OnlineSchools.org presents Japan One Year Later
It has been nearly a year since the monster earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, causing the worst nuclear disaster on the planet since Chernobyl. The death toll currently stands at 22,900. Don’t get me wrong. I like nuclear power as much as the next person, but when I hear that radioactive iodine from the explosion of the plant has crept into the world’s food supply (as the infographic video above demonstrates), I stop and think, “Why do nuclear power plants still exist in 2012 when alternate, cleaner energy sources are available?” You tell me.
Nuclear power plants still exist because economics permit them, new ones aren’t being built because of an absence of a cost for carbon emission.
radioactive iodine is a problem… why exactly? Iodine-131 has a half life or 8 days, decays to xenon, which is a nobel gas. You should be more concerned about contamination from other radioactive nuclides.
I don’t think you can find any record of deaths because of Fukishima; it’s all from the tsunami. Any deaths from Three Mile Island? No. some people got an equivalent dose to that of a chest x-ray, so livestock got many multiples more. Ever heard of a nuclear accident in Canada? India? Go look up CANDU reactors on the wiki. France’s power is 80% from nuclear… The public seems to forget the mess up at uranium city in saskatchewan. Can you find any justification for the public hysteria over nuclear power? I guess we prefer poisoning by chemicals and hydrocarbons. Up here in my home province of Alberta, we’re destroying two resources to turn the tar sands into fuel: natural gas and half of the athabasca river. The cancer rates down river from the oilsands are practically a crisis.
Despite what you say, if you look up the statistics, even with Chernobyl, nuclear power is the safest form of power generation.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html
Energy Source Death Rate (deaths per TWh)
Coal – world average 161 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal – China 278
Coal – USA 15
Oil 36 (36% of world energy)
Natural Gas 4 (21% of world energy)
Biofuel/Biomass 12
Peat 12
Solar (rooftop) 0.44 (less than 0.1% of world energy)
Wind 0.15 (less than 1% of world energy)
Hydro 0.10 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy)
Hydro – world including Banqiao) 1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead)
Nuclear 0.04 (5.9% of world energy)