Why it's time to dispel the myths about nuclear power

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, and the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl incident. Together, these constitute the two greatest nuclear accidents the world has ever seen.
Even now, widespread confusion over these disasters still blights rational discussion on energy production; too often the debate becomes needlessly acrimonious, reliant on rhetoric in lieu of facts. Yet as climate change becomes an ever-encroaching factor, we need more than ever to have a reasoned discussion on nuclear power. To this end, it’s worth dispelling some persistent myths.


The events in the Ukrainian town of Pripyat on the morning of 26 April 1986 have permanently etched the name Chernobyl, and all its connotations, into the public mind. With a dark irony, it was a poorly conducted safety experiment that was the catalyst for the worst nuclear disaster in history. The full ]odious sequence of events that led to the accident would constitute an entire article. In essence, however, the mixture of flawed design, disabled redundancies and a tragic disregard for experimental protocol all feature heavily in the blueprint of the disaster. The net result of this errant test was a massive steam explosion, replete with enough kick to blow the 2,000 ton reactor casting clean through the roof of the reactor building.


Despite the sheer explosive force of the eruption, what ensued was not a nuclear blast. The spectre of the cold war has left an unfortunate conflation between nuclear weapons and nuclear power, but it is important to note that they operate on very different principles. The Chernobyl explosion was instead a conventional high-pressure failure due to excess steam. Seconds later, the remaining coolant flashed to steam and a second even greater explosion occurred, dispersing the shattered nuclear core and effectively terminating the chain reaction. This second explosion also ejected chunks of graphite moderator into the air, which caught fire, releasing radioactive fallout. It’s estimated that the second explosion released 40bn joules of energy - roughly equivalent to a staggering 10 tons of TNT.


[size=16]Inside the abandoned city of Pripyat, 30 years after Chernobyl – in pictures

 
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Contrary to all safety regulations, the roof of the reactor complex had been constructed with bitumen, which proved a highly flammable agent. The burning, highly toxic graphite rods ignited at least five fires on the roof of the adjacent reactor. To compound matters further, the night shift and engineering chief squabbled over whether the reactor should be shut downFor several hours workers were in situ with minimal protection. Firefighters arrived on the scene, completely unaware of the dangers they were being exposed to. In the commotion, a helicopter tasked with dumping 5,000 metric tons of sand and neutron-absorbing boron in an effort to quench the flames collided with a crane and spiralled into the ground, killing all four of crew members immediately - atragic event caught on camera. By 5am the fire had been brought under control, but a number of men had been exposed to high radiation levels and lacked even the most basic protection.


The Soviet response was an unmitigated disaster; rather than admit the fault and take preventative action, the authorities pretended nothing was amiss. In this interim of inaction, hazardous material released in the blast seeped unimpeded into the soil around Pripyat, chief among them radio-iodine 131. This radio-isotope has a half-life of a mere eight days, but if ingested it can accumulate in the thyroid, leading to illness and the potential emergence of thyroid cancer in later life. To circumvent this, those exposed to high levels of radio-iodine are generally given potassium iodide to prevent ill effect. But even this basic prophylactic response was not taken, and residents continued to ingest contaminated food. Finally, a full 36 hours after the explosion, the authorities gave the order to evacuate. This too was likely to have been covered up, had traces of radioactive fallout not been detected at a Swedish nuclear facility the next day, which revealed the scale of the problem to the world.



Chernobyl was a perfect storm, a damning tale of ineptitude leading to needless loss of life. It was also unequivocally the world’s worst nuclear accident. To many, it is also heralded as proof-positive that nuclear energy was inherently unsafe, a narrative adopted by many anti-nuclear groups. The word Chernobyl became synonymous with death on a massive scale. But perception and reality do not always neatly align; in the wake of the disaster, the UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) and others undertook a co-ordinated effort to follow up on health effects. In 2006, after two decades of monitoringthey outlined the health effects; of the firefighters exposed to the huge core doses and incredibly toxic smoke, 28 died from acute radiation sickness. A further 15 perished from thyroid cancer. Despite aggressive monitoring for three decades, there has been no significant increase in solid tumours or delayed health effects, even in the hundreds of thousands of minimally protected cleanup workers who helped purge the site after the accident. In the words of the 2008 UNSCEAR report: “There is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure.


It added: “The incidence of leukaemia in the general population, one of the main concerns owing to the shorter time expected between exposure and its occurrence compared with solid cancers, does not appear to be elevated. Although most highly exposed individuals are at an increased risk of radiation-associated effects, the great majority of the population is not likely to experience serious health consequences as a result of radiation from the Chernobyl accident. Many other health problems have been noted in the populations that are not related to radiation exposure.”
Of course, the fact that the health impact of Chernobyl is far less than people tend to believe should not detract from the tragedy: at least 43 people died as a direct consequence of the disaster and up to 4,000 others exposed in 1986 might yet exhibit some ill effect. Moreover, the scale of disruption in the wake of the incident was enormous, with around 115,000 people evacuated by the authorities from areas surrounding the reactor in 1986. To this day, a 30km exclusion zone around the reactor has been maintained for precaution, despite the radiation level in this boundary being far below that which would cause damage. Unmolested by human hands, the Chernobyl exclusion zone has become an incredible natural wildlife habit and a growing tourist attraction.


But for ideological opponents of nuclear power, this reality is largely ignored; a Russian non-peer-reviewed report garnered headlines with the claim 985,000 died as a result of the accident, a number subsequently exposed as baseless by theRadiation Protection Dosimetry journal. The scientific evidence also ]undermined Greenpeace, who had long used the spectre of Chernobyl (and more recently, Fukushima) as a prop in their anti-nuclear narrative. They and European Greens scrambled to counter this by releasing “The other report on Chernobyl (Torch)” in 2006 as a counter to the Chernobyl forum. In it, they reported that more than 200,000 deaths might be attributable to the disaster. This figure too is devoid of merit, a transparent attempt to circumvent the scientific consensus. Such empty hyperbole and stubborn insistence on projecting ideology over reality isn’t merely intellectually vapid, it’s actively damaging to the psychological health of survivors.
This is also explicitly touched on in a 2005 World Health Organisation report: “Designation of the affected population as ‘victims’ rather than ‘survivors’ has led them to perceive themselves as helpless, weak and lacking control over their future. This ... has led either to overcautious behaviour and exaggerated health concerns, or to reckless conduct.”
Unlike the accident in the Ukraine, events at Fukushima in March 2011 were not the result of ineptitude but rather a massive natural disaster in the form of a deadly 15-metre high tsunami. The wall of rushing water flooded the Fukushima plant, water-logging the diesel generators that had been cooling the plant, resulting in the leakage of small amounts of nuclear waste product. While the world media fixated on the drama unfolding at the plant, it lost sight of the fact that around 16,000 had just been killed in a massive natural disaster. Despite the preponderance of breathless headlines since the reality is that five years later, radiobiological consequences of Fukushima are practically negligible - no one has died from the event, and is it extraordinarily unlikely that anyone will do so in future. The volume of radioactive leak from the site is so small as to be of no health concern; there is no detectable radiation from the accident in Fukushima grown-food, nor in fish caught off the coast. This of course hasn’t stopped numerous organisations employing Fukushima as an anti-nuclear argument, despite the lack of justification for doing so.


[size=16]‘We have a chance to show the truth’: into the heart of Chernobyl

 
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It is important also to see these disasters in the wider context of energy production: when the Banqiao hydroelectric dam failed in China in 1975 in led to at least 171000 deaths and displaced 11 million people. Even windpower has resulted in more than 100 deaths since the 1990s. None of this is to denigrate the vital importance of such technologies, but rather to point out that every form of energy production has some inherent risk. Our reliance on fossil fuels is particularly costly, not only to the environment but to human health; each year,at least 1.3 million people are estimated to die from air pollution. More recent estimates put this figure at 5.5 million.


Yet as I have expanded upon previously for this paper, ideological opposition is hard to overcome and nuclear is no exception. In the wake of Fukushima, Germany acquiesced to demands from lobby groups to shut down its nuclear sector, building heavily polluting fossil-fuel plants in their stead. Japan too suspended its nuclear grid, becoming the second-largest net importer of fossil fuels in the world. Some ostensible environmental campaigners lauded this, oblivious to the fact these decisions condemned the environmental to further damage. If this is “victory” for the environment, it is a resoundingly pyrrhic kind. Shutdown of the plants in Japan has led to not only increased pollution, butrolling blackouts and protests. By contrast, France has for decades produced ]75% of its energy through nuclear, and enjoys the cleanest air and among the lowest carbon emissions of any industrialised nature.


The IPCC stress that nuclear power must be considered if we are to halt climate change, with some estimates suggested nuclear capacity needs to double if we are to stave off the worst ravages of climate change. Even so, resistance to nuclear remains, and scare-stories about Chernobyl and Fukushima are too often employed as an empty rebuttal by those unwilling to countenance the situation we face. Nuclear energy is complicated, has drawbacks, and like any form of energy production it has risks. But it is also clean, safe and hugely efficient. If we truly want to have a rational discussion on how best to power our world, we need to confine ourselves to facts rather than fictions and weigh up the advantages and disadvantages without recourse to ill-founded ideological radiophobia. Our very future depends upon it.






https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2016/apr/11/time-dispel-myths-about-nuclear-power-chernobyl-fukushima








Blimey, I am generally surprise to see such an article in the Guardian
Also nice to see an open and honest article that easily dispels the fearmongers

Question -- were you surprised because you think the Guardian has a liberal agenda?

Ben_Reilly wrote:Question -- were you surprised because you think the Guardian has a liberal agenda?

Depends how you define Liberal agenda
That would have to be devoid of any conflict and regressive beliefs that are at odds with Liberalism.

Actually I was more than surprised that they would publish this based on the anti-Nuclear stance of the left wing, of which this media is notorious for its left wing bias

didge wrote:

Ben_Reilly wrote:Question -- were you surprised because you think the Guardian has a liberal agenda?

Depends how you define Liberal agenda
That would have to be devoid of any conflict and regressive beliefs that are at odds with Liberalism.

Actually I was more than surprised that they would publish this based on the anti-Nuclear stance of the left wing, of which this media is notorious for its left wing bias

There are many liberals (like myself) who think that nuclear power is a crucial component of any plan to end reliance on fossil fuels. There are also plenty of liberals who oppose expanding nuclear power.

What to do with information like that? It's almost as though liberals are their own people who form their own opinions!

Ben_Reilly wrote:

didge wrote:


Depends how you define Liberal agenda
That would have to be devoid of any conflict and regressive beliefs that are at odds with Liberalism.

Actually I was more than surprised that they would publish this based on the anti-Nuclear stance of the left wing, of which this media is notorious for its left wing bias

There are many liberals (like myself) who think that nuclear power is a crucial component of any plan to end reliance on fossil fuels. There are also plenty of liberals who oppose expanding nuclear power.

What to do with information like that? It's almost as though liberals are their own people who form their own opinions!

There is the problem though, you quantify many people as Liberals, of which I would not classify them as being as.
People form their own views on both sides of the Political spectrum, which if they did not, none of their views would even exist if they did not form their own opinions. So that really is a moot point Ben.


Catch you later

didge wrote:

Ben_Reilly wrote:

didge wrote:


Depends how you define Liberal agenda
That would have to be devoid of any conflict and regressive beliefs that are at odds with Liberalism.

Actually I was more than surprised that they would publish this based on the anti-Nuclear stance of the left wing, of which this media is notorious for its left wing bias

There are many liberals (like myself) who think that nuclear power is a crucial component of any plan to end reliance on fossil fuels. There are also plenty of liberals who oppose expanding nuclear power.

What to do with information like that? It's almost as though liberals are their own people who form their own opinions!

There is the problem though, you quantify many people as Liberals, of which I would not classify them as being as.
People form their own views on both sides of the Political spectrum, which if they did not, none of their views would even exist if they did not form their own opinions. So that really is a moot point Ben.


Catch you later

Research suggests there is a big difference between how liberals and conservatives form their opinions, though:

Together these data suggest that political conservatism may be a process consequence of low-effort thought; when effortful, deliberate thought is disengaged, endorsement of conservative ideology increases.

http://psp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/03/16/0146167212439213.abstract

So the right might be forming their own opinions, but they're not putting much thought or effort into doing so.

Ben_Reilly wrote:

didge wrote:


There is the problem though, you quantify many people as Liberals, of which I would not classify them as being as.
People form their own views on both sides of the Political spectrum, which if they did not, none of their views would even exist if they did not form their own opinions. So that really is a moot point Ben.


Catch you later

Research suggests there is a big difference between how liberals and conservatives form their opinions, though:

Together these data suggest that political conservatism may be a process consequence of low-effort thought; when effortful, deliberate thought is disengaged, endorsement of conservative ideology increases.

http://psp.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/03/16/0146167212439213.abstract

So the right might be forming their own opinions, but they're not putting much thought or effort into doing so.

There is also an even bigger difference when people hold views held within each camp as many people do
Actually if not for the right, societies would not have advanced as quickly as they did.
You are just offering up a subjective view point again which if truth be told, is blatantly ignoring swathes of history

Bullshit, Didge! The right is about preserving the status quo, the past, about traditionalism and rigid social hierarchies. In short, conservatives have never enacted social progress because they don't believe in social progress:

Wikipedia wrote:Conservatism as a political and social philosophy promotes retaining traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others, called reactionaries, oppose modernism and seek a return to "the way things were".[1][2] The first established use of the term in a political context originated with François-René de Chateaubriand in 1818,[3] during the period of Bourbon restoration that sought to roll back the policies of the French Revolution.

I feel like we're having this debate over and over again here. You don't get to label a party or politician "right wing" just because they enacted a policy you agree with. Words mean what they mean. Maybe you're a lefty who doesn't want to admit it?

Ben_Reilly wrote:Bullshit, Didge! The right is about preserving the status quo, the past, about traditionalism and rigid social hierarchies. In short, conservatives have never enacted social progress because they don't believe in social progress:

Wikipedia wrote:Conservatism as a political and social philosophy promotes retaining traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others, called reactionaries, oppose modernism and seek a return to "the way things were".[1][2] The first established use of the term in a political context originated with François-René de Chateaubriand in 1818,[3] during the period of Bourbon restoration that sought to roll back the policies of the French Revolution.

I feel like we're having this debate over and over again here. You don't get to label a party or politician "right wing" just because they enacted a policy you agree with. Words mean what they mean. Maybe you're a lefty who doesn't want to admit it?

Not bullshit as people do hold political views on both spectrum.
You just only see the regressed world view point of Ben
You also hold an Americanized understanding of Conservatism as well.
You do not get to change history and make it up as you go along assigning Liberalism to people who were fundamentally Conservative
This will help further educate you on the matter

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/8998813/British-and-American-conservatives-are-speaking-a-different-language.html

didge wrote:

Ben_Reilly wrote:Bullshit, Didge! The right is about preserving the status quo, the past, about traditionalism and rigid social hierarchies. In short, conservatives have never enacted social progress because they don't believe in social progress:

Wikipedia wrote:Conservatism as a political and social philosophy promotes retaining traditional social institutions in the context of culture and civilization. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others, called reactionaries, oppose modernism and seek a return to "the way things were".[1][2] The first established use of the term in a political context originated with François-René de Chateaubriand in 1818,[3] during the period of Bourbon restoration that sought to roll back the policies of the French Revolution.

I feel like we're having this debate over and over again here. You don't get to label a party or politician "right wing" just because they enacted a policy you agree with. Words mean what they mean. Maybe you're a lefty who doesn't want to admit it?

Not bullshit as people do hold political views on both spectrum.
You just only see the regressed world view point of Ben
You also hold an Americanized understanding of Conservatism as well.
You do not get to change history and make it up as you go along assigning Liberalism to people who were fundamentally Conservative
This will help further educate you on the matter

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/8998813/British-and-American-conservatives-are-speaking-a-different-language.html

Again, we've had this debate before. A conservative politician can enact a liberal policy, that doesn't make the policy conservative. A liberal can enact a conservative policy (Bill Clinton anyone?) and that doesn't make the policy liberal.

There's no real difference between Tories and Republicans, other than the political environment they operate in. The Tories would start calling for the privatization of the NHS tomorrow morning if they thought they could get any kind of support for it.

Ben_Reilly wrote:

didge wrote:

Not bullshit as people do hold political views on both spectrum.
You just only see the regressed world view point of Ben
You also hold an Americanized understanding of Conservatism as well.
You do not get to change history and make it up as you go along assigning Liberalism to people who were fundamentally Conservative
This will help further educate you on the matter

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/8998813/British-and-American-conservatives-are-speaking-a-different-language.html

Again, we've had this debate before. A conservative politician can enact a liberal policy, that doesn't make the policy conservative. A liberal can enact a conservative policy (Bill Clinton anyone?) and that doesn't make the policy liberal.

There's no real difference between Tories and Republicans, other than the political environment they operate in. The Tories would start calling for the privatization of the NHS tomorrow morning if they thought they could get any kind of support for it.

There is a vast difference between Republicans and Tories, showing again you are just placing your fingers in your ears going "la la la la la , I'm not listening, la la la la". In fact the Democrats share far more policies with the Tories. Again progression by your admittance above then would make it being many Conservatives that have progressed American society. It also shows again and exactly what I have been saying is people can have views that are on different views on the Political spectrum. Sadly you hold this regressed view on Politics, that holds only dogmatic beliefs as to what constitutes a Political view point
Those are simply the facts and no matter how badly you try to instead provide me with pseudo history.

didge wrote:

Ben_Reilly wrote:Bullshit, Didge! The right is about preserving the status quo, the past, about traditionalism and rigid social hierarchies. In short, conservatives have never enacted social progress because they don't believe in social progress:



I feel like we're having this debate over and over again here. You don't get to label a party or politician "right wing" just because they enacted a policy you agree with. Words mean what they mean. Maybe you're a lefty who doesn't want to admit it?

Not bullshit as people do hold political views on both spectrum.
You just only see the regressed world view point of Ben
You also hold an Americanized understanding of Conservatism as well.
You do not get to change history and make it up as you go along assigning Liberalism to people who were fundamentally Conservative
This will help further educate you on the matter

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/8998813/British-and-American-conservatives-are-speaking-a-different-language.html

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH  !!!!!

THE CORNERSTONE of Uncle Ruppert's ultra-right-wing propaganda machine..

GOOD ONE, Didge.
Using a right-wing fascist rag with Murdoch's hand-picked henchman at the helm, as your reference to defend your loopy attempts at rewriting political classifications..

RUPPERT would be proud !

GOT ANY corroborating evidence to back up those tenuous, erroneous and fallacious arguments ?     



(In 2013, Murdoch bought the Aussie-born editor over here to help run the Abbott/Hockey election campaign, while replacing him with the editor of the Sydney-based Aussie Daily Telegraph..      ).

And there is a fine example again of left wing ignorance and major paranoia.

Bee cannot dispel any of the arguments and views made but instead tries to deligitimize the media source.

Yes that kind of argument in a real life debate would see Bee be the laughing stock

Didge once told me that the Telegraph was not a reliable source.

Raggamuffin wrote:Didge once told me that the Telegraph was not a reliable source.

Yes on the context of a case made using hearsay accounts, not on Political facts.
So the point still stands

Its funny how you are forever emotional

Learn to get a grip of yourself

didge wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:Didge once told me that the Telegraph was not a reliable source.

Yes on the context of a case made using hearsay accounts, not on Political facts.
So the point still stands

Its funny how you are forever emotional

Learn to get a grip of yourself

Saying that you told me the Telegraph is not a reliable source is nothing to do with emotions - it's a factual comment.

Have you learned to control your fists yet?

Raggamuffin wrote:

didge wrote:


Yes on the context of a case made using hearsay accounts, not on Political facts.
So the point still stands

Its funny how you are forever emotional

Learn to get a grip of yourself

Saying that you told me the Telegraph is not a reliable source is nothing to do with emotions - it's a factual comment.

Have you learned to control your fists yet?

Again absurd failing to understand context.

Have you learned yet to control your mouth?

didge wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

Saying that you told me the Telegraph is not a reliable source is nothing to do with emotions - it's a factual comment.

Have you learned to control your fists yet?

Again absurd failing to understand context.

Have you learned yet to control your mouth?

Have you learned to control that nervous tic in your eyes?

Raggamuffin wrote:

didge wrote:


Again absurd failing to understand context.

Have you learned yet to control your mouth?

Have you learned to control that nervous tic in your eyes?

Seriously, I suggest you have your warm milk and then have your afternoon nap, as you are clearly overtired

I shall leave you to continue to sulk

Laters

didge wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

Have you learned to control that nervous tic in your eyes?

Seriously, I suggest you have your warm milk and then have your afternoon nap, as you are clearly overtired

I shall leave you to continue to sulk

Laters

It's still morning Didge - the drugs have clearly affected your ability to tell the time.

Clipped from your opening OP:
It is important also to see these disasters in the wider context of energy production: when the Banqiao hydroelectric dam failed in China in 1975 in led to at least 171000 deaths and displaced 11 million people. Even windpower has resulted in more than 100 deaths since the 1990s. None of this is to denigrate the vital importance of such technologies, but rather to point out that every form of energy production has some inherent risk. Our reliance on fossil fuels is particularly costly, not only to the environment but to human health; each year,at least 1.3 million people are estimated to die from air pollution. More recent estimates put this figure at 5.5 million.

Yet as I have expanded upon previously for this paper, ideological opposition is hard to overcome and nuclear is no exception. In the wake of Fukushima, Germany acquiesced to demands from lobby groups to shut down its nuclear sector, building heavily polluting fossil-fuel plants in their stead. Japan too suspended its nuclear grid, becoming the second-largest net importer of fossil fuels in the world. Some ostensible environmental campaigners lauded this, oblivious to the fact these decisions condemned the environmental to further damage. If this is “victory” for the environment, it is a resoundingly pyrrhic kind. Shutdown of the plants in Japan has led to not only increased pollution, but rolling blackouts and protests. By contrast, France has for decades produced 75% of its energy through nuclear, and enjoys the cleanest air and among the lowest carbon emissions of any industrialised nature.

The IPCC stress that nuclear power must be considered if we are to halt climate change, with some estimates suggested nuclear capacity needs to double if we are to stave off the worst ravages of climate change. Even so, resistance to nuclear remains, and scare-stories about Chernobyl and Fukushima are too often employed as an empty rebuttal by those unwilling to countenance the situation we face. Nuclear energy is complicated, has drawbacks, and like any form of energy production it has risks. But it is also clean, safe and hugely efficient. If we truly want to have a rational discussion on how best to power our world, we need to confine ourselves to facts rather than fictions and weigh up the advantages and disadvantages without recourse to ill-founded ideological radiophobia. Our very future depends upon it.

Here's my 2¢ worth:

Banqiao hydroelectric dam failed in China in 1975  -
The Bangiao Dam was originally designed to pass about 1742 cubic meters of water per second through sluice gates and a spillway. The capacity storage capacity was set at 492 million cubic meters with 375 million cubic meters of this capacity reserved for flood storage. The height of the dam was at little over 116 meters.
There were some flaws in the design and construction of Banqiao Dam, including cracks in the dam and sluice gates. With advice provided by Soviet engineers the Banqiao Dam and the Shimantan Dam were reinforced and expanded. The Soviet design was called an iron dam, a dam that could not be broken.
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/aug1975.htm 

Rather misleading and obtuse to use this human failure as an example for 'WHY', a Nuclear Power VS Hydroelectric Dam is better than the other --- when the long list of bad decisions/constructing on the cheap/just piss poor basic understanding of the volume of river water - the need for proper flood gates - cheap construction material all went into play for this disaster! Does not validate the need to build a nuclear plant in this region --- not when the river can be utilized as a safer/cleaner viable power source.
China has the topography to utilize this type of power source; and while they too suffer from the regions that have earthquakes...building structures have improved since the 1975 dam failure --- why, would China need to look for any other options besides the 'Hydroelectric' power source?  IMO

Japan - As of 27 March 2012, Japan had only one out of 54 nuclear reactors operating; the Tomari-3, after the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa 6 was shut down.

Nuclear power in Japan - Wikipedia, the free .
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Japan

Until that recent earthquake and following tsunami --- I was totally unware of the number of nuclear plants on this small region.  Shocked me - and while the buildings withstood quite a punch from the strong earthquake the unplanned tsunami resulted in a massive problem for nuclear waste escaping the emergency plan, anyway!  And that earthquake wasn't the worst of the worst that they fear 'might happen'...depth and length of these earthquakes are always a 'What IF Scenario' --- very horrifying IMO 
But since Japan's growth has always been - 'build straight up' {stack them high & tight}...they don't have a lot of options for what's best suited for the topography of their restricted land mass. 

I was very ANTI - Nuclear Power back in the early 70's when our very own Wolf-Creek Nuclear Power plant was being built; I just wasn't happy/secure and feared this 'un-known' in my life...but as the years rolled away and I became busy with my day-to-day...it wasn't paramount to my list of concerns. 

Wolf Creek Generating Station - Wikipedia, the free ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Creek_Nuclear_Generating_Station
Wolf Creek Generating Station, a nuclear power plant located near Burlington, Kansas, occupies 9,818 acres (40 km²) of the total 11,800 acres (4,800 ha) controlled ...

• Ownership ·
  
• Surrounding population ·
  
• Seismic risk
  

I've followed what happened at Chernobyl and I'll continue to follow what has happened and the long range goals and after effects; for all of the people/environment and the life sustaining plants & animals left *** computer just locked up on ME***

Anyway before I have another internet malfunction: PBS / Discovery channel will be airing the latest update on the Chernobyl Nuclear plant region --- will you be able to watch it?

None of the above shows and even fails to understand the points made where it is still one of the best power sources. It does not mislead at all because it states there is risks.
The fact is there is no denying the deaths and people misplaced.
We are yet to see how such structures fair again.

In an attempt to rein this topic back from the hysterical ranting exchange between you and your sister troll...and the off topic derail {via your own mind warp} about "liberal vs righty" between you and Ben --- I'll just stay with the article and what & how I think about nuclear power.  
You on the other hand --- SMH, have very little impact upon my opinions as your ALWAYS derailing any given topic with you OFF TOPIC BS! 
And frankly --- you really need to refrain from preaching to everyone about posting on POINT!
 LMAO

http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/disasters/chernobyl-disaster.htm

Chernobyl Disaster News, Photos and Videos - ABC News

abcnews.go.com/topics/news/disasters/chernobyl-disaster.htm
Apr 14, 2016 · Browse Chernobyl Disaster latest news and updates, ... ARCHIVE VIDEO: The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the former Soviet Union is Damaged …

So again nothing but hot air and actually nothing to counter a single point on the article but your views on me. 
Best you try again

4EVER2 wrote:In an attempt to rein this topic back from the hysterical ranting exchange between you and your sister troll...

Do stop trolling asp - stay on topic.

didge wrote:So again nothing but hot air and actually nothing to counter a single point on the article but your views on me. 
Best you try again

You really don't grasp the method of your own drivel do you???

Blimey, I am generally surprise to see such an article in the Guardian
Also nice to see an open and honest article that easily dispels the fearmongers

I posted about the article - I posted my POV about the article and as with the PROOF of your applauding the article and calling it OPEN & HONEST...you obviously missed the last couple of paragraphs from your own LINK!  Typical and yet as your 'USUAL' abusive method for pounding away at how your superior posting functions --- well, you talk a feeble talk when expressing 'how you've learned to change'...and here you are right back to using your lame social skills. 

Great --- you and your sister Troll have so much in common; I'll just place you both on ignore and let the feeding frenzy between you too sorry assed humans continue! 
Knock each other out and allow the adults to have open discussions ~~~ 

4EVER2 wrote:

didge wrote:So again nothing but hot air and actually nothing to counter a single point on the article but your views on me. 
Best you try again

You really don't grasp the method of your own drivel do you???

Blimey, I am generally surprise to see such an article in the Guardian
Also nice to see an open and honest article that easily dispels the fearmongers

I posted about the article - I posted my POV about the article and as with the PROOF of your applauding the article and calling it OPEN & HONEST...you obviously missed the last couple of paragraphs from your own LINK!  Typical and yet as your 'USUAL' abusive method for pounding away at how your superior posting functions --- well, you talk a feeble talk when expressing 'how you've learned to change'...and here you are right back to using your lame social skills. 

Great --- you and your sister Troll have so much in common; I'll just place you both on ignore and let the feeding frenzy between you too sorry assed humans continue! 
Knock each other out and allow the adults to have open discussions ~~~ 

Do be sure not to discuss me if you're putting me on ignore. It's very rude to do that, and it's not something a "mature" adult like you should indulge in.