Evidently, the apolitical, free-market approach finds the risk of nuclear beyond what is insurable. What more is there to debate?

There has not been a case of an accident yet where any of the experts looked like they had the slightest clue about what to do–and when you are dealing with things nuclear that in an off itself is simply too scary for the public (and for me).

And when we have a oil spill, or a mine disaster, at some point that disaster is terminated. We know when we can pretty much declare the disaster at an end. The thought here is that there is no end game. There is no point at which people any time within our lifetimes will be able to call this emergency at a conclusion. And there is a big probability that hundreds of square kilometers of earth will likely be forever (in human terms) abandoned.

That is a very high price to pay. Just think, for the luxury of our electricity today our great grandchildren to the tenth power will still have to monitor and worry about this spot on the face of the earth.

For instance, the risk that something goes wrong in a nuclear plant is small relative to driving a car, but if I smash a car the odds that I will kill anyone but myself are small. In a nuclear power plant accident I can contaminate whole stretches of farmland and render large areas uninhabitable, even if nobody dies. So they aren’t directly comparable that way.

This is why any yahoo can get a driver’s license but it is a wee bit harder to get a license to fly a passenger jet. Or why we have relatively stringent requirements for being a doctor, for instance. Theoretically the risk of running into a bad doctor won’t kill you often — after all, on any given day (or even in a year) most of us haven’t got life-threatening health problems. But some random guy saying “I’m a doctor” and treating hundreds won’t be lucky forever. And since there isn’t any way to know that beforehand, we license docs.

As to the risks of fossil fuels, one of the big differences is that those risks are, in some ways, easier to deal with. We can cut down fossil fuel usage, for instance, by taking all that money we use for road-building and using it for light rail or dedicated hybrid bus lines. We could re-open the rail lines that once existed all over the country. That alone would put a big dent in it.

Then there is the cost and risk of nuclear when the whole fuel cycle is counted up. Mining, refining, the whole nine yards. Forget radiation. Industrial quantities of hydrofluoric acid are necessary to make the fuel. There is all kinds of potential for industrial accidents in that process– and there have been. This is simply ridiculous.

And whose idea was it to put generators, which are vital in a nuclear plant, below the f-ing seawall? When putting them upstairs might have been a smidgen better idea? Tsunamis in Japan are not a surprise. It’s like when people build those flimsy bungalows in Florida, and insist on living next to the beach, and then act all surprised when a hurricane shows up, and insist that we should build the same thing there again.

We can compare risks yes. Are 100 cancer cases better or worse than, say, one death? How to evaluate the risks of nuclear waste “treatment” reaching 100 000 years ahead? Is someone calculating uranium mining risks? What about the psychological and social consequences of evacuating? Risk calculation has it’s limits…

Based on your last comment, I don’t think you understand what risk is.

Risk = (probability of event occurrence) x (consequences, ie deaths or $)

So, yes…the consequences of a nuclear event are terrible, but they happen infrequently. In the auto industry, the probability of occurrence is high, but the consequences of each event are lower.

But we can compare risks. Of course, they’re estimates. We only know what we know. And we’re not all-knowing.

And we can do so between nuclear power and fossil fuels. Or between any industries.

And that provides a relative sense of what “safe” is.

And we can realize that consequence-heavy risks make for better fodder and demonization.

I don’t care (prior to making a risk assessment) if nuclear power involves the most risk or the least risk. Whatever it is, it is.

It just happens to be low….but consequence-heavy.

A choice made under duress is not a free choice.

TEPCO officials have falsified safety data.

http://www.economist.com/node/1318056

A choice made based on misrepresentation is not a free choice.

If nuclear power is so safe, why did TEPCO officials feel the need to lie about safety reports?

Do I assume that you are making a comparative claim, that you are not biased? At this point, you really need to start putting together your case that you are not a Nuclear Power Industry shill. We have a rule against denialists and shills here. Give me something or move along. Right now, please.

Nina – I agree with your ending remarks. Really bad things can happen at anytime. And, without energy the death rates of humans will increase (we live longer and healthier today because we are raping the environment for our use). We could mandate population control, but we don’t. So we need more and more energy. In the case of nuclear, the risk is primarily realized in a large event. In the case of fossil fuels, the risk is primarily realized incrementally, so it doesn’t trigger the emotionalism. The renewables continue to improve in effeciency and should be used to the extent possible.

daedalus2u – In a capitalist system (and I’m not defending it), no one has to buy nuclear generated electricity. So, as the theory goes, if those who don’t like nuclear energy don’t buy it, the people making it won’t get rich. And in a socialist system, it is likely the citizens would choose nuclear power because it poses less risk. That’s why you find socialist countries with nuclear power.

Inject a solution of boric acid and calcium acetate so that calcium borate precipitates on the fuel in the line while it is being pumped. Add lots of boron as B2O3, B4C, pyrex, Calcium borate, etc. so the little bits of fuel can’t go critical in the tanker.

Set up a facility on the tanker to remove water. RO, distillation, ion exchange. Remove water and concentrate the radioactive stuff into solids. Soak the solids/brine up in clinoptilite. Add cement. Put the solids in metal drums, put those drums in an overpack, put the overpacks in a shipping container. Put the shipping containers someplace safe and dry. Use the fresh water being taken out of the radioactive water as shielding in tanks to allow the workers to operate the equipment.

The problem they are having is the inevitable problem of a top-down power hierarchy when things go wrong. Everyone at the top who doesn’t know what to do runs away while finger pointing. Those at the bottom have been conditioned to defer to those at the top and don’t have the authority to do anything in any case and will be blamed for everything that goes wrong while the “leaders” take credit for everything that goes right.

It is just like capitalism how it is now practiced in the US. When good stuff happens, privatize the good stuff (i.e. profits). When bad stuff happens, socialize the bad stuff (i.e. losses).

We might see this again in a few days in the US if the teabaggers shut the government down. The GOP leaders will take credit for getting elected, but won’t take credit for the gigantic deficit that GWB and the GOP produced.