That's the problem. You believe the industry apologists and repeat what they say. You've learned nothing from the constant lies which we have been subjected to. Even during this particular crisis, each day's news report gives the lie to what was said the previous day.
> In the end of the day, their
> reasons may prove inadequate to meet standards of public safety or
> sustainability, but that is a different argument than summarily denouncing
> them as liars.
You are the one who summarily dismisses the facts about nuclear power by, for example, judging the success of the French nuclear program by one wikipedia article about where meltdowns had taken place -- thus ignoring other accidents and even getting wrong the issue of whether a meltdown had ever occurred in France.
>
> I would also like to address another issue mentioned in your post -
> the distinction between actual damages and a potential threat. You
> seem, to agree that the actual death toll attributed to nuclear plant
> accidents is by far lower than that attributable to fossil fuel based
> power,
No, I don't. I just don't see either the point of this comparison, nor how one would get accurate figures on death corresponding to nuclear energy. I also pointed out that your method of calculating discards the great bulk of deaths from the nuclear industry.
>but you counter with the assertion that the potential threat of a
> nuclear accident is far greater.
The present disaster in Japan could conceivably cause the abandonment of a large swath of Japan including Tokyo, as well as endangering other countries. I do not have the technical knowledge to judge the likelihood of whether the disaster will continue to grow and reach this level, but it's within the realm of possibility. What disaster at a single coal generating plant or plant complex could reach this level? There's a reason why people fear reactors. It's not irrational.
Furthermore, since you are talking about replacing coal with nuclear, if that were done there would have to be a vast expansion of the number of nuclear reactors and of where they are located. And the margin of safety would be the level of safety at the *least* safe plant -- since, as the present incident shows, an accident at a single nuclear complex can threaten a vast area. The Fukushima complex, even if old, was likely safer than the worst operated and worst built plants that would result from an extensive nuclear explansion.
But in fact coal and oil have their dangers as well. There's no reason to restrict oneself to the damage from a single generating plant. Overall coal threatens the entire world, while a spill from a single oil well or tanker can also devastate wide regions.
The point isn't to run from coal to nuclear or nuclear to coal. The turn of a section of the capitalist establishment to nuclear as the solution to the problems of coal reflects, *not* an effort to deal seriously with global warming, but an effort to avoid doing what's necessary. They don't want to give up neo-liberalism, and maintaining neo-liberalism is still the priority with them. They don't want to institute comprehensive environmental planning; they don't want to reform the regulatory processes, curb industry influence, and bring in serious mass involvement; they don't want to combine environmental planning with planning to maintain the mass livelihood ("green jobs" are not enough--by itself it is simply trickle-down economics).
Instead they either want more neo-liberal market methods (cap and trade; the carbon tax; the promise of some "green jobs"; etc.) or they want a purely technical fix (nuclear; geoengineering; etc); and what they consider realistic is a fix that gives tremendous profits to certain industrial interests, whether it's nuclear, "clean coal", or something else. The result is that these supposed fixes for the environment often are not only futile, but make things worse. The choice isn't coal or nuclear. The choice is whether to seriously look at what is needed to deal with the environmental crisis, or to restrict one's viewpoint to what is compatible with neo- liberalism and with increasing the profits of the most powerful and entrenched capitalist interests.
> I think there is some truth in this
> argument, but there is even greater ambiguity. Given sufficient time
> span, everything is possible, even things whose calculable probability is
> rather low.
Wow, at a time when Japan is under threat, you can still talk about how distant are the dangers of nuclear power.
> But even in a low case scenario, such as the Chernobyl
> accident, the total number of deaths directly attributable to the accident
> was 70 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_due_to_the_Chernobyl_disaster.
> That is far less than the number fatal injuries in the mining industry in
> the US http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfch0008.pdf.
> Of course, neither
> of these counts reflect consequential damages, illness, displacement etc.
That's right. And they don't count the toll of death and devastation from, say, uranium mining. Meanwhile it's the same drive for ever-increasing profit and ever-decreasing regulation that ensures that coal mining is as dangerous as possible that will be another factor undermining the safety of the nuclear plants.
> - but the devastation caused by surface mining is enormous and continuous,
> even though it does not produce scares sparked by nuclear disasters.
Really? I could have sworn that many, many people were worried about carbon- based fuels, and even whole political parties were formed worried about this issue (although, so far, with defective platforms). I thought there were many struggles going on around the world about the damages caused by mining and drilling. Rather, it's the "government officials, scientists, power producers etc. who support" the giant energy companies who are complacent about all this.
>
> I understand that visceral opposition to anything nuclear is a core
> belief of many on the left,
Yes, that's true, it's that visceral opposition to exploitation, war, and environmental devastation which has us in its grip. No doubt the authorities you trust don't share such feelings.
> and bean counting is not going to change
> that. But let's not loose a sense of proportions and probability
> here.
>
> In any case, I would like to thank Gar, Jordan and Andy for
> contributing links to informative resources on the subject.
>
> Wojtek
----------------------------------- Joseph Green jgreen at communistvoice.org ------------------------------------