Quote Originally Posted by ThisYouWillDo View Post
I find it hard to accept that nuclear energy is good for the environment when you look at what happened at Three Mile Island, or at Chernobyl, where, over 20 years later, there's still an exclusion zone of hundreds of square kilometres where wildlife is still being damaged by the effects of contamination, and is apparently spreading up the food chain. Animals are being poached within the zone and consumed by humans.

When you consider how many countries there are now using nuclear power and the others which are contemplating it, and you compare their safety standards with those of USA and Russia, which are both demonstrably capable of failure, one wonders where and when the next "Chernobyl" will be and how much damage it will cause. What can go wrong inevitably will go wrong, and Chernobyl ain't as bad as it can get.
Chernobyl was a major disaster, no question, and it was pretty close to as bad as it can get. Not really surprising when you consider that it was engineered by the Soviet Union, a system not noted for its concern for the people.

But 3 Mile Island, while scary, was NOT a disaster. The system worked there, the leakage was absolutely minimal and the safeties stopped any real problems. I read somewhere once that the exposure received by those who worked at the facility and those who lived nearby, was actually less than the average normal exposure that citizens of Denver receive from solar radiation. Yes, it could have been worse, and mistakes were made. But it was far from cataclysmic.