One of the things that annoys me slightly is that while our news is loaded with the nuclear accidents, I haven't heard any mainstream media talk about this refinery fire caused by earthquake which had been raging for 10 days, putting who knows how much pollution in the air.
Nuclear accidents are scary because people don't understand reactors, they don't understand the actual dangers and there, frankly, haven't been a whole lot of them, so FUD can snowball.
On the other hand, mine collapses, refinery fires, oil spills, explosions -- the causes of the day to day death toll of the fossil fuel supply chain (to say nothing of its use) is familiar, understandable and all too common.
indeed: when people clamor that everyone should re-think nuclear power, we should actually look at the human cost of the current alternatives. For example, the news is happy to report that China will be building 50 reactors in the future. (One even said that that's almost as many as there are in the rest of the world; completely untrue). But should China really stay with coal mines? How many people do they think die from coal mining every year, to say nothing of the refinery and pollution? 2631 in 2009, 3215 in 2008, nearly 7000 in 2002.
I understand nuclear power generation on layman level (3 semesters of university physics), but am opposed to it. Allow me to point out flaws in your narrative:
- people could have had bad first-hand experience with nuclear accidents. I lived 200km downwind from Chernobyl and had to run for cover when it rained first few months. My brother-in-law had his thyroid gland treated when he was 9. Sanitary food inspections still include contamination spot checks, 25 years later.
- Oil spills are largely non-argument. Oil is used primarily for gasoline production and has only fringe role in energy production.
- There is a great, clean fossil fuel in form of natural gas. It is indeed widely used, in some countries in Europe it accounts for 95% of energy production. Coal vs. nuclear is false dichotomy and mostly serves as rhetorical device of proponents of nuclear.
- Safety record of fossil fuel would be much, much higher if as much was invested for safety per TWh as for nuclear. That said, natural gas is still on par with nuclear w.r.t. safety.
- With mass adoption of nuclear, which is now mostly concentrated in places with high safety culture, the number and scale of disasters is bound to catch up. Extrapolate the accident trend for growth up to 50% energy share, and it would be more than simply linear.
- Waste management. Enough said.
- Overall attitude to opponents from nuclear advocates is off-putting. Just because someone has a different view on energy policy does not mean he is a simpleton, a fear-monger or illiterate.
Having a different view is always welcome.
Having a different view due concerns not supported by the evidence, inequal standards and emotional arguments is not.
Nuclear is not a silver bullet.
Fossil fuel is not all bad.
You seem to be arguing against something other than what I wrote.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/21/japan-refinery-idU...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/enciclopediapt/5523005370/