Recommended reading and veritas incommodum on nuclear power and the harm done by “activists.”
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Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island were nuclear / radiologic accidents that vary widely in their causes, damage, lethality, and in the future perils each pose. Even if one accepts the most extreme assessments and predictions, however, they pale in terms of harm and potential harm to Earth’s environment and human health caused by human use of fossil fuels, mining (including) rare-earth mining, and other activities related to the production of energy needed to compensate for our lack of development of safe and environmentally sustainable nuclear power.
Movies like the China Syndrome, and the actions of activists — ranging from those with well-intended environmental concerns to howling lunatics — created a milieu of unfounded fear and prejudice that retarded use of nuclear fuels.Corporations that treated nuclear power development the same as other commercial projects (with attitude toward cost cutting and minimal compliance to safety standards) also degraded public trust.
There is no solution to minimizing human contributions to global warming and climate change that does not involve a robust reliance on nuclear power. That is a fact well- grounded in science and engineering.
Until we have serious discussions about building an energy infrastructure primarily dependent on nuclear power — along with dedicated efforts toward solving the safety problems and engineering challenges related thereto — there are no reasonably workable solutions to the environmental perils future generations face.
If you don’t accept that fact, you are not a person who accepts science and evidence as the basis of making policy.
If you don’t accept that fact, for all your best intentions you are either a believer in or seller of something that uses the perils of global warming and climate change as a cover or means to another end.
Further reading: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262047180/the-leak/?_ga=2.169366244.499262463.1684779454-1329483287.1684779447
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