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Originally Posted by tpunx99GSX
His views on nuclear power really scare me as if they stored all of that nuclear waste in the yucca mountain and a terrorist were to target that, the whole US would be fucked. Nuclear power is very dirty and creates waste that can cause great harm to human beings. I watched two videos on Chernobyl and almost cried because i thought about what i would feel if it were my son that came out with deformaties, (see. Chernobyl 20 years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUzu1eegKWM&feature=user
and Chernobyl 20 years later: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHh3QaWKbSg) With McCains views on Nuclear power its hitting a little close to home. |
Do you know anything about nuclear power? It's time for some education. Chernobyl was a nuclear accident brought on by human negligence and error. It caused a steam explosion (what blew the reactor dome apart) and a complete meltdown of the reactor, the only one ever in the history of nuclear power. There has not been any other accident even remotely close to the severity of Chernobyl.
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A mishandled reactor safety test led to an uncontrolled power excursion, causing a severe steam explosion, meltdown and release of radioactive material at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant located approximately 100 kilometers north-northwest of Kiev. Approximately fifty fatalities resulted from the accident and the immediate aftermath most of these being cleanup personnel. An additional nine fatal cases of thyroid cancer in children in the Chernobyl area have been attributed to the accident. The explosion and combustion of the graphite reactor core spread radioactive material over much of Europe. 100,000 people were evacuated from the areas immediately surrounding Chernobyl in addition to 300,000 from the areas of heavy fallout in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. An "Exclusion Zone" was created surrounding the site encompassing approximately 1,000 mi² (3,000 km²) and deemed off-limits for human habitation for an indefinite period. Several studies by governments, UN agencies and environmental groups have estimated the consequences and eventual number of casualties. Their findings are subject to controversy.
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Three Mile Island is the worst accident to happen in the US, and in reality it is not bad.
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Equipment failures and worker mistakes contributed to a loss of coolant and a partial core meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor. This is the worst commercial nuclear accident in the United States. While the reactor was extensively damaged on-site radiation exposure was under 100 millirems (less than annual exposure due to natural sources), with exposure of 1 millirem (10 µSv) to approximately 2 million people. There were no fatalities. Follow up radiological studies predict at most one long-term cancer fatality.
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Do you really think a Cherobyl-like accident will happen in the US or anywhere ever again? That was over 20 years ago, and to think how much technology has advanced since then really should bring a piece of mind as to how much better and safer nuclear energy is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...lear_accidents
Now, about terrorists getting ahold of spent nuclear fuel. Two things they could do: Build a dirty bomb (a conventional bomb that spreads radioactive material when it detonates) or build a nuclear weapon (requires reprocessing spent fuel). A dirty bomb... Possible, yes, but doubtful. Given the safeguards put in place around the world on nuclear energy it is extremely unlikely that enough radioactive material will ever get in the wrong hands. Massive amounts of spent plutonium fuel would need to be reprocessed into a usable state for a nuclear weapon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_bomb
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It is thought that during the 1960s the UK Ministry of Defence evaluated dirty bombs, deciding that a far better effect was achievable by simply using more high explosive in place of the radioactive material.
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An interesting tidbit... In 2002, the United States Department of Energy took possession of 34 metric tons of excess weapons-grade plutonium stockpiles from the United States Department of Defense, and as of early 2003 was considering converting several nuclear power plants in the US from enriched uranium fuel to MOX fuel (mixed oxide, a mixture of radioactive materials) as a means of disposing of plutonium stocks. How that would be a bad way of reducing nuclear weapon proliferation is beyond me.
A good read about nuclear energy safety:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf06.html
So, Tom, is the sky falling?
