04-25-2008, 02:17 PM
Quote:I wish I could argue with this, but I can't.Well, I can and I will. It's not the black and white of nuclear good/bad, it's k's preposterous statement that 30 years ago would have been nice.
Nuclear is safe now. Or I should say, nuclear is safe enough now. And it's been that way for 10-15 years (sometime in the 90's). Exactly when safe enough occurred depends on your own personal definition of safe enough.
The nuclear of 1970's was not safe enough. Would you build a 1970's reactor today? Definitely not.
If you ask those in the nuclear industry, however, things have always been safe. Accidents were virtually impossible. But things are safer now -- so how safe were they back then?? We've had at least two accidents with 1970's tech (were we informed about all of them?) One of them was catastrophic.
So, we've seen that the nuclear industry will always say it's safe whether it is or not. So it is up to those outside the industry to decide. Personally I think enough progress has been made that, if done right, I would not object to one built in my neighborhood. (Especially if it would mean cheaper energy costs.)
Now, should we have started reactors 10 years ago? Yes. And yes, that would have helped reduce greenhouse emissions, less particulates, less asthma and all that.
But to me, saying we should have building them 30 years ago is just plain wrong. I feel it's revisionary, and in this particular case I feel it's just another part of the constant blame-the-liberals whining that is a big part of the noise pollution these days.
-Van