fukushima nuke crisis - chernobyl on steroids, page-73

True Zeta that terrorists could cause pandemonium with nuclear energy as happened with 9/11 and immeasurable number of ways when you think about it, e.g. water supplies. Otherwise, believe this from The Australian 23/3/2011 speaks volumes:

One of the world's leading environmental campaigners, George Monbiot, has changed his view on nuclear energy to one of strong support following the Fukushima emergency in Japan.

"As a result of the disaster at Fukushima, I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology," Monbiot wrote in his latest column in The Guardian.

"A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down.

"The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting. Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation."

Monbiot is one of the environmental movement's most respected thinkers.

In 1995, Nelson Mandela presented him with a United Nations Global 500 Award for outstanding environmental achievement

He has written several best-selling books including Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning and The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order.

In response to Fukushima, Monbiot said some greens had wildly exaggerated the dangers of radioactive pollution.

He said other forms of energy production caused damage and the impact of nuclear accidents had been overstated. He quoted a website showing the Three Mile Island disaster had given someone living within 16km of the plant a 1/625th of the maximum yearly radioactive exposure permitted for US radiation workers.

"If other forms of energy production caused no damage, these impacts would weigh more heavily. But energy is like medicine: if there are no side-effects, the chances are that it doesn't work."

Monbiot said, like most greens, he favoured a major expansion of renewables but could also sympathise with their opponents. "It's not just the onshore windfarms that bother people," he said "but also the new grid connections."

Monbiot said the impacts and costs of renewables rose with the proportion of power they supplied, as the need for storage and redundancy increased.

Monbiot said the energy source most economies would revert to if they shut down their nuclear plants was not wood, water, wind or sun, but fossil fuels. "On every measure (climate change, mining impact, local pollution, industrial injury and death, even radioactive discharges) coal is 100 times worse than nuclear power.

"Yes, I still loathe the liars who run the nuclear industry. Yes, I would prefer to see the entire sector shut down, if there were harmless alternatives. But there are no ideal solutions.

"Every energy technology carries a cost; so does the absence of energy technologies. Atomic energy has just been subjected to one of the harshest of possible tests, and the impact on people and the planet has been small. The crisis at Fukushima has converted me to the cause of nuclear power."