THE SQUEEZE IS ON, page-1255

You clearly have no idea about nuclear physics. There are 2 types of historic nuclear accidents. The worst is the Chernobyl type which was a "criticality: accident, This type of accident is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for light water reactors in use world wide - if you don't believe me please educate yourself before publishing rubbish. The fact is that Chernobyl had what is called a "positive void coefficient" this means that as temperature goes up so does the reactivity - light water reactors have NEGATIVE void coefficients wherwe the reactivity GOES DOWN as temperature rises - IT CAN'T BLOW UP,

The other type of nuclear accident (as Three Mile Island and Fukushima) is a "loss of coolant" accident - for these accidents the reactor does not blow up however the fuel can melt and did so at both Three Mile Island and Fukushima. At Three Mile Island there was no release of radio-activity - it had a sturdy containment vessel. Fukushima closed down normally but the emergency coolant pumps were inundated by the tsunami which were placed close to the sea - the operator was notified of this but did nothing. After a period of time the batteries run out of charge and as such coolant water ceased to be pumped. The fuel was clad in zirconium alloy sheath and at high temperature this (together with the heat from the melted fuel) caused a catalytic reaction with the coolant water which split into hydrogen and oxygen (H₂O) - this resulted in a hydrogen explosion (like that which is likely to happen with derived renewable based hydrogen fuels) that blew off the top of a rather flimsy containment vessel spreading nuclear waste in the immediate surroundings - it was NOT a nuclear explosion. These issues are now well understood and unlikely to happen - nuclear energy is actually much the safest form of power generation. The deaths from Chernobyl were about 63 people (Greenpeace alleged about 90,000 from a radio active cloud over Europe but this was debunked by the European Union who though it was "maybe" about 2000 - Chernobyl is now a wildlife hot spot with people living in it. I think one person fell off the reactor building at Fukushima (many were killed by the tsunami and some from the Fukushima evacuation) - no one was killed by Three Mile Island.

Unfortunately the fossil fuel lobby see nuclear energy as a threat (as the well subsidized renewable industry also does) and at least one activist organization (the Sierra society) is known to have taken money from fossil fuel interests. As I see it the main motivation now for anti-nuclear groups is the utopian/pacifist concept of eliminating the whole nuclear fuel chain with the hope that this will result in a world free of nuclear weapons - to me this is both unsafe and wishful thinking since IMO it's virually certain that such a utopia would simply result in nuclear weapon being stored clandestinely - no way would North Korea and Israel comply and the US, Russia and China at a minimum would simply hide them.

What you also have to appreciate is that the safety of nuclear reactor are like comparing cars on the 1960's and now (and even wearing seat belts) - modern reactors (like cars) have evolved and are MUCH SAFER now than the nuclear builds of the 1960. Unfortunately Chris Bowen, the Labor left and the Greens haven't moved on from the 1960 - ban the bomb brigade. Global warming is now the threat and we all need all the tools (including renewables) to stop the lights going dead and saving the planet - any sensible person does not want to turn the Earth into another Venus with thermal run away or a return of the 200m year ago carboniferous with unbreathable low oxygen levels, unlivable temperatures then offset by a fainter sun than now.