Everyone focuses on the safety of power production, and I totally get that and think it's important, but the mining and enrichment of uranium should also be considered. Nuclear "disasters" aren't just 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima. There are plenty of other disasters that aren't power plants.

Growing up in the USA, my home town was contaminated with uranium, thorium, and radium due to a nearby uranium processing plant that later became a superfund site. It was in the soil, the water, and sometimes even the air. I knew far too many people who've died of cancers, and I, like many from that area, have thyroid issues from exposure.

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trgn 3 hours ago | parent [-]

where was this?

	▲	topspin 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		There are a small number of such sites in the US. One that fits closely with this description is a legacy of the Manhattan Project: Coldwater Creek, MO. The Mallinckrodt Chemical Works refined a lot of uranium, and waste handling was about what you would expect given the prerogatives of the 1940's and the Cold War. They carried on refining for power plants after WW2. Obviously, fuel refining hasn't just carried on like that, in the US and Europe at least. But it's one of many handy cudgels to use whenever folks get excited about nuclear.