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Should Japan Restart More Nuclear Power Plants? (thebulletin.org)
Lasrick writes: Seth Baum, executive director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, writes in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that Japan should restart more of its nuclear reactors (the Sendai nuclear plant was restarted in August). The reason is simple, writes Baum: "Japan is now building 45 new coal power plants, but if it turned its nuclear power plants back on... it could cut coal consumption in half. And coal poses more health and climate change dangers than nuclear power."
We only get worked up about nuclear disasters because they're so unusual. Coal is a disaster in its normal operation!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Ah yes, Nuclear myth #3: All radiation is caused by nuclear power and nuclear bombs.
Fact: Nearly everything in the world is naturally radioactive. You're horrified that that stuff around your office lights up Geiger counters, because you never pointed a Geiger counter at that stuff before the accident. Thus you are incorrectly attributing natural radiation to the accident. Your largest annual radiation dose actually comes from your own body. Potassium has a relatively common naturally occurring isotope (K40) which is radioactive, and your body needs potassium to survive (it's essential to how your nerves function). Your second largest dose comes from cosmic rays. Most of these are filtered out by the atmosphere, so in a twist of irony many of those who fled Japan by plane after the accident unwittingly exposed themselves to more radiation during their flight (planes fly above most of the atmosphere) than if they'd just stayed put in Japan.
This myth is so prevalent and pernicious that we screen our nuclear plant workers with detectors which would be screaming if placed at the exit of a drugstore or supermarket. K40 is common enough that most of the false alarms from the "dirty bomb" detectors at our borders are caused by shipments of food which are high in potassium - bananas, avocados, cocoa, etc.
Perhaps most damning with respect to TFA, burning coal releases radiation. Coal contains trace amounts of uranium. The uranium in coal actually contains more energy than the coal itself, but because people who believe this myth are staunchly opposed to nuclear power, they end up breathing in those minute traces of uranium released by burning coal instead. (Burning coal is also the current major contributor to mercury in our oceans which makes fish like tuna dangerous to consume. Historically the biggest contributor was mining, but that's been regulated enough that the primary mercury source is now coal pollution.)
Nope. It is physically impossible for a plant to detonate into a mushroom cloud. Chernobyl was horrific because the engineers deliberately disengaged the safeties and ramped up the power. There have been significant advances in inherently-safe nuclear plants, such as pebble bed and thorium reactors. There are also breeder reactors that effectively "recycle" used fuel. Because of this, I just can't take seriously anyone who doesn't include nuclear as part of a climate-change-related energy policy.
The geek's technical and ecological arguments count for nothing if you have lost faith in those who were responsible for the safety of nuclear power both in private industry and in government.
I think a cable reaching all the way to France would be very expensive, and I suspect the resistive losses would be prohibitive too.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."