Fukushima has yet to kill anyone. Decisions should be based on actual statistics.
On the other hand, Fukushima could have been much worse; it looks like the Japanese have had some luck in this tragedy, in particular that the
wind was mostly blowing eastward, towards the ocean, during the most critical few days of the accident. Would the situation have
been different, the whole ordeal would have been much bleaker. Perhaps not more people killed, but a forced evactuation of the
greater Tokyo area would indeed have been very bad for the country. Should we dismiss that worst possibility because it was avoided by
sheer luck?
Both were caused by a combination of corruption and exceptional circumstances
Which are not going to go away anytime soon. Let me place a easy bet here: the next accident will be caused by the same factors.
coal power working exactly as it's designed to
Not sure what you mean here. I think coal could be a clean as nuclear, except probably on the CO2 asepct, provided the regulations
regarding were as tight as with the latter. Ashes can be filtered from the exhaust and I think this is the case in most advanced
countries.
nuclear power wins hands down on pretty much every metric
Nuclear wins easily if you're ready to disregard its drawbacks and ignore the reality of its deployment, i.e., basically if you're
a nuclear nutty. Just like renewables win hand down if you disregard their limitations and ignore the reality of their deployment.
Now if you truly want to understand the problem and decide for the best way to go it seems to me things start no to look so simple.
Unless, of course, you don't actually care about making the best or even a good decision
We should definitely do that but really it's far from obvious to me that you're in the right and your opponents in the wrong. I
would love to be convinced but hasn't happened yet, despite the amount of discussions that have been ongoing on the subject lately.
The countries that make it illegal to possess cannabis are
You may have to take into account that some if not most of European countries where cannabis is prohibited have a very low enforcement of these laws if at all, at least as far as consumption is concerned. In France for instance you'd have a hard time getting into trouble for smoking a spliff, smoking is officially "tolerated" and you even had that comic guy Coluche who rolled and smoked one at the table of the President in '81 or something.
Sweden should also be an example of why we should keep drugs illegal
This assumes that drugs are bad, which is not at all obvious from my perspective. Drugs may be considered bad for your health when used in excess, but taking into account that cannabis is probably less damaging than tobacco or alcohol, this isn't necessarily sufficient ground for banning it. On the contrary, since ban does definitely not lead to decline in availability as shown by experience, the right answer might well be to simply agree to the facts and educate youngsters about the dangers associated with it, since they'll do it anyway, instead of fighting against them.
This is quite an astonishing opinion. Where do you get that idea from? It looks much more plausible to me that they're simply after the money like everyone else. You know, Occam's razzor and all that.
If anything you just increased their market size
You seem to imply that legalizing drugs will increase consumption, or conversely that prohibition does stifle it. That's quite a bold statement, and figures from countries where drugs have been legalize show mostly the opposite.
It looks to me you're reasoning from arbitrary premises, chosen to comfort your preconceived opinions but not necessarily based on facts or reality. This is called fantasy dreaming in my book.
What proof do you have that legalizing drugs won't cause more problems than it supposedly solves?
There's no proof for it, only common sense. The situation isn't very complicated really. Drug prohibition prevents no one to access the substances but makes it extremely profitable for dealers to trade them. Now remove the profitable aspect of the equation and try to imagine what might ensue.
Just because there aren't drugs to traffic doesn't mean the problem will be solved
It's not an all-or-nothing situation, cut the money flow and the violence will stop increasing at the steady pace it has those last years and eventually will start winding down. Just like any other activity, stop making it profitable and it'll decrease and disappear eventually.
I don't see how you could possibly argue that a modern plant design, with safety mechanisms in place that would have withstood the Japan quake and tsunami by passively stopping reactors in the quake -- yeah, they don't melt down because a loss of power causes things to shut down, they actually require power and stability to keep them going instead of needing those to stop -- and reactors that would turn our hundreds-of-centuries-dangerous nuclear waste into hundreds-of-years-dangerous nuclear waste, could possibly be a bad idea.
The problem is that the reactors you're talking about do not exist yet. Yes they are very neat on paper and everybody would like to have these, however you don't have in your briefcase the plans for a 1GW such reactor that one could start building tomorrow and operating in 3 years. So what you're really advocating is research, arguing that the benefits will be tremendous. Well I'm all for research, but then going this way I can't help thinking that solar power too has a tremendous potential and would benefit a lot from research. Sun is bathing the Earth on average with 5000 times the current total energy consumption of humanity, so if we could tap 0.2% of that input somehow we would kind of have solved the energy problem of humanity once and for all. Isn't this a nice perspective too? Sure there are technical challenges along the way (energy storage, long-distance distribution, smart grid, etc), but not necessarily infinitely more complex or impossible to solve than with nuclear power. So unless somebody comes with an argument convincing me that renewable energy cannot possibly be a solution to our energy needs, I will lean towards them because they have one hell of an advantage: they are intrinsically clean, renewable and safe, contrary to nuclear power which may become almost clean and safe after risk mitigation.
Which brings me to the other reason why I think nuclear reactors are a bad idea: what is going to happen once I say "ok nuclear is the way of the future, let's build NPP all over the world"? What "they" will build is not the nice and shiny reactors that you're talking about, what they are going to build is the cheapest piece of crap they'll be able to get away with, cutting as many corners as humanely possible, bribing as many politicians as necessary along the way, twisiting as many regulations as the creativity of their lawyers will permit. It's even worth than that: their gauge to decide how much "over-security" they are doing at any particular point in time is wether any serious accident happened lately or not. If not, some pointy-haired boss will show up with a plan to "cut costs" that will basically boil down to grind security measures until the next major accident happens, at which point the cycle restarts, just like it did with Fukushima, Deep Water Horizon, Bophal and countless others. The Mafia will keep on dumping nuclear waste in the ocean, in fact they're going to do it more and more, and China will start doing it too, trust me on this, western countries did dump a lot of nasty things in the ocean too in the past. And heck why on Earth wouldn't they do it?
So this is why I argue that even "a modern plant design, with safety mechanisms [...]" is very probably a bad idea: the scientists and engineers that promote and push for these technologies and would like to see the world covered in NPP are definitely meaning well and understandably frustrated at the current status quo which is the worst possible situation, and I personally trust (most of) them; however the guys who ultimately will be in charge of the completion of the plan I do not trust, I know these guys don't give a single molecule of shit about me, my children or my grand-children, they will do whatever to line their pockets and let us die face in the mud; they
People should keep in mind that Fukushima ended up being not as bad as it could have been by sheer luck. Would the wind have blown in the other direction (i.e., towards inner land and Tokyo) during those first critical few days, then the outcome would have been vastly different (think evacuation of greater Tokyo area). I think this ought to be taken into account when assessing the risk of nuclear energy generation, not simply by saying "nothing serious happened this time, which proves that everything was always safe".
Build a nice good old nuclear plant, though, and it'll run for decades. Centuries, really, if you do it right. And with only producing a fraction of the nuclear waste current plants produce -- and that waste would only remain radioactive for a fraction of the time of current nuclear waste's lifespan.
Are you talking about those nuclear power plant that one finds at the feet of rainbows?
There a still morons that regurgitate that crap today? What's the point in any discussion about energy generation if people still stick to that kind of bullshit arguments?
My thoughts exactly. I have the gut feeling that most of the problems caused by international finance would suddenly disappear if you had to keep any stock you buy for one month at least. This would kill speculation for good. Also short selling would be prohibited too. I'm a dreamer.
Maybe if you'd gone to them with "This is a bad idea, it has a xx% chance every month we're doing it of costing us $$$ in direct fees and around $$$ in indirect bad press. I can rectify it for $ plus $ per month," they'd have taken you up on the suggestion?
I used to be very idealistic too when I was much younger. Ah the good old days:-)
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They would have bankrupted the galaxy.
Not that there were such people on the moon.
Care to elaborate on that part?
Also you don't execute a man if you're a Christian.
Only a terrorist questions the State.
Fukushima has yet to kill anyone. Decisions should be based on actual statistics.
On the other hand, Fukushima could have been much worse; it looks like the Japanese have had some luck in this tragedy, in particular that the wind was mostly blowing eastward, towards the ocean, during the most critical few days of the accident. Would the situation have been different, the whole ordeal would have been much bleaker. Perhaps not more people killed, but a forced evactuation of the greater Tokyo area would indeed have been very bad for the country. Should we dismiss that worst possibility because it was avoided by sheer luck?
Both were caused by a combination of corruption and exceptional circumstances
Which are not going to go away anytime soon. Let me place a easy bet here: the next accident will be caused by the same factors.
coal power working exactly as it's designed to
Not sure what you mean here. I think coal could be a clean as nuclear, except probably on the CO2 asepct, provided the regulations regarding were as tight as with the latter. Ashes can be filtered from the exhaust and I think this is the case in most advanced countries.
nuclear power wins hands down on pretty much every metric
Nuclear wins easily if you're ready to disregard its drawbacks and ignore the reality of its deployment, i.e., basically if you're a nuclear nutty. Just like renewables win hand down if you disregard their limitations and ignore the reality of their deployment. Now if you truly want to understand the problem and decide for the best way to go it seems to me things start no to look so simple.
Unless, of course, you don't actually care about making the best or even a good decision
We should definitely do that but really it's far from obvious to me that you're in the right and your opponents in the wrong. I would love to be convinced but hasn't happened yet, despite the amount of discussions that have been ongoing on the subject lately.
Simply the truth, folks.
But is this really the truth or just wishful, shadenfreude thinking? Honest question, would appreciate a sincere answer.
Mind you, HTML in an email message is in no way more dangerous than plain text; it looks prettier and that's it.
The countries that make it illegal to possess cannabis are
You may have to take into account that some if not most of European countries where cannabis is prohibited have a very low enforcement of these laws if at all, at least as far as consumption is concerned. In France for instance you'd have a hard time getting into trouble for smoking a spliff, smoking is officially "tolerated" and you even had that comic guy Coluche who rolled and smoked one at the table of the President in '81 or something.
Sweden should also be an example of why we should keep drugs illegal
This assumes that drugs are bad, which is not at all obvious from my perspective. Drugs may be considered bad for your health when used in excess, but taking into account that cannabis is probably less damaging than tobacco or alcohol, this isn't necessarily sufficient ground for banning it. On the contrary, since ban does definitely not lead to decline in availability as shown by experience, the right answer might well be to simply agree to the facts and educate youngsters about the dangers associated with it, since they'll do it anyway, instead of fighting against them.
...or they will morph and grow into new areas.
Yes so cigarettes are making me sick but there's no point in quitting since my drinking habit is bad too right? Totally makes sense.
Their objective is power.
This is quite an astonishing opinion. Where do you get that idea from? It looks much more plausible to me that they're simply after the money like everyone else. You know, Occam's razzor and all that.
If anything you just increased their market size
You seem to imply that legalizing drugs will increase consumption, or conversely that prohibition does stifle it. That's quite a bold statement, and figures from countries where drugs have been legalize show mostly the opposite.
It looks to me you're reasoning from arbitrary premises, chosen to comfort your preconceived opinions but not necessarily based on facts or reality. This is called fantasy dreaming in my book.
Ahh good ol' Common Sense
You definitely could use some.
What proof do you have that legalizing drugs won't cause more problems than it supposedly solves?
There's no proof for it, only common sense. The situation isn't very complicated really. Drug prohibition prevents no one to access the substances but makes it extremely profitable for dealers to trade them. Now remove the profitable aspect of the equation and try to imagine what might ensue.
do you have any idea how many lives have been ruined by alcohol in the mean time?
You mean things were better during the prohibition?
Just because there aren't drugs to traffic doesn't mean the problem will be solved
It's not an all-or-nothing situation, cut the money flow and the violence will stop increasing at the steady pace it has those last years and eventually will start winding down. Just like any other activity, stop making it profitable and it'll decrease and disappear eventually.
"Land of the free, home of the brave."
Such a joke indeed.
I don't see how you could possibly argue that a modern plant design, with safety mechanisms in place that would have withstood the Japan quake and tsunami by passively stopping reactors in the quake -- yeah, they don't melt down because a loss of power causes things to shut down, they actually require power and stability to keep them going instead of needing those to stop -- and reactors that would turn our hundreds-of-centuries-dangerous nuclear waste into hundreds-of-years-dangerous nuclear waste, could possibly be a bad idea.
The problem is that the reactors you're talking about do not exist yet. Yes they are very neat on paper and everybody would like to have these, however you don't have in your briefcase the plans for a 1GW such reactor that one could start building tomorrow and operating in 3 years. So what you're really advocating is research, arguing that the benefits will be tremendous. Well I'm all for research, but then going this way I can't help thinking that solar power too has a tremendous potential and would benefit a lot from research. Sun is bathing the Earth on average with 5000 times the current total energy consumption of humanity, so if we could tap 0.2% of that input somehow we would kind of have solved the energy problem of humanity once and for all. Isn't this a nice perspective too? Sure there are technical challenges along the way (energy storage, long-distance distribution, smart grid, etc), but not necessarily infinitely more complex or impossible to solve than with nuclear power. So unless somebody comes with an argument convincing me that renewable energy cannot possibly be a solution to our energy needs, I will lean towards them because they have one hell of an advantage: they are intrinsically clean, renewable and safe, contrary to nuclear power which may become almost clean and safe after risk mitigation.
Which brings me to the other reason why I think nuclear reactors are a bad idea: what is going to happen once I say "ok nuclear is the way of the future, let's build NPP all over the world"? What "they" will build is not the nice and shiny reactors that you're talking about, what they are going to build is the cheapest piece of crap they'll be able to get away with, cutting as many corners as humanely possible, bribing as many politicians as necessary along the way, twisiting as many regulations as the creativity of their lawyers will permit. It's even worth than that: their gauge to decide how much "over-security" they are doing at any particular point in time is wether any serious accident happened lately or not. If not, some pointy-haired boss will show up with a plan to "cut costs" that will basically boil down to grind security measures until the next major accident happens, at which point the cycle restarts, just like it did with Fukushima, Deep Water Horizon, Bophal and countless others. The Mafia will keep on dumping nuclear waste in the ocean, in fact they're going to do it more and more, and China will start doing it too, trust me on this, western countries did dump a lot of nasty things in the ocean too in the past. And heck why on Earth wouldn't they do it?
So this is why I argue that even "a modern plant design, with safety mechanisms [...]" is very probably a bad idea: the scientists and engineers that promote and push for these technologies and would like to see the world covered in NPP are definitely meaning well and understandably frustrated at the current status quo which is the worst possible situation, and I personally trust (most of) them; however the guys who ultimately will be in charge of the completion of the plan I do not trust, I know these guys don't give a single molecule of shit about me, my children or my grand-children, they will do whatever to line their pockets and let us die face in the mud; they
People should keep in mind that Fukushima ended up being not as bad as it could have been by sheer luck. Would the wind have blown in the other direction (i.e., towards inner land and Tokyo) during those first critical few days, then the outcome would have been vastly different (think evacuation of greater Tokyo area). I think this ought to be taken into account when assessing the risk of nuclear energy generation, not simply by saying "nothing serious happened this time, which proves that everything was always safe".
Build a nice good old nuclear plant, though, and it'll run for decades. Centuries, really, if you do it right. And with only producing a fraction of the nuclear waste current plants produce -- and that waste would only remain radioactive for a fraction of the time of current nuclear waste's lifespan.
Are you talking about those nuclear power plant that one finds at the feet of rainbows?
Solar doesn't produce anything at night.
There a still morons that regurgitate that crap today? What's the point in any discussion about energy generation if people still stick to that kind of bullshit arguments?
"Calculating" would probably be a better fit.
My thoughts exactly. I have the gut feeling that most of the problems caused by international finance would suddenly disappear if you had to keep any stock you buy for one month at least. This would kill speculation for good. Also short selling would be prohibited too. I'm a dreamer.
Fusion power is the energy of the future and always will be.
Known compromised CAs
FTFY
Maybe if you'd gone to them with "This is a bad idea, it has a xx% chance every month we're doing it of costing us $$$ in direct fees and around $$$ in indirect bad press. I can rectify it for $ plus $ per month," they'd have taken you up on the suggestion?
I used to be very idealistic too when I was much younger. Ah the good old days :-)
Their back, there wolf, why are you talking that way?