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posted by
cmn32480
on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:07PM
from the interesting-but-not-surprising dept.
from the interesting-but-not-surprising dept.
Three of the four major candidates for United States president have responded to America's Top 20 Presidential Science, Engineering, Technology, Health and Environmental Questions. The nonprofit advocacy group ScienceDebate.org has posted their responses online. Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and Jill Stein had all responded as of press time, and the group was awaiting responses from Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson.
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U.S. Presidential Candidates Answer ScienceDebate 2016 Questions
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(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:47PM
The problem is, everywhere we've looked carefully, whether the nuclear reactors are being run by a government or by a private company, unsafe procedures and shortcuts are taken. The design of the reactors could be improved, but that's not the basic problem The problem is the stuff is long-term dangerous, so it needs to be handled properly, but people aren't designed to properly evaluate long term risks. (They don't even do that well on short term risks, consider the popularity of betting on horse races or slot machines.)
With nuclear reactors, many "short cuts" will be safe 99 times out of 100, but the cost of it being unsafe is such that taking that short cut is an extremely unwise decision. However much of the cost of failure is not borne by those operating the plant, but is instead borne by the populace living around it. Or down stream from it, if it's on a river. So while it's true that even for those operating the plant the short cut is a bad decision, it's doesn't appear nearly as bad to them as it actually is.
If the plants were properly operated, and waste disposed of correctly (i.e. safely), then nuclear plants would be a good idea. As things are, however, it's usually a bad idea. (There are circumstances where they provide advantages that nothing else will match, and in some of those cases even their real costs [including appropriately discounted risks as a part of the costs] don't raise the cost to where they should not be used.)
OTOH, even under current operating conditions nuclear power is probably safer than coal.
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(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday September 15 2016, @12:56AM
Under current operating conditions it's *certainly* safer than coal. It may even be safer than solar:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html [nextbigfuture.com]