Nuclear Power No Panacea, Critics Say

[marmar]

From InterPress, via Common Dreams:


Published on Wednesday, July 18, 2007 by Inter Press Service
Nuclear Power No Panacea, Critics Say

by Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS - The nuclear mishap caused by Monday’s earthquake in Japan has unleashed another wave of environmental concerns about the use of nuclear technology to meet the world’s energy needs.

“Nuclear power is hardly the safe panacea its supporters claim it to be,” said Norman Dean of Friends of the Earth (FoE), a network of hundreds of environmental groups around the world.

Raising similar concerns, the environmental group Greenpeace International’s Jan Beranek described the Kashiwazaki nuclear site incident as another “reminder” that nuclear power “is not safe”.

Both Dean and Beranek warned of “far more serious nuclear accidents” and “real risks” posed by earthquakes and industrial disasters, as well as possible terrorist attacks in the future.

Monday’s earthquake killed nine and wounded more than 1,000 people, in addition to causing a radioactive leak and fire at the world’s largest nuclear-power producing plant.

Japan’s energy officials have acknowledged that the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant leaked hundreds of gallons of water that was contaminated with radioactive waste. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/18/2614/

[Systematic Chaos]

1. Then let's force the f**kers to live in China, in some toxic industrial valley

with lots of yummy coal plants spewing their obviously preferable (not to mention radioactive) ash into the air. That can be their "panacea" and they can broadcast to the whole world how safe they feel and how healthy they are.

Nothing personal against you, marmar, but I read sensational crap like this and it makes me want to :banghead: and then :puke:

Edited to add missing parenthetical.

[comtec]

2. It's not baout a panacea, it's about compromise

We can have reasonably safe nuclear power, where we enforce re furbishing of nuclear rods, etc thus reducing waste, and increase 10 fold wind, solar and hydo energy production and eliminate coal, petrol, diesel energy plants, et al, or we can follow your way which is to bitch and moan and stop progress, or slow it down.

I am all for increasing clean energy, and ENFORCING LAWS that REGULATE nuclear energy production, and reduce nuclear waste. but I am not in favor of simply sitting in the way, and bitching.

I'd love to have all solar, wind (most cost effective, least negatively impacting) and hydro power. It'd be GREAT if the ceramic engine was released by Detroit (super light SUPER heat efficient) and fuel economy was in the 50's (I had a metro, I swear it ran on happy thoughts and 3 hamsters on crack).

The reality is choose your current evils. honestly I choose nuclear if I have to, over coal and diesel. coal CAN be made SIGNIFICANTLY LESS polluting, but it isn't. so it has to go away. With nuclear.. we only have to worry about radiation LOL.

Mind you, That's nuclear energy with regulation, and strict enforcement of safety, and recycling of the 'used rods' to reduce overall waste. You can NOT transform matter into energy without SOME KIND of byproduct. Nuclear fusion isn't here yet, and even that'd not the puppies and kittens exhaust everyone says it is. to start a fusion reactor, ironically enough,m you need a nuclear fission reactor to power it.

and I'm an environmentalist.. well maybe I'm a realist. I understand the middle steps that the (actual) far left usually simply ignores., necessarily to get things done. first crawl, then stand, then walk, then run. GOD we barely have gotten to the stand stage, and they want to run marathons!

[Igel]

3. Panaceas are like utopias.

Arguing that Sweden or the US isn't a utopia is easy. Problem is, the argument's against a straw man.

Same for nuclear power, solar power, wind power, biofuels, conservation ... to argue that none of them is a panacea is a pointless exercise in feel-good arguing against a fictitious and easily vanquished foe.

And to argue that something is not without risk is also a fool's game. Only after quantifying the risks and comparing them with risks from other possible solutions can a reasoned argument be made as to which is better (and that only from the standpoint of risk).