this argument with reason because the people you’re arguing with aren’t thinking.”
Ok so I will just check for Red6 posts and skip them. Meanwhile, some of us will choose trade information, experiences and perspectives.
You make many excellent points. We really need to keep things in perspective. What the media never tells us for some reason, is that coal-fired power pollution kills an estimated 10,000 to 50,000 people every year in American alone, according to major studies. That means that more people have died due to coal-fired power than have died due to nuclear power EVEN SINCE THE CRISIS STARTED IN JAPAN.
Check out my webpage on nuclear power at http://RussP.us/nucpower.htm