Reply To: Bang or no bang

[Rezwan]

shawn wrote: Looking at the incident in Japan, we can count the cost of what will occur in many ways:
1)life experience for many people will be drastically affected……..How can one estimate the value of that?
2)The costs of clean-up and containment……… Very large numbers of dollars.
3)The loss of lives…….How can one place a dollar value on such a loss?
4)The loss of land…….The ongoing costs which increase yearly.

Hi Shawn: I’m not sure I understand your question. Is this about the tsunami itself? For example #1 – think of the PTSD of many people in the tsunami, the kid who got out of a car but his parents were in there and are now missing, probably dead – so many awful stories like that. I can’t even begin to imagine how that would crush your spirit and mess you up for life.

Or are you talking about the nuclear emergency effects and losses? Those are easier to calculate. You just need things that you can compare. A person who gets cancer from smoking vs. from radiation vs. from breathing coal dust – they all have cancer. So, the question is, what are we willing to tolerate? We pass laws to reduce smoking, and we suffer coal plants to continue with no problem. Does nuclear power cause more damage than these, or less? If less, it seems that you would need to go after the coal plants first, and then after nuclear power. If more, then nuclear would be your first stop. Per these stats, nuclear is far down on the problem list. http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html