Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ubc-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsri!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!morrison From: morrison@ubc-cs.UUCP (Rick Morrison) Newsgroups: can.politics Subject: The Safest Way Message-ID: <4@ubc-cs.UUCP> Date: Mon, 16-Sep-85 15:06:47 EDT Article-I.D.: ubc-cs.4 Posted: Mon Sep 16 15:06:47 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 16-Sep-85 19:42:39 EDT References: <1386@utcsri.UUCP> <5952@utzoo.UUCP> <820@water.UUCP> <793@lsuc.UUCP> <5960@utzoo.UUCP> Reply-To: morrison@ubc-cs.UUCP (Rick Morrison) Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada Lines: 43 Summary: BEGIN tirade { In article <5960@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes: > >At risk of opening an inappropriate debate, ... and if it is like similar debates in the past it will be rife with such gems of intellectual honesty as: >I feel compelled to point out that even commercial nuclear power plants >are the safest way of generating large amounts of power yet devised. And the Blue Jays are the best team in baseball (really, they are!). It never ceases to amaze me how certain groups manage to reconcile the view that, for example, acid rain deserves more study because it "really isn't well enough understood," yet dismiss out of hand concerns of environmentalists over the effects of continuing low-level exposure to radioctive material in the air we breath or the foods we eat. >All power-generation methods kill, by industrial accidents if >nothing else, and the deaths/gigawatt-hour value >is consistently lower for nuclear plants than for anything else. Right. And more people have died in Edward Kennedy's car than have ever died as a result of nuclear power. What exactly is this wonderful bit of bafflegab supposed to mean? Is "deaths/gigawatt-hour" during construction, operation, ...? We have difficulty enough in even making the connection between such environmental debacles as the Love Canal and the health problems observed in local populations. Nuclear power plants *can* be expected to leak. We *do not*, at present, have feasible means for long term storage of waste. To spout platitudes about the safety of nuclear power versus other methods of generation in the name of scientific objectivity is intellectual sleaze in the extreme. } END tirade