[LivingDedMan]

I've been thinking lately about being prepared for a disaster of some sort in the future. How to get food, water, shelter and other things necessary if the sh*t ever does hit the fan. Then I saw a tv show about nuclear meltdowns and how they contaminate thousands of square miles. With all the nuclear sites and storage of spent fuel sites all over north America is there really any hope to survive if there's a major disaster and there's no way to stop all these meltdowns? Pretty much everywhere you are will be affected by radioactivity.


Is there any hope at all with all these nuclear sites that will go hot in a doomsday scenario?

 

[roy]

Think about all the folks who have died in nuclear accidents in the last 65 or so years. Got to be a couple of dozen at least.

 

[Ripon]

Now compare it to those who died producing oil, those who died building damns for electricity, those who died preparing natural gas for our energy supply and let me know again just how bad nuclear is?

Oh and while your at it please compare the coal mining costs, the related diseases that has caused, and add it up to a chart compared to nuclear.

Think about all the folks who have died in nuclear accidents in the last 65 or so years. Got to be a couple of dozen at least.

 

[BigCheeseStick]

Hope it doesn't happen!

US reactors.
View attachment 2590

 

[roy]

Now compare it to those who died producing oil, those who died building damns for electricity, those who died preparing natural gas for our energy supply and let me know again just how bad nuclear is?

Oh and while your at it please compare the coal mining costs, the related diseases that has caused, and add it up to a chart compared to nuclear.

'Xactly the point I was tryin' to make. As of 2008, the death toll from Chernobyl was 64.

 

[BigCheeseStick]

Uuuummmmm, they still have mutated children being born all the time MANY MANY miles from Chernobyl... If a coal mine collapses, dam bursts, windmill flops over, there aren't thousands of retarded mutant children born decades later. :/
http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/25/world/iyw-chernobyl-children

 

[Ripon]

While true burning coal has probably far exceeded the damages caused by nukes. Sadly America has been brainwashed to think its too dangerous. Can't put a package under a city where it'd be safe but we can putine on an aircraft carrier destined for a war zone.

Uuuummmmm, they still have mutated children being born all the time MANY MANY miles from Chernobyl... If a coal mine collapses, dam bursts, windmill flops over, there aren't thousands of retarded mutant children born decades later. :/
26 years on: helping Chernobyl's children - CNN.com

 

[split]

People are overly afraid of radiation. People are afraid of what they don't understand.
The Fukushima incident is a perfect example. Do you know that since the 40's the US has detonated 300 Nuclear weapons above ground. We blew the hell out of the south pacific. We even detonated nukes 500 miles off the coast of San Diego. The Russians did their share as well. Where are all the victims of all that radiation? The fact is the world is a big damn place and it can absorb a lot. If you take a drop of cyanide and put it in a pool, you can drink the pool water with no issues, because it becomes so diluted. Such is the case with radiation. Fundamentally you simply don't want to be near the origin where its concentrated.

 

[LivingDedMan]

Now compare it to those who died producing oil, those who died building damns for electricity, those who died preparing natural gas for our energy supply and let me know again just how bad nuclear is?

Oh and while your at it please compare the coal mining costs, the related diseases that has caused, and add it up to a chart compared to nuclear.

Maybe right now nuclear can be considered safe enough, but I'm talking about when something happens and there is no one manning these nuclear sites. If they all melted down I'm worried that pretty much everywhere will be radioactive and we won't be able to grow food.

Of course this would be a worse case scenario, but it is very scary.

 

[LivingDedMan]

People are overly afraid of radiation. People are afraid of what they don't understand.
The Fukushima incident is a perfect example. Do you know that since the 40's the US has detonated 300 Nuclear weapons above ground. We blew the hell out of the south pacific. We even detonated nukes 500 miles off the coast of San Diego. The Russians did their share as well. Where are all the victims of all that radiation? The fact is the world is a big damn place and it can absorb a lot. If you take a drop of cyanide and put it in a pool, you can drink the pool water with no issues, because it becomes so diluted. Such is the case with radiation. Fundamentally you simply don't want to be near the origin where its concentrated.

The show I watched was called Aftermath. One part said that Chernobyl contaminated 126,000 square miles. If that happens to all nuclear sites in North America it sounds to me like we're all screwed regardless of how prepped we are.

 

[Leon]

People are overly afraid of radiation. People are afraid of what they don't understand.
The Fukushima incident is a perfect example. Do you know that since the 40's the US has detonated 300 Nuclear weapons above ground. We blew the hell out of the south pacific. We even detonated nukes 500 miles off the coast of San Diego. The Russians did their share as well. Where are all the victims of all that radiation? The fact is the world is a big damn place and it can absorb a lot. If you take a drop of cyanide and put it in a pool, you can drink the pool water with no issues, because it becomes so diluted. Such is the case with radiation. Fundamentally you simply don't want to be near the origin where its concentrated.

split is right. People hark on Fukushima not realizing you are taking more background radiation every day from your smartphone and are your ears falling off? The fellow who literally put the fire at Chernobyl out with a fire hose (exposing himself to 'lethal' levels of radiation) LIVED and went on to reach old age. Sure he vomited uncontrollably for awhile and lost control of several bodily functions for a time but he lived. Just like EMP there is a Hollywood-born mass perception of things people have seen in science fiction. This is not real. I know, I am a sci-fi writer and NOTHING in writing is unintentional. There is a very intentional dialogue there and it should be questioned. Global warming? We just had a cold summer in the arctic and it extended the ice cap about 6,000 miles. Tell me again how fearing what you don't understand is healthy? To have power over a thing one must KNOW that thing. I see a LOT of unfounded fear.