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The real reason some people hate nuclear energy : Comments
By Martin Nicholson, published 14/2/2014Using the risk perception factors above, environmental advocates are able to dramatize the risks: 'if it scares, it airs'.
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Posted by Arjay, Friday, 14 February 2014 6:46:30 AM
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Good essay Martin; perception is everything and the nuclear industry hasn't helped with some stupid decisions.
Thorium is the way. Posted by cohenite, Friday, 14 February 2014 8:00:07 AM
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Wow what an effort.
Your absolutely right, unless the fledgling renewable energy is in fact cheaper. Perhaps, you could focus your undeniable powers to that question. I suspect, you will find that renewable energy has only one disadvantage, it threatens to make energy free! Free! Free! Now if the energy industry could just be sure we won't all just get off the grid, if sun, wind could be charged for - why do I suspect this talk of nuclear power would quietly excuse itself. It is always those bloody Europeans. If it wasnt already bad enough giving themselves long annual leave and luxuries working conditions and crazy pensions. They are destroying business. What are these Germans thinking, going around extracting 20% of their electricity from solar panels - and from a country that has little sunlight. And those Damn Albino Scandanavians and their wind power, they are all socialist commos. My god, How is a legitimate industry to survive if everyone can just paint their roofs, attach a battery and have free power? It boggles the mind. Posted by YEBIGA, Friday, 14 February 2014 9:53:47 AM
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Good article, Martin. Thank you.
Readers may be interested in this pamphlet explaining how we misunderstand radiation and how the radiation limits could (I'd suggest should) be set much higher than they are - based on the evidence. If we raised the limits to where they should be, based on the evidence, the perceptions of risk could change dramatically. Have a look a the brochure: http://home.comcast.net/~robert.hargraves/public_html/RadiationSafety26SixPage.pdf Excerpt from near the end: "RADIATION POLITICS Exposure limits that were set by LNT theory ignore observed low-level radiation effects. Public radiation safety limits have become more restrictive, from 150 mSv/y (1948) to 5 mSv/y (1957) to 1 mSv/y (1991). These rules are political and inconsistent. Nuclear workers are allowed 50 mSv/y, and astronauts 500 mSv/y. EPA’s limit for indoor radon is 8 mSv/y, but 0.04 mSv/y for tritium in drinking water. EPA limits Yucca Mountain exposure to < 0.1 mSv/y for 10,000 years. The LNT fallacy that any radiation can kill you led to the ALARA principle (as low as reasonably achievable). But achievability is based on ever-changing technology capability, not health effects. LNT and ALARA ratchet limits lower and increase costs and fear. Radiation is safe within limits. An evidence-based radiation safety limit would be 100 mSv/y. Ending LNT and ALARA rules will enable the full environmental and economic benefits of green nuclear power." Posted by Peter Lang, Friday, 14 February 2014 10:21:51 AM
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* countries around the world (like USA, UK, France, Finland, Russia, China, India, South Korea, UAE) would not continue to build new nuclear power plants to supply their growing need for energy.*
And the fact that big business is salivating at the thought of a slew of new power stations and huge profits is not part of the "growing need"? If radiation is so harmless why are the workers trying to clean up Fukushima wearing protective clothing and why are the public not allowed to re enter the exclusion zone around the plant? Why is all produce from this area banned from consumption? *the known ability of nuclear power to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the health risks from burning fossil fuels.* When you take into the account the amount of fossil fuel needed to mine uranium, process it, transport, transport the waste, provide facilities for the waste, how can it possibly have the ability to reduce emissions? Having seen the list of articles by this author, it is apparent that he has some sort of vested interest in pushing nuclear. Posted by Robert LePage, Friday, 14 February 2014 10:24:30 AM
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Yes it is all a matter of perception.
And that is why the nuclear industry has engaged a massive propaganda "public relations" exercise ever since the beginning of the nuclear age. Check out the "glowing" prognosis of the early government and corporate propaganda. Which is of course what they are doing now - the softening up process. A prelude for the totalitarian police state "governed" by the mad scientists. Never mind that ever since the first mushroom cloud appeared in Japan humankind has been faced with the very real prospect of a humanly caused universal holocaust and/or a nuclear winter. Referring to Robert Oppenheimer, humankind quite literally became the potential "destroyer of worlds". In my opinion the sinister mushroom cloud was a potent symbol for the smithereening of the human psyche. And also a signal of the seeming ultimate "success" of the Western technological imperative. To gain control of "matter". Remember the time of MAD - mutually assured destruction. Meanwhile of course, "Jesus" is coming any day now. Posted by Daffy Duck, Friday, 14 February 2014 11:13:51 AM
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Nuclear Fission is not the answer because the waste remains for hundreds to millions of years. The present technology is antiquated and dangerous.
Perhaps nuclear fusion is an answer, as this is the union of atoms which has far less dangerous waste.