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I've never seen addressed how one factors in long-term societal problems into the use of nuclear energy. There's not a country in world that hasn't experienced

I've never seen addressed how one factors in long-term societal problems into the use of nuclear energy. There's not a country in world that hasn't experienced a civil war, invasion, or other massively destabilizing event within the span of time needed to safely manage nuclear energy and its byproducts. After Chernobyl, I always wondered how a less authoritarian regime would respond to a similar nuclear disaster. Now that we have Fukushima, we can see the Japanese government doing something like a combination of climate change denial and media manipulation (Japanese television frequently runs pieces conflating opposition to nuclear energy with a lack of empathy for those who suffered in 3/11). It would probably work the same in the states.

77pt77 10y ago
> Japanese television frequently runs pieces conflating opposition to nuclear energy with a lack of empathy for those who suffered in 3/11 Can you elaborate? I don't get it.
- tinco 10y ago
  I think they meant 'support' not opposition.
- alphonsegaston 10y ago
  Sure. It's kind of hard to understand without being a regular consumer of Japanese television like the NHK. But essentially, they run a lot of segments and short documentary pieces focused on the plight of residents evacuated from the area, focused on how they just want to go back home/return to normalcy(entirely understandable). This is then framed against the backdrop of people concerned with the safety of returning to the region or "exaggerating" scientists blocking their return or creating the social context in which they're being mistreated. Only rarely is it addressed that this situation was created by a mixture of government corruption and willfull negligence. Or that the problem is still entirely unresolved and many other Japanese reactors are at risk for similar catastrophic events.
petre 10y ago
So would you rather they burn coal, which they don't have and has to be imported and intoxicate everyone with mercury and arsenic biproducts from coal burning? These two heavy metals also contaminte seafood, which the Japanese are quite fond of.
- sandworm101 10y ago
  Coal burning also produces significant radiation, enough to have an actual nuclear plant shut down on safety grounds. All sorts of nasty stuff is trapped in coal and it all come out when the carbon is burnt away. I havent seen anyone do the math, but given the amounts of coal involved i would expect more radiation comes from coal plants each year than a yearly fukashima-type event.
  - david-given 10y ago
    Don't have a reference handy, but I've seen estimates that the amount of radioactive material emitted into the atmosphere each year by coal burning is about equivalent to one Chernobyl (which was substantially worse, emission-wise, than Fukushima).
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      On a per-plant basis, the level is all-but immaterial. Even Fukushima levels of radiation, spread over the globe, aren't too horrible. There are all kinds of reasons to reject coal-fired power. Radiation isn't one of them. See the xkcd radiation chart for relative measures. https://xkcd.com/radiation https://xkcd.com/radiation
      - sandworm101 10y ago
        It isnt a logical reason, but it is good to remind the "clean coal" crowd of such facts when they scream about radiation from nuke plants.
        10y ago

77pt77 10y ago

> Japanese television frequently runs pieces conflating opposition to nuclear energy with a lack of empathy for those who suffered in 3/11 Can you elaborate? I don't get it.

tinco 10y ago
I think they meant 'support' not opposition.
alphonsegaston 10y ago
Sure. It's kind of hard to understand without being a regular consumer of Japanese television like the NHK. But essentially, they run a lot of segments and short documentary pieces focused on the plight of residents evacuated from the area, focused on how they just want to go back home/return to normalcy(entirely understandable). This is then framed against the backdrop of people concerned with the safety of returning to the region or "exaggerating" scientists blocking their return or creating the social context in which they're being mistreated. Only rarely is it addressed that this situation was created by a mixture of government corruption and willfull negligence. Or that the problem is still entirely unresolved and many other Japanese reactors are at risk for similar catastrophic events.

petre 10y ago

So would you rather they burn coal, which they don't have and has to be imported and intoxicate everyone with mercury and arsenic biproducts from coal burning? These two heavy metals also contaminte seafood, which the Japanese are quite fond of.

sandworm101 10y ago
Coal burning also produces significant radiation, enough to have an actual nuclear plant shut down on safety grounds. All sorts of nasty stuff is trapped in coal and it all come out when the carbon is burnt away. I havent seen anyone do the math, but given the amounts of coal involved i would expect more radiation comes from coal plants each year than a yearly fukashima-type event.
- david-given 10y ago
  Don't have a reference handy, but I've seen estimates that the amount of radioactive material emitted into the atmosphere each year by coal burning is about equivalent to one Chernobyl (which was substantially worse, emission-wise, than Fukushima).
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    On a per-plant basis, the level is all-but immaterial. Even Fukushima levels of radiation, spread over the globe, aren't too horrible. There are all kinds of reasons to reject coal-fired power. Radiation isn't one of them. See the xkcd radiation chart for relative measures. https://xkcd.com/radiation https://xkcd.com/radiation
    - sandworm101 10y ago
      It isnt a logical reason, but it is good to remind the "clean coal" crowd of such facts when they scream about radiation from nuke plants.
      - 10y ago