Whenever you have a system that emphasises profit on a quarterly basis, it is hard to do an ideal job for a nuclear plant with a working lifetime of multiple decades, and a long and expensive decommissioning process at the end. People /will/ take shortcuts. However, the history of nuclear plants, including the disasters, shows that even when there is a certain degree of cheating, bending the rules, cost-savings, etc., and even when there is a earthquake/tsunami beyond all expectations, the consequences are still very low. Even Chernobyl was not nearly as bad as it was made out to be (and the result is a very interesting environmental testbed of what happens when a town gets "returned to nature").
There is also lots of scope for making new reactors even safer, and far more efficient than today's reactors. New ones have obvious additions such as core catchers to reduce the impact of meltdowns, and they put their batteries and generators high above the waterline. But the real leap in safety and efficiency will come if we move to thorium rather than uranium - it is a far safer fuel, and leaves much less waste behind. The only reason we don't use it is that it is not good for making plutonium.
That happens. Any BS can get to the (state) Supreme Court, all it takes is two people with enough time and money to push papers. It also depends on the state. For example, it's far more affordable in Nevada than in California.
"Safe" nuclear power is as real as "clean" coal. Even though thorium reactors may produce "less" waste, that is analogous to thinking we can solve the carbon problem by driving hybrid cars because they use "less" petroleum. With nuclear the bottom line problem is the disposal of the spent fuel. We are largely just ignoring that hazard because it is even far longer term than AGW. People can say coal or petroleum is worse (true or not) but that doesn't make nuclear any safer.
I think we are mixing up concepts here, such as "safe" and "clean", as well as "safe for people now", "safe for the future", etc.
The statistics so far (such as the ones on the pages I quoted) show clearly that nuclear power is safer than coal in terms of the number of people killed or injured during normal usage and during nuclear disasters.
This does not take into account the human and social cost surrounding nuclear disasters - merely the direct health costs. I have no idea how one could weigh those up against the thousands of people killed in coal mines, the acid rain, the global warming from CO2 emissions, the /reduced/ global warming due to pollution particles blocking sunlight, etc.
Regarding the specific issue of nuclear waste, the current common reactors are extraordinarily inefficient, and produce a lot of waste. One reason (though not the only one) for that is that many were designed to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons - safety, reliability, efficiency, and the long-term waste problems were all sacrificed in the name of building bigger bombs.
There are many ways in which the efficiency of uranium-based reactors can be improved (from something like 5% to around 90%), resulting in less waste, and waste that is less dangerous. A key point is to run the whole system at a higher temperature and pressure - but that also means that it is much more dangerous, and prone to explosions or meltdowns.
With a thorium reactor, the thorium is first converted into uranium before fission. This means that at any given time, there is only a very small amount of radioactive isotopes, and therefore very little leakage if there is an explosion, and no chance of a run-away reaction and meltdown. Thus efficient high-temperature processes are safe and practical, with correspondingly small wastes.
Another issue is the fuel source itself. Uranium is very dangerous to handle. The radioactive isotopes are a direct danger in mining, production and transport. The processes used to extract the useful isotopes (a tiny proportion of the mined element) are expensive, dangerous and polluting. The mining is done in volatile countries such as Nigeria, with poor safety and security records. The extracted radioactive isotopes can be used directly in simple nuclear weapons, and even without refinement the uranium can be used in "dirty bombs". The left-over low-radioactivity uranium is a highly poisonous and dangerous material, whose main use is for more weapons.
Thorium, on the other hand, is far safer to handle (it is similar to lead), and is found in huge quantities in stable western countries such as the USA, Australia, and Norway. Extraction is easy, and virtually all of it can be used - the most common isotopes are useful in reactors.
There certainly need for more research here - both in the technical aspects and the social/economic aspects, but thorium nuclear reactors are currently the best bet for a safe, efficient, environmentally friendly method of power generation.
Yes, I don't know how real these lawyer contracts are that are presented to you when you use Apple products, Raspberry Pi, or Garmin. Everyone has to agree with them and no one reads them.
I have to admit, they piss me off. To me, their message is: "You are a nobody, and we are going to grind you down because we are bigger than you, who are lucky even to use our products."
Raspberry Pi is particularly thuggish and threatening. The tone definitely made me gravitate to BBB, which is open source anyway.
I suppose we have to live with these, but I will pose a question to you, "Do you know of a company anywhere that is successful and creates jobs, that was founded or run by a lawyer?" Anything at all, ever?
Or a corollary: "Do you know ANY human endeavor or activity of a positive nature started or run by a lawyer?" (Actually Gandhi was a lawyer, but his impact was mainly political.)
Wen I was in Law School, we studied the Chavez Case. A Mexican girl got pregnant and hid the fact from her family. She had the baby in a bathroom, and it died. The law said she was guilty of murder, so they locked her up and threw away the key.
To the lawyers, this was a debate regarding the beginning of life, but not a thought given to the human tragedy nor the social issues.
To be honest, I am a bit confused. Maybe I just don't correctly remember your leanings from other posts, but I had the impression you were very right wing. Do I have you confused with someone else?
The apparent concern for the well being of people less fortunate than yourself is often alien to the right. They seem to feel everyone should stand on their own two feet no matter what (even if they have no feet) while the left seems to want to support everyone often regardless of how much they are personally responsible for their situation.
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