[LINK] Radiation
Jan Whitaker
jwhit at melbpc.org.au
Wed Mar 16 17:45:19 AEDT 2011
At 02:20 PM 16/03/2011, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:
>Nuclear-reactor energy sure is one good thing to have fear, uncertainty
>and doubt about. This seems healthy to me, and surely not irrational in
>terms of future world energy needs. If FUD prevents another plant, good!
I'll go back to a comment I made about the Christchurch earthquakes.
You build things appropriate to the area. If a place is stable and
has weather margins within reason (no cyclones, no tsunamis, possibly
no snowstorms and freezing temps), why not? That doesn't address the
issue of the spent fuel rods, granted, but FUD isn't helpful, for
nuclear, coal, oil, or any other energy source you want to develop.
Coal mines collapse. Wind farms require manufacturing to make the
towers, so there are non-green issues involved. Same with solar
panels. Oil platforms blow up. Pipelines break (Alaska). Tankers
runaground (Valdez).
I'm not pro or anti any of those, including nuclear. I'd wager more
people have died from coal mining than in all the nuclear accidents
combined. It's a nasty business, too. Did you know that half the
early oil explorers died trying to find oil in the Texas oil fields?
I don't have an answer, but FUD won't solve any of it.
As Fernando, I lived about 30 miles from a nuclear power plant in
Arizona, where the prevailing winds would have put anything nasty
right over Phoenix. I visited a nuclear plant in South Carolina last
summer not far from my sister. Not sure where the wind would take
their nasties. They combine nuclear, hydro, and coal in their
diversification mix.
A thought that struck me the other night was the above ground nuclear
testing that went on. Any countries still doing that? What about the
dirty weapons used in the Iraq war? There are lots of stupid things
happening with dangerous materials.
Jan
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer
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