Isn't the point that it took a pretty major natural disaster (or two, depending on how you want to look at it) to even cause a problem like this in the first place? And STILL the radiation levels are below the safety guidelines? I'm sure plenty of bad things can happen to coal and natural gas power plants given a natural disaster (or two).
There's a certain point where you just have to accept the fact that in the most extreme of circumstances, bad things can happen- that doesn't mean nuclear power is bad overall.
It's not nuclear power that scares me, it's the seemingly inevitability of incompetence of human beings. I am a very big advocate of nuclear power, and the Japanese are a very pre-prepared culture, yet this got way out of hand.
Yes it was a huge and unprecedented earthquake, but in my opinion, there were so many totally unnecessary failures, even under these extreme circumstances, that I'm a lot more leery of nuclear power than I was before. Or, to be more precise: I'm not leery of nuclear power itself, but of humans ability to form societies advanced enough to harness this power properly.
Can you elaborate on what was so incompetent on the part of humans? From my understanding, it seems like they got the crisis under control without any major radiation exposure, unlike some previous nuclear disasters, such as Chernobyl. This seems like a huge step forward and a vindication of nuclear power. If we can manage the risks (and this incident may prove that), nuclear power is our best hope to get off of fossil fuels and enter a world of zero carbon emissions. This sounds like a win to me, what am I missing?
That the backup cooling was an utter failure. From what I understand, there is backup battery (8 hours, which worked), backup diesel onsite (which failed), and backup diesel offsite (from what I've heard, arrived properly, but they didn't have the proper "connectors") - I don't know for sure.
That we didn't have an absolute catastrophe doesn't win points in my book. It seemed to me that there were several points in this incident where the people in charge were a bit iffy about what might happen next.....inexcusable under the circumstances. None of this should have happened.
Comments
Isn't the point that it took a pretty major natural disaster (or two, depending on how you want to look at it) to even cause a problem like this in the first place? And STILL the radiation levels are below the safety guidelines? I'm sure plenty of bad things can happen to coal and natural gas power plants given a natural disaster (or two).
There's a certain point where you just have to accept the fact that in the most extreme of circumstances, bad things can happen- that doesn't mean nuclear power is bad overall.
It's not nuclear power that scares me, it's the seemingly inevitability of incompetence of human beings. I am a very big advocate of nuclear power, and the Japanese are a very pre-prepared culture, yet this got way out of hand.
Yes it was a huge and unprecedented earthquake, but in my opinion, there were so many totally unnecessary failures, even under these extreme circumstances, that I'm a lot more leery of nuclear power than I was before. Or, to be more precise: I'm not leery of nuclear power itself, but of humans ability to form societies advanced enough to harness this power properly.
Can you elaborate on what was so incompetent on the part of humans? From my understanding, it seems like they got the crisis under control without any major radiation exposure, unlike some previous nuclear disasters, such as Chernobyl. This seems like a huge step forward and a vindication of nuclear power. If we can manage the risks (and this incident may prove that), nuclear power is our best hope to get off of fossil fuels and enter a world of zero carbon emissions. This sounds like a win to me, what am I missing?
That the backup cooling was an utter failure. From what I understand, there is backup battery (8 hours, which worked), backup diesel onsite (which failed), and backup diesel offsite (from what I've heard, arrived properly, but they didn't have the proper "connectors") - I don't know for sure.
That we didn't have an absolute catastrophe doesn't win points in my book. It seemed to me that there were several points in this incident where the people in charge were a bit iffy about what might happen next.....inexcusable under the circumstances. None of this should have happened.