“It has been at least a generation since Americans might have casually read man kinds god given capacity to build as a reference to nuclear power. A generation since the world stopped believing nuclear power was in an environmental sense free, and started thinking about it terms of nuclear war, meltdown, mutation and cancer. That we remember the names of power plant disasters is a sign of how scarred we feel by them. Three Mile island, Chernobyl, Fukushima. But the scars are almost phantom ones given the casualty numbers. The death toll of the incident at 3 mile island is in some dispute, as many activists believe the true value impact of radiation was suppressed , perhaps a reasonable believe since the official account insists on no adverse health impacts at all. But the most pedigree research suggests that the meltdown increased cancer risk within a 10 mile radius for less than 1 tenth of percent. For Chernobyl the official death count is 47, with some others estimates as high as 4000. For Fukushima according to a United Nations report, no discernible increased incidents of radiation related health effects are expected among exposed members of the public of their descendants. Had none of the 100K living in the evacuation zone, perhaps a few hundred might have ultimately died of cancers related to the radiation. Any number of dead is a tragedy, but more than 10K people die each day, globally, from the small particulate pollution produced by burning carbon. This is not even broaching the subject of warming and its impacts. Globally pollution kills as many as 9 million people each year. We live with that pollution and with those dead tolls, and hardly notice them. The concrete curving towers of nuclear plants by contrast stand astride the horizon like Chekovs proverbial gun.”