Fukushima Aftermath/Section One

"A nuclear power plant on top of three major earthquake faults. Blueprints read backwards. Stuck valves on critical failsafe components.

The Diablo plant had a lot of people worried.

Then came Fukushima: 9.0 earthquake. Tragic monster tsunami. Thousands dead. And things went downhill from there."

Source: Fukushima Aftermath/Diablo Nuclear Renaissance or Industry Meltdown?

The tragic developments at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have brought public opinion to the same lows experienced in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island accident. Indeed, the consequences are more severe, and the full impact is yet to be known. Yet new awareness of global warming has already caused many environmentalists to defect from the fold of anti-nuclear advocacy. Thus, everyone is wondering what will indeed be the fate of the nuclear industry.

The nuclear industry inherently requires long range planning for capital formation, licensing and waste disposal. In Collapse of an Industry,: Nuclear Power and the Contradictions of U.S.Policy, John L. Campbell contrasts how regulatory mechanisms in the US and Germany differ from France, which tends to exclude citizen participation in public policy. Sweden, according to Campbell, occupies something of a middle ground, with extensive citizen input in the policy formation phase, unlike the US and Germany wherein citizen input tends to be at the implementation level, or France, where there is virtually no citizen participation.

Wind power not recognized as the solution
Despite hopes that wind power might solve the putative global climate change problem associated with green house gas emissions, expert opinion asserts that, in, for instance, the US, only 10-15 % of electricity generation is reachable by 2020.

Despite widespread enthusiasm for German use of wind power, it has been asserted by authorities such as Professor Burton Richter, Stanford, that the problems of grid stabilization, intermittency, and power storage are insurmountable and that taxpayer subsidies create a misleading appearance of viability unless storage can be scaled in terms of "gigawatt days not megawatt hours".

Others refute this and maintain that wind power can be scaled up with better results than such sceptics are willing to allow.