Dee D. Flint wrote:

Mike Coslo Wrote:

some snippage

You try to convince the public that the reactor is safe. What they
remember is that they were told that Chernoble was safe. The public is
left to sort out who is telling the truth, and who is not. And the
superior attitude of the techies did not help. Any guess why they chose
not to believe anyone?



And bad information and false promises are the biggest problems in life as a
whole. Being born isn't safe either. Sleeping isn't safe. There is
nothing in this world that is safe. However people are foolish enough to
think so.

Good heavens, Dee. You could also point out that people are content to
hurtle themselves at each other at relative speeds of 140 miles per hour
and above in metal and glass boxes containing very dangerous flammable
fluids.

But I'd probably call that slippery sloping the issue.

I think that the way we were building the things was an inherently
unsafe situation. The concentration of so much power in one or two
relatively small places (per area served) is not an inherently safe
operation. It achieves economy of scale, but in the end, probably didn't
even do that.



My point was that it is no riskier than things we accept on a daily basis.
As I commented above, there is nothing that is truly safe.

No there isn't. But fact is, the safety must be addressed. THe idea
that all is well, and mockery of safety issues is how we get places like
Love Canal and Chernoble. Would you care to go live in either of those
places? Those people were told "There's no problem." Now when people
come around and tell people "There's no problem" the reaction is quite
different

And Jim mentions the waste disposal problem. This IS a real problem, as
beyond whatever safety precautions we put on the material, it is going
to be nasty stuff for a long time. And there we are telling people
"there's no problem" in storage again.

I feel in discussing this with you that I'm being pushed into the anti
nuclear power group, when I can assure you that isn't the case. What is
obvious to me is that due to the history of this topic, people have a
pretty good reason to be skeptical.

- Mike KB3EIA -