The opinion of the Japanese people is more interesting, especially since they are the only people that nuclear weapons were used against in war.
Prior to this, the Japanese people were overwhelmingly in support of using nuclear power. Unlike the US, they have no domestic energy sources other than small amounts of coal. Almost all of their non-nuclear energy has to be imported.
Nuclear power has its risks and rewards,and it isn't the solution to all energy needs. But ignoring it would be a huge mistake.
Japanese Nuclear Power Plants: Do Meltdowns Change Your Opinion on Nuclear Power?
Fef
2011/03/12 19:36:38
Japan's magnitude 8.9 earthquake may lead to nuclear power plant meltdowns. Some argue that we should build more nuclear power plants offset the pollutants of oil and coal power plants. The Japanese earthquake has re-opened the debate of the safety of nuclear power.
Japan has 55 nuclear power plants that power 20% of the country's power. The earthquakes have forced shutting down 11 of those nuclear plants and may cuase nuclear meltdown. "It's a very serious situation for the reactors and might ultimately render those reactors unusable," said Howard Shaffer, a former Navy submarine engineer and a member of the American Nuclear Society's public information committee.
California has several nuclear power plants that generate about 13% of the state's power. California, like Japan, rests on acive earthquake fault lines and has a history of serious earthquakes.
The Japanese nuclear plants having the most problems don't have the newest available seismic safety features. Architects can also can learn to mitigate the dangers by anticipating them after analyzing Japan.
Japan has 55 nuclear power plants that power 20% of the country's power. The earthquakes have forced shutting down 11 of those nuclear plants and may cuase nuclear meltdown. "It's a very serious situation for the reactors and might ultimately render those reactors unusable," said Howard Shaffer, a former Navy submarine engineer and a member of the American Nuclear Society's public information committee.
California has several nuclear power plants that generate about 13% of the state's power. California, like Japan, rests on acive earthquake fault lines and has a history of serious earthquakes.
In what may become the most serious nuclear power crisis since the Chernobyl disaster, the explosion followed large tremors at the Fukushima Daiichi No. 1 reactor Saturday afternoon, injuring four workers who were struggling to get the quake-stricken unit under control.
Earlier, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) had warned that the reactor, whose cooling system had been crippled by the giant earthquake Friday, could be nearing a meltdown and that two radioactive substances, cesium and radioactive iodine, had already been detected nearby.
The Japanese nuclear plants having the most problems don't have the newest available seismic safety features. Architects can also can learn to mitigate the dangers by anticipating them after analyzing Japan.
Read More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic...
Top Opinion
-
Steve Johnson 2011/03/12 20:24:07
![[VIDEO] College Students Petition President Obama to Spy on FOX NEWS Employees: Good Petition?](http://images.sodahead.com/polls/003752795/2624318075_danjosephnsaspyfoxnews_large.jpeg "[VIDEO] College Students Petition President Obama to Spy on FOX NEWS Employees: Good Petition?")
I think we should definitely build new plants here in the US. We should build them away from areas prone to earthquakes, volcanos, hurricanes, tornados, wildfires, and alien landing zones (j/k). Where we can't avoid those high risk areas, they should be built to resist the strongest known or expected class of the appropriate disaster. We build skyscrapers that are on foundations that can shift in an earthquake, so the same should be done for a nuclear plant. And any failsafe should have a backup (or 3), and they should be regularly tested to ensure that in a disaster, at least one of the necessary measures works.
The thing I don't like is these plants in danger are built in seismically unstable areas. Is there any logic in that? But then there will always be those who use no common sense when it comes to their dogma of global meltdown.
2 big Tsunamis in 6 years we never had that before.
We have choices in economies. Even in the U.S. we do not see Capitalism in the Constitution but only "commerce". If the Russian economy is there for experience after it went through a big change, we can see a shortening of lifespans by about 4 years in the figures from 1996 - 99. Is that not a cost of lives to change their system? There is an exchange in energy. A tradesman can build things that take time because of his lack of machinery that requires great energy. He extends personal energy but the price he must demand accounts for that energy, just as the price of the machine made items and materials account for the energy from outside sources. The argument never really was about buggy whips. It was about the value of people and nuclear energy is a good way to keep the value of people low.
As we can see by watching Japan, when things get dangerous in the plant, they have to vent toxic radiation into the atmosphere to keep the plant from meltind down. That's the fail-safe plan??? To poison the local citizens????
These are things you never hear when they want your OK to build another nuclear plant. They won't tell you if all else fails then we will have to radiate your butt by venting out into the air you breath poisen radiation that may kill you, but that won't happen because it's a safe power.
Personally, I would not live next to a Nuclear Power Plant, and if they built one near my home I wo...
As we can see by watching Japan, when things get dangerous in the plant, they have to vent toxic radiation into the atmosphere to keep the plant from meltind down. That's the fail-safe plan??? To poison the local citizens????
These are things you never hear when they want your OK to build another nuclear plant. They won't tell you if all else fails then we will have to radiate your butt by venting out into the air you breath poisen radiation that may kill you, but that won't happen because it's a safe power.
Personally, I would not live next to a Nuclear Power Plant, and if they built one near my home I would move. Just a personal choice, because I know how radiation poisoning breaks down the human Bio. and it's not a pretty sight, nor is it painless. I would use oil lanterns, and solar pannels, before I would risk my life living near a nuclear plant. Watch the birds, because they never fly over nuclear plants, they fly around them every time, because they sense something that is not good for them, just like we human beings should.
But as life goes on in the world we will be told of the rare times nuclear power has gone wrong, and it's the safest choice for power. But you will never see any of those who profit off of it living near one of those plants, they won't expose their families to that danger, but they will risk your families exposure for the money they make, because it's safe, cheap power you are told.
I'm thinking of all those japanese families that thought the same thing right now, and how they now wished to god that they did not live near a nuclear plant, because for all the things we can perdict will happen, and how to fix them, it's the things we don't know that happen that I stay clear of nuclear power plants for.
one oil rig explosion and all drilling stops.
plane crashes planes still fly
trains cars they wreck they still move
We are human and we can not control mother nature . . .
These plants are hugely expensive and dangerously unstable.
But I'm 100% certain that libs will exploit this to attack nuclear power.
And this is a country about the physical size of the three states on our west coast!