The irrational backlash has started. The German government has given in to the popular misconception that recent events in Japan prove that nuclear power is unsafe [“Germany to shut down nuclear plants by 2022,” news story, May 31]. What the partial meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant really proves is that even 40-year-old nuclear technology could withstand not one, but two, cataclysmic natural disasters — possibly the worst earthquake Japan has ever experienced and a 33-foot tsunami — with no loss of life or widespread injury.
It would be tragic if this incident triggered a retreat from nuclear power — a retreat that, realistically, could be achieved only through increased reliance on dirty, inefficient coal.
Each of the past 25 years has ended without a single nuclear-related fatality worldwide. In each of those years, more than 5,000 lives were lost worldwide in coal-mining accidents. Which is the safer course?
Larry L. Orr, Chevy Chase
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As radioactive pollution continues to leak from the nuclear reactors at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant and tornadoes wreak havoc on the United States, I have never been so aware of the dangers of nuclear power and global warming. In the same issue in which The Post showed refugees fleeing the affected area of Japan and being scanned for radioactivity by workers in hazmat suits was the June 2 editorial “Overreacting to reactors,” which seemed tone-deaf in trashing the Germans for tackling these two urgent problems.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and the German government deserve credit for addressing these monumental challenges with a monumental call to action. While it will not be easy to shut down nuclear plants and continue to reduce global warming pollution, it is necessary and possible. We have the technology to reduce our use of energy drastically and to generate the energy we need from clean, safe and renewable sources.
Sean Garren, Washington
The writer is clean energy advocate at Environment America.
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