There's been an ongoing discussion over at Digby's Hullabaloo over the continuing problems at the damaged Japanese nuclear power plants. A fair number of people are freaking out - not without reason - but we're still in the early stages of understanding what is actually happening, and how it's going to play out.
The only thing that can be said at this point with any certainty is that we don't yet A) know how bad it is or is going to be, B) know if actions being taken now can or can't contain the damage, and C) know just how well the people responsible for dealing with it have done their jobs and how truthful they're being.
I put together a long response in comments which I thought I'd post here. There is a certain tendency to rush to judgment. Looking at the NPR sting and the real facts which are emerging, we may want to hold off on this one too before drawing any final conclusions. My comment is below, edited slightly for grammar and clarity.
Okay, first up I'm not a nuclear physicist - but I have had some physics courses, try to keep up with the technology, and for a time routinely used radioactive isotopes as part of my job as a technician working in a health lab. That same job also means I have to be concerned about some potentially very toxic chemicals and some of the nastier viruses out there, so eliminating radiation from the mix doesn't mean I can relax.
I have to deal with risk every day. I and the place at which I work do so by understanding the risks, taking every practical step to eliminate or minimize them, and ensure that there are adequate resources to cope with them in exchange for the benefits that come from dealing with those risks.
There is such paranoia about nuclear technology, it's difficult to have any kind of discussion about it without people descending into hysteria. Not surprising - a whole generation was raised with the threat of atomic annihilation in the cold war and we now have terror threats to worry about, along with popular culture scary stuff about mutants, etc.
Radiation is not easy for people to deal with - you can't see it or smell it or feel it at low levels (and if it's at levels where you can, well you're screwed. BUT.... the dangers of radiation and how to handle it are fairly well understood. It's not a mystery. The biggest danger from nuclear power is the same one that threatens us from so many other directions: human unwillingness or inability to accurately assess relative risk and spend the time and/or money needed to prevent or ameliorate that particular risk among a host of other risks which are the price of the way we live - especially when profit is involved.
While people are freaking out about the worst that could happen with the nuclear power plants, consider that hundreds and possibly thousands are already dead from living in a part of the world where earthquakes and tsunamis are a relatively common occurrence. The damage from the quake is going to take years to recover from, and it could all have been prevented if people simply didn't live there. That's not a solution that people are going to find popular, especially when it may be a thousand years or more between events of the magnitude that just took place.
Much is being made of the evacuation from areas around the plant. That's SOP in an event when the release of radiation is possible. It's also SOP for people in the path of a typhoon, downstream from a dam that may have quake damage, around a chemical plant or refinery where something has happened, and so on. It may yet be necessary for the Japanese government to evacuate large areas where the damage from the quake/tsunami has been greatest simply because it's not possible to get adequate food, water and medical care to the survivors because the infrastructure is so damaged.
Granted, the potential for a threat to human life and health from radiation - related causes for thousands of years is a possibility. So, what about the effects on human health of the hundreds of thousands of new chemical compounds we've been creating in the last centuries which are now dispersed around the globe and through our bodies, which have never been fully studied to understand their effects, and which we have no idea of how long they'll persist or what they'll break down into? What about the coming storm of biotech modifications of the genomes of organisms as the technology advances, and the effect of those changes on the genosphere? (New word I'm inventing here to encompass the shared global environment where interactions between the genomes of organisms occurs.) Understanding and dealing with the consequences of radiation are child's play compared to those two hazards.
While everyone is focusing on the dangers of the nuclear reactors in Japan, they're forgetting the other side of the balance sheet. Every year those plants have been operating is a year in which that much less CO2 was released into the atmosphere to ramp up global climate change. Every year in which those plants have been operating is a year in which that much less money went to places in the world that support terror, tyranny, and worse. Every year those plants have been running is one more year gained before we run out of fossil fuels, time gained to find something better or smarter.
Is it a bad idea to build reactors in earthquake prone areas? Duh - but then it's not a great idea to build anything in such places. Every choice involves consequences, some good, some not. Everything is interrelated. If we put a blanket ban on nuclear technology without carefully considering the risks of alternatives, if we refuse to look at the big picture because the piece we're looking at scares us, then we may be doing as much or more damage to ourselves than we're avoiding.
I say this for a couple of reasons. One is that solar, wind, and water on a scale needed to replace nuclear or fossil fuels carries risks and costs. So does doing what we're doing, which is changing the climate on a global scale and fueling the engines of global economic disparity, a huge risk all by itself. (Which would you rather deal with - a nuclear plant melt down, or another Wall Street melt down? Again, there's the problem of humans refusing to deal with risk in a rational fashion.)
Nuclear power can be part of the solution or not IF we are willing to truly pay the costs of doing so safely. I for one do not want to see any new nuclear reactors in the U.S. until we finally agree on a site to store the wastes in a fashion that will adequately deal with them for as long as they are a hazard. That's not a technology problem as much as it's a financial and political problem - but that's true of just about any problem you can name. (As Terry Pratchett observed, the real problem is stupid people everywhere.)
Second, there's a real risk we may be depriving ourselves of things we really need if we completely abandon nuclear technology. The current generation of plants around the world are largely based on designs that are decades old. There are new designs that are inherently safer. If we are willing to adequately address the costs of real safety and waste storage, they may have a place to fill in the larger effort to meet global energy demands while dealing with climate change.
There are also medical, technical, and industrial needs for nuclear technology that can't be replaced by anything else. Further, there's a possibility that clean nuclear power in the truest sense may not be that far away. It's a new approach that doesn't need dangerously radioactive fuels, doesn't create radioactive waste, and doesn't require a massive mining and extraction industry to support it, or complex containment vessels to operate safely. It's a long shot, but it's close to paying off. If we abandon that, we may be giving up our last best shot at a viable future.
I'm going to wrap this up by repeating the two main points I'd like make.
• 1) We need to avoid making decisions on fears over facts in the heat of the moment.
• 2) We need to address our fears by understanding the real risks involved, weighing the relative costs of them versus then alternatives, and then spend whatever money and take whatever actions are needed to truly deal with them.
Or as Douglas Adams might put it, Don't Panic, and Always Know Where Your Towel Is.