[ExI] Two Japanese reactors on red alert

[Samantha Atkins]

On 03/16/2011 05:02 AM, Richard Loosemore wrote:
> Samantha Atkins wrote:
>> On 03/15/2011 07:51 AM, Richard Loosemore wrote:
>>> Eugen Leitl wrote:
>>>> On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 09:56:59AM -0400, Richard Loosemore wrote:
>>>>> On paper, great.
>>>>>
>>>>> On the ground, as thin as paper.
>>>>
>>>> You sound surprised.
>>>
>>> I sound ... frustrated, and let down.
>>>
>>> These things are not (it turns out) about physics and engineering, 
>>> they are about organizational psychology, and politics.
>>>
>>> Too often, those who focus on the benefits of nuclear power want to 
>>> talk about all the nice, easy-to-compute aspects of the situation 
>>> (i.e. the physics).  The psychology and the politics, not so much.
>>
>> The bottom line actual facts on the ground is that to date, over 
>> decades of use, even with far less than state of the art systems, 
>> that energy produced by nuclear power is safer and has harmed or 
>> killed far less people than anything other source used at the same 
>> scale.   That isn't theory or bias but the actual historical fact of 
>> the matter.
>
> Actually it's the facts as determined by statistical naifs -- turkeys 
> on Christmas eve who look back at the statistical likelihood that 
> anything bad will happen, given how swimmingly things have been going 
> so far....
>

It is actual reality backed experience running all the major sources a 
long time.  Taking the maximal worse case for loss of containment (which 
is btw much less than many hysterically presume) and taking the actual 
historical data and the likelihood of hitting such a maximum failure 
event it is insane to say or imply we should stop building nuke plants 
or even more over-design them than we do today.  That said, getting away 
from the current design generation to something like molten-salt thorium 
would be MUCH safer still.

And that is all I care to say on the subject.

- samantha