Unclear Nuclear

What if... the idiots at City Hall did some research about atomic, solar, and wind power before they opened their mouths? Is that asking to much of our elected officials?

Ahhhhhhhhh!

The other day on the radio I heard one of our City Councillors state that he felt we should not replace one of our coal fired power plants with a nuclear plant. Instead we should replace it with wind generators or a solar farm. Nuclear is not an option because we all know how dangerous they are. Just look at Chernobyl.

What! Chernobyl? Are you kidding?

Let me see, the reactor had no containment building, unlike the CANDU’s (one of the safest reactors in the world). It happened during the dark times of the communist regime, remember when the wall fell, and all hell was breaking loose in the eastern block countries. And it happened in 1986, which is over 20 years ago. And since then there have been … errr, … uhhh, … none, zero, no accidents.

Now I am not saying it wasn’t bad because it was horrific, over 140,000 deaths. Most of those are cancer related over the past 20 years. Initially, I believe there were 30 deaths and then most of the workers involved with the containment efforts died.

But you can’t judge an entire energy system based on one careless accident.

If so, you could draw several conclusions on other technologies. Let’s follow that logic for a second. Nuclear power plants have killed 140,000 in 20 years. So that’s 7000 per year. Yes I know I am a cold hearted !#$%&.

The car, which almost everyone owns in this country, kills an estimated 1.2 million people worldwide each year (wiki), that’s 2 people every minute. That’s 24 million people in 20 years. So the car kills 17142% more people than atomic power plants. I don’t think we are going to be trading in our cars for bicycles in the near future.

It's like a plane crash. It is tragic that so many die at once. You feel terrible and some may say flying is not safe. But the truth is you are more likely to die getting hit by a car crossing the street than you are to die in a plane crash.

Chernobyl was tragic, it shouldn’t have happened, but it did. The same can be said for a car accident. But neither is cause to suspend use of the technology.

BTW… did you know that Worldwide about 50 nuclear weapons have… ahh… been lost. Most in plane crashes or dumped in the ocean. Some have even been dropped… unarmed,…by mistake.

More on the solar, wind power option later. They have there place on the grid, but are not currently a viable replacement for present power systems.