The present nuclear crisis at Fukushima is of course igniting debate about nuclear power. Predictably, there are the usual hysterical voices, mostly anti-nuclear. To make up one’s mind on this issue, one needs some facts, not hyperventilating emotion. You could do worse than start here:
Richard Rhodes one of the foremost experts on nuclear weapons, wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the effects of atom bomb and nuclear weapons, now in its fourth volume. He notes a curious effect of this re-evaluation of nuclear power:All Energy Disasters Lead to Coal, Which Is an Energy DisasterSimply looking at the loss of human life day to day, coal and oil are a disaster.As per this Swedish report on the health effects of power generation. When tallied as deaths per tera watts per hour deaths/TWh coal and oil dominate while nuclear is minimal:
