A terrible situation in which no-one has been subject to a dangerous amount of radiation.
Really, the way people are reacting to this is hilarious. 10,000 have died and we've ignored all of that because of an incident at a nuclear plant that has killed no-one.
It's also hilarious that every year people die in coal mining accidents and oil rig fires and gas explosions and no-one cares. It's an acceptable risk to take for us to have energy. But when something happens at a nuclear plant that hasn't actually harmed anyone, it's "OMG END OF THE WORLD WE MUST SHUT DOWN ALL NUCLEAR PLANTS RIGHT NOW ITS TOO DANGEROUS".
The double standard to which nuclear energy is held is ridiculous. It's as if people hear the word "nuclear" and their only thoughts are bombs and 50ft mutants.
True. The sooner we go Nuclear Fusion the better, but people probably think that means some kind of crazy ass meltdown.
Well, I hadn’t been thinking “conspiracy”, and maybe that was naïve.
But I see your knock at environmentalists, and raise you coal-fire power as the culprits. (At least in the states.)
We aren’t as advanced as you kids over there. Only about 20% of our electricity comes from nuclear energy (I think places like France get ~78% from nuclear power).
The majority of our electricity comes from coal or gas fired power. We <3 that stuff over here, despite possible mining death tolls. I live in western PA, and it is a HUGE mining area. It’s basically one giant mining town. Any attempt to switch to a different power source meets anger here at jorb loss potential. There are billboards on our turnpikes that say “Sun sets and wind dies. Coal has powered you for 100 years.” They forget to add “coal burns up”. (srsly wtf is that? Sun sets… no kidding Sherlock, invest in a frackin’ smartgrid, to store the renewable energy. And ugh, I said “frack”. Let me get more angry – why aren’t you taxing the marcellus shale collection, PA?)
Our nuclear stations in the US are pretty old and will need to be replaced soon. It takes like, 20-30 years to build a new one, and yet no one is starting any new constructions. Nuclear energy is much cleaner than fossil fuel burning plants. So if anyone was trying to make nuke E look bad I’d point my finger elsewhere first.
While I do feel this is worth worrying about for Japan (because it’s like pouring salt in a wound, they really don’t need any more on their plate right now) I can def see your point, in relation to the US. This “spin” is probably going to be used to halt any plans to create more power plants in the US, indefinitely.
Edit: Interesting, PBS just pushed out
an article saying that in the face of global warming, people (including environmentalists) all had been looking at nuclear power as the "lesser evil". They don't think this will negatively impact our plans for further nuclear power development.
I guess time will tell.
