Nuclear Energy?

[Kaiji]

Everyone has their own opinion

 

[Double A]

I support them due to their efficiency. Build more, dammit. The only problem is nuclear waste, which we should solve by shooting into the sun.

 

[rednose1]

Ahh, a subject near and dear to my heart! (or at least wallet anyway.)

Did the navy thing for 6 years, and currently an auxiliary operator (low man on totem pole of operators.)

One thing not mentioned is the economic impact. During outages, alot of local and out of state workers are hired, at surprisingly good pay. (a fire watch, someone who's sole job is to walk around the rooms and go, "yep, no fire in here" gets paid $17/hr. In rooms where we already have fire detection systems no less.)

Sad due to the nature of the beast, we can't give tours to show off our plant. With no exposure to it, people fear it.

No.

The pattern is repeated elsewhere but these things tend to get brushed under the carpet.

Citation needed, surely there would be a heap of peer-reviewed scientific papers discussing this and calling for stricter zoneing plans for areas around a nuclear plant.

Says you with absolutely no first hand experience. On paper everything is made to be kosher but the reality is radiation always gets into the surrounding area, "venting" happens on nearly every single plant and is often not even covered in the news, even local. There are other methods too, strange how the surrounding seawater is devoid of much life and sits at a few degrees higher than elsewhere in the estuary.

Most nuclear plants are still using outdated technology, this is all due to money. They aren't cheap and corner-cutting happens all the time. Humans are not infallible either and mistakes will be made and you can bet your ass that terrorist groups are eyeing up nuclear reactors with glee.

First off, please clarify. This venting, are you referring to a PWR, or BWR? Not famaliar with BWRs, so they may indeed be venting, but I doubt it). As for PWR, pressure is controlled by heaters and spraying cooler water in. There is no reason to vent during normal operating hours. During emergencies, excess water/pressure is diverted to a tank, which is then held until put back into the reactor system, or sent to another tank where it is held until put back into the system.Finally, if the safety valves lifted due to operators not watching/equipment malfunction, they lift into containment, not outside. As for the fish issue, can't speak for where ever you are referring to, but the local river where our Circulating water comes from is teeeming with life on the discharge side. Local fisherman used to fish there ALL THE TIME until 9/11 happened.

As to your terrorist idea....I'm not sure really why this is continously pushed. If they somehow make it through, and cause any damage...my hat goes off to them. The security around a nuke plant is pretty unreal. Seriously, whatever you can imagine, double it. my favorite feature is we now have remote controlled gun turrets throughout the plant. (and no, they can't be hacked. hard wired through underground cables to the controlling station. First thing I though of too.)
But hey, lets say that everyone ups and disappears. With no operator action, a plant would tend to shut itself down (mostly what the control room operators are doing, trying to keep the reactor up at power, not trying to keep it from going too high, though we do that too of course.) So what would need to happen is the terrorists would have to attack without anyone noticing (since default action is for operators to not only shutdown the plant, but to report to stations to be able to provide redundant REDUNANT methods of shutting the plant down), change our computer system so that automatic scrams built in don't actuate, go into the containment vessel and weld shut every mechanical safety system we have, and control the reactor to a disaster level power.

or hey, maybe they'll just sneak an airplane into the no fly zone, bypass military jets responding, and crash into the containment vessel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--_RGM4Abv8

or just take out our dry fuel casks, again with no one on site being the wiser.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1nvRBk4W3o

 

[J3bba]

Nuclear power has amazing potential and i really do think that it is one of the future energy solutions. It's a bit of a shame that the world was introduced to nuclear technology through the atom bomb.

 

[Crazy_Dude]

People keep bitching that we need to find a new renewable safe powersource while we already have one..

I fully support Nuclear Power its sad people think its unsafe because of TWO accidents in 30 years. Chernobyl was very unsafe to begin with and a disaster waiting to happen. Japan got hit by one of the biggest earthquakes in our history and on top of that a tsunami, yet still the meltdown wasnt even that bad.

 

[Demongeneral109]

Are there other possible environmental factors that could be causing the high cancer rates?

No.

The pattern is repeated elsewhere but these things tend to get brushed under the carpet.

Unless your local plant is experiencing radiation leaks, whether they be airborne or through groundwater, the plant shouldn't be affecting that.

Says you with absolutely no first hand experience. On paper everything is made to be kosher but the reality is radiation always gets into the surrounding area, "venting" happens on nearly every single plant and is often not even covered in the news, even local. There are other methods too, strange how the surrounding seawater is devoid of much life and sits at a few degrees higher than elsewhere in the estuary.

the estuary is because of the reduced oxygen in the higher-temperature water, not nuclear run-off. the water is used to cool the heating power-system, that which isn't vented from the cooling towers goes into local water-sources, and is not irradiated

As far as Fukushima goes, in my opinion that event is not a good argument against the use of nuclear power due to the extreme circumstances surrounding it.

Any nuclear plant built around water (all of them) has the potential to be struck by tsunamis and flooding of various kinds, to assume it's not going to happen just because it hasn't already is folly in the extreme. Nuclear energy has only been around for a blink of an eye, Fukushima is a fine example as is Chernobyl. These things will happen again and in greater numbers if these plants are continued to be built.

Meanwhile, 75% of France's energy demands are provided entirely by nuclear power, and they're having no problems.

You're joking, right? Twice the rate of childhood leukaemia around French nuclear plants [http://jech.bmj.com/content/55/7/469.long] is just one random example. The country has seen many thousands protest against nuclear power within the last year alone.

There are 435 nuclear plants in the world, and only two of which have had a catastrophic problem, and those issues have been rectified by modern reactor designs.

Catastrophic problems are not the only problems, aside from which ONE is too many as it is. If you were born around the immediate area of a disaster you might well be saying otherwise, if you were still living of course.

Most nuclear plants are still using outdated technology, this is all due to money. They aren't cheap and corner-cutting happens all the time. Humans are not infallible either and mistakes will be made and you can bet your ass that terrorist groups are eyeing up nuclear reactors with glee.

Then, there's thorium nuclear power which is quite literally meltdown-proof.

I guess you missed the key part about "scientific" groups and thinktanks backed by some of the richest corporations on the planet responsible for some of, if not the worst man-made disasters the world has seen. Let that sink in for a minute.

Additionally, a wind farm is not nearly efficient enough to feasibly provide enough power to a large population.

You must have glazed over the key tidal barrage part, which accounts for a lot more and is definitely powerful enough to power large populations. As I previously stated, the plans are there it's just the simple fact that energy giants are more interested in making a bigger profit, aka nuclear. Don't try to tell me it's impossible as even the biased media and politicians around here agree it's feasible yet finance plays a big role.

We haven't even touched upon the transport and disposal of nuclear material yet, another big problem that inevitably gets sidelined in these discussions. But hey, what does a guy who has lived in the shadow of a large nuclear plant for years know anyway?

wow. I don't even know where to start with you, so ill just leave this here.

Are you really going to rely on conspiracy? Why not just go the route most traveled and blame the Jews and the secret gay cabal running the world from a truck stop gas station bathroom?[/quote]

Wah~ I kinda closed a wrong quote on accident, im the one who put in the stuff about estuaries in response to the crazy conspiracy guy... may bad

 

[Brandon237]

That won't always be so, they are pretty rapidly improving the power requirements to create hydrogen in large amounts. The progress will put Nuclear energy into the history books in time.

Uhm, hydrogen can never become an energy source, because that would break the laws of physics, the first law of thermodynamics to be precies. It's not possible to create more energy than you're using up while making hydrogen.

Hydrogen is a form of energy storage.

Except that you are not making Hydrogen to get energy, you are making hydrogen to fuse to make Helium to make energy. Now the energy released by doing THAT is far greater than the energy required to break hydrogen bonds. Where things get sticky is that fusion part where you are pumping craptons of energy in just to get the stubborn atoms to fuse. There is a very real problem, before that, not so much.

 

[FolkLikePanda]

I'm for and agaisnt it does create a lot of power and doesn't pollute as much, though on the other hand theres gonna be a lot more radioactive substances around and one major slip and well, yeah.

 

[Aur0ra145]

I completely support an increased number of nuclear power facilities.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Are there other possible environmental factors that could be causing the high cancer rates?

No.

The pattern is repeated elsewhere but these things tend to get brushed under the carpet.

Unless your local plant is experiencing radiation leaks, whether they be airborne or through groundwater, the plant shouldn't be affecting that.

Says you with absolutely no first hand experience. On paper everything is made to be kosher but the reality is radiation always gets into the surrounding area, "venting" happens on nearly every single plant and is often not even covered in the news, even local. There are other methods too, strange how the surrounding seawater is devoid of much life and sits at a few degrees higher than elsewhere in the estuary.

As far as Fukushima goes, in my opinion that event is not a good argument against the use of nuclear power due to the extreme circumstances surrounding it.

Any nuclear plant built around water (all of them) has the potential to be struck by tsunamis and flooding of various kinds, to assume it's not going to happen just because it hasn't already is folly in the extreme. Nuclear energy has only been around for a blink of an eye, Fukushima is a fine example as is Chernobyl. These things will happen again and in greater numbers if these plants are continued to be built.

Meanwhile, 75% of France's energy demands are provided entirely by nuclear power, and they're having no problems.

You're joking, right? Twice the rate of childhood leukaemia around French nuclear plants [http://jech.bmj.com/content/55/7/469.long] is just one random example. The country has seen many thousands protest against nuclear power within the last year alone.

There are 435 nuclear plants in the world, and only two of which have had a catastrophic problem, and those issues have been rectified by modern reactor designs.

Catastrophic problems are not the only problems, aside from which ONE is too many as it is. If you were born around the immediate area of a disaster you might well be saying otherwise, if you were still living of course.

Most nuclear plants are still using outdated technology, this is all due to money. They aren't cheap and corner-cutting happens all the time. Humans are not infallible either and mistakes will be made and you can bet your ass that terrorist groups are eyeing up nuclear reactors with glee.

Then, there's thorium nuclear power which is quite literally meltdown-proof.

I guess you missed the key part about "scientific" groups and thinktanks backed by some of the richest corporations on the planet responsible for some of, if not the worst man-made disasters the world has seen. Let that sink in for a minute.

Additionally, a wind farm is not nearly efficient enough to feasibly provide enough power to a large population.

You must have glazed over the key tidal barrage part, which accounts for a lot more and is definitely powerful enough to power large populations. As I previously stated, the plans are there it's just the simple fact that energy giants are more interested in making a bigger profit, aka nuclear. Don't try to tell me it's impossible as even the biased media and politicians around here agree it's feasible yet finance plays a big role.

We haven't even touched upon the transport and disposal of nuclear material yet, another big problem that inevitably gets sidelined in these discussions. But hey, what does a guy who has lived in the shadow of a large nuclear plant for years know anyway?

First of all a coal power station is about 4 times MORE radioactive than a nuclear one.

"scientists estimated fly ash radiation in individuals' bones at around 18 millirems (thousandths of a rem, a unit for measuring doses of ionizing radiation) a year. Doses for the two nuclear plants, by contrast, ranged from between three and six millirems for the same period."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste

Source^


SO as far as transition goes nuclear is FAR better than coal/oil in terms of safety even when it comes to radiation. Thats not even going into the actual carcinogenic smoke itself. I know you didnt advocate coal. Im just saying that id rather live next to a nuclear powerplant than ANYTHING to do with oil.

Ah the old "men in white coats dumping green goo into the sea" trope we so so much of. I love this trope. Disposal of nuclear waste, amazingly, isnt a pressing issue. It ISNT being dumped. Its carefully and efficiently stored. It just isnt an issue. From 1993 we have international agreements on the safe containment and disposal of waste, which is in SUCH a tiny volume compared to any coal/oil station which is currently the standard.

"Transportation accidents involving spent nuclear fuel from power plants are unlikely to have serious consequences due to the strength of the spent nuclear fuel shipping casks"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHtRZ_k0s7M

Source of that quote.

Basically nuclear waste is much safer than the public fear would have you believe.


Is nuclear waste the BEST? No. Is it MUCH better than any current standard of oil/coal? Yes.

Is it cheaper, efficient, POWERFULL and pretty damn safe? Yes.

Remember the mexican oil spill? You ever heard of this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_people#Kinzua_Dam_displacement

Or that. Wind power is VERY inneffective. ALL power sources are dangerous. All of them. All involve disasters. Nuclear is one of the safest.

Energy Source Death Rate (deaths per TWh)

Coal ? world average 161 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal ? China 278
Coal ? USA 15
Oil 36 (36% of world energy)
Natural Gas 4 (21% of world energy)
Biofuel/Biomass 12
Peat 12
Solar (rooftop) 0.44 (less than 0.1% of world energy)
Wind 0.15 (less than 1% of world energy)
Hydro 0.10 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy)
Hydro - world including Banqiao) 1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead)
Nuclear 0.04 (5.9% of world energy)

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html

 

[WoW Killer]

Not seen anybody mention Hybrid Fusion-Fission [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion-fission_hybrid]. Very nearly possible with current tech, and solves any remaining issues of pure fission power.

That's right, fusion. Fusion is already here, only currently it produces less energy than it takes to perform. Hybrid power uses fusion only to create excess neutrons which then go on to perform the fission process. The main advantage of this is that the fission reaction is sub-critical (in other words, completely safe). The main fuel does not need to be enriched (you can use thorium for instance), meaning you can sell the tech to questionable states without needing centrifuge technology (which can be used to make nuclear weapons). You can also use highly volatile fuels such as weapons grade uranium and plutonium, meaning it can be used to dismantle nukes, and a multitude of other past nuclear wastes.

And of course, because they have a fusion component, any commercial application of the plants will trigger a big surge in investment into fusion research. So real pure fusion wouldn't be that far off. Hybrid plants are the real deal.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

We are beyond "should they", now we have no choice. Its the only logical way to feed the energy need of the world.

 

[TheIronRuler]

This is an interesting issue that I don't think gets discussed enough, escpecially because it doesn't seem to be aligned with one party or another.

What's your stance on it? Way or the future, or dangerous pipe-dream?

My thoughts: I think it's a great idea. As of now, when the most recent designs are used any plants completely safe. In a couple years it could easily surpass any other form of energy with the development of He3, which is already close. For those who don't know, He3 could be used for almost completely clean energy. It's rare on Earth due to the atmosphere, but the Moon is covered in it. A shuttle's worth of the stuff could be enough to power America for a year. It's basically like in the movie Moon, minus the cloning part.

Captcha: motorman's atmlil

.
As long as you keep it safe and up to date... I'm looking at you, Chernobyl. Seriously, my mother was really close to be accepted as an apprentice there when BOOM. A nice story to tell. At her point of studies she and her peers had to undergo an apprenticeship, and Chernobyl was the most prestigious institute, meant for the best and the brightest. My mother barely made it into the waiting list, and when the thing exploded they had a saying when anyone complained about his apprenticeship - "You can always go to Chernobyl! They're always looking for interns".
Concerning Japan.... It was something which was rather unpredictable. I have no real solution to similar situations.

 

[crudus]

Chernobyl was safe.The problem were the stipid people operationg it.Everything has limits and when you go over them, you have to expect something to fail.

Lets not also forget that even considering that, the reason for it going to hell in a handbasket was human stupidity. Even Chernobyl reactors were "safe enough" not to blow up in your face on their own.


But yeah I support nuclear power. Just has to be treated with utmost respect and care.

Yeah I sort of hinted that Chernobyl was an experiment gone wrong. I stated outright what happened (not in detail) there in my original draft of my first post, but it apparently didn't make the final cut. Chernobyl still wasn't safe, but it wasn't a bomb.

 

[Yopaz]

People don't really seem to understand how safe nuclear energy is. People were on the fence and warming up to the idea when 3 Mile Island (If I remember right, nobody died) and Chernobyl (which was very avoidable) happened. People kind of vetoed it then. Honestly we need a lot more nuclear power. It is clean and very efficient. Fuel is literally decaying(figuratively in our hands), and people don't want to use it.

They've come a long way since the unsafe designs of the 50s (Like Chernobyl). I support nuclear power plants. I know some folks prefer coal due to its apparent safeness but if you count the tens of thousands of people who die yearly from coal mine accidents and the pollution that coal plants makes we'd need Chernobyl every three weeks to even match that.

Let's not forget that Chernobyl as crazy unsafe even for those times.

Chernobyl... unsafe? Where do you get that from? Just for the fact that the reactors were unstable or the fact that it was run by idiots who put extra strain on the most unstable reactors?

I am against nuclear power at our current technological level. We get a lot of energy from fission, but we're not able to use more than a fraction of it for electric power. I want to see it more efficient than it currently is before it becomes the standard. Nuclear power produces no greenhouse gases, but the waste is still a problem. I would still say that nuclear power is a good thing since solar power doesn't offer enough and windmills require wind and even though hydropower is very efficient (more than 90% of the energy is transformed to electricity) it requires waterfalls and lots of water, which can't be found everywhere.

 

[viranimus]

Not completely opposed to nuclear power, but I have a better idea.

Cut the global population down to 1/3rd (IE 2.2 billion) and it wont make a bit of difference what power source you use. You kill a flock of problem birds with one stone.

As for nuclear plants. I always wondered, when your enemies are eyeing your infrastructure, do they see nuclear plants? Or do they see nuclear landmines that you put up on their behalf?

Honestly.. I would rather see an orbital solar array be built that could allow solar power to become infinitely more efficient for widescale use. Then couple that with either a microwave energy transfer relay that shoots the collected energy down to earth, or if your afraid of that sim city nightmare, adapt dry fuel cells that can be transported via shuttle. It builds a host of new industries and it also industrializes space travel, thus expanding space travel faster than our space agencies like NASA can.

 

[Guffe]

It would be a great thing.
They have actually already been able to create a fusion of 2 particles happen and got the energy but the thing is that the heat required is really really high and intense so at the moment the energy it takes to create the fusion is higher than the amount we get out of it.
But yeah, in the future it will most likely be the energy we use.

Not seen anybody mention Hybrid Fusion-Fission [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion-fission_hybrid]. Very nearly possible with current tech, and solves any remaining issues of pure fission power.

That's not what the OP was talking about??
*goes back and reads text*...

 

[Muspelheim]

It's a good source of energy for the moment, while we develop something that is even better. However, we should also continue to develop nuclear energy itself, to make it even more efficient and limit the sizable drawbacks.

It's not a good idea to just suddenly decide to get rid of it all, with no good alternative in sight. And if you forbid the construction of additional reactors and further development, you'll just end up with rapidly aging plants and facilities while you try to convince some farmers somewhere to let you plonk down a few thousand windfarms in their fields.

I also wish that Greenpeace and other opposed groups would spend less time whining about it and more time developing something that can take its place. I know of their mantra, sun wind and water, but those doesn't nearly cover our needs yet. And no, I'm not going to nail down a few solar panels and wind turbines on my roof until -after- the Apocalypse, so don't bother. Help discover something better.

Another thing that irritates me is the ammount of mythmaking that goes into the anti-atomic lobby. I remember reading a Q&A-panel in my local paper around the time Fukushima was getting critical, in which they answered "yes" to the FAQ "Can a NPP explode like a nuclear bomb?" While neither are very desirable, an atomic bomb and a plant meltdown are very, very different things. That panel was an example of atrocious journalism.

So in short: nuclear power is good to have, and we should keep using it. But it's only a temporary method, and we should really be working full speed for something better. Something -really- better, not just demanding that people build their own wind turbine in the back garden.

 

[applesandoranges]

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