has saved 1.8 million lives over the last 40 years and will save 7 million in the next 40

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2013/04/03/nuclear-power-has-saved-millions-of-lives-report-says/#.UVyOwpBwbqA

NASA have a lot of skin in the game for endorsing nuclear power.
I’m not saying they’re wrong. But we should question their motives for making statements like this.

Personally I think fusion is the way forwards. Nuclear is a dirty word right now and NASA are warming up the marketing machine to change that so they can introduce their very interesting and potentially world saving plans for fusion reactors.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/149090-nasas-cold-fusion-tech-could-put-a-nuclear-reactor-in-every-home-car-and-plane

Exciting stuff.

NASA unfortunately also haver previous in researching the answer the American government want to push. Not saying that this is the case this time, but I am always sceptical of anything they publish that could have a spin for Government policy.

TBH I listen to what NASA say, they’re one of the few publicly funded American organizations that are right about whatever topic/research area they decide to have a nosey around. They make a nice change from all the governmental organizations associated mostly with defense.

Brilliant organization.

Makes sense. Nuclear > fossil. Wouldn’t want to live near either though.

They are understating their case. Coal mining is dangerous, killing something like 6 miners per week. (see the photo thread for memorials of some disasters)

Did anyone die at Fukushima?

Did anyone die at Fukushima?

1 person died on a nuclear site in Japan during the Tsunami, he was in a crane which fell over.

TBH I listen to what NASA say, they’re one of the few publicly funded American organizations that are right about whatever topic/research area they decide to have a nosey around.

Well, apart from discovering ‘alien’ life on earth…

http://news.nationalgeographic.com.au/news/2012/07/120709-arsenic-space-nasa-science-felisa-wolfe-simon/

I wouldn’t entirely discount the arsenic theory Zokes, Wolfe-Simon knows her stuff…she’s seems to think she can still prove it…I’m going to wait and see what she produces…..besides the research she did led to an interesting discovery even if her own theory is on the wayside at the moment.

I think the bigger problem wasn’t the discovery, it’s how over-spun the conclusions were compared to what was proven by her data. Im well aware of how ‘sexy’ a story has to be to make it into the tabloids of science and nature. It would probably still have succeeded if she’d been a little more circumspect in her conclusions.

And it’s NASAs interpretation of data that’s pertinent to the OP

TBH I listen to what NASA say, they’re one of the few publicly funded American organizations that are right about whatever topic/research area they decide to have a nosey around.

Not too sure I’d trust their views on O rings though.

The historical data on deaths per TW of power produced via different methods is readily available.

All Hansen et al have done is forecast ahead and combine the two sets of data to make the conclusions they have. Considering how pro-climate change Hansen is, and his activities which have upset the US Government over the years, I don’t think you can accuse him of pushing the US governments agenda to heavily.

Fundamentally, people are scared of nuclear power, and the long term issues of waste management. Mostly because they don’t understand, and the press likes to cause panic.

A cleaner nuclear method in the form of Thorium reactors would help alleviate a lot of the future waste issues, it still needs research conducting to make commercial and environmental sense, but the technology isn’t that far off compared to that of fusion power, and could act as a stop gap until fusion power is viable.