Mike Marlow wrote:

dpb wrote:


Sorry - hit Send too soon...


I contend it is still essentially all political (and that is driven by
the special interest groups of all ilks that have banded together as
being anti-nuke for all sorts of underlying reasons from perceived
risk as you to environmental to simply anti-technology/development)
here and throughout the rest of the (more or less) democratic world.



Perceived risks? Come on - how can a guy that lived his career in the
nuclear industry not admit the very real risks? Your credibility is quickly
waining when you make such statements. Your very own industry experts do
not diminish those risks in the same manner you try to.


I don't minimize risk; what I have noted is that it doesn't seem that
threre is any satisfying a large number of critics no matter what is
done...the shipping cask testing is just one example. A definitive test
that will survive a catastrophic accident and still shipping was one of
the "insurmountable difficulties" raised.

There are some considered critics, granted, but the position I
characterize w/ Harry Reid and the populist politics seems to me to be
the controlling factor in setting public policy rather than actual
cost:benefit risk analysis.

There has been one really severe nuclear accident in the world in the
history of nuclear power; Chernobyl and that it was so significant a
result owed to the design and primarily that the USSR built reactors w/o
any primary containment whatsoever. Because of that, it has no bearing
on any other facility presently operating.

In the US, TMI caused no discernible injuries and was the instigator for
major revisions in design modifications and upgrades to the current
generation of facilities.

The Fukushima incident has, afaict, had no personal injuries offsite and
no deaths although some onsite exposures (which, it appears, for the
most part could have largely been avoided). As for the tsunami, indeed
it appears the design basis event was under-estimated for the site; that
issue is being addressed all over the world already even in places that
have no chance of ever seing tsunamis for alternative scenarios. There
will undoubtedly be new procedures and safeguards placed on whichever
facilities are in the region you're near. Note, however, that even w/
the severity of the earthquake in Japan, the physical integrity of the
plants was not compromised other than by the loss of cooling owing to
the tsunami, not the tremor.

Overall, compared to any other major technology in widespread use, the
actual number of deaths and injuries from commercial nuclear power
accidents continues to leave it w/ far and away the best safety record
of any. That there will continue to be improvements and modifications
is certainly true and reasoned input is always useful but expecting
there to never be any conceivable incident is also unrealistic.

My contention remains that nuclear-related perceived risk is ranked far
higher than the realities of the actual happenings. Surely it is
unfortunate that any of these have occurred but then again, there could
be another large airliner be lost tomorrow over the South Atlantic w/
multi-hundred passengers to an apparent severe thunderstorm and yet
virtually nobody would choose to not get on _their_ flight the next day
following despite that event. OTOH, there's already movement to close
nuclear facilities in places that have no chances of tsunamis by
reacting to Japan; it makes no comparative sense whatever.

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