Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcs!mnetor!lsuc!watmath!clyde!caip!meccts!mvs From: mvs@meccts.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics,net.sci Subject: Re: Nuclear power vs Coal vs Alternatives Message-ID: <442@meccts.UUCP> Date: Wed, 9-Jul-86 21:53:18 EDT Article-I.D.: meccts.442 Posted: Wed Jul 9 21:53:18 1986 Date-Received: Thu, 10-Jul-86 21:16:36 EDT References: <628@bu-cs.UUCP> <1943@ihlpg.UUCP> <796@whuts.UUCP> <1557@ames.UUCP> Reply-To: mvs@meccts.UUCP (Michael V. Stein) Organization: MECC Technical Services Lines: 35 Xref: utcs junk:1095 net.sci:1203 In article <1557@ames.UUCP> eugene@ames.UUCP (Eugene Miya) writes: >> Actually, the pure costs (non-legal) of nukes has actually gone down, >> even before inflation, but the legal costs have gone up exponentially. > > No, the non-legal costs have gone up. But it also > gets harder to separate: e.g., are clean-up mops considered legal > cost? One article I read said it took about 5 years on the average to build a nuclear power plant in Japan. This is in a country which is much more earthquake prone then the US. In the US it takes somewhere like 15 years to build a nuclear power plant. It is the legal costs that have destroyed nuclear power in this country. Fortunately that hasn't happened in to many other countries. (Or they, like us, would be using more dangerous methods of producing power.) > No, but coal fired plants don't have fission products > like Ba, Sr, Cs, etc. when they blow up. And they do blow up. Name one nuclear power plant that has *ever* blown up. A nuclear power plant can never come close to ever getting a critical mass. A chemcial explosion followed by a fire is not blowing up. If you want to show that nuclear power is too dangerous, then simply show a power source that can produce the same amount of power with a lower cost in human life. Remember that coal emmissions kill an estimated 10-50 thousand people a year and that radon gas (which collects in tightly insulated homes) is suspected to cause up to 10 thousand cancers a year. -- Michael V. Stein Minnesota Educational Computing Corporation - Technical Services UUCP ihnp4!dicome!meccts!mvs