Nuclear

From a great comment from a great post of a great blog.

I am very worried about this nuclear rage. After Chernobyl, in Italy a referendum was indicted (voted with a very large majority) that banned use of nuclear energy in the country. 4 power plants were closed. Italian politician are now doing their best to turn around that result and start building again nuclear power plants, and their will and resolution is very suspects.

My arguments against nuclear plants:

(1)  - Even though the probability p of a disaster might be very low, the impact i of a disaster is very high. In conventional risk analysis one multiplies the p*i; however, one should always avoid multiplying very large numbers with very small numbers, as the results might fluctuate a lot, and not only for numerical reasons.
(2) - Disposal of waste is still a big problem. Some sort of waste are now better handled than in the past, still some very slow decaying stuff is there. Some european nations argue that they have good methods, still a lot of european nuclear junk is discarded illegally in Campania, in the region where they make buffalo mozzarella.
(3) - Some people say that the cost of dismantling a nuclear power plant are so high that it takes the plant 15 years of good operation to cover those costs. It takes also 15 years to build one. So, if the uranium will finish in 50 years, maybe this investment is not that interesting
(4) - Fossil sources of energy are finite by definition. I definitively prefer a policy of finding energy from renewal non fossil sources, like wind, sun and love.