(09-17-2013 09:51 AM)Niner National Wrote: (09-17-2013 07:09 AM)I45owl Wrote: (09-16-2013 09:20 PM)JOwl Wrote: No energy source is perfect; bear in mind that the America Lung Association has estimated that air pollution from power plants causes the deaths of 13,000 American _humans_ every year.
That doesn't include the 35k deaths worldwide from coal mining each year. And yet, nuclear power is the one that gets people all wobbly, responsible for slightly greater than zero deaths each year.
Not entirely true.
Perhaps I have overstated this ... the average deaths may be on the order of ten. Factoring in the industrial deaths (I think one this year, a couple of deaths due to falling cranes and/or drowning at Fukishima) and mining deaths (which is far, far, far riskier than working in a nuclear plant). But, I'm pretty close.
(09-17-2013 09:51 AM)Niner National Wrote: Direct deaths are probably approximately 0 each year, but there are still people around Chernobyl dying from deformities and illness caused by radiation.
False. Chernobyl is an example of about the worst possible design that you could conceivably come up with followed by poor operation of it. There were fewer than 60 deaths involved in the accident and immediate aftermath and somewhere fewer than 500 attributable to it in any fashion over the lifetime of the residents. There are still people living in the exclusion zone.
(09-17-2013 09:51 AM)Niner National Wrote: The same will be true of Japan for decades to come.
False. The increase in cancer among those in the Fukushima area will be so small as to be impossible to measure.
(09-17-2013 09:51 AM)Niner National Wrote: They've already had some workers die from radiation exposure.
False. I believe two workers at Fukushima were wading around in radioactive water and probably got the equivalent of a sunburn. That's probably what you were thinking of.
(09-17-2013 09:51 AM)Niner National Wrote: The problem with nuclear is that although accidents are infrequent, when they do occur, they're huge problems.
The real problem with nuclear power is that people drastically overreact when there is a problem.
(09-17-2013 09:51 AM)Niner National Wrote: Japan will be battling that reactor for 30-40 years before it is finally shut down. That's what they're saying right now at least.
You can say that it was foolish to build a nuclear plant where they did, but people often forget about the nuclear reactor in Virginia that was shut down for 6 months following the DC earthquake. It was only built to withstand a 6.0 and the earthquake in VA/DC was a 5.8. You never know what mother nature will throw at you.
Note that the earthquake did not damage the plant at Fukushima (although it is responsible for two deaths onsite due to a falling crane, and something over 15,000 deaths off-site, including the tsunami). Floodwater did not damage the nuclear reactor - what it did do is knock out diesel generators that are required to run the cooling systems when the reactor shuts down, and it's the lack of cooling that caused the meltdown. The site of the plant is not the real problem with this type of plant - water-cooled reactors must be located near bodies of water.
Consider, though, if you don't use water to cool the reactor but instead use molten salts, when there is some event that causes a meltdown, you won't have any of the problems running pumping units after the meltdown, you won't have the hydrogen coming off of chemical and heat reactions that then blows off the sides of the facility (the dramatic stuff in the days that followed the meltdown, and that ultimately spread small amounts of material elsewhere in the area). And, you won't have any issues with cooling equipment or cleanup or storage of water after the fact.
There are lessons to be learned from each of the incidents at Chernobyl, TMI, and Fukushima. But, the fact remains that biggest challenge in nuclear operations is accounting for the fear and political backlash caused by fear - safety issues are well thought out and managed, and nuclear power is far safer than most other sources of baseline power ... certainly orders of magnitude safer than coal.
