Why Not Nuclear Energy?

Chernobyl and Three Mile Island had already pretty much brought the US nuclear power industry to a halt, when Japan had a tsunami at Fukushima. These were all bad accidents.

The truth is, though, not many lives were lost. Compare lives lost in nuclear mishaps with those lost in the coal and oil industries, gas distribution explosions, much less accidents in employment of those energy products, and nuclear looks very safe by comparison.

Neither does nuclear power spew carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and other products that will enhance global warming, sea level rise, and other expensive and destructive eventualities.

Nuclear power makes economic and public safety sense.

Still, there is vast public opposition to nuclear.

Ashutosh Jogalekar, a chemist, examines in Scientific American the five most significant reasons that liberals oppose nuclear power. He counters each reason with a rational discussion of pros and cons.

Good article, worth reading.

I mostly agree.

Jogalekar likes the liquid thorium reactor design for its improved safety. He does not mention the pebble bed reactor, which China seems to favor.

I believe the liquid thorium reactor is similar to the design used in the twin-reactor power plant of USS Triton, commanded by Captain Edward L. Beach during the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.