Nuclear Power (spun off from Japan earthquake discussion)

[Tread]

Originally Posted by MistressStevie

So far the greatest damage from a western (including Japanese) nuclear accident has been minimal releases of radioactivity--AND NO (zero) deaths.

That is not true. I don?t have looked deep into the matter so there is more.

3 deaths, January 3, 1961, Idaho Falls, Idaho, US, SL-1, National Reactor Testing Station
2 deaths, September 30, 1999, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, Tokaimura uranium processing facility
5 deaths, August 9, 2004, Fukui Prefecture, Japan, Mihama Nuclear Power Plant

March 28, 1979, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, US, Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station - 2
It released radioactive steam in the environment. 6 years later, cancer rates went at peak 150% up on the contaminated side (where the wind blew) compared to the not contaminated side.

Cancer rates are higher and life expectations are lower near nuclear plants. It looks that there are many deaths caused by it, but direct causal connection is difficult to prove.

It doesn?t have to be a western plant or accident. The Chernobyl disaster caused radioactive fallout over most of Europe. And in some areas mushrooms, plants and animals are still harmfully contaminated.

Plutonium 239 and Uranium 238/235 have huge half-life times. It must be stored, buried or protected at minimum 1 million years. Mankind exists about 160,000 years. It can't be estimated what happens in this time, and how many will get harmfully radiated over that time.
How to tell understandable warnings and instructions over a period much longer than humans exists?
Who will notice if radioactivity, out of deep geological repository or a buried nuclear plant, reaches ground water? Test storage showed leaks (not to ground water yet) in less then 50 years.
Radioactive resources are already or will be taken away (legal or illegal) from closed nuclear plans, nuclear submarines, radioactive waste and contaminated areas. No one checks if your car is build with steel from nuclear submarine with a meltdown.