Thinking on Talks (parts I & II)

[Jonathan Peterson]

> Like Chernobyl, they may be safe most of the time, but how much of the 
> underlying cancer rate is due to the times when they're not?

Not much, I guess. Nuclear power gives you cancer. Coal power gives you 
emphysema.

A casual glance at the Chinese coal powered electricity generating system 
shows that, each year, it kills more people than all the nuclear reactors 
in the world have ever killed since inception.

Not counting, of course, the 'hidden cost' of decommissioning all those 
coal mines.

Luckily, China will be deploying a further 60 gigawatts of nuclear 
generating capacity in the next 15 years - good news for Chinese coal 
miners! Bad news for everyone else if they are run with the same regard 
for safety procedures.

Chernobyl went about as pear-shaped as a reactor can go, but the total 
deaths were pretty limited. Rather a waste of acres, I have to admit, but 
the USSR had plenty of those spare.

It's true that both the government and industry continually lie and cover 
up nuclear related problems, but this is as much as result of public 
paranoia as it is a cause. No-one minds tens of thousands of people a year 
dying in coal mines, but if the risk of Leukemia increases by 5% for some 
village near a powerstation, and it's the end of the world.