Re: Powering Oahu from Lanai


On Sat, 16 Jun 2007, Jerry Okamura wrote:

"Alvin E. Toda" <aet@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1181882106-sch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

No one died at Three Mile Island. Besides, like
every other alternative there are advantages and
disadvantages.

Economically the risks are enormous. For example,
IIRC about 35 years ago, a terrible mistake was
almost committed at the Sub Base in Pearl Harbor.
The sub was preparing to pump it's nuclear waste
into a special container for disposal. However,
someone had got the valve line-up wrong, and the
check had revealed that it would have resulted in
the sub pumping it's nuclear waste into Pearl
Harbor. The mistake was reported, and it got into
the papers because if that had been the case,
downtown Honolulu to the the leeward area of Oahu
near Pearl Harbor would have had to be evacuated
until the clean up was complete. Now where would we
go? Population-wise, it's over half the island.


What you are talking about are the "potential" risks.
There is also a "potential" risk of global warming.
Which one is more likely to happen? Which one is more
likely to be more costly to human life.

People died at Chernoble when the waste was released.
And it could haved happened at Three Mile Island as
well. But in both cases the worse case was averted--
IIRC that was a total melt-down of the core. IIRC that
is where the nuclear material gets so hot that it can
melt the concrete and rocks below and drain into the
soil below. That would contaminate the underground
water system and would be just about impossible to
contain or clean-up. In the case of Chernoble, IIRC
most of the core is still entombed in the plant.

However, whether likely or not, the improbable risk of
a meltdown needs to be considered because the cost of
human life is so high. The negative consequence of a
nuclear meltdoewn far exceeds the negative consequence
of global warming. Besides why compare them? They're
not even related. Just using nuclear plants doesn't
solve the problem, because the US doesn't want other
countries like Iran, Korea, Africa to have them. You
comment only makes sense if you want to consider the
cost-benefit of nuclear plants where you would consider
the the advantages/disadvantages of the nuclear plants
in comparison to other types of plants. Why compare
advantages/disadvantages of nuclear plants against an
unrelated thing like global warming?

.