Bummer. While America can run on solar, thanks to enourmous amounts of arid and inhospitibal land in the Southwest, Nuclear is probably the best way to go for Europe.
Nuclear power: Your thoughts (and a German ranting)
- Thread starter kelevra
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fuck if anything germany and the rest of the world need to get more into nuclear and renewable power not less, this is just a knee jerk reaction that is going to see disastrous consequences in the future much like the united states after the three mile island incident where we stopped building nuclear power plants and built more coal and gas burning plants.
no humane person is going to use a nuke also nuclear waste is used for cancer treatment yes the waste is a problem BUT it isn't going to end life on earth (scientist have found bacteria living ON the rods) as of now it,s impossible to use wind/solar power efficiently (it,s useless on a windless night) and batteries are still shitty maybe in a few decades but not now.blakfayt said:
PS
also unless you make your own power the PC you,re using is most likely running on power provided by nuclear power plants
If it's any comfort, there's a similar situation where I live: Usually ignorant people want to shut down the Vermont Yankee Power Plant because they're paranoid that it's going to explode and result in mutant fish overlords. It's quite tiring to see, but fortunately there aren't too many people on board with it.
OH MA GAWD THERES AN EXTREMELY SMALL CHANCE IT CAN DESTROY US ALL KILL IT WITH FIRE!
If I could I would smack them right now. Go protest the LHC or something it's about the same.
If I could I would smack them right now. Go protest the LHC or something it's about the same.
A couple of grams of Uranium produces more energy than hundreds of barrels of oil. Yes, there's waste, but the nuclear power is so efficient that the waste produced is neligable compared to conventional fuels, further more, I've never heard of a situation in which nuclear waste adversly affected people after it's been contained.blakfayt said:
It's not perfect (I'd prefer nuclear fusion, the waste degrades faster), but it's the best source of energy short of antimatter. As someone else so eloquently put it, there is no perfect solution.
Hehe.blakfayt said:
No.
1) Nuclear waste- ie spent fuel rods- can be housed in shielded bunkers, away from water tables in dry, inert environments- see Yukka Mountain. Hell, the Swiss- the environmentally crazy SWISS- store their nuclear waste in the freaking Alps
If you don't believe me-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Switzerland
We can safely and cleanly hold nuclear waste until we can dump it on some lifeless planet or moon. Maybe Io in orbit around Jupiter.
On a related note, one alternative- coal (if we keep up with our demands) hurts the planet in a proven, massive way (greenhouse gasses.) The others hurt people- and hungry, poor inhabitants of a country do not make good stewards of nature.
Find some articles on what happened to Zimbabwe, its wildlife and its ecology after their economy collapsed.
2) Partially enriched uranium oxide fuel still needs alot more enrichment to make it weapons grade.
Holy. Shit.blakfayt said:
Having actually studied this sort of thing for a good part of my university degree, I can tell you right now: all those alternative renewable power sources are years away from being viable. No one who is a smart supporter of nuclear power will ever tell you it's a permanent solution, and that we should abandon every other source of power production. No, nuclear power is a viable hold-over for the next 50 years (about how long the remaining nuclear fuel on earth would last if all power was nuclear generated) while we get our shit sorted out.
And what are we to use until such a thing is discovered? People the world over are working on new energy sources, as yet, none of them are feasible.blakfayt said:
Firstly, that would be massively expensive. Secondly, we can't guarantee the safety of space vehicles. We know, that for every X space vehicles launched, Y will get halfway, and return to the Earth in many small pieces spread across a large area.kayisking said:
Now, when the cargo is communications satellites, scientific equipment or a handful of astronauts, it's unfortunate. When it's a load of nuclear waste...um...
There were serious concerns with using nuclear fuel for space probes [footnote]and/or insane space based weapons systems[/footnote], and those required only a tiny amount of nuclear material.
You have me there.kayisking said:
Also, would be a good way to keep them uppity Martians under control, threaten to make their world radioactive.
Well, not so much those Martians that need to live in a radioactive environment, I guess.
If Poland has any kind of business sense, they'll start building three or four new reactors close to our border and sell the massive amounts of electricity to our stupid asses at double the regular price.
Yeah, I'm not crazy about this knee-jerk decision either, if you didn't catch my drift.
Yeah, I'm not crazy about this knee-jerk decision either, if you didn't catch my drift.
Actually part of the compensation plan is to buy nuclear power from France, soooo . . . yeah.Sonicron said:
It's funny how people get so emotional and riled up about nuclear power when it is actually much cleaner and safer than many other forms of power. Some places here in America still use coal-power plants. The amount of pollution they produce is definitely much more hazardous to peoples lives than a nuclear power plant. The only difference is that if a nuclear power plant fails, then it all happens at one time while a coal power plant pollutes the environment slower, but much more progressively.
Edit: This sort of reminds me of the Concord commercial jet that was discontinued because of one faulty run. The reason why it failed catastrophically has nothing to do with the planes design. Image if they had continued to make and use Concord jets, air travel time would be cut in half.
Edit: This sort of reminds me of the Concord commercial jet that was discontinued because of one faulty run. The reason why it failed catastrophically has nothing to do with the planes design. Image if they had continued to make and use Concord jets, air travel time would be cut in half.