Dee D. Flint wrote:
"Kim W5TIT" wrote in message

Again not so. Only 31 people died from Chernobyl. Even now there has been
no increased incident of deaths from diseases that may possibly be linked to
radiation.

Directly attributable deaths, Dee. It's important to make a distinction

The area where the fallout could be discerned from the normal
background measurements was relatively small. In addition, that accident
was due to an unauthorized experiment being conducted at the facility. In
other words, rules and safety precautions were being deliberately ignored.
Nuclear power generation has been round for 50 years now. A total of 34
people have died. That's the 31 at Chernobyl and 3 in the 1950s at an
experimental government facility (where once again regulations were not
followed).

Don't forget there were deaths earlier than the 1950's


The collapse of hydroelectric dams have affected areas as wide or wider than
a nuclear power plant accident. And they have killed more people. I'd much
rather live next to a nuclear plant than downstream of a dam.

And speaking of long term environmental impacts, what about thousands of
square miles that are supposedly affected by acid rain from burning coal??
What about the miles of coast and ocean that have been contaminated by oil
spills?? The long term effects could be quite significant.

So if an honest evaluation and comparison of long term effects, deaths,
environmental impacts, etc is done and the same standards applied across the
board, then it would indeed be necessary to shut down all oil, coal, and
hydroelectric plants. Personally I don't care to sit in the dark and
shiver.

Now let's take a look at serious industrial accidents. A prime example is
the chemical plant in Bhopal. 3,000 people died immediately when that
happened. As many as 10,000 people have died from long term effects of
exposure to the gas released since it damaged their lungs and other organs.
No one is shutting down the chemical industry. Yet some chemicals are as
persistent in the environment as nuclear materials.

If you want my take on the whole nuc power issue, the techies have
placed the blame on the public, while so very much lies within themselves.

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?

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.

Mistakes were made in the basic premises. And yes there is an element
of irrationality with peoples reaction to the problem. Can you
completely blame them? The techie person will answer yes, no doubt. But
that is being as irrational as they are, because it ignores that they
HAVE to be convinced.

Don't get me wrong, I a a firm proponent of nuc power. I just think it
has been handled very very poorly by the Techies.

As the world is now entering it's period of geometric population
growth, there I have no doubt that nuclear power will make a return; the
other choice is no power at all. The population growth is poised to
consume most of what is left of the fossil fuels, and will probably do
so in a surprisingly short time.

- Mike KB3EIA -