This is the kind of logic that makes me despair for the nature and future of the human race:
On the other hand, if the Japanese are able to contain the core at the Daichi plant, which will be determined over the next day, it could invigorate the call for more nuclear power plants.
“If we don’t get a meltdown, it will be fair to point to this as a success in nuclear power. You had a 40-year-old nuclear reactor withstand an earthquake and a tsunami and it kept the core intact,” Cirincione said. “If that is the scenario that will be used as an argument to say look nuclear power is safe even this 40-year-old plant could take a one-two punch from mother nature and survive.”
Umm… no. The only “fair point” is that mother nature will continue to catch us off guard and that we simply cannot foresee every possible way in which disaster might strike, making nuclear power unacceptably dangerous, particularly close to tectonic fault lines, where we know that earthquakes are not only likely, but inevitable.
So… who would print an attempt to re-cast a terrifying disaster as a trumpet call for more nuclear reactors? Why, Fox News of course.
Yes, the same people that advocate drastic cuts in areas like education and environmental protection on the ironic grounds that we must not leave future generations with debt, are somehow completely unconcerned with leaving future generations debt in the form of massive stockpiles of nuclear waste for which we have absolutely no disposal strategy, and will be lethal for thousands of years.
And that’ll only be the worst of it if we’re lucky. What is more likely is that one or more reactors, either in Japan or elsewhere, either very soon or at some point in the future, either due to human error or natural disaster, will melt down, potentially killing millions, and leaving massive tracks of land unusable for generations.
Sadly, conservatives aren’t the only fans of nuclear power. The supposedly forward-looking Obama administration has been advocating the construction of new reactors. Perhaps the tragedy in Japan will put that plan back into cold storage, where it belongs.
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