Radiation level 1,600 times above norm in Fukushima nuke zone

Run time: 01:48 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxAv-REH5ZA   Posted on YouTube: March 22, 2011 By YouTube Member: RussiaToday Views on YouTube: 2408   Posted on DU: March 22, 2011 By DU Member: tekisui Views on DU: 742

 

and the difficulty of restoring proper cooling. This is a bad incident, and is going to cause lasting damage. It's one more piece of evidence against the use of nuclear reactors to generate electricity. There will be an end to the dangers in Japan, but will it all be enough to make it clear that these nuclear power plants are inherently unsafe? That's the central question. We have what we have in Japan, now, and that is bad enough. Eventually, they'll get things under control and clean up or abandon contaminated areas. But the real question is: How long until we deactivate the current reactors and stop building new ones? That's a more difficult question to answer in our energy-hungry world. I'm not optimistic.

to keep building these nuclear power plants.

It certainly doesn't serve the interests of life on this planet, in spite of what the US government says. Just like the reasons given for the US invasion of one country after another, what they tell us it's about is not the real reason.

IIRC, back in the day, nuclear power plants were part of the nuclear weapons cycle (producing plutonium for use in bombs). Since the end of the cold war, I didn't think we were stockpiling nuclear weaponry to such an extent. But I'm not up to speed on that aspect of it. Maybe someone can clarify this for me.

I do know that all these things do is boil water (to produce steam...etc.) Something is wrong with this picture.

It's not cheap. Construction costs are added into the rate base, I do believe.
Insurance, in the event of an accident, is subsidized by the taxpayer.
Uranium is a finite resource and people are sickened and die as a result of contact with uranium tailings. Not to speak of the fossil fuel required to mine the uranium in the first place.

So, who benefits? Not us. As always, follow the money.

generation since 1959. I was just a teenager then, but I could see that it wasn't a safe way to generate power. You can look in my journal for the reason. It's about three entries down, and describes the meltdown of a small plant just a few miles from my childhood home in California.

There is no safe nuclear power generation. There never has been, nor is there any way for there to be. Every plant is just a moment away from a disaster. Every last one of them. And everyone is downwind of one, in the larger picture.

A likely level 8, outdoing Chernobyl.

7 is the highest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Scale

of the report.