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Comment by null_ptr | Hacker News Reader

Nuclear disasters like the one at Fukushima affect the entire globe, not only Japan. If the country is geographically unfit for nuclear plants, then no nuclear plants should be built there, period. Otherwise the entire region's safety is compromised, not just Japan's.

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http://squid314.livejournal.com/292620.html has a good post on the actual danger of Fukushima. Pollution from other baseline sources like coal cause many more deaths than any nuclear accident.

When you hit a nuclear plant with the fifth largest earthquake ever recorded, then immediately follow that with a twenty foot high tsunami, and then it explodes, it still kills fewer people than an average coal plant does every single year when everything goes perfectly.

Have an upvote. However, I see no reason why Japan should put the needs of "the world" first. If you do not have energy security/self sufficiency, you do not have national security. America is endlessly criticized for sending soldiers to the Middle East. The world knows the real reason we did that is because we are highly dependent on foreign oil. Who would you like Japan to invade in place of having nuclear power?

Not all countries are equally endowed in terms of natural riches. This does not mean that everyone should get themselves on equal footing with everyone else by any means necessary. I hope that we will gently steer towards sincere and meaningful global cooperation, where "national security" will be a non-issue. I know this is an unrealistic view given the current state of world politics, but I can't help but dream out loud sometimes.

I do a lot of "tilting at windmills." It is an extremely hard row to hoe. If you want to make real change in the world, you need to bring a great deal more to the table than good intentions. It helps to come up with viable, realistic solutions. And then there are huge challenges in implementing them.

But feel free to dream of a better world. I desperately wish I lived in a better world. Sigh.

Financial disasters like the one in the US in 2008 affect the entire globe, not only the US. If the country is morally unfit for advanced banking, then no advanced banking should occur there, period. ... ?

Both are true. Not sure if you are agreeing or disagreeing though.

Non-US banks, countries, and individuals choose to do banking with the US and form a "marketplace."

Non-Japanese have no say whatsoever in Japan's nuclear industry. They only suffer the "externalities."

Japanese have no say in CO2 emissions by any other country, including ones relying on coal plants. Yet they suffer from the externalities of it.

Tragedy of commons. WWI -> League of Nations, WWII -> UN ... How about establishing a world government without WWIII this time. Though what the frak i'm talking about if we can't even stop a government from butchering tens of thousands of their own people (like Sudan, Siria)

WTO?

Not entirely true. You can always offer to provide them electricity at a lower cost than they would get from the nuclear plants. There is a cross-country marketplace for electricity in the EU, and probably nobody will stop you to sell such thing to Japan.

I'll take the bait. Can Japan scrap all their remaining nuclear plants and just rely on the entire globe to cheaply bring it the power it needs to grow ?

To be serious, "[it] affect the entire globe" could be generalized to so many things from so many countries, from drug research to farming, fishing, industrial wastes etc. Having everyone put aside short sighted gains and be on the same page to do The Right Thing to reap long term benefits feels so utopian it's depressing.

It would be more realistic to push for more secure, better engineered, more efficient and reliable nuclear plants. Companies from all over the globe would get behind that.

Should we say the same thing about countries that are too negligent to run a nuclear plant?

Who's going to police/enforce that? (I'm afraid to ask...)

Coal plants standard operation affects the entire globe. If a country cannot regulate the pollution of coal, then no coal plants should be built there.

That's another environmental issue, that does not mute the issue of nuclear power plants built in unfit locations.

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