The nuclear disaster in Japan has made everyone talk about the safety of nuclear power. This isn’t a bad thing – there are risks to using nuclear power that shouldn’t be ignored and should be factored into every decision that’s made about energy generation.
Even so, I don’t think there should be a knee jerk reaction to stopping all development of nuclear power. After all, the consequences of not looking for alternative energy sources would be far worse for the environment.
Nuclear power is actually relatively safe compared to man other fuel sources. I read a statistic in the news (although I haven’t verified it) that more people have died in the last five years working on wind farms than they have at nuclear power plants.
This isn’t a very fair statistic admittedly as the potential consequences of a nuclear disaster far outweigh the potential problems with wind power, but it’s something to think about anyway.
Part of the problem is probably the many people don’t understand radiation and how it works or what makes it dangerous. Because you can’t see radiation it seems scarier and more dangerous than other potential problems. That doesn’t mean that it’s not dangerous though, as it obviously is.
As long as the companies running nuclear power plants take note of the mistakes made in Japan, as well as what they can do to protect themselves against natural disasters, then I don’t think countries should stop consider nuclear power as a solution to the fossil fuel problems. Nuclear power plants should be safe as long as they are managed properly and proper processes are put into place in order to reduce the risk of human error causing a major disaster.