Tom, You seem to be bubbling with anti-nuclear propaganda.

And yet again Charles you demonstrate your tendency to insult those with whom you disagree. And this time, not content to insult me (again), you decide to take on British Technology in its entirety. There was lots of British technology in Three Mile Island, was there? Or in Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor which is currently leaking tritium like a sieve – a sieve with some very large holes in it?

even if the Irish sea was “the most radioactive sea in the world” you could still safely swim there and eat the fish that lived there

Unfortunately Rod, the cancer clusters in Dundalk and the surrounds would disagree with you.

And as you mention lakes and streams downstream of coal-fired power plants – no argument with you there, however, the lakes and streams downstream of uranium mines are often incredibly radioactive – 5400 x normal levels in this Australian example http://www.minesandcommunities.org//article.php?a=9914

Both coal and nuclear are dirty and dangerous and have no place in our safe energy future.

The projected time lines for small nuclear plants could be accelerated with some amount of effort. There was a time when the US government funded a small reactor project aimed at designed, manufacturing and installing a heat and power generation machine under the ice at Camp Century, Greenland. http://www.thuleforum.com/alconotebook.htm

From the time that it was funded until the time that it was operating in that remote location and keeping people alive in a very harsh climate was just 18 months. Back then, engineers worked on paper and used slide rules.

Do we really believe that technology would not allow at least equal performance today? We need to change the stupid, human imposed rules that ensure continued prosperity for the coal, oil and gas companies and move forward with energy innovation that offers as much room for improvement as the transistor did in electronics and microprocessor compared to vacuum tubes.

They both emit massive amounts of CO2 and radiation (just at different stages in the process).

Coal does further emit arsenic, mercury, selenium and other not so pleasant toxins, to be sure but then I am from Ireland and I well remember when the Irish Sea was the most radioactive sea in the world as a result of emissions from the UK’s Sellafield Nuclear Power plant.

I don’t think you should be framing it as a choice between coal and nuclear – both are poor choices.

But let’s consider the safety comparison between nuclear and coal–I’m no safety expert but my vote goes to nuclear.

If anyone tells you they know what building a new nuclear power plant is going to cost, be skeptical.

Sure, and if anyone tells you nuclear is going to be safe, be sceptical too!