San Onofre shutdown will mean tight electricity supplies

[hunter]

46. The damage done by the tsunami itself was far worse than the nuclear accident.

From wikipedia: 15,883 deaths, 6,144 injured, and 2,676 people missing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tōhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami

Any deaths from the spilled radioactive elements will be lost in the statistical noise. Things like second-hand cigarette smoke, diesel exhaust, or non-radioactive environmental toxins will kill more people.

Are people going to abandon all those places where people were drowned or crushed by debris? Probably not. Are they going to pay much attention to the non-radioactive toxins that were spilled? Probably not. What makes radioactive toxins so scary in comparison?

It seems strange to me that anyone who willingly drives or rides around in a car, greatly increasing their odds of gruesome death, trauma, and disability, greatly increasing the danger to people who are not in cars, polluting the air with carcinogens, etc., etc., etc., can claim with a straight face that nuclear power is exceptionally dangerous.

I don't get it.



Once automobiles are banned, and then fossil fuels, maybe I'll pay some attention to nuclear power. Until then, opposing nuclear power just doesn't seem that urgent to me.

I have some past history with SONGs, maybe that just made me too cynical. Both sides of the argument, pro-nuclear and anti-nuclear, were polluted with lies.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hunter/34