It's good to point out that the vulnerability of spent fuel bays is one of the biggest lessons learned from the accident. Also, deciding what the appropriate solution is and backfitting it to other reactors is certainly not an easy task which I'm sure is hampered by politics and whatnot. However, the article is full of fire and brimstone rhetoric and loses all credibility with lines like this:

"With a half-life of 30 years, it gives off penetrating radiation as it decays and can remain dangerous for hundreds of years."

And Japan, being without nuclear power, has been having and continues to have all manner of problems due to a lack of power (well, that and our being unable to share power from Southern Japan with Northern Japan because the grids are mismatched).

It's actually pretty simple:

- Every method we have for generating power kills people. Different methods kill different numbers of people, and some kill predominantly poor people involved in production, but they're all deadly. The same is true for mining and operations to develop natural resources.

- Despite this, our society benefits enormously from generating power and resources, and will continue to do it.

- Of the various options, nuclear power kills, on average, far few people than the alternatives. This doesn't make it good, but it means that if you are designing a new power plant today, it should be nuclear. Hopefully we'll have something better for the next generation of plants.

I am Brazilian, and we generate most of our power through hydroeletric plants. Said plants requires a very large area to be inundated so it will have enough water to move its turbines. This means that each hydroelectric plant devastates a very large area, obliterating whatever "nature" was there or displacing the humans that lived there.

A nuclear power plant certainly has its dangers (I used to teach nuclear physics to biology students, myself being a biologist, too), but most of said dangers have only a chance of taking place. Fukushima was one of the instances where the worst dangers came to life, but it was one event, something negligible compared to the many reactors currently operating.

All in all, I do prefer the CHANCE of a nuclear problem compared to the CERTAINTY of the damage a hydroelectric plant will do.

And, with current nuclear plant designs, you can mitigate most of the dangers, while you can do very little regarding that with a hydroelectric plant.

"Of the various options, nuclear power kills, on average, far few people than the alternatives. "

Do you adjust this stat (which is already problematic because anybody can 'claim' the cancer rate spikes around nuke plants are not conclusively related to the nuke plant) for the relative paucity of nuclear plants? There are 2300 coal plants in the world. There are 442 nuke plants.

Yes, Putin. You should look at some of the numbers on coal plants, or better yet, talk to somebody who's been involved in one. Scary, scary places. Turns out it's really not close.

In fact, here's another calculation worth doing: imagine we tried to replace nuclear power by asking a a bunch of people to install solar panels on their roofs. How many people will die falling off the roof during installation? Turns out, more than the nuclear plant will kill by a surprising margin.

And where are we going to get the uranium to use for all of these nuke plants you want to build? How safe is uranium mining? And how many sites are actually safe enough for nuclear power, considering it requires a water source and a site away from natural disaster vulnerabilities? The southern US had to temporarily shut down many of its nuke plants due to drought.

(Again, this does not mean that nuclear plants are safe. Something that's not widely advertised is that in fact, engineering standards for nuclear plants are essentially "1 meltdown per 10,000 years per plant", or similar. With, as you pointed out, 442 nuclear plants active, this means that one meltdown per 23 years, which is basically the rate we've had. In other words, the current accident rate shouldn't be a surprise. And, is the one that's factored into calculation of how many people are killed by plants)

"Turns out it's really not close."

I'd love to see your numbers.

Putin, I haven't seen any stats which substantiate the claim that there are cancer spikes around nuclear plants.

Beyond that, before making the claim that there are cancer spikes around nuclear plants, you have to consider what from a nuclear plants would increase the cancer rates in people around the plants. Is there an increase in radioactive dose to the people around the perimeter of the plant? No, except in the case of an accident. Not that it has any baring on cancer rates but *there is more radiation released in regular operation by a coal plant than a nuclear plant*

There have ever only been two cases where a significant release of radiation has be released to the public - Fukushima and Chernobyl. (TMI was insignificant in terms of radioactive release. The Tennessee (I think?) fly ash damn disaster was a larger release of radiation). The correlation between radiation rates and cancer rates (and then correlating cancer rates to death rates) is foggy at best but the deaths from Chernobyl and Fukushima do not make up for the harm caused by coal plants.

The fear of nuclear energy is deeper than any other fear of human technology, and with good reason. In the collective subconscious, nuclear energy is an invisible malevolent entity that has to be contained: a demon, if you want. Radiation can condemn you to death without you being aware of it; you're alive, yet you're doomed to die. It's black magic, something unnatural, on a whole different level than any other physical danger. The horror of such a situation is finely shown in "K-19 the Widowmaker" (2002) or "Edge of Darkness" (1985).

That's definitely part of it. For that matter, nuclear power is unique in that if the human caretakers go away, it's a disaster; with most other forms of generating power, if the humans go away you just stop making power.

So yes, I understand. Then again, people are scared of flying, too, and die on the roads. Nuclear power is bad, but as I said, the alternatives are worse. And just because people understand them more intuitively doesn't change the fact that they're worse.

I agree that we have the technology to run nuclear power safely (thouh mining uranium is a separate issue), I just don't trust people to run it safely. The plant in Fukushima was decades old and the company was known for cutting corners. So yes it could be safe but I doubt it ever will be.

I think arguing about how many lives could be lost kind of misses the point. Some disagree, but many analysts say nuclear power may be the only way out of our current hydrocarbon trap. Whether or not this is true, we are still going to be using nuclear power for some time to come and dealing with the waste for even longer. The real issue here is that we are dealing with a technology where one mistake could have global consequences and it seems safety standards are being sacrificed for profit margins.

Having worked on nuclear power plants myself, I can attest to the enormously heightened safety standards. Granted, my experience is on military reactors (smaller, but with a greatly increased power density), but I think many of the same principals apply.

I'd be willing to stack up nuclear operating standards against pretty much any other industry... They spent the better part of 2.5 years training me to be a junior operator, and I know that if I wanted to join the civilian nuclear industry, I'd have a minimum of another year of training, plus continuing training.

Right now, the industrialized world is in great need of power supplies that can support the base load requirements. Wind, solar, etc are great, but they can't support the base load as well as coal, oil, or nuclear. Of those three, I'd much rather see more nuclear plants, personally.

That is merely my opinion, however. It seems the great masses of people don't agree, unfortunately.

Steinhardt said: "How many people will die falling off the roof during installation?"

Eh? Get off of my roof, willya...

If men now are so desperate for the energy to run all their games, let them be willing to take some risks and prove themselves worthy of their toys.
In the funny example you give, I'm sure it will be very easy to make safeguards satisfactory to the most pusey tecchie-freak.

Counting *deaths* is always lame anyway.
If I fall off a roof, putting up an antenna, a solar cell or a nesting box or whatever, no need to cry for me guys! I died with my boots on!

It's not to make comparison between men taking personal risks to have something they desire, and a pursuit of general welfare that damages the very conditions of life.

Congrats to your welfare, living wrecks!

Hear, hear.

More data http://akiomatsumura.com/2012/04/682.html

The number of ways that electrical power saves lives reduces the number of people killed by power generation to insignificance.
For one example, the power that runs hospitals and all the equipment in them.

And, more to the point of increased cancer incidences around nuclear plants (which I've never seen substantiated). xkcd's chart, as always, is useful for illustrating the point.

http://xkcd.com/radiation/

.09 uSv from living near a nuclear plant. .3 from living near a coal plant. Both are insignificant compared to average yearly dose from natural radiation -4mSv (although it does vary quite wildly depending on where you live).

"*there is more radiation released in regular operation by a coal plant than a nuclear plant*"

That's because of the shield. This "point" has been used to argue that fly ash is worse than radioactive waste, which is rubbish.

I agree with largeham in that while nuclear power is obviously possible, the idea that humans are smart enought to manage such incredible power is laughable.

Obviously me writing "enought" in that post is proof :-P

Putin, I made that point in rebuttal of your claim that nuclear plants increase cancer rates. Rather than just giving me a snarky reply, do you hav anything to substantiate your claim.

And how can you discredit the shield? Do you ever go in a car? It's a death trap except for the breaks..,

ffffffffuuuuuuuuu poutine.

A capitalist economy like Japan stopping nuclear, have they gone communist overnight or actually realised the true cost of nuclear power.
Some countries will wait until terrorists blow one up and then they will understand how dangerous they are, by then it will be too late to turn that one off
Well done Japan, smart move

Of all of the concerns about nuclear power, you're worried about a terrorist blowing one up?
How on earth are they supposed to do that?