If you believe the 'Revenge of Gaia' the only way to sustain human life on Earth is nuclear power. Er, but may be better positioned. Don't want to start an immense climate change debate but Lovelock seems to have a reasonable cut to his jib

Hmm...what if said lump on coal was dropping on your head from a great height?

True, a meltdown is scary, but it doesn't necessarily have to kill anyone directly & it could be tricky to prove if it was responsible for any later cancer deaths as there's a 1 in 3 chance of developping a cancer anyway. Whereas the fact is coal mining does lead to approx 5000 deaths per year. Being a miner is not a good career option (esp in China where the unofficial figure could be up to 20 000 deaths per year).

The former Greenpeace leader, Patrick Moore (not that one!), even came round to supporting nuclear power. It shouldn't just be summarily dismissed. & here's a fab fact for your after dinner conversations - there used to be a natural nuclear fission reactor in Africa around 4 or 5 millions years ago at a place called Oklo.

I had a feeling this would happen.
The Green sympathizers ignore the countless numbers killed by fossil fuel electricity generation and seize the sensationalist nuclear-reactor-on-tectonic-boundary news story to play on the public's irrational fears of nuclear power.
Can anyone produce comparative stats of the numbers killed by nuclear accidents such as Chernobyl and 3 Mile Island compared with those killed by coal fired stations?

Can you?

Of course not - at least not off the cuff. But I won't call for the abandonment of a nuclear future based on sensationalist headlines. Unlike what I'm expecting the Greens et al to do shortly.
Within the next few weeks expect to see "Do you want a Japanese Chernobyl in Dubbo?" letters appearing in newspapers around the nation. But don't expect "Thousands killed by lung disease from coal mining and combustion" appearing alongside.

No major effects yet people. Thank God! or thank engineering?
When the plant was built, earthquake would definitely have been one of the hazards considered. All major hazards pretty much around the world would consider this. So thats reasonable. Also such failures are not total. Like it takes many factors to align and fail (swiss cheese model) so it also takes many mitigation controls to fail before we have a major disaster. So far some controls have failed, and some have succeeded. Lets wait and see whether we have a incident or not and lets hope not.
There is one good reason why nuclear power is not the answer - its just too damn expensive when adding in all the controls required to make the risk tolerable.

I think the expense argument is valid and needs rigorous debate.
The safety argument is spurious, superficial and sensationalist..

But in the real world, where nuclear exists, vital.

What about indirect deaths from cancer?

Jeeze.

At last. Someone else who has spotted that nuclear power isn't as cheap as advertised.

My Daily Mail headline generator would manage that one easily!

http://www.qwghlm.co.uk/toys/dailymail/

As for clean. People are still dying from Chernobyl. And restrictions in Scotland on affected sheep farmers was only lifted last year. Restrictions in Wales are still in place.

And uranium miners die too.

Most "Green sympathizers" would point out that there are other options than nuclear AND coal, but I'm not sure this is the time or place (thread) for kicking off that debate.

What about them?

WHO estimates, in a worse case scenario, that Chernobyl related deaths, far and away the worst nuke accident, at about 4,000 over the next 50 years.

Pretty good in a direct comparison to mining deaths, never mind 'indirect deaths' from the polution from burning coal.

I was reading something not that long ago about the farming restrictions in Wales. It pointed out that background radiation levels in Cornwall are actually higher than those in the effected area in Wales... but as those levels in Cornwall are 'normal' it's OK for them to farm sheep, but not in Wales.