PS - what's "GAU"? In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
My own critical notes:
Or rather: "largest accident that must be assumed [of being possible at a certain facility]" *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I don't understand why the energy put to fight nuclear energy, so far victimless in the West, is not put against coal which kills thousands every year and pollutes everything. I'd rather have a second generation of nuclear plants for baseload power, together with wind and a little bit of gas-fired plants for flexibility and peak, until solar becomes economic (because we invest to make it so), than coal for everything, but that's what will happen if we keep on banging on nuclear all the time. (coal has a simple political justification: jobs, jobs, jobs). In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Also, to claim nuclear energy has been victimless is false. Sorry, I hate to disagree with you, I am continually educated by your writing, but the mining of uranium has caused many deaths. People who were told there was no danger and sent in to the mines with no breathing apparatus or any safety method. In our town, a smelter was run for the uranium and vanadium - I don't know how all of that worked - but the slag from this plant is low level radioactive. Back in the 50s and 60s this material was used as fill. Fill for residential houses. So now we have address lists of potentially radioactive foundations - but you won't find it at the realtors! Anyway, the point is there have been many, many victims and people are fighting to improve coal.
I would suggest a complete and holistic analysis of all energy sources for their costs on a per megawatt basis.
But low level radioactivity is not very dangerous In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Regarding supposed danger from low-level radioactivity: parts of the world with high natural-background radioactivity have fewer cancer deaths. New Mexico, a major producer of uranium in the past and home to large ore veins that have yet to be mined, has a higher than average level of natural background radiation. It's higher than that of Chernobyl. Even with uranium miners, Los Alamos, Sandia National Labs, etc., NM has one of the lowest rates of cancer in the US--along with Utah (also a radioactive state) and Hawaii (ditto, thanks to vulcanism).
Uranium workers do not have higher rates of cancer, nor do radiologists, X-ray technicians, etc.--even though they receive greater exposures than people in other professions. Of all the professions, the workers receiving the greatest exposure to radiation are airline crews.
Greenpeace is an unreliable source of information about anything nuclear. Just ask Patrick Moore, one of its founders, who refers to his former colleagues as fear mongers and who speaks about the billions of tons of carbon that nuclear energy has spared the world.
There is no risk-free form of electricity generation.
See the website of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy:
www.ecolog.org
epecially in Nuclear power stations, it is the type of accident, that is still managable - or has to be planned for as managable. f.e breaking of cooling system and subsequent threat of core meltdown without breaching security or radiation limits. It is a flexible term and has to be redefined in step with security developments as well as thread levels. there are regular GAU trainings, which include Terror threat scenario and some such.
not to be mixed up with Super-GAU.
Even more baddest than just worst. (deliberate misuse of the Englisch language )
or, an accident that is worse than what was planned for and is an accident that was not managable. - ie the actual core meltdown like Tschernobyl more
P.S. the article I was referring to says: in order to replace all the coal reactors in Germany alone, Germany would have to build 60 new nuclear power stations. Since it takes 8 years to build one, we would need to build 16 a piece. The technical capacity does not exist to achieve this.
I think I know where you are coming from, and in a world with unlimited resources and no terrorist threat and no problems with storage, nuclear power might be a medium term solution.
But we have lost the last thirty years with this hope and it is not a realistic one. All the money that could have been used in renewable energy development, but which went into nuclear research is lost. Thats why we need a consequent re alignement toward energy conservation and powerstation that are small and produce locally (wind, geothermal, photovoltic) selfsufficency for the individual household and money back for the surplus energy. Building regulation that demand energy efficiency like separate water systems, where-ever possible
here are the other articles from Greenpeace. Atomenergie: Keine Rettung für das Klima. pdf and Atomkraft: Eine Frage der Wahl?.pdf all in German I am afraid and no, I am not a member of Greenpeace.
