Europe Warms to Nuclear Power

FleaPlus writes "The CS Monitor reports that for the first time in 15 years a European nation has started building a nuclear reactor, with six more likely to be built in the next decade. France is also planning to develop a safer and more efficient "fourth generation" reactor by 2020. This is in light of rising fossil fuel prices and a desire to reduce CO2 emissions. Still, a majority of EU citizens are opposed to nuclear energy, primarily for environmental reasons, even though nuclear power releases less radioactive material than burning coal."

Comments

Re:-1, Pro-Nuclear Propaganda

[Zontar The Mindless]

Hmmm....

A coal-fired power plant explodes, you might have a few dozen deaths and maybe a couple hundred injured. A nuclear plant goes critical, you've half a continent growing three-eyed frogs for the next couple hundred years.

Coal is more or less non-toxic, whereas the fatal dose for plutonium is less than a microgramme.

A terrorist with a truckload of coal can burn down or blow up a building. A terrorist with a rucksack full of refined uranium or plutonium can level a city - or turn an average-sized US state into a giant cancer ward.

Given a choice between the two, I'll take coal.

Although I'd prefer to see biomass/hydrogen, solar, hydro, and wind predominate - the potential of these sources hasn't yet begun to be tapped. Or maybe fusion - heaps of power without the potential for all those fissionables to get loose.