Mummy, mummy, there's a nuclear monster!

[RC]

"But the only rational conclusion to draw is that an industry which can have an accident at the extreme top of its possible internationally agreed accident scale without killing a single person is already so safe that it probably deserves to relax its costly precautions quite a lot – rather than having them cranked up yet further, as seems all too likely.

If nuclear were allowed to be as dangerous as gas – that is, perhaps somewhere in the region of 400 times as dangerous in terms of deaths per terawatt-hour – there can be little doubt that electricity would become extremely cheap, maybe indeed too cheap to bother metering it for most users. Waste could be dealt with and supplies extended by many times by simply reprocessing fuel, something which the fearmongers have already managed to ban in many countries.

That would not only mean realistic prospects of low-to-zero carbon emissions: it would also mean no need to much care about the opinions of various unsavoury regimes around the world, or to funnel revenue to them to spend on weapons. Cheap nuclear energy would hugely boost economic performance. It would also offer effectively unlimited fresh water supplies, and realistic options for space travel beyond low Earth orbit.

Some of us at least are getting a bit sick of the idea that you simply aren't allowed to tell frightened people quite bluntly to act their age – and we're getting more than just a bit sick of irrational or unscrupulous fairytale-spinners making them frightened in the first place."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/12/fukushima_ffs/

[villager]

1. The sarcasm smilie was accidentally omitted...

n/t

[RC]

3. The n/t goes in the subject line.

'cause it defeats the purpose if you have to click in to the message see the text 'n/t', instead of nothing, as in actually no text.

Mods, we need a smiley for 'fear mongering'.

[flamingdem]

5. We need a smiley for "Dehumanist Asshat Nukemeister" nt

[Warren DeMontague]

16. *

:nuke:


See? Harmless!

[madokie]

30. Yeah we do

[Hissyspit]

10. TEPCO: "Radiation from Fukushima may be worse than Chernobyl"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4811864

[Warren DeMontague]

17. but Chernobyl was no big deal! A sunday brunch! A walk in the park!

Okay, a walk in a park that will be uninhabitable for 60,000 years, but a walk in the park nonetheless, I tell you!

[SnakeEyes]

18. Ah, the ferris wheel

I've had some great kill streaks around that that ferris wheel.

[Cid_B]

32. Exact same thought...

[Hissyspit]

20. Yet another link:

http://www.planc.cc/project.html

[villager]

26. ...plus, we're prissy to boot!

n/t

[Hissyspit]

2. Here's another link:

http://blog.magnumphotos.com/2008/03/paul_fuscos_chernobyl_legacy_book.html

[davidthegnome]

4. I just don't get it

Why such strong support for nuclear energy, RC? I've read your links in the past - but I'd appreciate your own opinion on why it should be supported.

[walldude]

6. Yup.. nothing to worry about

no better ways of doing things, nothing to see here, no dead people, move along... Baaaaaaaa Baaaaaaaa


No one is dead yet. It doesn't mean the accident didn't kill anyone.

To call an accident of this scale "So safe that they deserve to relax their "costly precautions" a fucking RATIONAL statement, well, there is really no discussion to be had.

The truth is no one except the people at the plant and the PTB have any real idea what is going on. I can find you a dozen links, 6 telling me the end is neigh and 6 telling me nothing is wrong. So to sit there and say everything is so good that they should spend less money on safety has to be the absolute dumbest fucking thing I have read in a long time.

[flamingdem]

25. Baaa Baaa - lol nt

[Warren DeMontague]

29. Who knew goalposts could move so fast? Now, if radiation doesn't kill within one month

it is apparently not dangerous at all.

I'd laugh, but it's fucking sad.

[thelordofhell]

7. "Look mummy, there's an airplane up in the sky."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0v07InoFiU

[Chris_Texas]

8. Great article!

I too am sick of the hysteria, and i am disgusted by those using this disaster to push a political agenda. Not only is it tasteless, it is distracting attention away from the real humanitarian nightmare taking place in japan.

[Hissyspit]

9. TEPCO: "Radiation from Fukushima may be worse than Chernobyl levels"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4811864

[PA Democrat]

23. Tasteless, like this?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=439&topic_id=865326#866344

I personally find those types of comments as distasteful, actually moreso, than the ones which overhype the dangers. They ignore the people who survived Chernobyl but suffered other significant health issues, such as thyroid cancer as a result. They ignore the impact on people of being uprooted from their homes and communities.

The situation at Fukushima adds another layer of suffering to the huge tragedy of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Search teams have been unable to recover bodies within the evacuation zone. More than 150,000 people have been ordered to evacuate from their homes and they may never be able to return. The Japanee people will also be footing the bill for decades to come for the cleanup at Fukushima and the IMF has already been telling Japan that it will need to "reform" (as in CUT) its social security system.

[Saboburns]

11. + 1

I too am tired of the anti nuclear hysteria and agenda pushing here. The level of ignorance regarding radiation levels/amounts boggles the mind. And if you happen to point out that one month into this nothing has died (or even been sickened) one gets castigated as a paid nuclear energy shill.


So, thank you.

[bettyellen]

14. a few people did die, and many are and will will get sick from their exposure....

did you not read anythign about the workers at the plabt? or is it just not happening hard or fast enough for you?

[Warren DeMontague]

12. These are the "Fukushima proves we should build MORE nuclear plants!!!" folks, right?

What a whiny, fucking, entitled temper tantrum. Oh, you're "not allowed to tell frightened people" to fuck off, huh? Shit, what a pisser.

How come this dude isn't in Fukushima helping with the cleanup of all that totally harmless radioactivity?

[Generic Other]

13. Other than what happened during Act 2, how did you like the play Mrs. Lincoln?

*The Titanic was designed by experienced engineers, using some of the most advanced technologies and extensive safety features of the time. Safety was not an issue. Lifeboats for a third of the passengers was being overly cautious. The ship was unsinkable. Why bother with lifeboats at all?

*The Hindenburg disaster shattered public confidence in the giant, passenger-carrying rigid airship. Oh the irrational nervous nellies! Fewer than half the passengers died after all. And this was merely one minor accident.

*Thalidomide was withdrawn from the market after being found to be a cause of birth defects in what has been called "one of the biggest medical tragedies of modern times." Oh boo hoo a few deformed babies. Put on your big girl panties. At least it prevented you from miscarrying.

*“When there’s a job to do, he does it. A few winks of sleep...a few puffs of a cigarette and he’s back at that job again...More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette!”
http://www.bestoldcommercials.com/camel-igarettes-doctors-choice-of-smoke/

Give it a rest RC.

[RC]

24. I'll give it a rest when the Anti-Nukers get over their irrational paranoia.

A force 9 earthquake and a record tsunami, with almost 30,000 dead and that's the best you can come up with? The earthquake and tsunami did far more damage and killed far more people then the nuclear power plants did, including Chernobyl.
Where is all the damage from the Russians using the Sea of Japan for a nuclear dumping ground for almost 60 years if nuclear is so bad? I agree they should not have been doing that, but why did it take this long to come to light if all things nuclear is so dangerous? Besides you have to know this only got reported because of Fukushima, not from any real problems it was causing.
Stop with the fear mongering and the negative spin on everything nuclear. Never mind those reactors had been working for almost 40 years without incident.
The same can't be said for coal and oil fired power plants.

[Hissyspit]

27. Permanent Relocation of Villages Near Fukushima Plant

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x287602

[Generic Other]

31. The BEST I can come up with is fearmongering? Oh really.

Let me share with you the "BEST" I can come up with. My relatives live in the next prefecture from Fukushima. They are forced to eat vegetables they can no longer sell that even the Japanese government says has tested for radiation levels above what is safe for human consumption. The water is poison there. They are collecting rainwater and saving it anyway as they have no other to fall back on.

Their rice fields are decimated. They cannot plant rice this year due to lack of water to flood the fields. The radiation levels would mean they couldn't sell the rice anyway. The farm has been in the family for 13 generations. The community of farmers we are in constant contact with are old, isolated, running low on supplies, frightened. I am not being a fearmonger. I am concerned about my family, the land where I was born, the farm my mother's people have cultivated for generations.

The relatives have battled nature for a month now. One whole family of cousins drowned in the tsunami. The rest were spared only to face the manmade catastrophes that your precious nuclear power have brought to them. A proud family has been crippled, brought to their knees by what you so glibly take me to task for failing to mention when I beg you to give it a rest.

To hear you lecture me or anyone else about irrational fears and panic mongering is an inhuman joke.

I have seen and been a downwinder of Hanford much of my life. I know what the place is like. I was invited to tour the facilities. I asked questions. I know that workers die of thyroid cancer and brain tumors at much higher rates than the national average. I know several personally who worked at the plants and minimized the dangers until they got sick. I know that child bearing women are not allowed to work in the facility. I know that radioactive waste threatens the environment throughout the west and will for centuries. I know the look of fear and the desperation in whispered voices when I asked workers how they could risk themselves working in such a place. Apparently, people will take all manner of risks to eat. But to pretend there is no risk is delusional. Criminal if such denial is done as a lobbiest for an industry that will poison us all and ultimately take no responsibility.

How insensitive can you possibly be? Instead of respecting the fact that others have a right to assess the danger for themselves, you mock them and attempt to squelch their voices with low slimy propaganda.

Why don't you go and alert on my post again? Maybe you can get it erased as you did a previous similar response to you on another thread like this one. I will write another. And another. I will not stop being "irrational" as you call it on this subject. In fact, I will post my post on every thread where you and any other proponent of nuclear power feels the need to downplay the dangers for whatever purpose.

If you find nuclear power so safe, please please go to Japan now and help the people of Fukushima by capping the power plants. If you believe the dangers are negligible, I am sure my relatives and others would welcome your aid. TEPCO is paying $6000 dollars a day for any volunteers (they won't even make you stay in there the whole day and you get a uniform with your name on the pocket and a geiger counter that tells you when your time is up). Certainly those who are fearless should not hesitate to volunteer their services.

Like I said upthread, time to put up or give it a rest. When you have spent a month at Fukushima working to stop the catastrophe, come back and report to us again. We will be all ears.

[Generic Other]

33. Company Town ( a poem I wrote after touring Hanford Nuclear Reservation)

Company Town

Along this stretch of river,
silence never lifts.
Boarded up houses with “for sale” signs
line the edge of town,
out past the Atomic Autowrecker’s
tangle of rusted chrome, windshields,
and blackberry vines.

Downwind, nothing moves.
Not many secrets remain buried either;
the rotten past bubbles up
through floorboards,
sloughs off walls,
grimly oozes into the river.

Where scientists once spun starglass,
nothing left now but ticking death
the rattle of geiger counters and security badges.

Seems everyone in town knows
someone who worked at the plant forty
years, never had an accident,
smoked five packs of marlboros
every day, ate lard on toast, pissed
out gutloads of beer,
drove ten miles in his pickup to the plant
along this road every damned day,
window rolled down, dust blowing
in off the arid reach.
He was the oldest man in town
when he died. Outlived a whole lot of people.

Even outlived his kid. Some problem with the
thyroid. No one knew what.
A long time ago before they had names
for that kind of stuff. Could
have been Strontium 90 in the milk, they said.

His wife got tired easy,
worn out long before, no doubt;
she caught a bus heading west. Never came back.
His neighbor left too.

That’s when the first ones on the fuel reactor crew
went on medical disability. One of the plant managers
blamed carelessness. Company doctor wouldn’t
say, but everyone else knew it was cancer.
They died in pieces, one inch at a time, in those days.

No one dares keep score in a company town
where the high school jocks wear
atomic mushroom clouds emblazoned on
their letterman’s jackets, and everyone
knows someone they like who works over there.

the women work elsewhere if they are
still young enough to want more babies.

In a place like this, everyone
is strictly non-essential personnel,
sniffed and x-rayed everyday before
they get off work. With blank expressions,
all carry the weight of spent fuel rods
like enormous suppositories. Their footsteps
echo as they pass through scanners and,
machine gun stiff security, with shoes that click
against cement as they punch a timeclock
ticking to meltdown.

[Generic Other]

35. Atomic Maidens

[Generic Other]

36. The second biggest nuclear disaster in history

In 1957 a storage tank with highly radioactive liquid waste exploded. More than half the amount of radioactive waste released by the accident in Chernobyl was blasted into the atmosphere. A few villagers were evacuated, but most were not. 217 towns and at least 272,000 people were exposed to chronic levels of radiation. The plume was 50 kilometers wide and 1,000 kilometers long.

But the explosion wasn't the only incident of contamination. Between 1948 and 1956 radioactive waste was poured straight into the Techa River, the source of drinking water for many villages. It exposed 124,000 people to medium and high levels of radiation. Nuclear waste was also dumped into the lakes of West Siberia, where storms blew nuclear dust across a vast area around the lake.
The largest nuclear complex in the world

Today, around 7,000 people still live in direct contact with the highly polluted Techa river or on contaminated land. In the town of Muslyumovo, studies have show genetic abnormalities to be 25 times more frequent than in other areas of Russia. The incidents of malignant cancer are significantly higher. And the number of residents of Muslyumovo on the Russian national oncology registers is nearly 4 times higher than in the rest of Russia. In other surrounding towns and villages people have cancer rates more than double the Russian average. (See the Greenpeace Report, Mayak: A 50-Year Tragedy)

Half a century later, Mayak is one of the most radioactive places on Earth, and the accident continues to have a devastating legacy. Many thousands of people have never been evacuated from contaminated areas.

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/mayak-nuclear-disaster280907/

[Generic Other]

37. Dr. Michio Kaku, Theoretical Physicist: Fukishima Daiichi Nuclear Facility is a "Ticking Time Bomb"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x573181

[Warren DeMontague]

15. Great Article!

I, too, am sick of the anti-nuclear hysteria. And the implication that anyone who challenges it is a pro-nuclear shill. The fact remains that no one has died from Fukushima. Why just the other day I was telling my child *insert personal anecdote here*

Keep up the good work!

-a totally objective internet poster, not affiliated with the nuclear industry in any way

[Warren DeMontague]

19. You mean Lewis Page, global warming denier, now cares about carbon emissions?

Bullshit.

http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=6444

[Bluebear]

21. Mummy, mummy, fail. nt

[neverforget]

22. Still posting Lewis Page tripe

[thewiseguy]

28. Ever considered volunteering to work at the Fukushima plants? I heard they are hiring.

[L0oniX]

34. *