You're right. I shouldn't pick on the Corvette like that. More people die in Firebirds and Camaros. I didn't evade anything. I just pointed out there's risk and reward in even a thing as benign as a Corvette. The rewards of nuclear power far far far far far outweigh any risks. And the non-military reactors in western nations are subjected to strict safety standards and rigorous testing. Which is more likely, a nuclear reactor failure in Japan or a tsunami of unimagined proportions? The tsunami.
To repeat, we can't control the spread of tsunamis, but we can for man-made reactors. Bad analogy. The far far far benefits are simply lower energy cost, which allows the least productive part of the economy to survive. Lose 10% of the energy, you lose ribboned colored paper clips, Pet Rocks, etc. The 10% of widgets we can all live without.
Reactor failureS, plural. There are currently 4 failures, ongoing and never-ending. With nobody who says they will ever be controlled. The math says eventually all life on Earth will be eliminated either by radiation poisoning or starvation. They are not subjected to anything.
Speaking of other nuclear failures--This is 3 long pages (+ 1 page of footnotes you can skip), but it's fascinating. It makes you wonder, maybe Chernobyl was a diversion created to hide Mighty Oak? http://www.nuclearcrimes.org/8-1.php
To repeat, we could save orders of magnitude more lives than reactor accidents have cost by outlawing the automobile. By your logic. We can, after all, control deaths by automobile by eliminating them all.
Those aren't immediate death numbers. There are 430 commercial nuclear reactors in the world. Those 430 places are not inhabitable.
What? The list aren't immediate death numbers. It lists estimates of cancer deaths in the decades following, for example. Still pale in comparison to deaths by automobile in a single year in the US alone. There really are 430 commercial nuclear reactors in the world, providing 15% of the world's energy. People go to work in the buildings there daily and don't die from it. Chernobyl is a special case, since it was a military grade reactor (far less safety measures) built by the USSR while it was going broke. Your chance of dying a slow and agonizing death from one of these accidents is less than being struck by lightning.
That's quite a calculation you found. Did they include the children who will play there 4000 years from now, and die in their 20s? There will be eras in which the local civilization is low-tech and doesn't realize the danger. History ebbs and flows. For a few centuries, each area rules the world. For another few, it's the world dump.
Tell it to these poor souls. http://news.msn.com/world/6-fukushima-workers-contaminated-by-latest-leak TOKYO — Six workers at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant were exposed to leaking radioactive water after one of them mistakenly removed a pipe to a water treatment system, the plant's operator said on Wednesday. Tokyo Electric Power Co, also known as Tepco, has been battling to contain radioactive water at the plant, which suffered triple meltdowns and hydrogen explosions in March 2011. Regulators have criticized the utility for its handling of the problems. In the latest incident, a worker mistakenly detached a pipe connected to a treatment system to remove salt from the hundreds of tonnes of water Tepco pumps over the melted fuel in wrecked reactors at Fukushima to keep them cool. "Several tonnes" of water spilled at the treatment facility but were contained within the site, a Tepco spokesman said. On Monday, Tepco said a plant worker accidentally switched off power to pumps that inject water to cool the damaged reactors. A backup system kicked in immediately, but the event was another reminder of the still precarious state of the plant. Tepco said last week 113 gallons of contaminated water had spilled out of a storage tank at Fukushima and probably flowed into the ocean.
The contamination leaks aren’t a result of technical problems with the water tanks, but rather human error. In fact, there have been at least three major leaks in the last 30 days, with several metric tons of contaminated water seeping into the ground and running off into the ocean, and all of the accidents were results of sloppy mistakes, rather than mechanical failures. “It is extremely regrettable that contaminated water leaked because of human error,” said Katsuhiko Ikeda, the administrative head of the Nuclear Regulation Authority. “We must say on-site management is extremely poor.” Engineers and industrial experts have blamed Tepco for its carelessness in handling the contaminated water, pointing to protective barriers that are too low, insufficient inspection records of the tanks, a lack of water gauges, and the company’s decision to lay connecting hoses directly on the grassy ground. Regulators have even criticized Tepco for lacking the basic skills to properly measure radioactivity. "As far as Tepco people on our contaminated water and sea monitoring panels are concerned, they seem to lack even the most basic knowledge about radiation," said Kayoko Nakamura, a radiologist and commissioner of the Nuclear Regulation Authority. "I really think they should acquire adequate expertise and commitment needed for the job.” http://www.ibtimes.com/fukushima-ra...ly-asks-world-help-two-years-too-late-1416058
But while Chernobyl and Fukushima were the only two nuclear disasters to measure Level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale, Chernobyl only contained 180 tons of nuclear material prior to the catastrophe; comparatively, Fukushima contained 1,760 tons of nuclear material. http://www.ibtimes.com/fukushima-ra...ly-asks-world-help-two-years-too-late-1416058
More coverups, corner-cutting and corporate swindling. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/24/gregory-jaczko-fukushima_n_3983242.html
Yeah Denny's the one with perspective. There's no reason to get more worked up over this than house fires.
Goodness. A guy standing 0 feet from nuclear radiation gets a dose? Yeah, I do feel for the guy, but: 1) we're not standing 0 feet from nuclear radiation and 2) he voluntary chose a very dangerous thing to do. People died building the golden gate bridge and hoover dam, too. Yep, I am experiencing a slow and agonizing death. Slow because it'll take at least 70 years (I hope) and agonizing because I'll have been married for most of those.
