Climate Monday: I don't know much about nuclear energy but I know what I don't like.

There have been some fairly depressing stories out of Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant recently that make me feel concerned that perhaps, the disaster is worse than we've been told, or could even fathom.

I am not sure if my lack of familiarity with this technology is making something of a paranoid Luddite out of me, or if this truly is an example of why nuclear energy is simply too volatile to be widely used. Maybe both concepts are valid and explain my outlook. But when I look at a situation that is worse than expected, I consider analogies. Arctic ice melting is worse than we would have expected, for example. It tells me something is fuxxored about our imputs. In other words, I think we aren't getting a full story about why things look as bad as they are. But when I think, just on a human level, about radiation levels strong enough to be fatal after four hours of exposure, I am stunned.

People are still working there. I wonder what the outcomes could be for people like the Fukushima 50. I think it may be some time before we understand what damage can be done to the health of nuclear energy workers, even if best practices (suits, dosimeters, short duration contact with hazardous materiel) are employed. For those reasons, I am not especially keen on nuclear as a replacement for fossil fuels. And I am not keen on the risks to people, places, animals, plant life, as a result of mistakes or natural disasters. I think we got lucky, actually, that Chernobyl wasn't worse. 

I can't help but be apprehensive that the handful of stories coming out just now, as they are, are warming us up for some revelation about all that radioactive water, for example. Or whether there have been more deaths.

There is much about this I do not like.