Japan has a total of 55 Nuclear Reactors, some designs date back to the 60's. Considering these reactors have survived in one of the most seismic active areas of the world, I would tend to believe the Japanese have their shyt together. You can't compare the the two, the destructive force of a 8.9 earthquake versus the destructive force of a Category 5 hurricane is completely different.
I don't know much about this area but feel we need to continue relying on fossil fuels for the foreseeable future while also exploring new sources of energy. One potential new source is thorium with my limited knowledge including that it's readily abundant (esp in US & Australia), can produce much more energy than a similar amount of uranium, eats it's own waste (although not sure what that means exactly), and does not require the huge containment domes that uranium does. One downside is that it would require a huge investment for the infrastructure and also not sure if the reactors would be natural disaster-proof. Apparently the EU energy committee (or whatever they're called) considered the benefits of thorium in the late 90's but had just invested a huge amount in uranium reactors that had decades of useful lives remaining. Therefore, they decided to pass on considering it further. Anyone know much about thorium and whether it's a viable option? I've read a little online but most of it is technical and above my head.
give the nips a bit of slack for being hyper, theyve got a reason to be sensitive about radiation. wrt chernobyl, its a bit tricky to determine casualties from radiation but im all for super expansion of nuclear power.
The point is nothing is safe - and by the way, no problem is unsolvable. We must have energy - PERIOD. And we need a lot more - not less. Less energy means higher energy prices. And while I can't point to a study I feel certain higher energy prices kill people. People die from heat stroke in the summer and freezing in the winter when energy prices are high and they can't afford to cool or heat their home. Higher energy prices equals higher food prices equals less food for relief efforts overseas which equals more people starve to death. Coal mining kills people, hydro electric dams fail and the flood waters kill people, and we recently were reminded about the oil drilling dangers. The chemical plant in Bhopal India killed close to 4,000 people in 1985 in one incident and thousands more have died in plant disasters over the years – do you want to close down all chemical plants? Everything is a trade off. There are no perfect answers. There is plenty of stuff to be more afraid of than nuclear energy. We either have faith in our ability to learn, discover and advance, or we stagnate. We should use the nuclear knowledge we have now to make peoples lives better now; and continue to seek better energy solutions in the future.
