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.
***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