Just finished watching the Presidential debate. There were a lot of moments I could write about, but this one particularly resonated with me:

McCain dismisses worries about the safety of nuclear power: “Senator Obama says that it has to be safe, or disposable, or something like that… look, I was on Navy ships that had nuclear power plants. Nuclear power is safe, and it’s clean!” He goes on to praise countries like Japan and France that rely heavily on nuclear energy.

I’ve lived in Japan, and I’ve toured one of its largest nuclear plants. I was extremely impressed with what a tight operation it was. If you know anything about Japanese organizational culture, you know that it is very well suited for the kind of absolute control that successful nuclear power production requires. Yet even the Japanese have not been able to prevent frightening and dangerous nuclear accidents. I was living there in 1999 and remember being very scared about the uranium leak at the Tokaimura plant. That wasn’t first nuclear accident in Japan, either. The lists of civilian and military nuclear accidents that have occurred around the world over the past 50 years are sobering.

I support expanding nuclear power in the U.S., but I can’t dismiss its very real dangers. Beyond the risks of accidents and leaks, nuclear plants make an attractive target for terrorists. Ridiculing someone for insisting on safety is reckless and irresponsible. John McCain says we need “cool hand at the tiller” of our government. He’s right, and the cool hand we need is Barack Obama.

October 15, 2008 update: McCain’s still flogging his “nuclear safety’s for sissies” line: