Wow, lot's of posts since I last checked. Some stupider than others.
They are feared for a reason,the reason is that the consequences of mishaps are tremendous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster
Not everyone protesting these are uneducated/ignorant.
I'm not sure what you're trying to proof here? Can a specific type of pesticide plant working with certain chemicals be dangerous when something goes wrong and this specific chemical leaks? Yes, absolutely.
Does this mean everything chemical is dangerous? No. Your face is chemical. The food you eat is chemical. The very fact that you are alive is a result of chemical reactions. Don't be ridiculous an say s0mething like chemical (or yes, nuclear) is dangerous because the word on itself doesn't mean anything. Methyl isocyanate gas is dangerous, nitrogen is not. They're both chemicals. It's like saying humans are dangerous because one of a million people is a murderer, it's utter nonsense.
That wasn't my point realy,my point was to emphasise the sufferings behind chemical/nuclear mishaps has been so great,that is the reason behind them fear.
The problem is that people are confusing different kinds of nuclear 'accidents' with eachother due to: Ignorance.
Archon of Corinth;938410
The reported list of nuclear power accidents does not support your contention that nuclear power is the safest power source. Far from from it.
[URL said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_power_accidents_by_country[/URL]
Eh? Did you look at your own link? Look at all those 0's in the fatalities column.
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And now for the nonsensical post in the thread so far.. I expected better of you Hasan..
We are making some serious assumptions considering nuclear power to be safe. Biomass has been used for centuries, fossil fuels for decades. Nuclear power is relatively new. Saying it is safe based on some statistics is not logical. For one, it has not been around for long enough. It is being used by only a few countries. If nuclear fuels were all so safe, I don't see why countries are afraid in selling nuclear fuels, why there have to be so many regulations.
Every single sentence in this quote makes literally no sense.
What assumptions? So far all my claims have been supported by evidence. Nuclear power has also been around for decades, in fact, most of the active plants are over 30 years old. Saying something based on statistics is the definition of logical. It's being used by over 30 countries all of which are leading the world in terms of technology. What d you mean with 'nuclear fuels'? I'm not sure that exists. Finally, all the regulations in place
are the freaking reason nuclear energy is so safe.
Also statistics of accidents don't take into account safety standards and carelessness of people. Assuming your argument that people have irrational fear of "nuclear" stuff to be correct, then once this fear is gone, we might see a substantial change in the statistics. The safety standards of a nuclear plant can't be compared to a coal one. Nor can be the attitude of workers.
This is an assumption based on nothing. Nothing suggests the only reason nuclear energy is so safe because of the fear (which btw is much more prevalent is some areas than others *cough* America *cough*) so you cannot claim this as truth.
The standards of a nuclear plant will always be higher than that of a coal plant because one requires an actual education.
Also, Science is continously evolving. Assuming that we know everything that happens in a nuclear reaction is foolish. When fossil fuels came into use, no one was bothered about CO2 emissions. They were not aware of the effects/consequences. Can we say for certain that there are no by products in nuclear reactions which can cause harm over time. The subatomic products which are so small that we couldn't even detect them for years, leave alone being able to study their properties.
What? I literally can't even.
"Assuming that we know everything that happens in a nuclear reaction is foolish."
We do understand it, almost completely. This is the only reason nuclear energy can be utilized. Because of our understanding of it.
"When fossil fuels came into use, no one was bothered about CO2 emissions. They were not aware of the effects/consequences."
Correct.
"Can we say for certain that there are no by products in nuclear reactions which can cause harm over time."
Yes because unlike back then, we now have to tools to monitor everything which is released/emitted by the reactions that happen inside a nuclear plant. Every byproduct is known. Solely because of the advances in science we can look at new power sourcing without unexpectedly finding it is killing the earth.
"The subatomic products which are so small that we couldn't even detect them for years, leave alone being able to study their properties."
Yeah no. Leave the thinking about this to the scientists would you.
Well, not if the size of the statistics are inadequate. If you take a coin and toss it once and then start taking out probability of getting "Heads" using the data, it would be either be 1 or 0. Now won't that be stupid? Only if you toss it a few times, you will be able to get closer to 0.5. Assuming that the current statistics are enough is stupid not logical, when only certain countries use nuclear power and they only meet a small fraction of needs.
Small sample size? What? There are hundreds of nuclear power plants worldwide and they account for 17% of the world's energy need. In what universe is that a small sample size.
Says who? To save money, companies will prefer less regulations. If people don't feel unsafe, there will be no reason to keep extreme regulations.
Regulations are not put in place because people 'feel unsafe.' They are put in place because it could become dangerous without said regulations. Fortunately, regulations do exist, resulting in a very safe environment. Furthermore, power is a utility, not something you start for the profits. In addition the regulations are legally binding, you can't stop following them. Finally you're again making assumptions and claiming things as truth based on said assumptions.
There is just not enough energy liberated in a chemical reaction(burning of fuels) to cause any change at the subatomic level.
Lol isn't it fun creating your own truth? So when it's nuclear energy there could be things happening too small for us to detect but you DO know for sure this does NOT happen in combustion, even though we can't detect it to know for sure? Give me a break and let's keep the real world's science when discussing something like this.