Television gets nuclear wrong not only for dramatic effects,but for the same reason humankind as a whole has been getting it wrong for over 60 years, which is that we’ve displaced our fears of nuclear weapons onto nuclear power plants.
Uranium was first used as a coloring agent in the manufacture of pottery. As early as 79 CE, naturally-occurring uranium oxide was ground up into a yellow powder and applied as a pottery glaze.
Uranium is energy-dense. In 2018, uranium powered nuclear reactors produced 2,700 terawatt-hours of ultra low-carbon electricity. One terawatt-hour of energy is equivalent to the annual energy consumption of 27,000 European citizens.
Electricity production from nuclear energy is one of the cleanest forms of energy production, even when nuclear waste is taken into account. Nuclear waste storage is currently resulting in little mortality and illness, as the waste is contained within the grounds of the nuclear power plants themselves.
There are many situations and disastrous circumstances where impulsive and emotional solutions are applied, which apparently solve the problem but unintentionally create new problems or collateral ...
Our worst decisions are only later known to us as being terrible ones. When we make those decisions, we think of them as good ones
We take shortcuts and solve problems in a quick-fix, rapid-relief method. We don’t consider any long-term effects or where the dominos will fall based on our choices.
We play it safe and do not want to take the time and investigate the root cause of a problem.
Our many cognitive biases act like blind spots, making us only see immediate threats.
We focus on something visual and available (like what’s on TV) and worry about those problems instead of focusing on the real but invisible problems which may be more lethal.
Our decisions have certain compounding effects that are not visible for years, yet when the entire time period and the corresponding events are accounted for, the stupidity of the solution is revealed.