Comments | oudeteron: Never not "two minutes to midnight"

oudeteron

Never not "two minutes to midnight"

Mar 16, 2011 19:17

I'm still trying to process the ongoing Japan crisis. Each one of the events among earthquakes, tsunami, and radiation would be a disaster in its own right, but to think there's a place on this planet facing all of them at once is unimaginable. Not that it matters what I can or can't imagine, given it's happening as I type ( Read more... )

just too awful to classify, news

Comments 10

otakujeannie March 16 2011, 23:31:08 UTC

Not to be pretentious or anything but this is hardly unique to the nuclear power industry. Oil and Coal industries are not much better in terms of transparency and giving a damn about the consequences.

Unfortunately, nothing is free in this world and in order to keep electricity affordable right now the options are limited and the demand for renewables (which carry their own risks I am sure)isn't enough for those businesses to see them as viable. I've been unsure of nuclear energy myself but it does seem to be a pandora's box whose 'gifts' might not be worth the price.

athenemiranda March 17 2011, 00:59:32 UTC

Hydroelectric power has killed more people than any other form of electricity generation. They mean it when they tell you not to swim close to the dams.

I'd note that nuclear power isn't affordable, partly due to the cost of insurance. It's simply not possible for a private power company to insure a nuclear plant - only a government can underwrite something that is capable of going that catastrophically wrong. (I don't know if you remember the struggle last year to get BP to cover the $20 billion cost of cleaning up the oil spill they caused; imagine that situation, but with a nuclear disaster, and I think you'll see why nuclear power has never and will never be commercially viable).

otakujeannie March 20 2011, 01:43:56 UTC

Sorry for the delay, I haven't been quite all here lately.

Thank you for the information I guess one learns something new everyday. I guess that's what I get from listening to Fox News soundbites about electricity generation and focusing my arguments on the wrong angles.

athenemiranda March 20 2011, 02:13:54 UTC

ffff it's not like there's any easy answers. :( And most forms of power have hidden costs somewhere.

Thread 6

cowgirlmaxwell March 18 2011, 09:31:55 UTC

Okay, if you don't mind me throwing my two cents in, I'd just like to say a few things ( ... )

cowgirlmaxwell March 18 2011, 09:32:10 UTC

I tend to ramble a lot, sorry, but here's what I really wanted to say- comparing Fukushima Daiichi's situation and Japan's handling of the situation in the media to Chernobyl is a pretty horrible thing to say. The media attention around the nuclear issue was a bit muddled, but Japan handled it better than any other nuclear 'disaster' I've heard of. The reality is, they never actually pretended like it wasn't happening or tried to downplay the urgency of the situation, they just tried to quell the 'EVERYONE'S FUCKED' crap that the media started spurting. So no, Japan isn’t trying to cover up what’s happening over there ‘for convenience’s sake’, AT ALL, and saying that they are is kind of really unfair ( ... )

oudeteron March 18 2011, 16:38:17 UTC

I don't think anyone is actually equating the Japanese government of 2011 with the USSR in 1986. But, given that there's an emergency on all fronts in Japan right now, it's not hard to imagine why the government would want to make the Fukushima situation seem less serious than it is. Yes, they did order a 20km exclusion zone, but you seem to ignore the fact that it remained the same even after the no-fly zone extended to 30km and foreign authorities expanded theirs to 50-80km around Fukushima I. And the marked lack of information there has been is crucial - ask the locals still staying within the zone, complaining that the government "won't tell them anything". Is that any way to raise public morale ( ... )

oudeteron March 18 2011, 15:50:53 UTC

I don't mind your two cents, but all the reasonings you're listing fail to take in account that all it takes is one significant radiation incident - something every nuclear plant has the potential of causing; clinging to the oft-repeated "it can't happen here because" idea is frankly more optimistic than is healthy for this kind of thing - and we have a serious contamination problem, the various outcomes of which have not been exhaustively documented even 20+ years after Chernobyl. The fact that they haven't despite the obvious urgency, or the fact that the Japanese authorities knew about the inherent risks of the design they were using at the plant and used it anyway, is precisely why nuclear power isn't and will never be without risk. Granted, nothing is without risk, but few risks compare in impact to radiation leaks and/or criticality accidents - if you choose to disregard all this while still taking those risks, you better be prepared to pay the price. Which I'm pretty sure not many of us can begin to imagine, let alone claim our ( ... )