The nuclear disaster in Japan — caused by a historic earthquake that triggered a tsunami — should be calling into question the growing consensus that nuclear power can be a safe and cost-effective energy source that can allow us to move away from fossil fuels.
We have been hearing lots of talk about acceptable risk and cost-benefit analyses — a Slate podcast had left and right in agreement opposing alarmist overreaction.
Floyd Norris, in The New York Tomes, warns against the complacency that the acceptable risk mantra can cause.
Each case — a collapse of house prices and a cascade of problems threatening a large release of radiation — was viewed as so improbable that it could be virtually ignored in considering risks. Those who counseled otherwise were viewed as alarmists.
What was not considered sufficiently, perhaps, is just how serious an unlikely risk may be. If it is bad enough, the risk may not be worth taking, no matter how good the odds. There is a reason people do not play Russian roulette, even if the odds are highly favorable. It is a game you lose only once.
And that’s the issue — or one of the issues. When a nuke plant fails, even if it is rare, the fallout is a massive human toll, in immediate deaths and longer-term damage. That to me is unacceptable.
Hank Kalet 
Nuclear energy is insanity. It is wildly expensive, private investors do not want to get involved because of the risks, insurance companies will not insure the nuclear plants and so who ends up footing the bill? The taxpayer of course, because nuclear power is corporate welfare at its worst. Without governmental subsidies, loans and government insurance, in case of a huge catastrophe, nuclear power would not exist. Accidents occur all the time at nuclear plants, they often have to shut down for weeks or months to fix the problem(s). Nuclear energy is not clean and safe; the uranium must be mined, processed and refined, not a particularly clean process. Then there is the huge problem of nuclear waste which is currently being stored on site: Oyster Creek, Hope Creek and at the 2 reactors at Salem in little old NJ, the most densely populated state in the union. Some of the NJ reactors are leaking tritium into the ground water. They are over-packing the spent fuel rods in pools close to the reactors; if the pool housing the spent fuel rods is not scrupulously maintained and there are never any mistakes, they could overheat and explode. They are a juicy target for terrorists and are a huge problem in Fukushima, Japan. Nuclear waste stays radioactive for hundreds, even thousands of years. Germany committed to weaning itself off of fossil fuels and nuclear power in 2000. Austria, Denmark, Greece, Norway, Ireland, Portugal and New Zealand have no nukes and in some of those countries have legally restricted the building of nuke plants. Belgium is phasing out nuclear power and Spain is heavily invested in renewable energy.
From nj.com: Learning of more tritium pollution at the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station, Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin said today the plant must deal with its contamination issues instead of questioning the DEP’s authority. Exelon Generation Co., the Illinois-based owner of the Lacey Township plant, reported Friday that tritium-tainted water was found in an underground conduit. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it was not from a new leak, but residue from a 2007 emergency shutdown that released tritium into the air before it \”rained down\” on plant grounds.Martin noted Exelon coincidentally on Friday sent the DEP a letter, questioning the authority behind his May 7 directive demanding Exelon act more quickly to resolve a more serious tritium leak discovered in April 2009. About 180,000 gallons of contaminated water poured from two underground pipes, and Exelon has spent $6 million to date dealing with repairs and a resulting, tritium-tainted plume that has reached the Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer.\”Exelon needs to stop making legal arguments about this issue and spend its time ensuring that tritium does not further contaminate New Jersey’s drinking water supply,’’ Martin said.Tritium, a by-product of nuclear reactions, has been linked to cancer if ingested in certain amounts. \”Having tritium leaks at the Oyster Creek plant is unacceptable to us and we regret any public concerns which have resulted. Since these leaks were discovered and repaired last year, we have been working to address the resultant problem,\” said plant spokesman David Benson.But, in it’s letter to Martin, Exelon said \”unnecessary alarm\” is being caused about the leaks, and urged the DEP to \”correct any mis-impression that the public is in danger.\”