Radiation is good for you, as they used to say in the 1930s, when it was all seen as very glamorous. I could boil down the message of nuclear apologists for every year of the last 50 years or so to the following -
“Nuclear energy is completely safe - we have eliminated the possibility of accidents and you can trust us. Last year's accidents, leaks, dangerous incidents, etc. (which we lied about systematically while they were occurring, then reluctantly admitted when an external investigating body found them) were regrettable, and we regret even more the long term cancers that will occur in the decades to come, but we have learned lessons and they will never occur again. New procedures and technological advances mean that everything will be OK from now on in.
And perhaps damage to the environment, health hazards that span decades and appalling risks that could devastate the planet - well, perhaps they are the price we must pay for clean -yes, clean - energy. I am a nuclear scientist, and I make my money from the nuclear industry, which is intimately linked to weapons of mass destruction and the military industrial complex - you can trust me ...”
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It must be nice to live in ignorance and fear. At least, I hope that is all this post represents - actual evidence about mortality rates for the different means of power generation - compiled in deaths per terawatt-hour - are entirely different from what one would imagine from hysterical, fear driven blog posts and media reaction.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course - with upcoming reactor designs such as thorium reactors and pebble bed reactors - where there is no radioactive waste to dispose of at all and the reactors cannot, according to the laws of physics, meltdown - nuclear only promises to become ever safer. And all this without any CO2 generation.
Unfortunately the fearmongering greens have seized on the nuclear problem in Japan. Despite that no deaths are attributable to nuclear pwoer in japan right now, and despite that tens of thousands can be attributed to the tsunami - they are reacting like the nuclear disaster there is the biggest public health threat since cholera.
Utterly shameful behaviour.
Why don't you just write an article titled "why the deaths of thousands of Japanese support my politics"? It would be at least honest and direct in its emotional manpulation and lies, and use and abuse of a foreign tragedy for your own utterly unrelated ends.
Shame on you.
You raise Japan as an issue - I didn't in my post. Who is being shameful? My comments stand for every year of my life, since 1945, since as a 10-year old, I first became aware of the reality of nuclear power.
ReplyDeleteFor my comment on the appalling references by the PRO-nuclear lobby, see my post of 17th March.
What's your connection to the nuclear industry? I have no such connection.