Tunnel collapse at the Hanford nuclear waste site
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The local media (aka, seattle) seems to have gotten the level of actual danger correct.. it was a 30 second blurb on NPR with a statement indicating no radioactivity had been released.
I mean, how many times has Washington sued the federal government over this thing? Two? Three?
People can argue about safety of nuclear or storage of nuclear waste until the cows come home but what they can't argue against is government incompetence.
We need to embrace clean energy solutions that don't hold us hostage down the line.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents
All other forms of renewable (And non-renewable) energy generation kill more people then nuclear does, per KWH produced.
More people fall off roofs installing solar panels, then die in nuclear accidents.
Far more people die from hydro dam failures, then they do from nuclear accidents. Every hydroelectric dam is a loaded gun, pointed at the city downstream. Most of them are managed by the 'incompetent government.'
If 200,000 people in the US had to be evacuated because a nuclear reactor nearly went critical, every single nuclear plant in the country would have been shut down.
Where else do elements heavier then hydrogen (Or, if you want to split hairs, iron) come from?
With floods, you rely on authorities and early warning systems just as much as in radioactivity, actually you can buy a cheap dosimeters/Geiger counters and there are enthusiast networked detectors - but did you put a webcam with trained CV model on all surrounding flood paths? Did you put chemical sensors around all railway tracks in the neighborhood or do you just as well rely on "seeing, understanding and avoiding" a chlorine gas cloud?
It is just the prehistorical evolutionary parts of the brain speaking - we see flood, radioactivity we don't, danger, quickly bash it with a stick!
I think the concern is that in addition to killing people, nuclear accidents cause gene mutations, etc as well?
Another concern I have with this sort of argument is the ratio of people getting killed to using it, etc.
Other than that I do agree that there is FUD around Nuclear energy. But this is not a great rebuttal IMO.
"No statistically significant increase in major birth defects or other untoward pregnancy outcomes was seen among children of survivors. Monitoring of nearly all pregnancies in Hiroshima and Nagasaki began in 1948 and continued for six years. [...] In addition, a clinical health study of about 12,000 individuals was conducted between 2002 and 2006 with a focus on lifestyle diseases, based on the idea that adulthood is when disorders from radiation effects may develop. In this study, possible relationships between parental exposure and a combination of six multifactorial diseases (e.g., diabetes and hypertension) were analyzed, taking into consideration such lifestyle habits as drinking and smoking. The results showed no evidence at this time of increased risk of these multifactorial diseases among the target individuals. However, given that the subjects were still young at the time of the health examinations, with an average age of 48.6, it would be desirable to continue the clinical health study of this fixed cohort."
However, https://www.nap.edu/read/1800/chapter/3:
"WHETHER THE ATOMIC BOMBS dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki will have detectable genetic effects on the Japanese is a question of widespread interest. The purpose of the present note is to show briefly that (1) many difficulties beset any attempt to obtain a valid answer to this question and (2) even after a long-term study, such as that outlined below, it still may not be possible to determine just how much genetic damage was done at Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
The exclusion zones usually encompass and affect residential areas and water supplies. People who buy houses or own homes in proximity to potential areas of effect take this point of contention very seriously.
Geography and evacuation infrastructure often plays a key role in arguments. From an urban planning perspective, over decades, creeping population density can paint pictures of curious outcomes in the shadow of an incident. Many people have a hard time thinking in these terms.
Yes, people live near active volcanoes too, but even with that, the idea is that you can return maybe a week later, and not deal with an eruption for the rest of your life.
People have an odd calculus for thess kinds of things.
I would hazard a guess that non-rooftop installation is substantially safer than getting on a roof. I would also guess that nuclear would be more hazardous if reactors were installed on roofs.
I would be interested to see how many deaths have occurred during the construction of nuclear plants.
How many deaths occur from solar once it is built/installed?
Well if we are talking about what would happen if energy was produced entirely with solar/wind wouldn't you have to include things like the people freezing to death during a string of cloudy yet still winter days?
That mess has the very real potential to irradiated our water.
I remain unconvinced we have a grip on longer term risks associated with nuclear energy.
And we can move to renewables. Lots of work there and lots of unemployed people to do it. We should.
We are detecting a 'large' increase in radioactive Cesium in the world's oceans. It is, however, dwarfed by the amount of naturally radioactive potassium already dissolved in it. Radiation levels 500km from the disaster site have increased... By 2%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_an...
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2013/fukushima_...
And stairs are the most deadly form of transportation, by miles traveled per year.
It's pretty absurd to compare the operating hazards of nuclear plants to buildouts of residential solar. How many workers on nuclear plant construction projects have died per man-hour vs solar? It's akin to saying that hamburgers are less dangerous than avocados because more people have choked on avocado pits.
How are you accounting for deaths caused by waste containment problems over the next 10,000 years? In the Hanford case you have even nastier chemical and radiological materials on site prone to leakage or unintentional exposure in the future millennia.
Expressing concern isn't even close to the same thing.
Maybe I'm being overly sensitive about this, but I can't help but feel that if 'that's spreading fear / uncertainty / doubt' is considered a valid argument, then it can be used to dismiss anyone expressing concern or questioning something. Which in my opinion should be avoided at all costs.
... which is exactly what has been going on for quite some time. There is a very real and very vocal anti-nuclear contingent that has been active for decades. Some of it is players in the fossil fuel industry who don't want their market share diminished. A much larger, much more vocal portion is the moonbats (Greenpeace, et al.) who have never considered any option other than "tax the rich to build more solar panels everywhere". They've been churning out propaganda for decades and their propaganda is what most people have heard and listened to. End-of-the-world-as-we-know-it emotional appeals are much more convincing to the layman than are actual scientific, logical explanations. I think FUD is a very accurate term to describe the current popular views of nuclear power.
On top of that, I doubt the factual accuracy of your statement.
https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/#/?f=M&start=20...
They can't? Governments are supposed to legislate based on the demands of the public. When you demand a stop to all nuclear power, the budget for the existing installations requires more political capital, making these kinds of events more likely.
Oh, and there is renewable nuclear energy. There's a bit of a controversy over it, the petroleum industry has spent a lot of money to say that it isn't renewable.