Firstly, think of Japan. It has reactors peppered all over the country. A total failure in one plant could cause neighboring plants to become uninhabitable for staff/workers. And, a few events in short succession might kill off most of the countryâs nuclear experts and technicians. Who will operate these plants if the qualified professionals are sick/dying/dead? Or if the resources required to manage such events are all used up already?
Secondly, in a war all bets are off.
Fukishima is pretty much the worst case scenario in terms of a natural disaster. Biggest earthquake ever followed by a massive tsunami. And even there, it required some significant incompetence on the part of people to make it as bad as it was.
And with a modern reactor, none of that really would have happened.
Seriously, it could not possibly even come remotely close to the type of global destruction in the worst case climate change scenarios.
Fun fact: Humans are worse than radiation for the well being of wildlife:
But with humans off the scene, wild animal and bird species are roaming what is effectively one of Europeâs biggest - if unintentional - wildlife reserves.
Wild boar, wolves, elk, and deer in particular have thrived in the forest and grassland landscape.
The âzone,â as is it popularly known, has become an improbable sanctuary for more elusive fauna including Lynx, endangered European Bison - that wandered across the border from Belarus - and a growing population of Przewalskiâs Horses, a wild equine released in the area in the 1990s. The extremely rare breed is doing so well in the area that herds are beginning to stray beyond the zone.
Thatâs certainly one thing to bear in mind.
Climate change could do stuff like kill major parts of the oceanâs ecosystem.
No nuclear accident will ever do that. Ever. You could potentially increase levels of radioactivity, but nature would go on just fine.
My point is, which will take longer: global warming to reverse itself, or radiation to dissipate? I mean, in tens or hundreds of thousands of years?
Further, Chernobyl is as contained now (or will be, shortly, with the shroud) as itâs ever going to get. But seven years later, TEPCO canât even get robots near the Fukushima reactor chamber. And thatâs (IIRC) the biggest utility in Japan dedicating all of its available resources!
But still, you are talking about like one square mile vs. the entire Earth.
No nuclear accident is ever going to irradiate the entire planet.
Sea levels could drop again in 1000 or 10000 years. Radiation will still be there. And Japan is bigger than 1 square mile.
Hereâs the real question: which is going to stay in my stomach longer? Fifty Big Macs a week for life, or a single piece of bubble gum?
I think youâll see that itâs only logical for me to eat the Big Macs rather than risk gum stomach for life.
The entirety of Japan isnât irradiated. It never would be.
Again, having some small area being radioactive is of absolutely trivial consequence compared to the worst case scenarios from global warming, where you have things like ocean acidification result in mass extinction events.
You just⌠go and live somewhere else. You canât do that with climate change.
Thanks for sharing - itâs eye-opening (for those whose head isnât stuck in the sands of the Middle EastâŚ)>
As a resident who gets power from Three Mile Island, I would argue in favor of nuclear power. Itâs safe and reliable, if you can get rid of the waste
Also, if you compare the nuclear waste produces by a coal plant over itâs life span, versus the fallout of a nuclear plant (super unlikely), you will find nuclear power is safer in terms radiation and climate change.
So, you really are comparing radiation and global warming to just radiation.
If Iâm not mistaken, and I may be remembering an old movie, the worst case scenario is that the melted down nuclear material⌠returns to the earth it came from? Even if it eats through the containment vessel, doesnât it go straight down? I feel like I should know this.
It can get into ground water, farm land, oceans.
Well, this is part of the Hollywood nonsense that got into the public psyche, where it somehow burns down into the Earth and then shots radioactive steam out everywhere and generally death and destruction.
Thatâs not really what happens.
TMI had multiple failures, with multiple fuckups by operators, resulting in a partial meltdown, and the effect on the environment was⌠Nothing. And that was with a reactor that was ancient by todayâs standards.
Seriously, the talk about meltdowns is silly. It literally canât happen with a modern reactor.
Are we talking about the dangers of coal ash, how much worse it is then nuclear power?
Over the past few decades, however, a series of studies has called these stereotypes into question. Among the surprising conclusions: the waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plantâa by-product from burning coal for electricityâcarries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy. * [See Editorâs Note at end of page 2]
As I get older reality and science fiction mix in interesting ways. :)
Honestly, what you described is the most common belief among most people about what happens with a nuclear meltdown.
I was responding to Rich. My point was that the waste or fallout or whatever might just sink into the ground, if thereâs nothing else there to wash it away.
Oh, okay, sorry. It didnât mark you as replying to me. I guess my thought, debunked now, was that it wouldnât still be around long after humankind had passed away and a new species took over. While humans are really stuck on lasting long, in the great cosmic scheme of things weâd be gone almost before we were here.