“The likelihood of that happening is about one in 100,” Follow

How long before Godzilla is awakened from the depths of the ocean?

This report needed its own thread.

Also, the title of this thread does not at all reflect the contents of the linked story.

My perception is that nuclear power actually isn't all that polarized politically. Granted, it used to be, but most of the liberal people I know are pro-nuclear.

Fuck.

Here's a blow by blow report about what happened in the ********* Nuclear Power Plant. This is brought to you by people at MIT, who should probably know a thing or three about nuclear power.

The simple fact is that everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and yet, there's no significant death or damage caused by what's happening at the power plant should be a testament of how safe nuclear power really is.

The released radiation and the potential for exposure will not remain in the plant. While high levels are necessary to produce acute radiation sickness (they're seeing these levels in Plant 4 I believe that was actually off-line when the eq hit). However, radiation is a carcinogen the more frequently, the longer duration and the higher the level the greater your chance to develop cancer. There is risk, substantial risk here. Not only to the plant staff but those in the community. I mean, presumably people live in there little space of this world for some good percentage of their time. So, the potential is certainly there for long-term exposure.

Like rape, effects from radiation may not be visible immediately or even until the next generation. Remember radiation is also a known mutagen.

So while the disaster will be no chernobyl, it will also not simply be a close-miss like 3-mile island.

What I've kind of thought about though, is how would a bunch of huge oil tanks, oil refineries and oil/coal burning power plants have faired under the circumstances, if Japan relied more on oil than nuclear power. Multi-millions of gallons of oil spread over a chunk of land, fires, and again long term exposure to possible carcinogens.

Nuclear power plants have only gotten safer. Theoretically, it's a cleaner alternative to fossil fuels. However there is great potential for highly detrimental effects to people et al.





edit - i'm writing hurriedly...'sigh'.

Edited, Mar 15th 2011 2:28pm by Elinda

While I'm on your side of the nuclear power debate, let's not get stupid here. Nuclear power can be banned, Mother Nature can't. We can only control that which is controllable, so using deaths to Mother Nature in any argument vs deaths to nuclear power is varus level retardation.

Edited, Mar 15th 2011 9:39am by Uglysasquatch

The only one I know of that's on the coast is the massive pair of tits in Southern California that's visible from the interstate.

There are no earthquakes in SoCal.

For whatever reason, radiation levels are dropping.

There's nothing rational about anyone living in that area at all, let alone building nuclear power plants. In the grand scheme of "things that get people killed", can we agree that simply living in the area will result in more deaths than having a nuclear power plant there will? Yet, oddly enough, people have to live somewhere and there are negatives to anywhere they might choose.



All of them?

Edited, Mar 15th 2011 3:03pm by gbaji

They are all choices though. You choose to live in one location instead of another. You choose to generate power by burning coal or via nuclear materials. You choose to bike to work or drive a car or take the train. All of those are choices. All of them have risks and potential consequences.



Yes. So perhaps we should assess the risk of dying one way versus dying another way and compare it to the pros connected to the choices in front of us. Instead of just pointing to the risk of nuclear power, let's look at the risks and costs of coal, or solar, or wind. And let's also compare those to not generating any power at all. How many populations can't be sustained at all if there isn't power? Remember where we're talking about.

Replace those nuclear plants with coal. Assess the total long term effects. You'll find that even with the very very rare event like this added in, nuclear is still safer by a long shot. It's not like it's a choice between putting a nuclear reactor on a fault line or not. It's a choice between putting a nuclear reactor on a fault line, or a coal fired plant, or natural gas, or some other form of power generation. All have risks. All have costs. And they're all susceptible to big natural disasters.



Um... That was 100% about emotions. Really? You write about dying alone while you lungs melt, but you're not making an appeal to emotion?

How about how many people die of illnesses related to coal every single year? I'm not sure if it's a great comfort to their loved ones that at least they didn't have a one in a million chance of dying from radiation poison instead.



Which happens very very infrequently. The direct harm caused by other alternatives happen all the time. Tell the thousand (more?) people who die from illnesses from coal related work every single year that their lives were worth sacrificing in order to prevent the 10 people from dying of radiation poisoning every 10 years or so.

If you're being unemotional, that is.

Kinda glad I chose to live in a seismically stable area with no nuclear plants within 50 miles right now.

I'd like to hear about it.