Japan has seen itself hit with many problems all at once and despite what the media implies, they are doing a great job handeling three rare occurring that happened simultaneously. Critics have jumped on the bandwagon and are already claiming that the Nuclear Power station idea is insane. But really, if we step back and take a truely honest look at the numbers would their claims be in agreement? I suspect not.

What they seem to be looking at is the worst case scenario – a full scale catastrophic nuclear explosion.  Of course in the event of such an explosion it would indeed be a worst case nightmare. But how likely is that really?

The International Nuclear Event Scale is graded with 7 levels, and having a look through them the few major incidents that exist seem to have a consistent issue.

Chernobyl, Level 7 Major Accident: Radioactive Steam Released into Atmosphere.
Kyshtym, Level 6 Serious Accident: Radioactive Steam Released into Atmosphere.
Three Mile Island, Level 5 Accident with Wider Consequences: Radioactive Gasses Released into the Atmosphere.

So the conclusion is there has never been an nuclear explosion at a Nuclear Power Station in the history of Nuclear Power it is just toxic gases being released into the atmosphere and that brings us on to a related subject, another form of power also releases toxic gas into the atmosphere: Coal Power stations.

Each year, thousands of coal miners lose their lives trying to pull out the black rocks from the ground which comparatively suggests that Coal is a much more dangerous form of energy production than Nuclear Power. It is also a finite resource which means it is running out. If we start abandoning nuclear power because of freak accidents, we will exasperate this reduction in coal availability and ultimately leave thousands of people without any form of power.