There are a lot of relevant statistics in that document, such as the thousands of thyroid cancer cases directly attributed to the radiation exposure, not to mention the tens of firefighters that died saving the rest of the world. I would hate to live in your world, where there's a threshold of death to call something a disaster -- you are really minimizing the effects on hundreds of thousands (potentially millions) of people, simply because they haven't died yet or at all. How about getting uprooted from their homes and lives?
Just as I pointed out with my airliner analogy, the deaths from mining coal are over time, and many probably attributable to basic industrial accidents. Black lung has kind of been figured out, hasn't it? Five hundred coal miners didn't wake up on a Tuesday and die from coal poisoning, and as a result we're not talking about a disaster that needs investigation with coal power production.
I agree that nuclear power is statistically safe, but you are really skewing facts and doing a great disservice to less-educated readers about the (real) dangers of nuclear power, and calling it science elsewhere in this thread. This isn't a binary proposition -- something can be really safe and have the occasional Big Deal. Just like air travel.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs303/en/index.htm...
There are a lot of relevant statistics in that document, such as the thousands of thyroid cancer cases directly attributed to the radiation exposure, not to mention the tens of firefighters that died saving the rest of the world. I would hate to live in your world, where there's a threshold of death to call something a disaster -- you are really minimizing the effects on hundreds of thousands (potentially millions) of people, simply because they haven't died yet or at all. How about getting uprooted from their homes and lives?
Just as I pointed out with my airliner analogy, the deaths from mining coal are over time, and many probably attributable to basic industrial accidents. Black lung has kind of been figured out, hasn't it? Five hundred coal miners didn't wake up on a Tuesday and die from coal poisoning, and as a result we're not talking about a disaster that needs investigation with coal power production.
What about those that die mining uranium? Not talking about them, are you? The Navajo would probably like to tell you about their history with uranium extraction: http://www.epa.gov/region9/superfund/navajo-nation/index.htm...
I agree that nuclear power is statistically safe, but you are really skewing facts and doing a great disservice to less-educated readers about the (real) dangers of nuclear power, and calling it science elsewhere in this thread. This isn't a binary proposition -- something can be really safe and have the occasional Big Deal. Just like air travel.