FWG Leader wrote:It has it's benefits, but obviously there are a lot of negatives associated with it.
What are your thoughts on the issue of using nuclear power?
After the Japan quake, people should seriously reconsider placing a nuclear powerplant near the coastline and in an earthquake zone. You're just asking for trouble if you do that...
if we don't use nuclear, what can we use as an alternative? It needs to provide enough electricity to replace nuclear!
Copy and paste from my last argument. Japan has no choice but to use nuclear energy due to a lack of conventional energy sources (such as coal or oil), and the relative inefficiency of more "green" alternative energy (such as wind or solar power). Nuclear energy is more efficient than the other green energies, and does not contribute to global climate change as much, or at least in the same way, as conventional power sources.
Then there are those who annoy me just as much, who say that Japan should have been prepared for a 9.0 magnitude earthquake that triggered a 70 foot tsunami, followed by numerous aftershocks measuring above 5 on the Richter scale. Implementing structural support that could withstand all of that would cost an unimaginable amount of money. And this is just for one reactor. What about all the other ones?
In terms of safety, the only reasons nuclear energy is viewed so negatively is the information spread during the Cold War about the nuclear bomb, and Chernobyl. Yes, whenever a nuclear disaster happens, it is devastating. But how often do they happen? Should America investigate an alternative to airplanes because of the terrorist attack on 9/11?
They didn't place the plant in a major earthquake zone, and I'm sure if they had a safer place to put it, the government would have built it there. Again, this costs money. Okay then, let's do without nuclear energy. This wouldn't go over very well, as nuclear power provides a third of Japan's total energy.
http://augustafreepress.com/2011/04/06/ ... ar-energy/I agree that we should invest in alternative sources of energy, but the transition has to be gradual. In the meantime, nuclear energy continues to be the best source of alternative energy for Japan and environmentally similar countries.
Heres my new input. Germany has enough alternatives to nuclear energy to make the transition, and I think that it will turn out ok. Personally, I think the motivation was political (I'm different from sleezy bureaucrats who place profit before human life), but the ends may justify the means