Lets not lose sight of the fact that a chernobyl-like explosion within the middle of a reactor has been rendered virtually impossible today.

All these downside risks and long-term catastrophes I'm downplaying? I'm downplaying something that wont ever f*cking happen!

We, collectively as humans, are so god damn stupid that we easily accept huge health impacts from coal power but demand absolute zero-risk perfection from nuclear, without the slightest regard for common sense or logic, and when the least little accident happens we point to something decades ago from the infancy of our understanding of nuclear power safety, as if that would ever happen again.

Chernobyl: "woops, we did something dumb and now we have a problem" to total disaster within a few hours.

Japan, one in a f**king hundred year 9.0 earthquake and 30-foot tsunami, in a place where the plant probably should not have been built, still using old technology, and several days later a disaster still has not happened and they still might get away with no one ever actually dying from the incident.

Regardless, we might use this event to stop the building of nuclear plants in freaking Iowa, far from any fault or ocean. But coal power plants? Feel free to spew away without the slightest question about health impacts. Are we just god-damn stupid, or what?
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Dude, I think you're arguing with yourself. Has anyone here even brought up energy policy? Maybe I missed it...
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I must have missed the part where everyone wanted to shut down all nuclear power plants, my apologies.

With all the x-rays I have had in life I am probably a dead man walking anyway.
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The burning of the spent fuel rods could produce a Chernobyl-like radiation zone. And the leaking of the melted rods into the water supply if the containment is breached could be even worse.

These expert analyses have been posted here, feel free to look at them.

LOL

Okay, that's absurd. Feel free to continue to ignore them.
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Well, either I'm addressing serious substantive concerns about the use of nuclear power in the USA, or people are engaging in stupid nit-picking. If I'm talking to a bunch of nit-pickers then we're just being silly in this "debate".

Either way, it should be full steam ahead for approval of US nuclear power plants, if any investors want to use the latest technology and safe practices.
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yeah, because obviously this is a permanant situation. If you go out a few miles, the radiation is freaking small, in an area that has been evacuated.
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Maybe we need to revisit the thread from last year about the Gulf Oil Spill to see how much kneejerk and overreaction came true....
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Oh I get it, what your trying to say now is that nobody ever even said that. You're crafty dude, I gotta hand it to you. You slipped that in there real nice like.
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oh, and if it means anything in the "nuclear power is bad" narrative, the radiation has apparently fallen enough for workers to return to the plants in Japan. That was quick. Apparently this was another temporary local little spike.
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alnorth: I was wondering if you could talk about kind of longer-term expectations for operating Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant?

Seriously. New York has its own nuclear power plant apocalypse to think about.

Thanks
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quickly looked into it, and not sure what there is to say? This plant was designed to withstand an earthquake 10 times stronger than any earthquake that has ever been recorded in that region. Above and beyond even that, a similar plant built elsewhere was able to withstand a quake that was over *ONE HUNDRED* time stronger than any quake this plant would ever face, according to the experts.

This plant is also apparently able to withstand a direct impact from a jet, which is just amazing to me.

Even freaking greenpeace, which is normally an irrationally insane organization regarding nuclear power, is fine with indian point.
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This geologist, Jim Berkland , predicted the 1989 World Series earthquake a few days before the quake hit... he said that those same "ideal conditions" are ripe for an earthquake on the West Coast on March 19th, due to the position of the moon and the tide.

Plus, those millions of dead fish that popped up on the shore in Redondo Beach a week or so ago are a telling sign.

Talks about the Ring of Fire... How it hit Chile first... then New Zealand... then Japan... next the West Coast.

Interesting research, none the less... states that the pressure relieved in Chile, added more pressure to the New Zealand... which then added more pressure to Japan... and now the west coast will need to relieve the pressure.

Anyway, here is his prediction, and why...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-vZk...tailpage#t=17s

Here is a second interview:


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Here is what the plant looks like currently, with the latest satellite picture.


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If one hits in the Cascadia Subduction Zone, it's not going to be good.
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by Kerry Sheridan – Tue Mar 15, 3:35 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The western United States is overdue for a huge earthquake and tsunami much like the one that devastated Japan last week, and is nowhere near ready to cope with the disaster, experts say.

A volatile, horseshoe-shaped area known as the Pacific Ring of Fire has recently erupted with quakes in Chile, Japan, Mexico and New Zealand, and seismologists say it is just a matter of time before the next big one hits.

Twin fault lines place the US west at risk: the San Andreas fault that scars the length of California and the lesser-known but more potent Cascadia Subduction Zone off the Pacific Coast.

A 9.0 quake in this underwater fault that stretches from the northern tip of California all the way to Canada's British Columbia could simultaneously rattle major port cities of Vancouver, Portland and Seattle, unleash a massive tsunami and kill thousands of people.

"From the geological standpoint, this earthquake occurs very regularly," said geotechnical engineer Yumei Wang, who is the geohazards team leader at the Oregon Department of Geology.

"With the Cascadia fault, we have records of 41 earthquakes in the last 10,000 years with an average of 240 years apart. Our last one was 311 years ago so we are overdue," she said.


Rest of Article
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110315...20110315193603
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