I have just watched the documentary by Sir David Attenborough on climate change that was recently broadcast by the BBC.
During the programme it was mentioned that nuclear power was a renewable source of energy that does not release greenhouse when it is being produced.
So if the UK and other countries had used more nuclear power then perhaps climate change would not be as bad as it is now.
Now what have all the liberal lefties been protesting against for most of the last fifty years?
You couldn't make it up.
As I have said previously, part of the issue is events like Three Mile Island, Windscale fire, Chernobyl, Fukushima Daiichi make nuclear look unsafe when they not only couldn't happen here (now at least), and couldn't happen in most of Europe at least, they are insignificant when you compare it against the sheer volume of nuclear power actually used, France being the largest user and having very few issues.
Anti-nuclear campaigners still play on this supposed danger (probably because it's an easy target and good for publicity
) and try to get nuclear projects stopped and yet seem to be fine with fields and fields of ugly solar panels or wind turbines.
Plus the electricity generated by nuclear plants is quite expensive when compared to using fossil fuels so is another negative.
As for the reason for these accidents (in abridged/simplified form):
Windscale, this was a combination of government pressure to make plutonium, not fully understanding how nuclear reactors (of this type at least) work and using air as the coolant source for the nuclear pile, meaning that nuclear fission particles can easily find their way up the chimney and out. Now there were filters but they were added near the end of the building process (nicknamed Crookcrofts folly's) and so didn't work as well as they could have done (but prevent a much bigger catastrophe). Combine that with a fire in the pile (caused by "overheating" the pile to try to release Wigner energy) and you have quite the problem.
No new reactors would ever be permitted to be of this design so a similar accident happening again is impossible, the later Calder Hall PiPPA (and the later MAGNOX design) reactors being gas cooled.
Three Mile Island, This was a mixture valve failure after a valve stuck open letting water into an air line which shut down the reactor, operator failure (closing off secondary feedwater valves yet still operating the reactor, which is against NPR rules). Combine that with insufficient operator training and bad control room design (an indicator that relied on whether a solenoid was energised or not to detect position, not using a switch to confirm actual position so if the valve got stuck the position could be (and was) incorrectly displayed, delaying fault finding efforts).
All these conspired to create a loss of cooling accident and a partial meltdown, simply adhering to the rules and designing control/monitoring systems that were designed properly would have more than likely stopped the accident from occurring.
Chernobyl, Again this was a mix of operator error (primarily due to not knowing the faults with the design) and running tests at well below the recommended power levels, combine that with the fact that when the control rods are fully inserted (during a SCRAM or emergency shutdown) the power can initially increase not decrease. This caused a uncontrollable reactor conditions, a steam explosion and graphite fire, releasing fission products in to the atmosphere.
This again is something that could not technically happen in Britain as our rectors are much better designed, and don't exhibit the same positive temperature coefficient when inserting control rods during a SCRAM.
Fukushima, this was primarily down to the incorrect placement of backup diesel generators which meant that if there was an earthquake and a subsequent tsunami the generators could become waterlogged and fail to operate. Combine that with a reactor shutdown and subsequent loss of grid power you then have no way of actively cooling the waste (decay) heat apart from flodding the reactor with seawater (which was delayed due to the fact that is would damage the reactors permanently), this caused over heating and subsequent meltdown of some/most of the reactors. This issue was then intensified by water in the reactor reacting with the zircalloy fuel cladding creating hydrogen gas, this gas subsequently exploded causing more damage.
Again proper design would have removed this issue, plus we don't generally have massive earthquakes in Britain, so the tsunami issue is moot.
Oh, and i could be seen as a liberal that is on the left but I am fine with nuclear power, I say get on building.