Notes on Nuclear Power [Citation Needed]

[athelind]

... This is just a quick note. No substance, no references, no citations.


A lot of people are up in arms about how the situation in Japan underscores the "dangers of nuclear power".

To this point, the radiation leaked into the environment is minimal. Things are Very Bad Indeed if you're within a certain radius of the plant, but my suspicion is that the increased health risks and hazards caused by this amount of radiation will still be substantially less than those caused by fossil fuel plants.

Let me emphasize this:

The environmental and human impact of a complex of nuclear reactors failing catastrophically after a major disaster is less than that of fossil fuel plants in the regular course of their operation.^{[Citation Needed]}

I will endeavor to find numbers to confirm or deny this next week, after I return home.

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Yes, I just used the Lorax as an icon in a possibly-pro-nuclear post.

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Comments

[hafoc.livejournal.com]

...although to be fair to the antinuke crowd, I would have to agree with them about the TYPE of reactor.

With all the different, safer nuclear reactor designs that have been developed since, our power reactors are STILL all just remakes of a 1952 submarine engine. There's no possible reactor design in the world less refined and more primitive than that...

...except the 1942 graphite-core type, designed to produce bomb-making material, that the Russians tried to use to generate electricity. And we all know what happened with that one.