so the bullshit is all Mike H’s.

Yes, you have to both stop burning fossil fuels and use nuclear and other power sources. I regard the “problem of climate change” as both the deleterious effects of fossil fuel burning and the need to maintain relatively high standards of living. What you say goes for any power source. What nuclear power can do is to replace carbon emissions that’s the point. Hence it could become an alternative to fossil fuels. Future generations will never forgive us if we don’t utilize every available power source to combat the insidious effects of catastrophic global warming.

-The odds that today’s disaster will end up close to Chernobyl is closer to 1-in-10 than it is to 1 in a million

As I said before, even two accidents in fifty years of operating hundreds of reactors is vanishingly small close to the thousands of people killed in industrial accidents. Chernobyl killed probably a few hundred because of entirely avoidable mistakes (a lot of the radiation was because of lack of distribution of iodine tablets because of secrecy) and TMI killed no one and was benign by any standards. Plus, the Japanese reactor did admirably well compared to the magnitude of the disaster which struck it and this should not be forgotten. Rational people who want to combat climate change have to look at this in perspective. That’s the main difference between us and the largely anti-science, ideological Republican lobby in this country. It’s worth reading the post on Cosmic Variance.

“I also agree that there is no evidence that nukes will actually replace energy from fossil fuel”

Nuclear energy would be a solution to the problem of climate change if the people in charge actually thought climate change was a problem. (i.e. a problem more serious than facing down the political opposition to nuclear.)

People will use more energy. If you build only a handful of token nuclear power stations, then it will not reduce the demand for fossil significantly. If you embarked on a programme like France’s at the end of the last century, and built several hundred nuclear power stations a decade, and at the same time stopped building new fossil fuelled stations, then it’s possible to make a difference. You could do, if you wanted to. If it was necessary to save the world, I’m sure you would.

Nobody is saying it would be a trivial undertaking. All we’re saying, with regard to climate change, is that if you really, really insist on switching to an alternative to fossil fuels, then nuclear is at least feasible, unlike the joke alternatives that keep getting pushed.

However, it is quite evident that there is no political will for taking serious steps to deal with the climate change ‘problem’, and never has been, so the question is hypothetical. Nobody has any intention of doing anything practical about it. We will keep on using fossil sources, the excuses and greenwash will keep on getting weaker and weaker, until everyone forgets there was ever supposed to be a problem. Life will go on. And eventually, when technology moves on enough, we’ll switch to something else (maybe nuclear, maybe solar, probably something less easily imaginable) naturally and without pressure.

No. To solve the problem of climate change you have to stop burning fossil fuels. You can argue that nuclear power could become an alternative to fossil fuels, but nuclear power is not, in and of itself, a solution to the problem. I haven’t seen any evidence that the political push to build more nuclear power plants is anything more than an attempt to get more power onto the grid.

There is no evidence that the current disaster is close to Chernobyl.

The odds that today’s disaster will end up close to Chernobyl is closer to 1-in-10 than it is to 1 in a million. And this is in a country that has a high level of capability to deal with the problem, where the reactors were apparently well designed and run. Now imagine if the same thing were happening in a developing country like Iran, or in a war-zone like Libya, or in an environment where the lifetime of a nuclear plant is extended from 30 years to 50 years, etc. etc. etc.

-Your “one in a million” estimate seems to be off by a few orders of magnitude.

Uhh…no. There is no evidence that the current disaster is close to Chernobyl. And even if it were, it represents the second serious accident among hundreds of worldwide nuclear reactors operating through the last fifty years. Even with the current accident the record is first-rate by any standards. The confluence has certainly not happened “all the time”. I would point you to an excellent post by veteran Oak Ridge engineer Charles Barton which puts the situation in perspective.

That’s what most politicians say about climate change. You seem to think that nuclear energy is a solution to the problem of climate change, but I haven’t seen any evidence that building more power plants will result in anything other than people using more energy. We’re still on track to burn up all the oil and coal we can get our hands on.

We aren’t being offered a choice between dealing with the consequences of nuclear waste or climate change. What you are demanding would simply give us both.

However their confluence is quite unlikely.

Their confluence happens all the time. In fact it’s happening right now. Your “one in a million” estimate seems to be off by a few orders of magnitude.

It was human error, neglect, bureaucracy and faulty design all combined together.

Indeed it was. And when we can finally solve these problems, nuclear power will be safe… I wouldn’t hold your breath though.

there’s hysteria and irrational conclusions in other places, such as the NYT comments section.

It’s not just the NY Times comments section.

Hardly.

There are also irrational (and just plain idiotic) comments coming from folks who should certainly know better.

Like the supposed “nuclear expert” at MIT — Joseph Oehmen (whose specialty is NOT nuclear engineering or nuclear physics) — whose “letter” has been spreading like wildfire in the media and on the web: “You can stop worrying about a radiation disaster in Japan–Here’s why…”

there was and will *not* be any significant release of radioactivity from the damaged Japanese reactors.

By “significant” I mean a level of radiation of more than what you would receive on – say – a long distance flight, or drinking a glass of beer that comes from certain areas with high levels of natural background.

Whatever else may be true, that statement has already been proved wrong by the facts on the ground.

Despite that, Oehmen is STILL being quoted all over the place as a some sort of “nuclear expert” when in fact, he’s nothing of the sort. That is eminently clear from his above statement about the beer, which was just dumb. Only an idiot and/or fool would say such a thing — especially at such an early stage of the crisis with extremely limited information about what was actually happening at the reactors .

Has Oehmen admitted he was wrong? (wrong on his prediction and wrong to make such an irresponsible statement to begin with)

Not that I am aware. In fact, it appears that the Nuclear Engineering Department at MIT has actually set up a web site to allow him to further “explain” the situation to all the rest of us who aren’t smart enough to appreciate that multiple reactor cores (and spent fuel rods stored in pools outside the reactor containment structure ) that have suffered a total cooling system failure essentially present no more radiation risk than flying on a plane or drinking a glass of beer.

PS. For what it’s worth, I actually think its fairly pointless to “debate” the situation at the reactors at this stage because it’s STILL really hard to know what is actually happening — probably even for those on the site (and the vast majority of the banter on the web amounts to little more than vacuous speculation). But based on what little information has come out from the Japanese government about radiation releases so far, I know one thing for sure: Oehmen was wrong. Demonstrably so.