A timely reminder of why we moved away from nukes, and probably shouldn’t look back.
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8 thoughts on “Thirty Years Ago”
Marc
Great point, Clay! Here’s another in that vein:
*video of 9/11* A timely reminder of why we decided to ban airplanes, and probably shouldn’t look back.
E.A.
Dave, I think that’s a rather narrow and blinkered view, considering we are facing a massive crisis in the form of climate change and need to find other, low-carbon ways of generating electricity. Renewables are a key part of the solution, but even Joe Romm acknowledges nuclear will probably be another piece of it.
PING
I agree with Ryan. Just more news media Hype. We need Nuclear Power or more coal plants. You can’t have both. Go green ..my butt…
Clay Johnson
*video of 9/11* A timely reminder of why we moved away from the bill of rights, and probably shouldn’t look back.
Marc
I don’t think it’s really fair to deem the entire concept of nuclear power unsafe because of an accident at a plant three decades ago.
We are starting down the slippery slide of a global energy crisis, and nuclear might be exactly what we need to bridge us from fossil fuels to renewables. We certainly aren’t going to power and fuel this entire nation on solar, hydro, and wind in the near-future, no matter how hard we try.
That said, places like Rhode Island (or anywhere in the Boston-DC megalopolis) are a -terrible- place for nuclear power generation. Nuclear power should be generated in remote unpopulated areas, far from the borders, and close to (or -at-) places where we can safely stow the waste. We can step-up the voltage and transmit the power to more populated areas.
Nuclear has come a -long- way in the last thirty years, there are reactor designs that are entirely meltdown-proof now, and there are technologies to turn the more dangerous waste into fissible fuel.
Ryan
I hate to break it to you, but 3 Mile Island was an example of safeguards working effectively. It churned up hysteria, because people are afraid of things that they don’t understand, and because a Jane Fonda movie about a nuclear plant melting down had just come out, but not a single person was injured. And the gas released in cooling down the core didn’t contain enough radioactivity to sicken even one person living in the area. 3 Mile Island is more an example of science-phobic fearmongering in the news media than any danger of nuclear power (especially considering that most people today probably remember it incorrectly as a disaster that led to casualties).
If you care about solving global warming, and are at all realistic about what it will take to transition away from carbon-based electricity you would realize that part of the solution is going to have to include nuclear power.
Beth Comery
If you want to scare yourself to death watch the PBS — American Experience episode ‘Meltdown at Three Mile Island’. A few years after the event a robotic camera was lowered into the chamber and everybody nearly wet themselves. It had been a true meltdown.
Ben
Are you speaking out against nuclear weapons or nuclear power?
Great point, Clay! Here’s another in that vein:
*video of 9/11*
A timely reminder of why we decided to ban airplanes, and probably shouldn’t look back.
Dave, I think that’s a rather narrow and blinkered view, considering we are facing a massive crisis in the form of climate change and need to find other, low-carbon ways of generating electricity. Renewables are a key part of the solution, but even Joe Romm acknowledges nuclear will probably be another piece of it.
I agree with Ryan. Just more news media Hype. We need Nuclear Power
or more coal plants. You can’t have both. Go green ..my butt…
*video of 9/11*
A timely reminder of why we moved away from the bill of rights, and probably shouldn’t look back.
I don’t think it’s really fair to deem the entire concept of nuclear power unsafe because of an accident at a plant three decades ago.
We are starting down the slippery slide of a global energy crisis, and nuclear might be exactly what we need to bridge us from fossil fuels to renewables. We certainly aren’t going to power and fuel this entire nation on solar, hydro, and wind in the near-future, no matter how hard we try.
That said, places like Rhode Island (or anywhere in the Boston-DC megalopolis) are a -terrible- place for nuclear power generation. Nuclear power should be generated in remote unpopulated areas, far from the borders, and close to (or -at-) places where we can safely stow the waste. We can step-up the voltage and transmit the power to more populated areas.
Nuclear has come a -long- way in the last thirty years, there are reactor designs that are entirely meltdown-proof now, and there are technologies to turn the more dangerous waste into fissible fuel.
I hate to break it to you, but 3 Mile Island was an example of safeguards working effectively. It churned up hysteria, because people are afraid of things that they don’t understand, and because a Jane Fonda movie about a nuclear plant melting down had just come out, but not a single person was injured. And the gas released in cooling down the core didn’t contain enough radioactivity to sicken even one person living in the area. 3 Mile Island is more an example of science-phobic fearmongering in the news media than any danger of nuclear power (especially considering that most people today probably remember it incorrectly as a disaster that led to casualties).
If you care about solving global warming, and are at all realistic about what it will take to transition away from carbon-based electricity you would realize that part of the solution is going to have to include nuclear power.
If you want to scare yourself to death watch the PBS — American Experience episode ‘Meltdown at Three Mile Island’. A few years after the event a robotic camera was lowered into the chamber and everybody nearly wet themselves. It had been a true meltdown.
Are you speaking out against nuclear weapons or nuclear power?