If you have been watching reports coming out of Japan, or reading about the situation, it must by now have made you reach this conclusion: nuclear power is just not worth it. I have seen the talking heads go at it on television, and some babble about how "safe" nuclear power is. I feel like saying, "Tell that to the ten thousand plus dead and the stricken survivors in Japan."
By all accounts the Japanese thought they were prepared for the big one; they had built the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant with expectations of an earthquake. What it seems they were not ready for was the tsunami that followed, which knocked out the plant's cooling systems and caused this catastrophe. Now the world waits to hear good news each day, but all we get is more of the same grim reports and the possibility of even worse things to come, like plutonium being found in the soil outside the plant.
This inevitably gets me thinking of the other nuclear problem: weapons. The notion of anyone using nuclear weapons should by now have reached a complete zero option. For years I have heard about a "limited nuclear response" in various situations. In other words, your country hits my country with one, so I will hit you back with one. The greatest fear comes from countries like India and Pakistan which both have nuclear weapons and have at times been on the brink of hostilities.
After seeing what has happened in Japan, any rational person would realize that it is bad enough if something goes wrong with a nuclear reactor in a plant meant for generating power, but to intentionally use a weapon that will also release these harmful materials into the atmosphere should now be seen as a reprehensible and inconceivable act of barbarism. A small scale nuclear exchange could devastate this planet, causing climate change that would alter life as we know it forever.
Article comments
1 - Waterdog
I'm concerned you may not have really done your research before writing this opinion piece. When you say, "Tell that to the 10, 000 dead," you seem to be implying that a nuclear disaster is the cause, when they died in the original tsunami.
20 years ago I would have been right there with you. But the massive worldwide climate effects caused by coal-fired power plants frankly make the small amount of nuclear waste and even the small chance of a nuclear meltdown seem small in comparison. It's certainly not as good as clean renewables like wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, or tidal, but if nothing else, it's a stop-gap until those become more widespread.
Despite the magnitude of this disaster, even the worst case scenario will not result in global fall-out, although some of the less reputable news sources have speculated as such. Lastly, let's leave nuclear weapons out of this. Of course they're terrible and they should be gotten rid of. But that's not very relevant.
2 - tr oll
...with several reactors presently in various stages of meltdown it's absurd to talk about the 'small chance of a nuclear meltdown'
3 - Victor Lana
I feel that anything "nuclear" is a danger. Whether the people in Japan died because of the earhtquake, the tsunami, or will die in the future because of the radiation is kind of not the point. The thing that is worrisome is that years and years of suffering from one accident. What if the world experienced several accidents simulataneously? Of the launching of nuclear weapons simultaneously? The impact would be more than grim for certain.
4 - Ruvy
Victor, while I agree with you that running nuclear plants to produce energy is not wise, I sense that in your fear of the bad consequences of nuclear weapons or plants, you miss the real catastrophe going on. The real catastrophe is the steady series of earthquakes that are destroying the supports for much of northern Japan. There have been 750 or more earthquakes since 11 March in a tiny area, and it is possible that if Mt. Fujiyama blows, the whole of the north of Japan will start to slip under the Pacific.
The earthquakes do not stop, and no flunky from the Obama administration will get them to, though there have been accusations that HAARP may have been responsible for this. That gets into conspiracy theory and is not worth speculating on. But the steady flow of earthquakes is real, and the slow self-evacuation of Tokyo is real also. The reality of the Japanese government not telling the truth is more of a disaster then the accident - because millions of lives hang in the balance.
5 - Glenn Contrarian
Ruvy -
I'm a liberal - but I'm also still strongly FOR nuclear power.
For one thing, the Japanese nuclear power plant in question is considered the 'Model T' of nuclear plants. There would be no such danger with modern nuclear plants.
For instance, even with 30 year-old plants, if anything happens, the plant scrams - shuts down - automatically. I've seen no indication that such was part of the construction of the Japanese nuclear plant.
Today there are nuclear plants about the size of a trash can that require zero coolant and can power a small city...and they are very safe even in a major earthquake.
6 - Ruvy
Glenn, you too miss the point the way Victor does. This is the real disaster! The problems with the nuclear plant are like the hummus you dip the bread in. The bread is the continuous earthquakes that are rattling the Empire of Japan and tearing it apart bit by bit.
Who gives a damn about liberal and conservative, man! Who cares about "Model T" plants versus the latest Toyota? That is not what this is really all about. What this is really all about is the Japanese government lying to its people when millions of them can die in a catastrophe of - of Biblical proportions.