Sunday, March 27, 2011

COUNTERPOINT - "Let's be reasonable"

It is not always easy to state the obvious. There are many good reasons lesquellesla nuclear disaster in Japan should not distract the world from nuclear energy, and one bad reason to do it. When a nuclear power plant exploded on live television, all the industry's commitments on security and economic logic, not to mention all the arguments for the need to build plants to slow climate change, shattered in a terrifying cloud of particles of cesium.

It took three decades to overcome the emotion aroused by the accident at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. It will take much to forget the calamity that represents Fukushima Daiichi. Chris Hune, the British energy minister, a supporter of nuclear power, vainly urged us not to panic. The United Kingdom does not suffer a huge earthquake, "he recalled.

A survey will be conducted. Lessons will be learned. It still did not dare say that, perhaps, this does not lead to a nuclear disaster. If the disaster had occurred in any state in arrears of the former Soviet Union, could have explained that this is the kind of thing happens in countries that have not implemented adequate safety standards.

But this is Japan, a country of high technology imbued with a culture of precaution, a country that had prepared better for this type of event. This accident could not prove anything, but all serve the same time, generating illogical fear he will never be possible to control the nuclear genie.

It is we who have everything to lose. Without an increased number of nuclear plants, the United Kingdom has no chance to get rid of fossil fuels, unless a drastic reduction in consumption that no democratic state will be able to impose. Climate change should take precedence over the distant prospect of a nuclear calamity.

Engineers do not say nonsense, either when they say the new generation plants are less risky. Most of the waste and all serious accidents including this one have been the result of an old design sites. But more than any other nuclear power needs the confidence of the public. If the situation in Fukushima Daiichi appears worse than it currently seems, the West will stop building new nuclear plants.

If the problem is limited, we will be able to move forward at the cost of aid for an industry whose business logic is already heavily tempered by high security costs. Anyway, this accident may end the debate. Anyway, the planet will be affected.

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