Fukushima = paranoia. Instead of investing into the improvement of the technology to make it save the most common knee-jerk reaction is to demolish and forget...
Nuclear is still cleaner in many ways than a lot of other power Generation methodologies, that being said TEPCO as a crown co. In Japan had a train wreak of Nuclear disasters dating into the late 1990s. One incident I happened to be in Japan for occurred in Tokaimura in 1999.
3 nuclear workers making fuel pellets dumped too much enriched fuel into the hopper at a time resulting in a massive flash of neutrons. 10km evacuation zone. All 3 workers died.
Many people were forced to evacuate.
When you have a problem with nuclear fuel things can go VERY wrong. Unfortunately many of these companies take risky shortcuts. TEPCO is a prime example of how some of these companies self inspect, and in doing so put the local population (Japanese public) at grave danger.
I don't doubt that nuclear energy has potential, obviously it can and does.
Safety around nuclear energy is just far too important to take shortcuts.
Cheap out = major disaster.
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An aside,
The Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan, hit me particularly hard as I had lived near minami soma in 1999. 3 students that were middle school friends of mine died and my family friends lost everything.
We actually got a phonecall from one family who called Canada to say they were ok a week after the disaster.
Other families we knew were still listed as missing by the RedCoss. 2 were found abroad, 3 others were never found. We learned that one family was on route to Sendai from Aomori by train. It was one of the trains reported missing.
Thanks for sharing :beer:
