Tom Ford is a journalist from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. On January 17, 2007, he published an article on TheRecord.com titled Nuclear power may be our best option. Go there; read his article. It is heartwarming reading that even includes a mention of the fact that nuclear competitors have been repeating some scary, and provably false things about nuclear energy in hopes of maintaining their market share. Here is that passage:
Nuclear energy’s biggest problems were that some thought reactors were unsafe and they worried about the disposal of nuclear waste. Some hydroelectric generating companies played on these fears by defining the issue in terms that benefited them. What was important, the hydro people argued, was clean energy. Hydro was clean; other forms of energy were not.
McKee, normally a quiet-spoken man with a gentle sense of humour, bristles at this argument. “It is widely accepted that the statistical likelihood of dying in a nuclear accident is about the same as being hit by a meteorite – virtually nil,” he says. “The eminent physicist, Bernard Cohen, has stated that coal pollution causes 10,000 deaths per year in the United States, compared to none for nuclear.”
I especially liked how the interviewed expert added a comparison that linked the misinformation motive to a second competitive fuel source.
