[Rei-Lin]

Why is this thing still going on? You're all arguing over Nuclear Plants like we have a meltdown every few months or something. Nuclear Plants are just safer in terms of you getting hurt than any other job that deals with heavy lifting or construction. Somebody that works at a nuclear plant for 30 years will have almost a five times lower chance of getting cancer than somebody who has smoked one pack of cigarettes a day. Of course this is if that person works inside the radiologically controlled area (RCA) everyday, which most plant workers do not. Nuclear plants run cleaner and produce less waste than coal plants or natural gas plants, however, the waste they do produce is of course, more dangerous. They have ways to use the waste to power other reactors, and the CANDU reactors in Canada actually use US Nuclear Plants spent fuel rods as their fuel.

Is Radiation dangerous? Of course, if you want to die, go touch a fuel rod in the spent fuel pool, you'd be dead by the time you got to the surface. But unless you're looking to die, the chances of you absorbing enough radiation dose to actually kill you in your lifetime, is less than getting struck by lightning. The NRC also sets strict guidelines on the amount of radiation a worker is ever allowed to absorb, and there's not one plant in the world that I've seen yet that doesn't restrict it by over half as much if not more.

There won't be another TMI or Chernobyl or something like that because the safety features in plants after those accidents have gotten far more sophisticated. The plant almost runs itself and will shut itself down, without human interference, to make sure nothing bad happens. I mean just look at Fukushima itself. It took literally an act of God to even phase that place, and if it wasn't for an obsolete design, we probably wouldn't even be talking about it right now.

In short, radiation is a pain in the ass to deal with, but short of another giant earthquake or a meteor from space landing right on top of the plant, most modern plants(and especially the ones nearing start up next year) are very well protected and safe. I've done the testing of their safety systems for over 6 years now and I've seen some pretty scary shit when it comes to the competence of the everyday plant worker. Believe me, if these plants didn't have almost SkyNET levels of security and protection, we would have all been melted down, irradiated or blown up a LONG time ago.