tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8301787602455775830.post3377869453009634306..comments2023-06-08T02:51:08.463-07:00Comments on ThatMansScope: Nuclear risk and pokerBlogmeisterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09403276569733381203noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8301787602455775830.post-78225605948852013752011-04-08T11:29:57.973-07:002011-04-08T11:29:57.973-07:00Dear Mr. Bridger
I found your blog via the Winning...Dear Mr. Bridger<br />I found your blog via the Winning Progressive and rather enjoy your insights, agreeing in general. However I disagree with your view on Nuclear energy. Unfortunately with 6.5 billion population and an ever growing appetite for electrical power (just about to get much larger with electric cars)nukes are a necessity and we must have more and quickly. <br />Wind, solar, tidal, etc are good and should be promoted and built but these sources will never be base load generators. Only thing in the future - very distant future- that can replace current base load generators such as coal, natural gas, and nukes is fusion. Most "experts" think that fusion is at least 50+ years away, at which time the population will be 10 billion or much higher. That is of course if by that time we have not fouled our nest so much that we are extinct. <br /><br />Everyone brings up Chernobyl as an example of the dangers of nukes. Chernobyl was due to very bad engineering, a common malady of the Soviet society. Even at that, the death toll was very modest compared to the annual death toll from coal mining, from chemical plant explosions, drilling rig explosions, etc. We do not know yet all the facts about the Japanese disaster nor the final damage picture but certainly the main factor was the tsunami. Should and could the facility have been designed to avoid or minimize the problems? Probably yes. But can one make a nuke or anything for that matter such as chemical plants, cars, airplanes, buildings safe? Please define safe? How safe? Safe from impact of a tsunami? Probably. Safe from the impact from a meteor? No. The World Trade Center buildings were designed to withstand the impact of a stray airliner but not one fully loaded with fuel purposefully flown into it. Can cars be made 100% safe? Of course not because one cannot design them to be idiot proof, although some progress to this end is being made by some of the high end cars. Nukes are necessary to minimize ongoing damage to the environment from coal fired plants and we have to ensure that they are as safe as practicable.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09945091427903186424noreply@blogger.com