Missouri doesn't need another nuclear plant... (Oran: earthquakes, to live in, prices)

[World Citizen]

Originally Posted by RichMonk

I'm not going to try to educate you. Look up secondary decay products. If you walk through said "cloud" you'd get as much exposure as walking outside for 5 minutes on a hot August afternoon.

As a cancer survivor, I'm concerned about your idea of "safe levels of radiation".

You're talking to someone who had cancer in their thirties and who suspects that it may have been caused by Agent Orange which was considered safe and sprayed on trees to get rid of a bird population in the City Park which was across the street from my house when I was a child....

(fyi, no one else in my family has a history of any kind of cancer) --

We now know that radiation from the sun causes skin cancer and that even safe dental xrays can cause thyroid cancer. We've seen what happens to people who live in towns all over our country who've been left with various kinds of industrial contamination -- that is poisioning their environment.

I also support the smoking bans that you're against since I literally can't breathe around second hand smoke.

You and I will just have to agree to disagree.

[RichMonk]

If you really want to cut cancer risks out of this world you will have to do a whole lot more than remove second hand smoke and nuclear power generation. You will also need to stop manufacturing, medical science, flight, the Sun, the Earth's core, oxygen, volcanoes, automobiles, trains, trucks, buildings, concrete, agriculture, eating bananas and much much more.

My point is that for a person who is not an expert on health physics or physics you have no grounds on prescribing how the world goes on about its business. There are risks to being alive and even more risks to maintaining society. Cancer is always a possible outcome to being in the environment. It is good to try to limit how much exposure we get but you have to balance that with how much civil society you want.

If people are so scared they need to give up ALL of their modern comforts, move into a cave and subsist on algae that grows on the walls.

[RichMonk]

Originally Posted by World Citizen

As a cancer survivor, I'm concerned about your idea of "safe levels of radiation".

I 100% agree. And the number show that Nuclear produces less radiation exposure, including TMI Chernobyl and now Fukushima, than the amount of radiation exposure and carcinogenic exposure from other power sources.

You want to sensationalize this because you are obviously emotional about it. This is how bad policy is made.

[World Citizen]

Originally Posted by RichMonk

If you really want to cut cancer risks out of this world you will have to do a whole lot more than remove second hand smoke and nuclear power generation. You will also need to stop manufacturing, medical science, flight, the Sun, the Earth's core, oxygen, volcanoes, automobiles, trains, trucks, buildings, concrete, agriculture, eating bananas and much much more.

My point is that for a person who is not an expert on health physics or physics you have no grounds on prescribing how the world goes on about its business. There are risks to being alive and even more risks to maintaining society. Cancer is always a possible outcome to being in the environment. It is good to try to limit how much exposure we get but you have to balance that with how much civil society you want.

If people are so scared they need to give up ALL of their modern comforts, move into a cave and subsist on algae that grows on the walls.

Interesting post.

It's always amazing to me how you people think. There is no middle ground of rationality. It's got to be either one extreme way or the other.

Your response reminds me of Plato's "Allegory of the Cave".

It seems to me that it's actually you who are the "cave dweller"....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave

[RichMonk]

Originally Posted by World Citizen

Interesting post. It's always amazing to me how you people think. There is no middle ground of rationality. It's got to be either one extreme way or the other.

Your response reminds me of Plato's "Allegory of the Cave".

It seems to me that it's actually you that are a "cave dweller".

Excuse me. Can you read? I am the one in the middle ground. You are the one taking an extreme. I've reiterated several times that Nuclear is not the answer and nor is anything else. It is safer than most other things and I am talking about a balanced approach.

If you want to attack me personally, "we're done, professionally". BLOCK

[aragx6]

Gotta love the Christian Bale reference!

[World Citizen]

Originally Posted by RichMonk

Excuse me. Can you read? I am the one in the middle ground. You are the one taking an extreme. I've reiterated several times that Nuclear is not the answer and nor is anything else. It is safer than most other things and I am talking about a balanced approach.

If you want to attack me personally, "we're done, professionally". BLOCK

Sorry, Batman.

My post was not meant as an attack.

It seems that you won't allow me to respond logically to your post that said that "we should all go live in caves and live off algae" without getting emotional.

Apparently you don't like Plato...

WC out

[RichMonk]

Originally Posted by World Citizen

Sorry, Batman. No attack here.

It seems that I'm unable to respond logically to your post that said that "we should all go live in caves and live off algae."

Apparently you don't like Plato...

Sad you can't do that. I merely took your approach to radiation exposure to its logical conclusion. Zero exposure is impossible, even in the most remote parts of the Universe.

A safe level is possible. Today, we are well above that level and it is not due to nuclear power. Most of our unnatural exposure (other than sunlight and natural decay in the Earth's crust) comes from our food and the things we produce to have a modern way of life. It is a trade off but the trading should start with things that are actually harmful like petrol based fertilizers and coal ash storage on top of important water tables. That is all.

[linicx]

RichMonk,

I don't necessarily disagree, but I will one to the mix that also unhealthy but is rarely discussed. Mold spores.

[World Citizen]

The title of this thread was "Missouri doesn't need another nuclear plant".

This thread was not born from fear, neither is it a "knee jerk reaction" to what's happening in Japan.

However, we're being reminded daily how radioactivity goes into the water supply, how it gets into the food chain... we are hearing about the serious consequences of exposure to the people living in Japan. Radioactivity from Japan has already travelled in a cloud across the ocean to our country. Obviously, there are serious consequences to producing nuclear energy when something goes wrong. Even when "all is well" with nuclear power plants, they produce dangerous radioactive by-products that must be "safely stored"... forever.

If what Japan is going through right now is not enough to cause rational people to wake up and smell the coffee -- then they really are like the people in the cave that Plato talked about.

I don't disagree that the other issues that have been brought into this discussion are important to our environment and should be addressed, but these issues are not mutually exclusive.

The fact that "other things in our society cause radiation", "can cause cancer" and "zero exposure is impossible" are not reasons for us to continue building nuclear power plants. Neither is the "creation of jobs".

MU just hosted another renewable energy conference in Columbia. These businesses also bring jobs to Missouri.