I have come to realise that people like you have little interest in rational discussion on nuclear matters,
Sorry Tommy, but the chronology of the posts shows that this oft repeated lame assed retort of yours doesn't cut it, as YOU consistently avoid/ignore/deny/dodge FACTS that contradict your nuke power industry toadying.
however I shall try and see if Popular Mechanics can help you move from your polemic driven agenda to a more rational discussion.
Another article from a nuke power industry friendly mindset/organization that just repeats the SOS previously addressed by me in earlier posts/responses. You're floundering, Tommy boy. Pathetic. As regards Vermont I never said that I wanted to drink tritiated water and I never said anything about tritium's half life, which is 12.32 years by the way.
When I referred to half life I was talking about I 131 which has a half life of eight days. I also asked you on several occasions to show me where drinking water supplies have been contaminated but you just keep harping on about water found in boreholes.
You're a liar, Tommy. The chronology of the posts makes you one, as you referred to past exchanges between us to exactly that assertion regarding half life. And as I previously stated, YOU made a big deal about how really uneventful the tritium contamination in either event was...I merely provided information (FACT BASED BY OFFICIAL local gov't and valid national sources) that contradict that premise of yours. And as to your dodgy BS about drinking the water, the chronology of the posts shows the question I asked, the context of which it was asked, and your subsequent cowardly BS response. You can deny any and everything Tommy, but the chronology of the posts will always be your undoing....as I indeed DID answer your "question" (more rapidly than you did mine, by the way)...and in doing so showed how intellectually dishonest you were again...as I ALWAYS pointed to the THREAT of drinking water in Vermont (their words, not mine), and NEVER stated that the drinking was thoroughly contaminated. If you can copy &* paste me stating otherwise, please do. If not, stop acting stupid, grow up and deal with being wrong.
Myth No. 1
Nuclear Power Isn't a Safe Solution
In a recent national poll, 72 percent of respondents expressed concern about potential accidents at nuclear power plants. Some opinion-makers have encouraged this trepidation: Steven Cohen, executive director of Columbia University's Earth Institute, has called nuclear power "dangerous, complicated and politically controversial."
During the first six decades of the nuclear age, however, fewer than 100 people have died as a result of nuclear power plant accidents. And comparing modern nuclear plants to Chernobyl—the Ukrainian reactor that directly caused 56 deaths after a 1986 meltdown—is like comparing World War I fighter planes to the F/A-18. Newer nuclear plants, including the fast reactor now being developed at Idaho National Laboratory (INL), contain multiple auto-shutoff mechanisms that reduce the odds of a meltdown exponentially—even in a worst-case scenario, like an industrial accident or a terrorist attack. And some also have the ability to burn spent fuel rods, a convenient way to reuse nuclear waste instead of burying it for thousands of years.
Power sources such as coal and petroleum might seem safer than nuclear, but statistically they're a lot deadlier. Coal mining kills several hundred people annually—mainly from heart damage and black lung disease, but also through devastating accidents like the April mine explosion in West Virginia. The sublethal effects of coal-power generation are also greater. "The amount of radiation put out by a coal plant far exceeds that of a nuclear power plant, even if you use scrubbers," says Gerald E. Marsh, a retired nuclear physicist who worked at Argonne National Laboratory. Particulate pollution from coal plants causes nearly 24,000 people a year to die prematurely from diseases such as lung cancer. Petroleum production also has safety and environmental risks, as demonstrated by the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
INL nuclear lab's deputy associate director, Kathryn McCarthy, thinks the industry can overcome its stigma. "It's been a long time since Chernobyl and Three Mile Island," McCarthy says, "and people are willing to reconsider the benefits of nuclear energy." Nuclear plants emit only a tiny fraction of the carbon dioxide that coal plants do, and a few hundred nuclear facilities could potentially supply nearly all the energy the United States needs, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels.
