NRC: We're Keeping Fukushima-Style Nuclear Reactors Going

[hunter]

2. The accident at Fukushima was rather unusual.

How often does a nuclear power plant get hit by a freaking tsunami???

Other things contributed to the severity of the accident too -- the fact that the standby generators were knocked out by the tsunami, and maybe even the complexities of Japanese management styles.

Even so, the damage done by the tsunami itself, and the non-radioactive, less detectable, toxins spread across the landscape make the accident at Fukushima seem much smaller in magnitude.

Emphasizing Fukushima seems somehow disrespectful to the tens of thousand people killed, maimed, and displaced by the tsunami itself.

In comparison, the Fukushima nuclear plants are simply a very expensive mess to clean up, and not especially deadly compared to normal industrial accidents and hazards that we commonly accept without much notice. A guy gets killed in a grain elevator accident, maybe grain that was destined to make ethanol fuel, it's not international news. Fossil fuel or synthetic fertilizer accidents must have multiple casualties or huge explosions and other fireworks before the national news pays any attention to them, and then it's only for a twenty-four hour news cycle or two.

That said, I'd rather live near a well managed and well designed nuclear plant than a fossil fueled plant, and more radically, I don't even think residential areas need to be served by electrical grids, in much the same way people no longer require "land line" telephone service. If you want to live in a house with air conditioning, then you buy the solar panels you need to support that.