You would think our pilau-ticians would’ve learned from the problems Bye-den created trying to move towards renewable energy without having a solid replacement ready to go. It still baffles me why there’s such a big push for renewable energy, when we should be moving towards nuclear. The cost/benefit for building, energy creation, energy storage, and physical footprint makes nuclear the hands-down most cost-effective source of energy for Hawaii.
Part of the fear of nuclear energy is that Hawaii is an island chain that's formed from volcanoes, making us more unstable geologically than many other places. An earthquake/tsunami like in Japan in 2011 could be just as bad, if not worse. The natural disaster takes a certain toll on lives and property, but then you have to compound that with the potential death, sickness and destruction of a nuclear disaster, too.
We know the government is inept at everything except feeding itself to become bigger -- ever increasing in size and expense. The nuclear disaster of Fukushima was ruled in the aftermath to have been caused by the operating company, TOPECO, failing to meet basic safety standards which could have prevented the disaster. The natural disasters created the situation, but the plant should have been able to survive those events.
At a meeting in Vienna three months after the disaster, the International
Atomic Energy Agency faulted lax oversight by the Ministry of Economy, Trade
and Industry, saying the ministry faced an inherent conflict of interest as the
government agency in charge of both regulating and promoting the nuclear
power industry.[24] On 12 October 2012, TEPCO admitted for the first time that
it had failed to take necessary measures for fear of inviting lawsuits or protests
against its nuclear plants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_disasterIt's not whether we can safely build, operate and maintain nuclear plants. We can -- absolutely. There are plants operating all over the world today with a stellar safety record. We have nuclear engines and weapons on Navy vessels, which are far more "unstable" than Hawaii's land masses.
The real question is how much do we really trust government agencies to oversee these operations? We know gov't is reactive. They routinely fail to be out in front of most critical events, like the pandemic. Let's also include terrorists and mass shooters who were on the watch lists of federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies -- some of them for years.
It only takes one screw-up to affect the lives of many thousands, possibly for decades afterward with contaminated land, air and water.
I firmly believe nuclear energy is the answer to the energy problem. What worries me are all the follow-on problems created by the people in charge of making sure we are all safe from that "solution."
Then there's the fear that the nuclear material and waste can be used in WMDs. The more fuel we process and store, the higher the probability that some of it goes "missing."
#ChernobylHappened
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