Poll: is the BP oil spill in america equivilent to chernobyl?

[crudus]

Is it as long-lasting, destructive, and devastating as a nuclear meltdown? God no.

You see, here is the thing about a nuclear meltdown: it stays put. All you really have to do is tell the public this area is off limits due to deadly levels of radiation then you are good to go. Here's the thing about an oil spill: it spreads. My quick search tells in that so far 500 square miles of ocean is affected. That number is going to grow. Chernobyl's effect was immediate. This oil spill is going to take time to affect us. When there is time between a cause and its effect, the consequences and the backlash are going to be worse. Answer: no it isn't America's Chernobyl. It is worse.

 

[Daughterofether]

Politically, yes. This will do for the perception of offshore drilling what Chernobyl did for the perception of nuclear power.

this. At least oil is a power source we should be moving away from though. the massive public disapproval of nuclear power is something that frustrates every scientist with even the smallest expertise in the field of energy production

 

[GM.Casper]

Politically, yes. This will do for the perception of offshore drilling what Chernobyl did for the perception of nuclear power.

this. At least oil is a power source we should be moving away from though. the massive public disapproval of nuclear power is something that frustrates every scientist with even the smallest expertise in the field of energy production

Exactly. Chernobyl was 25 years ago, and happened do to gross incompetence. Nuclear power is a lot safer today- and definitely better than burning oil and coal for power.

To quote http://www.lead.org.au/lanv5n3/lan5n3-8.html :
To run your average 1000 megawatt coal-fired power plant, you need to burn about 4 million tonnes of coal. That 4 million tonnes of coal contains 5.2 tonnes of uranium and 12.8 tonnes of radioactive thorium - as well as 0.22 tonnes of radioactive potassium-40. But that's just from a single 1000 megawatt plant in just one year.
The world-wide use of coal in 1991 was about 5,100 million tonnes. When that coal was burnt, some 6,630 tonnes of uranium and 16,320 tonnes of thorium were released into the biosphere.
That 6,630 tonnes of uranium included over 47 tonnes of uranium-235 - the stuff that goes bang. That 47 tonnes of uranium-235 could be made into some 1,700 World War II-style atom bombs, with a total combined explosive yield of 34 megatonnes. In fact, just a single 1,000 megawatt coal-fired power station releases enough uranium-235 to make a World War II-style atom bomb each year.