Too cheap to meter. I wonder how many windmills could be built for the cost of building, operating and decommissioning one nuclear reactor. I wonder if the windmills would produce more power than the reactor.

"The massive earthquake that shook Japan this week nearly killed MILLIONS in a NUCLEAR APOCALYPSE."

Millions would have died? How exactly? All four reactors went into meltdown mode or burned? Like the millions upon millions who died from Chernobyl? A nuclear apocalypse? Perfectly and completely vaporising every single core might not create enough radiation to kill millions. You just make that statement and then move on. WTF?

I for one think we need far more investment (and deployment) of clean renewable energy sources. Just yesterday, Korean scientists claimed the manufacture of solar cells via plastic lithography (as opposed to current silicon semiconductor technology; a possible 10:1 cost reduction). I view nuclear (fission) power as an evil, but perhaps a necessary or lesser evil in the short term (next 20 to 50 years).

You do nothing to further reasonable discussion by starting out, then continuing, with such overheated (no pun intended) rhetoric. You make yourself the equivalent of the rabid Global Warming deniers on the right, and destroy credibility for a topic that needs serious discussion. Just as there is no point in arguing facts to the GW deniers, it seems there is no point in pointing out the difference between Chernobyl's graphite-moderated core versus a PWR/BWR design. Or that tritium (heavy hydrogen isotope), has far far lower energy-level radiation and a half life of only 12 years. Or that conservation is many times more cost effective than ANY generating technology. You resort to distortion and misdirection.

What a disappointing, self-serving article.

You may consider looking up and reading some truthful literature on the subject HabitatVic.
There is plenty available, just use Google and ask.

You know, I consider myself to be very far to the left, but it's always sad when other liberals/progressives speak vehemently about things which they know very little. Please get your technical facts down before you generate an opinion on something. It's like denying evolution without ever having read a book about it. HabitatVic did a good job, but allow me to throw in one more innacuracy:

"four of which [reactors] were forced into the dangerous SCRAM mode"

What is so dangerous about a SCRAM? (Which is an action, not a mode) I've experienced dozens of SCRAMS and never saw any nuclear danger during them. In fact, it's very safe because, by definition, it is stopping the chain reaction.

If you don't believe millions did die and many more have incurable cancers because of the Cheery-noble disaster, you haven't been reading the medical facts. If you beliive atomic power is safe, and safety standards in the facilities are indeed laudable, then you don't wish to listen to the other sides of the issue. Of course everyone has opinions, but I base mine on atomic power debates by what is written and said by many medical and science experts also.

55 reactors in Japan? Hmmm. They are smart.

and then the next is France

Ms. Smith,

I am well aware of Google, and have been a fan of search engines dating back to AltaVista (really good) and even Archie (so-so). As to reading some "truthful" literature? Are you aware of how condescending you come across?

You miss my point entirely. I'm trying to bring a little logic and science (yes, they are boring) into an argument that too often is close-minded people throwing around slogans and exaggerations. If I want sweeping generalizations and propaganda, I'll listen to Fox News.

I have read a LOT about Chernobyl, including papers/reports from the WHO and several oncology researchers. The numbers I have seen place it at tens of thousands (of additional/accelerated deaths), up to perhaps an eventual 200,000 additional deaths (per Greenpeace, other sources). Millions have not died from Chernobyl, though certainly a few hundred thousand (eventual) is bad enough. And BTW, my brother's step kids live near Kiev. One has already gotten leukemia at age 31. I'd prefer that you don't lecture me on how I don't understand the risks of nuclear power.

You are clearly entitled to your passionate opinions, I am merely disagreeing with how effective you and this author's arguments are.

A Black Swan arrived and for the moment we still survived. However, not for long if we keep pretending that Nuclear Energy is safe and controllable.

Let's say wind costs 2 times what the full cost of nuclear, including the unfunded insurance. So what, that is a bargain. Considering the risks with nuclear and the fact uranium is a finite resource and nuclear waste has to be stored and guarded to 1000s of years.

To the nuclear power proponents on this web site that believe the great god, Technology, is going to save us. That is what got is into this predicament in the first place.

To Habitatvic:
"I view nuclear (fission) power as an evil, but perhaps a necessary or lesser evil in the short term (next 20 to 50 years)."

There is nothing "short term" about the wastes produced by this technology, nor the toxic output of the processes used to contruct it. The only part of that sentence I can agree with is the "evil" designation. The nuclear industry is old enough to know better; that is what makes those who advocate it for the short or long term "evil" (as in depraved). Forgive them not, they know exactly what they do!

Everyone of you are all so wrong, so full of BS, so mislead.

Our real problem is energy CONSUMPTION. It matters not it's source, whether nuclear, coal, wind, solar, etc. Everything we do is inefficient. Boil water, turn on a light, whatever, most of the energy required is wasted. Waste is given off as heat. That heat adds to the planet's heat budget. Because we have an atmosphere, the heat is trapped and cannot radiate into space. And so the planet warms.

The argument is not how we can cleanly and safely generate energy, the argument is how can we reduce our CONSUMPTION.

As I spraypainted a tunnel at Homebush railway station in Australia in 1975: Consume, Be Silent, Die

BigNoseKate, (love the handle, mine's prominent as well)

Though I'm an engineer, I have no illusions that technology is any sort of panacea. It can be used for good, it can be used for evil. If anything, its "leverage" magnifies the good versus bad of the intentions of those who control it. I've sold control software to nuclear power companies and I have friends that are working in government labs on solving the containment problem in fusion power production. All things being equal, I expect F500 energy companies to screw over consumers if they get the chance. That doesn't mean that the underlying technology is inherently bad, just that we should be damn leery of who provides it and how much they do regarding safeguards.

I quite agree that nuclear waste is a serious, and long-lived, issue. I would love to see 50% - 80% of our power needs come from solar/wind/geothermal. Or much cleaner (relatively speaking) fusion power. Short term, neither fusion nor renewable are likely to meet more than 15-20% of our energy needs within the next 20 years (when peak oil hits) Coal (50% of US, see www.eia.doe.gov) and oil power plants do more damage to the environment and kill more people PER YEAR than Chernobyl and TMI long-term combined. If, and its an if, we increase nuclear use, there are serious problems to overcome. But they can be, if not overcome, at least minimized and dealt with. MOX fuel reprocessing can reduce overall radioactive byproducts (currently 5% of spent fuel rods, see fourth page here http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/pubs/00818005.pdf#search=%22%22plutonium%20in%20use%22%20los%20alamos%22 ) by nearly 90%; more if you consider long-lived versus short-term and low level emissions. MOX could also use up the surplus warheads and the nearly 1000 metric tonnes of existing PU239 in spent fuel rods around the world. At 10 Kg per bomb, that's enough for 100,000 additional warheads. But it involves a lot of politics and control of bomb-quality plutonium, hence little progress.

By no means do I see fission power as a panacea. It sucks as a power source, but so does coal and other fossil fuel based sources. No, our governments are not doing anything near enough to go with alternatives. Our involvement in ITER is only $1B over the next four years. That's equal to 3 days of spending in Iraq. Three days. Short term, the best solution is conservation. Far and away. That $140B per year in Iraq would reimburse many Americans to go with flourescent/LED lighting, hybrid/plug-in/fuel-efficient cars, better windows & insulation (not sexy, but they work), personal use of solar and wind, and many other effective conservation solutions. Not to mention a proper level of R&D.

That's my two cents on the topic. If I don't meet your ideological purity test, then flame away.

It does not help the green cause to use lies, bad science, and distortion to make your argument. This blog is a disservice to Common Dreams and common sense. We need all sources of available energy that work and there are no magic solutions by believers and dreamers.

WPK

NPR Morning Edition had a spokesman on today from the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), which promotes nuclear power. NPR did not have anyone critical of nuclear power in the dialog. The NEI spokesman referred to nuclear power as "non-emitting." The NEI website makes "liberal" use of the term as well. This is just plain false.

Even if one ignores the fossil fuel burning associated with mining, milling, enrichment, fuel rod assembly, transportation of components, the coking needed to make the steel reactor cores, the CO2 emissions from making the cement, what are the cooling towers for? During operation the nukes emit, at minimum, heat and water vapor to the atmosphere. Water vapor is an IR absorber.

The nuclear industry is touting this "non-emitting" fantasy within the context of global warming concerns. They need a thorough, public fisking.

There is a missing history in the US as well. Stories like this are always referring to the "first" nuke accident at TMI, as though it was the "worst," and say "no one was killed."

Fermi, the first and only commercial liquid metal fast breeder reactor ever built in the US, suffered a catastrophic meltdown over ten years earlier. Significant, but unmeasured, amounts of radiation was released. The molten plutonium nearly assembled into a critical mass. I grew up within five miles of the plant, and recall the local newspaper having small stories, buried in the middle of the paper, about the "technical difficulties" at the plant, never referring to it as an "accident" or letting on the near-panic that the engineers and managers were in while they worked to figure out what was wrong and what to do about it.

I was in a band with a kid whose father was a nuclear engineer at Fermi. I remember his father being gone a lot, and looking haggard and worried when I did see him. He died of cancer within about a decade, still a young man in his fifties.

The plant was a total loss, and was entombed, much like Chernobyl. Beside it sits Fermi II, a conventional boiling water reactor.

Look for "We Almost Lost Detroit" by John Fuller for a factual (if somewhat sensational) account of this, the most overlooked nuclear accident in the US. It was many times more serious than TMI, yet somehow still doesn't get mentioned.

http://www.amazon.com/Almost-Lost-Detroit-John-Fuller/dp/0345252667

Lots of lies about the dangers of radiation and nuclear power. To quote the latest IAEA report on Chernobyl done with WHO:
"there is no clearly demonstrated increase in the incidence of solid cancers or leukaemia due to radiation in the most affected populations."

Stop lying people!!

As quoted in the Sun magazine.

"Don't get me wrong: I love nuclear energy. It's just that I prefer fusion to fission. And it just so happens that there's an enormous fusion reactor safely banked a few million miles from us. It delivers more energy than we could ever use in just about eight minutes. And it's wireless."
William McDonough

"The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun."
Ralph Nader

Boulder Skeptic, eveidently you haven't read the latest report from WHO. The number of actual deaths and cancers attributed to Cheery-nobel far exxceeds the figures spit out here by the denyers. There are many doctors who even dispute the lstest from WHO. So who has been lying? ____WHO.

Chernobyl was a tragic disaster, and no one would expect 1980's Russia to be forthcoming about the extent of the problem. However, Chernobyl was completely avoidable. The accident occurred during a test which was conducted to show that the plant would survive a sudden energy blackout. The goal of the test was to show that the nuclear reactor could be "rebooted" in the absence of any external electrical energy sources.

This test required the reactor to work outside its designed operational limits.

Many violations occurred during the test. At the bequest of the chief plant engineer, the emergency core cooling system was turned off for the duration of the test. Also, both emergency diesel generators were turned off, in order to simulate a "pure" experiment.

Most importantly, Chernobyl was an antiquated plant that did not have a containment dome.
Although what happened recently at the Japanese plant raises some concerns, no meltdown occurred, no deaths occurred.

Nuclear energy is far from perfect, however, nuclear power plants do not release toxins into the air. Coal plants release arsenic, mercury sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, huge amounts of CO-2 and radiation into the atmosphere.

Many more people die from coal. However, coal escapes the scrutiny that the nuclear industry endures. It is ironic that environmentalists have been so effective at preventing nuclear power. This led the way for an increased reliance on coal, which is the real public enemy #1. I would like to see more rational discussion about nuclear power versus coal. There is a prevalent knee-jerk reaction out there against nuclear power. Look at what is actually occurring at these plants, not at hype and fears.

Please drop all this pro nuclear power hot air. It just gets to be as old as old hot air-- more than a bit threatening all the environment in more ways than one.