Wounded Earth

While I could have made the posting regarding the Fukushima Nuclear plant at any time, I wanted to get my facts right. The fact that the severity level of the accident has been raised to the equivalent of Chernobyl, unfortunately shows that I have got my fact right.

Part of the point I was making was that in this case the company and the Japanese government have down played the severity of the incident. Just as the British Government did when there was a reactor fire here in the 1950s. So it does not matter that we have democracy, but at least because of that freedom the media have been able to expose the true extent of the disaster and there was not the attempt to cover it up as happened in soviet times when Chernobyl had its meltdown.

The simple fact is that Nuclear power is just not safe, no matter what the supporters say. The only reason why Britain wanted Nuclear Power was to create the isotopes for nuclear weapons, and as a side issue its why Iran to name just one nation, should not be allowed to develop Nuclear Power. The legacy we are leaving our children is the cleaning up of deadly pollution for centuries.

The other point is it really does not matter how well the safety systems are designed, there will always be something unknown, unexpected that will happen that will prevent these plants from being safe. With Fukushima it has been a series of breakdowns of the safety systems that has made the disaster escalate. Additionally because the reactors shut themselves down when the Earth quake first struck, a sense of complacency ensured that people failed to see the problems that subsequently developed.

This is not based upon some uneducated irrational fear of anything Nuclear, there are many medical treatments and diagnostic processes that safely use Nuclear isotopes Equally when Radon peculates up from granite rocks, there are ways of reducing these risks. When a leak of nuclear Isotopes happens at a power station, it contaminates a wide area. The strange fact is that for the past ten years or so we have been told by the media that we should fear this happening if terrorists were to let off a “Dirty Bomb”, yet when this happens as the result of a “Nuclear Accident” its nothing to worry about.

We pollute the planet with gay abandon and wonder why natural systems Break Down and why it ends up costing us all a fortune to clean the mess up.

Nuclear Power was not and never has been the solution to our energy needs, nor will it ever be the solution to “Man Made Climate Change” as there will never be enough uranium around the planet to fuel the reactors if we were to replace all the fossil fuelled generation. Additionally and more importantly, Nuclear power would just add to the contamination of fresh drinking water, our most precious and at risk natural resource.

This is not a dystopian perspective, but unless we wake up to these problems now, we will wake up to a Wounded Earth.