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« Crossing the line | Main | Playing D&D with super-heroes »

Better than Chernobyl!

Not exactly a high bar, but that's what they're saying about the nuclear reactor mess in Japan.

Japan scrambled to avert a meltdown at a stricken nuclear plant on Monday after a hydrogen explosion at one reactor and exposure of fuel rods at another...
...
The big fear at the Fukushima nuclear complex, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, is of a major radiation leak. The complex has already seen explosions at two of its reactors on Saturday and on Monday, which sent a huge plume of smoke billowing above the plant.

The nuclear accident, the worst since the Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine in 1986, sparked criticism that authorities were ill-prepared and the threat that could pose to the country's nuclear power industry.

Jiji news agency said fuel rods at the No. 2 reactor had been entirely exposed and a fuel rod meltdown could not be ruled out. The plant operator confirmed there was little water left in the reactor. The explosion happened at the No. 3 reactor, two days after a blast at the No. 1 reactor.

In light of the fact that our government seems incapable of addressing Peak Oil or Global Warming, i'd been kind of coming around to the use of nuclear energy. The science magazines that Wanyas lends me often include articles chiding environmentalists for not embracing nuclear energy. I still had concerns about what we're supposed to do with the nuclear waste, but i'd been somewhat convinced that safety wasn't as much of an issue any more. I should have been more skeptical considering the fact that the same type of safety assurances were given regarding offshore drilling just prior to the disaster in the Gulf.

Granted an 8.9-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami is a hopefully unique circumstance, but with all the extreme weather we're expecting to see in the coming decades, maybe we ought to be looking at alternatives.

By fnord12 | March 14, 2011, 9:38 AM | Liberal Outrage