The Nuclear Age

Most of you will have a hard time believing this, but back in the 50's, nuclear energy was the Next Big Thing. Despite having bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki not a decade earlier with this same kind of power, Americans saw the potential of all things nuclear. Hell, you could even buy a nuclear start kit from a comic book ad (you know, the ones that guarantee no money will have to be sent until you are fully satisfied with the product, but usually end up being scams). So when did all this perspective change? If the complete annhilation of two japanese cities did not scare them off, what did?

The first reason: Three Mile Island. A nuclear reactor off the coast of Pennsylvania, Three Mile Island was a disaster of a clusterfuck (yes, I like that word, move along now). To put things simply, a reactor suffered a meltdown, and some radiation leaked. The place was evacuated and quarantined. However, health investigations showed that only 8 millirem of radiation hit individuals in the 10 mile radius, which is the equivalent radiation of a chest x-ray. Nobody died, nobody even reported in sick, and the worst tragedy was a predicted two deaths of long term cancer, which never happened. However, the American public was pretty scared by the accident.

The second: Chernobyl. You've probably heard of this one, or at least played the level in Modern Warfare. A nuclear power plant in Ukraine under Soviet control, an explosion sent radiation scattering all over the USSR and western Europe, comparable in magnitude with the Fukushima Daiichi disaster seen earlier this year. This accident was actually more of a cause for concern, as the whole town of Prypiat had to be evacuated, and many people died of radiation poisoning, and pregnant mothers gave birth to malformed children, affected by the fallout in vitro. This served to destroy any good face nuclear power had saved, and made it the unpopular, dangerous energy it is wrongfully considered today.

A little mix-up

So Max is going to be very busy this next couple of weeks, so he asked me, Ryan, to fill in for him. I had one look at the blog and I now know why it has so little followers. Frankly, it sucks. So I'll be taking over for a while and hopefully make this a wee bit more bearable. The topic? Nuclear energy. Subliminal messages are pretty outdated, chaps, but this here is rather important and world changing.
Now go back a couple of lines and read the topic again. What are your feelings on nuclear energy? Chances are, you picture a reactor like the one in which Homer from The Simpsons works in, with staff just as incompetent as Mr. Simpson. A button press away from blowing Springfield to kingdom come. You might instead recall the unfortunate incident the japanese had earlier in the year. Most unlucky, I must say. However, barring the occasional fumble or, as americans say, clusterfuck of an incident, nuclear energy is not as dangerous as the media would have you believe. It is actually one of the most reliable, effective and moreover safe energies out there, and a great alternative to petroleum or oil as our primary source of juice.
So, looking at the facts, we can see that coal mining, for example, kills a lot more people yearly then nuclear power plants, averaging at 30 deaths per 100,000 coal miners in the US. Underground coal miners take a risk of 6.5% chances of a serious injury a year. That's one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. That's not counting the long term effects of coal mining like black lung, and all the pollution it causes (that in turn leads to global warming). OK, you say, so coal mining is not the choice, but still, how about eolic energy, or hydroelectric? Wrong again, as wind farmers are constantly in danger of a turbine failure which sends a blade which is supposed to spin really fast careening into the air. As for hydroelectric, flooding and drought are not only dangerous for humans, but for the environment and animals as well. So yeah, that's what I'll be addressing this time around. I'm out.