Many people dislike nuclear energy because of its potential for dramatic harm. However most of these are overblown and based on false and outdated information influenced more by B movies from the 1950s than empirical evidence. Modern nuclear plants wouldn’t blow up if a plane crashed into them. (Al Qaeda considered and scratched that plan). Plutonium isn’t a green goo transported in leaky drums that gives turtles superpowers. The trucks used to transport it are designed not to spill even if flipped in a serious driving accident. Modern nuclear plants have redundant levels of safety features and won’t explode if Homer Simpson messes up. People living within 10 miles receive less radiation in a year from nuclear plants than they would from a single x-ray. If someone managed to break through security and stole big, heavy, hard to transport, radioactive plutonium rod, they would need extreme specialized scientific understanding and it would take months to a year to make the plutonium into a bomb. The biggest drawback i see is that the USA currently has no long term nuclear waste disposal plan to keep it from causing harm before it finally ceases to emit radiation in 500,000 years.
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