Shock! Glenn Beck is a moron and always will be, news at 9:00. Chernobyl was awful,the loss of life was truly tragic and it is absurd and unconscionable for Glenn Beck to downplay its significance. But then again, he's a professional idiot so what did we expect?

Glenn Beck's typical idiocy notwithstanding, this thing is nowhere near as bad as Chernobyl and won't be. My girlfriend went to Chernobyl a mere twelve years after the disaster, and described to me first-hand the desolation and devastation left behind, and showed me truly haunting photos of the abandoned schools and playgrounds. [Here are some 360 panos someone else made: http://www.360cities.net/search/]

But Fukushima is no Chernobyl. The scale of the disaster is incomparable -- comparing Fukushima to Chernobyl is akin to comparing Columbine to the Holocaust. They're both bad, but worlds apart in the severity. Far be it from me to prevent people from panicking, but this helpful graphic may add a bit of context to your interpretations of the disaster. It contains several citations, of course, because it is never wise to rely fully upon secondary sources.

As I said before, I give a considerable portion of my meager paycheck to GreenPeace and similar organizations, so I don't doubt that their hearts are in the right place. Having said that, I think their positions on energy are unrealistic and unlikely to result in any positive improvement in the short or long term. At this juncture, the best-case configuration of solar and wind energy can cover at most 30% of our nation's power consumption, the remainder will be offset by either coal power or atomic energy. The issue right now is the optimal centers of wind power production are so far removed from major population centers that even low-impedance transmission lines can carry a laughably small amount of energy from places like Montana, Wyoming and Colorado to cities like New York and Los Angeles. So all of these 1.5Mw GE turbines being set up in the west barely make a dent. And what about the nuclear energy everyone loves, solar power? Panels that don't have a HORRIBLY low photovoltaic performance rating (under 40%) are too expensive, take up too much space, and require the use of tons of environmentally unfriendly ingredients and create horribly toxic byproducts.

Let's say we do exceed the estimated "best-case scenario" by around 15%, though, and are able to offset 45% of our nations power usage. Short of strict power rationing -- which is actually a good idea -- the remainder will come from somewhere. At this point, the two options are greenhouse-gas [and radiation!] emitting traditional coal power plants, and the undeniably safer -- while imperfect -- nuclear plants. So by all means, jump on the "OMG ATOMZ!!!"  bandwagon, but that's really not doing any favors for health or the environment.

Disclaimer: I WANT green power. Really. World governments should be pouring TONS and TONS of money into the development of high-efficiency green power sources, and we're not. I'm confident that, if we did this for 15 or 20 years, we'd have a solution that would render the need for coal OR nuclear power obsolete. We're just not at that point yet.

Last Edited By: SamhainRising Mar 21 11 3:10 PM. Edited 2 times.