Let me play devil's advocate on the issue of nuclear power

[Very_Boring_Name]

If you were to add up all the deaths directly caused by automobiles in the past 15 years (since Chernobyl), how many would that equal? Probably tens of millions. The difference is, when a nuclear disaster happens, lots of people die at once. Even though in the long run cars cause far more deaths, nobody is suggesting that we ban cars. Why is this?

[MineralMan]

1. No, not tens of millions. Do the math.

That's often a great idea before posting speculative numbers. The actual data are available.

[Statistical]

21. Ok 6 million. According to WHO autos kill 400,00 people per year. n/t

[katsy]

2. I can have an accident in my car

and hurt myself without affecting the lives and health of millions of people around me.

Driving can be made safer by ways of regulation, laws and common sense.

on edit: the site of my car accident won't be radioactive for 50K years. Hope that clears things up for you.

[Very_Boring_Name]

4. You can certainly have an accident in your car and injure the lives and health of people around you

You can hit pedestrians, other cars.

Driving can be made safer by ways of regulation, laws and common sense.

So can nuclear energy.

[immoderate]

8. Neutrons follow regulations?

That'll be the day.

--imm

[LanternWaste]

32. I imagine the same may be asked regarding many drivers.

I imagine the same may be asked regarding many drivers.

[katsy]

9. Stop. This argument is ridiculous.

I will not argue that nuclear energy may one day be safer. I have no way of making that argument.

What I do know is that your analogy is ridiculous.

I can cause an auto accident from hell killing 10,000 pedestrians and 20,000 other drivers and the environment will still be safe in the coming weeks provided a good clean up. It will not take 50K years 1/2 life or 1/4 life whatever it is that a nuclear accident can cause and that is not to mention the cancer that is spread to living creatures. Are you comparing the suffering of the people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to a bloody auto accident? Give me a break. This is far more insidious.

And quite frankly if ever I had to live near a nuclear plant, I would feel safer living in one controlled by the Japanese government than here. I have more confidence in their ability to deal with the disaster than any agency here. I commend the Japanese for the quality which they insist upon in most every aspect of their lives. I lived there. I cherish their contribution to who I am today.

That is NOT a good comparison no matter how you warp it.

[LynneSin]

16. But then there are areas like southern california where the collective pollution from all those cars

Makes the air quality beyond dismal - thus affecting everyone in a negative manner.

Yet I grew up near TMI (even before the accident) and yet my lungs are in great shape.

[jp11]

3. The two aren't in any way remotely similar beyond the connection of people dying. n/t

[jschurchin]

5. People fear what they don't understand.

Instead of taking time to study and understand the benefits along with the consequences of a particular industry. They only focus on the consequences. It's human nature for some people.

There are people who are dead set against coal fired power plants due to the amount of CO2 emitted by them. They set aside the benefit, i.e. Electricity, and only focus on the downside. Same with Nuclear Energy.

There are risk's in everything we do. Some focus solely on the risk's, others solely on the benefit. Then there are others who make their decision based on a balance of the two.

[EstimatedProphet]

15. "Then there are others who make their decision based on a balance of the two."

Fine, then. On balance:

Risk of an accident in a nuclear plant: very low (let's call it 0.01%)
Magnitude of an accident: potentially off the scale (potential destruction of an area FOREVER)

Therefore, the risk is 0.0001*∞=∞

Still unacceptably high.

[jschurchin]

18. Balance????

Risk of an accident in a nuclear plant: very low (let's call it 0.01%)
Magnitude of an accident: potentially off the scale (potential destruction of an area FOREVER)

Both are on the consequence side. Where is your balance?

[EstimatedProphet]

23. What possible positives exist to balance an area being destroyed forever?

Are you actually going to try and claim that the amount of electricity that comes from nuclear power is worth risking destruction of an area FOREVER? Really?

This are of Japan is GONE NOW. FOR GOOD. Period. Where is the benefit from electricity to outweigh that?

[jschurchin]

24. This are of Japan is GONE NOW. FOR GOOD. Period.

Like this?



Just checking.

[EstimatedProphet]

26. No, probably more like this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

[jschurchin]

30. Chernobyl?

By posting this link, you have PROVEN you have no idea about what the Japanese people are dealing with. Do us all a favor and educate your dumb ass self. Here are some links to help you,


This is what the Japanese are dealing with.
http://www.nucleartourist.com/type/bwr.htm

This is what Three Mile Island has operating.
http://www.nucleartourist.com/type/pwr.htm

And this, dumb ass, was Chernobyl.
http://www.nucleartourist.com/type/rbmk.htm

Please get a clue. There is nothing like having a battle of wits, when your opponent has no ammunition.

[EstimatedProphet]

31. I'm sorry. You're right. Nuclear power is completely safe. Nothing could ever go wrong.

[katsy]

17. You also have to point out that there are people,

even corporations, that will not invest in solar, wind or geothermal energy because there isn't enough profit in clean energy. It's something that (gasp) even clever people can do for themselves given the right education and materials.

When we can send radioactive waste into space targeting some far off place cheaply, I'm willing to listen. Given the corruption of U.S. politics and corporations, how can anyone trust these clowns with anything more dangerous than a BIC lighter? Are you kidding me? They'll reduce the value of a human life to a one thin dime if a corporation can profit richly.

Solar/wind/geothermal should be the priority of every community and government. Tax the rich. Fix our infrastructure and energy sources. Require no-profit energy and watch the real economy (the people's economy) pop.

That's right. That's what I believe is the ethical route. All food/health/energy/environment should be owned by the people, nationalized. Want to make a profit? Go out and create and profit richly. But not at the people's expense. Not at the expense of our health or our land.

[jschurchin]

19. "Require no-profit energy and watch the real economy (the people's economy) pop."

I couldn't agree more.

[MadHound]

6. In a nuclear accident, the people do NOT die all at once,

That is the incidious part of nuclear accidents, it is the gift that will keep on giving for years and decades, generations even.

In addition to the immediate deaths due to radiation exposure, you're also going to have a certain, quite possibly larger group of people dying later on due to various cancers. You can map these cancers and identify cancer clusters, areas of high exposure levels. There are several of these around TMI.

Not to mention that those in the womb can be effected, leading to birth defects and/or shortened lives.

And even after all apparent danger is gone, grass can uptake radioactive material in the soil, get eaten by cows, who then go on to produce radioactively tainted milk. This happened in Wisconsin as a result of the fallout from our above ground nuke tests in the forties and fifties.

Nuclear accidents is the gift that keeps on giving and giving.

[Very_Boring_Name]

7. How many people die due to C02 emissions emitted from hundreds of millions of cars?

Breathing problems, lung cancer, etc?

[MadHound]

11. Not denying that, but you see the thing is, you're trying to set up a false dynamic,

As in we have to go with nuclear power, with limited, though extended accidents, vs. the dangers of fossil fuels.

The thing is, we don't have to accept that dynamic anymore, since green renewables can now take up the load.
<http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/JDEnPolicyPt1.pdf>

So how about this, we ditch both nuclear and fossil fuels. Wow, what a novel concept.

[shraby]

10. Don't forget the numbers still getting lukemia and other

cancers from Hiroshima and Nagasaki..not only in Japan but WWII Veterans who were in proximity to the two bombs aftermath and from witnessing bomb testing. I know one who died about 15 years ago from lukemia because of it.

[roamer65]

35. Thank you for pointing out the truth.

[fasttense]

12. Because a nuclear disaster poisons the air, water, land, crops, animals and people for generations.

A car accident is a one time thing. A nuclear accident will affect everything and everyone around it for generation after generation. Even the fetuses 100 miles away will be poisoned by it.

[dave29]

13. Crazy thought.

If nuclear energy is a must have, one new rule: can't be built near fault line/tsunami zone. Period.

And I agree with the above poster. Why not go with wind and solar? If we are to play devil's advocate, that's one devil certainly widely available in the details.

[katsy]

22. The powers to be haven't figured out how to

bleed us totally dry from it. A few do-it-themselvers and they cry poorhouse.

If we had an honest government, we'd have had solar/wind/geo 40 years ago. No matter how clumsy back then, we'd have been making strides in improvement of clean energy instead of feeding these crooks all these years.

I remember meeting a Harvard professor, solar power pioneer some 35 years ago and his frustration and not being able to break that oil baron lobby to be given a chance by the federal government.

[Skidmore]

14. Well, let's build one in your backyard after we make certain you

live close to a fault line. How about that?

[PhillySane]

20. Long term damage to the surrounding environment,

uninhabitable areas for years and years, thousands of cancer deaths, birth defects.

Please do some reading about what can actually happen after a serious nuclear accident or blast. The two do not compare.

[Terry in Austin]

25. Okay, let's ban cars

>> nobody is suggesting that we ban cars. Why is this?

I'll suggest it right here.

It's one of America's blind spots, the car system. It kills about a Vietnam's worth of people every year or so, yet we deem this an acceptable social cost. Every culture has its blind spots. For example, the British don't seem to notice that their houses are drafty. Americans don't notice how stupid and deadly the car system is.

Why there are cultural blind spots is great material for sociology dissertations, but we really don't need to know the why of it in order to know that cars suck, just like nukes suck.

In the case of nuclear power, it appears that it isn't so much of a blind spot here, and will eventually be treated as the costs-too-much-does-too-little dead end that it is.

[Tom Rinaldo]

27. What makes radiation different from most causes of death...

.. is that it has the ability to contaminate the biosphere for untold eons, that is has the ability to be spread through water tables and via the wind to the four corners of the earth, and that it can directly alter the gene pool of living organisms so that damage sustained by an individual can be passed on to future generations.

That's not even mentioning the fact that terrorists have the ability to harness it for deadly ends.

[saras]

28. Yes we are - you lose already

Many sensible thinkers have been saying since the seventies that we need to fix our transportation issues, stop building suburbs and developing our farmland, get free of our dependence on middle east oil, etc.

For that matter, there's a bunch of folks, and has been for decades, suggesting that we need to simply end our addiction to energy, and develop a society that's more efficient at making people happy with fewer resources.

What do you think this adds up to if it isn't replacing the automobile, and the suburban society based around it, with more sensible options?

some of the differences...
With cars we know who died. With radiation leaked into the environment, we don't.
With cars you can control your own exposure. With radiation in the environment, you can't.
There is no industry group systematically producing propaganda claiming fewer auto deaths and injuries than the rest of the medical/scientific system claims. With the nuclear industry there is.
Being in an auto accident that doesn't kill you generally doesn't damage your genetics, i.e. your future. This is, on the other hand, one of the major dangers of radiation.

I could go on for a long time. The two are simply not comparable.

[Zorra]

29. Yeah! And, nuclear bombs haven't killed anyone in years.

We should build more nuclear bombs because they are effective and efficient at killing and hey, they have killed way fewer people than cars.

We should drop nuclear bombs on Afghanistan and Iraq because this would be an efficient, effective way to end those conflicts because nuclear bombs have not killed as many people as cars.

(Note: Actually, I don't really know if nuclear bombs have not killed anyone for years. Residual radiation from their use may still be killing people by causing diseases like leukemia and cancer.)

Banning cars is a great idea, IMO. Just not as practical or in all probability as immediately necessary as banning nuclear reactors. And my car is not going to meltdown and kill and sicken a bunch of people as well as plants and animals while at the same time lethally poisoning a very large geographical area making it uninhabitable for many years.

[Very_Boring_Name]

34. Nuclear bombs have killed more people than cars

n/t

[bluedigger]

33. Nuclear cars! Win-Win!

http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=3359

Ford Nucleon was one of those dreams, a nuclear powered car that was supposed to travel for 5,000 miles without a recharge. The nuclear car project was announced in 1957 by Ford, and it was a futuristic looking vehicle with an incredibly efficient fuel mileage, thanks to the small atomic fission reactor fitted in the trunk.
The setup of it’s nuclear reactor was similar to that of a nuclear submarine, but miniaturized to fit into an automobile. The idea was to use uranium fission to heat the steam generator, which turned water into steam, which could be used to drive a set of turbines. One of the turbines would propel the car, while the other would power an electrical generator. Steam would be turned back into water through condensation, and reused by the steam generator after that. As long as fissile material remained, the reactor would’ve produced power through this closed system.

:banghead: :rofl: