What is wrong with nuclear power?

[ccharles000]

I think France gets a lot of its power from it and if we can or if a way exist already to deal with the waste safely. I can't see a problem with it.

[Lerkfish]

1. Cherynobl comes to mind.

[no limit]

8. The reason that comes to mind is because it is one of the only cases where death occured

this was a poorly ran soviet plant and there has not been a deadly disaster prior to it or since then.

[MercutioATC]

13. We've come VERY close...

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/05/how-we-almost-blew-up-ohio.html#container

"After inspecting a reactor during a refueling outage in late April 2000, Andrew Siemaszko, a systems engineer at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Ohio, wrote on an official plant work order the four words that would one day ruin his life: "Work performed without deviation." Two years later, during a subsequent refueling outage, workers discovered that boric acid deposits had gnawed a rusty, "pineapple-sized" hole almost clear through the six-inch-thick steel cap bolted to the top of the reactor. Had the corrosion gone a third of an inch deeper, through the steel cladding inside the reactor vessel, radioactive steam would have flooded the reactor's containment dome, and Davis-Besse might have become the next Three Mile Island."

[no limit]

21. There were no deaths in the three mile island accident

and the radiation that got out was minimal. And yet this was the worst nuclear accident in US history. So what's your point? Regular inspection did catch the issue before it became a problem. And if it had some how become a problem the results probably wouldn't have been fatal.

[TheWraith]

54. Everybody talks about Chernobyl, but nobody talks about the context.

Point one: the Chernobyl plant was of an absurdly unsafe and half-assed design, and was being used for a recklessly unnecessary test at the time of the accident. Any competantly engineered reactor in the world would never have had that happen.

Point two: Chernobyl killed between 4,000 and 8,000 people, or about the same number of people who are killed by the pollution from coal-fired power plants, just in the US, EVERY MONTH.

To try and claim that nuclear power is too dangerous is to ignore the fact that we're using much MORE dangerous options for our energy needs, and we're doing so WITHOUT the careful sequestration of the byproducts that nuclear power is capable of. And that completely bypasses the relative effects of each on global warming, or the 48 tons of mercury that coal power releases into the ecosystem every year.

I'm not saying that nuclear power is ideal by any means, but given the choice between living next to a coal plant, and living next to a nuclear plant, I'd choose nuclear any day of the week, because I know that I'm FAR more likely to die from exposure to a coal plant. Hollywood-fed hysteria aside, nuclear's safer than what we already use, and is the best interim solution until we can start full production on Polywell-type fusors.

[Lerkfish]

57. I believe you meant your post directed towards someone else.

most likely myself.

[spoony]

87. No we haven't.

Davis-Besse, and TMI for that matter, are entirely different structurally from Chernobyl. TMI was as bad as it is ever likely to get for our reactors, and no one died.

[Lerkfish]

20. yeah, but cherynobl was pretty damn deadly. and still is.

and it has made the entire area around it uninhabitable for the foreseeable future.

I could also say I've never personally been in an automobile accident therefore car travel is completely safe. but I'd be wrong.

[no limit]

24. uninhabitable? Where are you getting this from?

Yes, people have been banned from entering the area. As a result the wild life population has exploded.

[Lerkfish]

27. google is your friend.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=chernobyl+uninhabitable&spell=1

[no limit]

29. wow, 22,000 results. It must be true

All I see from google is a bunch of links to blogs which are nothing more than personal opinion.

But since you want to play the google game here, this one gets 150,000 results:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=chernobyl+wildlife

From the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4923342.stm

As humans were evacuated from the area 20 years ago, animals moved in. Existing populations multiplied and species not seen for decades, such as the lynx and eagle owl, began to return.

There are even tantalising footprints of a bear, an animal that has not trodden this part of Ukraine for centuries.

"Animals don't seem to sense radiation and will occupy an area regardless of the radiation condition," says radioecologist Sergey Gaschak.

"A lot of birds are nesting inside the sarcophagus," he adds, referring to the steel and concrete shield erected over the reactor that exploded in 1986.

"Starlings, pigeons, swallows, redstart - I saw nests, and I found eggs."

There may be plutonium in the zone, but there is no herbicide or pesticide, no industry, no traffic, and marshlands are no longer being drained.

There is nothing to disturb the wild boar - said to have multiplied eightfold between 1986 and 1988 - except its similarly resurgent predator, the wolf.

[Lerkfish]

31. apparently, you have a clear agenda.

Good luck with that.

[no limit]

32. A clear agenda?

Yes, I guess. My agenda is to slow down global warming with real world solutions.

But if you are going to take your ball and go home without addressing what I am saying thats certainly your right.

[Maureen1322]

37. It's a good question and whether we like it or not nuclear energy

should definitely be on the table for discussion.
I guess I have a clear agenda too.

[navarth]

107. perhps you'd be willing to live there?

I ride to work every day with a guy from Russia. I've heard the whole history of Chernobyl. It's fucking uninhabitable. But go ahead, knock yourself out if you want.

[no limit]

141. Great way to ignore all the sources I posted

I never said humans should jump right on in there like nothing ever happened. I said that animals are now thriving over there as a result of no humans being around.

[navarth]

156. Sorry about that

my initial reaction was to question whether all the wildlife that's moved in is 'thriving'.

[panhead1961]

201. I work in nuclear field and have been safe always

The people that work at the plants are some of the most conservative design minded people ever. Safety first no matter how much it cost to engineer and build.

[pt22]

65. So you refuse to get into a car?

:shrug:

[Lerkfish]

76. no, I get into a car, but I also don't delude myself they are automatically safe

so I am careful when operating one.

look, all that happened here is the OP asked a question, I answered it.

then a bunch of nuclear energy proponents jumped on me...but the fact remains, chernybol was deadly and it is proof that a nuclear plant can go wrong... you can chalk it up to incompetence, which it was, but in case you haven't looked around lately, OUR govt. is not doing too well in the competence area: heckuva job, Brownie.

[pt22]

82. Exactly. Every nuke plant in the world that's operated carefully has been safe!

TMI and Chernobyl were gross anomalies. Nothing in this life is 100% safe...we all make tradeoffs even as we criticize others who do it. I bet you the Chinese and the Burmans would trade their recent experiences for a couple of nuclear power plants.

[MercutioATC]

91. Cars MAY be as safe as nuclear power plants, however you're overlooking a MAJOR issue:

If I wreck my car, people in Sweden don't have to stop eating vegetables.

[A HERETIC I AM]

99. But you didn't. (Unless you lived in Sweden at the time)

Pardon me chiming in here, but you touch on the major point in a unique way.

YOU did not have to stop eating vegetables. The people in the affected area did, but not everybody.

As other DU'rs have mentioned on the numerous threads on this subject of late, radiation and the science surrounding it is very well understood by the industry. Every possible safeguard is diligently undertaken in the modern Nuclear Power Plant, and no.. - NONE ... - NOT ONE person has ever died as a result of the operation of a properly safeguarded and administered Nuclear Facility.


When someone in Hong Kong starts their car and drives to work, the emissions created will go into the same atmosphere you and I use, here on the other side of the planet, spread all over the planet and linger for a long period. This is not the case with even the most severe Nuclear Power plant accident.

People in Sweden can buy and safely consume vegetables these days.

They are not, however, unaffected by Global Climate Change.

[pt22]

112. Also we have no way to really know how many people have had lives cut short by

exposure to carcinogens from hydrocarbon combustion. But I'm betting 10000 to 1 it's a lot more than have been mortally injured by nuclear power plants.

[MercutioATC]

122. After Chernobyl, people in Sweden WERE advised not to eat Swedish-grown vegetables.

Nuclear power is "clean" only when if you disregard the possibility of error and the reality of the waste.

If you, realistically, consider them it's dirtier than open coal fires.

[AtheistCrusader]

142. You know, people still live around it right?

Engineers, administrative people, nuclear physicists, and inhabitants that have lived there since before the accident. People live there. Not a whole lot, but to say it's 'uninhabitable' is purely wrong. You can visit now. It has a hotel. You can drive up and take pictures of the concrete shell they constructed around the damaged reactor to seal it up.

Approximately 500 people live around the reactor complex.

[Lerkfish]

180. wow, I guess that negates all dangers of nuclear power, then.

:rolleyes:

[ColbertWatcher]

33. Not since then?

Three Mile Island comes immediately to mind.

But, technically, there have been no deaths that can be directly attributed to the accident (that sounds like lawyer talk to me).

Oh, and prior to Chernobyl?

Let me introduce you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne#Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory">Santa Susana. Oh, and technically no deaths have been attributed to that accident either, since Rocketdyne has employed their vast legal army to drag the damn thing around in the courts since 1959.

[no limit]

35. You are grasping at straws

The fact there were no deaths attributed to the three mile island accident means just that, that there were no deaths as a result of that accident. It has nothing to do with lawyer talk.

Santa Susana from what I read on your link is not a nuclear plant, so what is your point?

Got any other ones you want to try out or is that all you got? Nuclear power has been around for 50 years and if its as unsafe as so many here seem to think it is then you should not have a problem finding an accident that actually killed people (outside of Chernobyl).

[ColbertWatcher]

41. And you are stuck in your ideology.

The fact there were no deaths attributed to the three mile island accident means just that, that there were no deaths as a result of that accident. It has nothing to do with lawyer talk.

You forgot the word "yet".

Santa Susana from what I read on your link is not a nuclear plant, so what is your point?

Forgive me for posting an inadequate link. Perhaps you can google it and find more?

And I didn't realize that the goal posts have been moved to exclude non-nuclear plants. Does a nuclear testing facility count?

May I suggest you read my comment (#26) to see what I think about nuclear power.

[no limit]

51. My ideology is simple and I already stated it. And I am by no means stuck on it.

You forgot the word "yet".

There has been a study the estimates the long term death toll as a result of exposure to one. That's right, 1. If you don't agree with this you need to post evidance, I'm not going to prove a negative.

Forgive me for posting an inadequate link. Perhaps you can google it and find more?

And I didn't realize that the goal posts have been moved to exclude non-nuclear plants. Does a nuclear testing facility count?

May I suggest you read my comment (#26) to see what I think about nuclear power.

I did search google and my conclusion is still that this was an experiment, not a production nuclear power plant.

The goal post has not moved (I am not the Clinton campaign). This discussion still is and always has been about nuclear power. What you posted happened during an experiment in a lab, not in a production nuclear power plant (correct me if I'm wrong). And again, this is an incident that happened in 1959, almost 50 years ago now.

And as you said there have been no deaths associated with this. What do lawyers have to do with this? A number of independent organizations could have come to a different conculsion if people actually died no matter what some court said.

[ColbertWatcher]

52. Are you implying that nuclear power plants...

...come fully formed without experiment?

The number of deaths is being denied by a corporation that doesn't want to be liable for anyone's death.

If you really don't know why corporations have lawyers, I don't know what to say.

[spoony]

95. So in response to evidence your argument is that you

have a gut feeling they're lying. Lol. Okay.

[ColbertWatcher]

123. And your argument for evidence is that you have faith. n/t

[Lerkfish]

132. no, their argument is assume nothing could ever go wrong.

ever, ever. oh, except for the times something does go wrong, but those don't count, because those were times when thing went wrong, so they don't count as examples of how things could go wrong.

therefore, they must declare nothing can go wrong because they declare it improbable, excepting of course, the examples where it did, which they aren't going to listen to as arguments as they stick their fingers in their ears.


lalalalalalalala

[spoony]

164. No, not at all.

No one says "nothing" can go wrong. We simply don't accept the hysterical hand-wringing about Chernobyl, because anyone who is educated on the matter knows the galaxy of differences between that reactor and ours. Just as we do not accept Bush's fear-mongering about terrorism (could it strike today? Yes. Will it? Almost certainly not.), we should not accept it from regressives on this issue.

[Lerkfish]

177. LOL! I'm a "regressive", then.

okeydokey.

Hmmm...you call me an uneducated hysterical regressive when I point out that chernobyl did in fact, meltdown.

when I speak the truth, then I am hysterical to you.

LAlalalalalalalalalalalalalala

*you with fingers in your ears*

[spoony]

181. No, not at all (again)

First off, I am not calling you regressive. I would think you'd know I like you enough to not do that. This "fear fear fear" meme that has killed energy progress in this country for the last thirty years, however, is what it is. And of course Chernobyl was a meltdown. Never said it wasn't. But you know what? So was TMI. The fuel was exposed and burned. We didn't dodge a bullet with TMI. TMI was the bullet, and because we made the building "bullet proof" no one died. That's the difference between the two countries' reactors. And designs have only gotten better.

For whatever reason people DO get hysterical about this issue and it clouds the debate, to the extent that as thousands of us die from the pollution of coal burning plants we curse the atom. It's time to get over it.

[spoony]

162. The amount of superstition you display on this issue

far trumps any displayed by those you hold in such contempt. Once again your superiority complex is exposed as wholly unwarranted.

[Lerkfish]

178. so which insult should we respond to? uneducated, hysterical, regressive, superstitous,

superiority complex?

so, you represent the rational, educated nuclear energy supporter, but all you can do is insult people?

LAlalalalalalala

[spoony]

182. Calm down.

The poster was talking in code about how stupid religious people are, after we clashed over that sentiment a few days ago. I responded to him personally, quite aside from the issue at hand.

[spanone]

79. it only takes one

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

84. Sure.

If you don't count the Tokaimura fatalities, or the Hanford downwinders, or...

[JackRiddler]

102. Depends how you measure death - all the military plant accidents and leaks...

were covered up for decades. Who's crunched the numbers on cancer rates in all these areas where you had dozens of leaks and accidents, like Hanford?

The study I read (back in the pre-Web days) of Windscale/Sellafield in northern Britain (they changed the name because of bad PR), where dozens of accidents and also many "intentional" leaks occurred, found cancer clusters at six times the rate around the reactor and also in Ireland, directly opposite the Irish Sea where the stuff would have been taken by the currents.

[panhead1961]

198. Chernobyl had no containment

It was a nuclear facility inside a building. Three mile island was shutting itself down but an operator did an override so the reactor continued to run. The new operations shut down the plants first no questions asked. The new plants are so much safer and better. Even the green party believes in them.

[sudopod]

205. Negative void coefficients

and a total lack of containment vessel, as well as removing the control rods entirely are all things that don't happen in the modern age. ;)

[Fredda Weinberg]

2. There is currently no way to deal w/the waste ... you can encapsulate it in

glass, but then you have to store it undisturbed for centuries. That ... and the fact that an uncontrolled explosion will kill everyone in the vicinity and poison the surrounding land for generations.

[havocmom]

19. Yup. I notice many nuclear proponents back east want to send wastes out west.

x( If it's so hunky dory, they can keep that shit in their own backyards and not mine. But they don't seem to want to do that. Just want the power. Send the wastes elsewhere. Fuck that shit.

[anigbrowl]

128. Well, that might have something to do with where the deserts are located

I mean, if you want to put your waste in a very remote area to minimize its proximity to people or animals, a desert seems like an obvious place to consider.

[havocmom]

131. Hey, there ARE people here in these very remote deserts!

Keep that shit in your own yards if it's so safe. We don't want the garbage in OUR yards.

[anigbrowl]

146. Too damn bad

There are way fewer people living in a desert than anywhere else. If someone wants to live in a remote desert area and doesn't like having a nuclear waste dump 50 miles away, that's their problem. Someone is always going to be pissed off no matter what is proposed. Your 'backyard' is the area right behind your house; a cavern deep within some mountain 10 miles away from everywhere else is not your backyard.

I think your attitude is extremely selfish. And it's not because I don't care for unspoiled desert; Death Valley is my favorite place on earth. You're not offering an alternative solution to the problem of energy generation, you're just complaining about it. You'd probably complain if the whole desert was coated with solar panels too, even though that wouldn't produce that much electricity.

[havocmom]

154. YOU think MY attitude is selfish? Are YOU using power that creates waste you expect others to eat?

IF it is as safe as proponents claim, WHY DO THEY WANT TO SHIP THE WASTES? Easy, it is NOT safe. So here's an idea: Use renewable CLEAN SAFE methods to produce energy instead of maintaining that we HAVE TO use nuclear power.

Selfish? To advocate that the proponents are LYING about safety is selfish? FUCK YOU.

You ASSUME much. I am tickled pink that more and more companies are building huge solar collection facilities on the desert. It's cleaner, safer and shows real progress.

Fuck this selfish shit and your assumptions that YOU know what I would complain about. You don't know, you just attack based on your own personal agenda?

I LOVE the sight of wind turbines. I would prefer to see one big windmill for every 6 households in MY neighborhood and YOURS. Less money to build and maintain long transmission lines means less cost long term, less vulnerability long term. It also means LESS CARTEL CONTROL OF ENERGY long term and THAT is why the powers that be use posters on internet forums to dismiss REAL energy independence for America.

I LOVE solar and the more, the better. The only draw back I see to the huge plants THAT ARE GOING UP in the desert is that they are still owned by huge corporations that do not have the people's or the nation's best interest at heart. But it is a start and that is a help to get people to appreciate that there are better alternatives to nuclear power.

There are ways to make electricity from the motion of ocean waves. Let's try it out and make sure it works without creating huge monster problems like nuclear power does.

Selfish, you say I am? Hope there is no questionable energy stock in your portfolio.

[anigbrowl]

161. I am fine with wind and solar. But neither provides power 24/7

You seem to think I am for nuclear to the exclusion of all else. This is completely wrong.

You seem to think clean power generation can completely fulfill our energy needs. Not any time soon, it can't. I have been advocating more use of wind, solar and tidal energy for over 20 years. They are part of the solution, along with nuclear energy. But the wind doesn't blow all the time, the sun doesn't shine all the time, and the tide ebbs as well as flows. Those energy sources complement the use of fuel, but they are not going to simply replace it any time soon. There's a reason that sailing ships were replaced by steam powered vessels: the wind just doesn't blow all the time.

You seem to think I am claiming nuclear waste is totally safe. This is completely wrong.

And yes, you are being selfish. You are equating Remote storage in the middle of a mountain with loads of safety systems in place to be the same as 'your backyard' and pretending it's going to affect you personally. Arguing your point in CAPS does not make it any more convincing. Nor do statements like 'FUCK YOU'.

Oh, and you have a problem with wind and solar plants being owned by huge corporations? Well, are you investing in any small companies or community plans to put them up? I think they're being erected by large companies because large companies know how to raise capital.

[pt22]

151. So we will keep the water in our own yards too.

Deal?

[havocmom]

157. Betting most water does not originate in your yards

Water tends to flow down hill. Unless you live on the top of the mountains, your water comes from somewhere else.

I live where annual precipitation is 12 inches. There is a GIGANTIC lake within 30 miles... That lake is filled by the drainage of the Rocky Mountains. That water doesn't stay here, it goes to places downstream; places that have 2 - 3 times the precipitation we have where that water is collected.
LOL Yeah, if we want to each keep the water from our own location, I'm game for that! I will be sitting pretty instead of pretty frugal with water.

[pt22]

160. Amazing.

:banghead:

[anigbrowl]

158. Yeah, because the desert is just awash in water

Oh wait, when I say desert you think I mean a river in Washington.

[havocmom]

194. !2" per year and the largest earthen damn in the nation.

That is my neighborhood. Others get the water.

[suffragette]

140. You mean near rivers?

Let's look at Hanford for a moment.

While it wasn't a plant, it's a good example of the problem of the waste contaminating the facility and the environment.

It was supposed to be cleaned up by 2018.As the following article notes, they are missing that goal by decades while the cost in terms of contamination and money keeps rising. See the chart at the bottom of the article for costs in money. See this and other articles cited for environmental impact.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/355924_hanford21.html

"Cleanup of the most polluted nuclear site in the nation is over budget and many years behind schedule."


Nuclear plants need water to cool them. No surprise then that they tend to build them near rivers and lakes. Here's a good map showing this in Hanford's case

http://www.columbiariverkeeper.org/sitemap.htm

Not only are they having problems with leaks while they are cleaning up (see article above), but there also is serious risk of more leaks:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/355909_tanks21.html
Called by state regulators "the most toxic waste known to this environment," the 53 million gallons of waste sit in 177 massive, buried tanks near the Columbia River. Intended for short-term use, some of the tanks are more than a half-century old. They were built of carbon steel -- an alloy prone to corrosion. They are cocooned in concrete that in places has cracked and crumbled. The contents historically boiled and exploded, and the tank bottoms buckled. More than one-third leaked.

The tanks are supposed to be emptied and the waste safely trapped in glass, but those plans keep getting pushed back. At the current rate of funding, tanks at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation won't be emptied for decades -- maybe even a century.

And guess where it's heading - to the river.

A much more likely threat is continued leaking, or leaking triggered when the tank contents are blasted with liquids to loosen up solid chunks so they can be pumped out. Already about 1.2 million gallons of waste have leaked from the tanks. The waste hasn't reached the Columbia River, but it has seeped into pools of groundwater deep beneath the tanks. There is a lot of uncertainty as to when the polluted groundwater will reach the river -- estimates range from 30 to 200 years.

And we've know this how long?
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/jan-june98/toxic_3-30.html
ROD MINOTT: Casey Rudd is an inspector for Washington State's Department of Ecology. He supervised a study that first found evidence the leaks were reaching groundwater at Hanford, groundwater that eventually feeds into the Columbia, the largest river West of the Mississippi.
ROD MINOTT: The Energy Department estimates that more than one million gallons of radioactive waste have already leaked out of the tanks. The big concern now is where that waste is headed. The tanks are located in the middle of the 560-square mile Hanford site. They're grouped into two areas, the closest about seven miles East of the Columbia River. The Columbia is a source of drinking water for more than 120,000 residents of three nearby cities. Farmers also depend on the river water for irrigation of crops that help feed the nation. Tom Bailie, a resident and farmer, says he's worried about the safety of the water supply.
ROD MINOTT: Mike Wilson heads the nuclear waste division for the Washington State Ecology Department. He says the tank waste could become a public health threat a lot sooner than anyone expected.

MIKE WILSON, Department of Ecology: It gives us a great deal of concern because once this material is in the water it is almost impossible to retrieve it from the water, so the stuff that is now in the groundwater is going to go on towards the river. And it's going to get to the river a lot sooner than we anticipated. And although the threat is not today, it is certainly within a 20-year period now that we think this will reach the Columbia River.

But it's not hurting people, right? Might want to tell that to these folks:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/355909_tanks21.html
A study by the Environmental Protection Agency found that fish caught near Hanford had the highest concentrations of PCBs, metals, dioxins and other contaminants in the Columbia River Basin. It concluded that tribal people who ate fish from the Hanford Reach had up to a 1 in 50 lifetime risk of contracting fatal cancers.

Given the problems with the current clean-up and concerns that the administration wants to send more waste to Hanford, Washington citizens tried to prevent further dumping here. We lost.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/363984_hanford22.html
Washington voters don't have the authority to stop the dumping of radioactive waste in the state, according to a ruling Wednesday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Hanford and a site in Nevada have been selected by the Energy Department as national radioactive disposal sites.

Given our track record at (non) clean-up and (non) protection of the people, wildlife and ecology affected by nuclear waste and the crumbling facilities of old nuclear sites such as Hanford, I'd say we have a long way to go before embracing new nuclear plans.

[anigbrowl]

143. No, when I said 'desert' I actually meant a desert.

And I'm talking about nuclear waste storage, not nuclear plants. I agree with you that Hanford is not an encouraging example, and think that if we are to undertake any major investment in nuclear power job one should be cleaning up the existing sites like Hanford et al so that the knowledge and experience gained from that can be incorporated into future plans at the design stage, rather than painfully learned afterwards. We could also ask the French and the Japanese about their successes and failures in order to get more of the former and less of the latter.

[suffragette]

168. Hanford is located in a desert

but there is still groundwater and the river there, too.

http://www.sierraclub.org/communities/or/hanford.asp



Nuclear waste is being stored there. And it is having a detrimental impact.
Yet despite this, they seem to be looking at shipping more there to that desert location even though they haven't been able to clean up what is already there. They even went so far as to reclassify the waste already there to make it seem less harmful.


http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030818/alvarez
The Legacy of Hanford
Now, however, the DOE is proposing to terminate its environmental mission at Hanford, the most contaminated area in the Western Hemisphere, as well as at other sites. Seeking to free up tens of billions of dollars for other military purposes, the DOE, in an Orwellian sleight of hand, is attempting to redefine more than three-quarters of its most dangerous radioactive wastes by renaming them as "incidental"--this despite the fact that the National Academy of Sciences said in a May 2003 report that the hazards "will persist for centuries...millennia...or essentially forever."

Meanwhile, the Hanford downwinders, whose legal battles against the federal government have been thwarted at every turn, continue to suffer. "The people in this area have been forced into poverty, they fall through the cracks and they die," says Kay Sutherland, who suffers from numerous cancers and has seen disease kill five members of her family. "I am a Holocaust survivor of the American cold war."

I think Hanford is an important example of the legacy and history of how we have handled nuclear waste and the problems we are still having with it. Until and unless these are completely resolved and new methods are proven safe and effective beyond a doubt, I can't agree with starting new plants.

[anigbrowl]

170. Well, I did say above that the DoE should learn from mistakes like that

as well as making the cleanup of existing sites a top priority, as in the first thing to do as part of a refunded nuclear program. Obviously rivers and accessible water tables are not good markers for choosing a nuclear site. If you're building a plant and need water, then you'd better also budget for the cost of a one-way canal. On the other hand, I don't know of any problem that was ever solved by refusing to deal with it and make decisions.

[suffragette]

173. They build nuclear plants next to water for the cooling capacity

You say they aren't "good markers," but that is where they build them, not just here but in France, too.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0711-04.htm

Dangerous Summer for Nuclear Power Plants
July 11, 2005

"According to Lhomme, the southwestern nuclear plant at Blayais, on the Gironda River estuary, committed 50 infractions in 2003."
"In the Rhone valley, which runs from Switzerland to the Mediterranean and with five nuclear power plants along the river, the ambient temperature is already reaching an average of 35 degrees, and the temperature of the river itself more than 20 degrees."
"The Civaux nuclear plant, on the banks of the Vienne, takes in around 350,000 cubic meters of water per day when in full operation. Due to the drought, the facility should have been shut down already."

I added the bold.

I found the following statement in that article thought-provoking, ”Summer 2003 already proved that the promises made by the defenders of nuclear energy are false. Atomic energy is not going to reduce global warming, but -- irony of our climate problems -- that warming does reduce the capacity for utilizing atomic energy,” said Lhomme.

Of course, there's also Hanford, which is by a river and, yes, in a desert. BTW, I did notice your snide comment upthread where you said "Yeah, because the desert is just awash in water. Oh wait, when I say desert you think I mean a river in Washington." Nice purposeful ignoring of Hanford being in a desert AND next to a river as I both cited to you and posted a picture showing it.

Here it is again:


I don't advocate refusing to deal with a problem. Just the opposite, in fact. As I said before, the nuclear waste at Hanford must be addressed and problems we have had and still have in storing and cleaning nuclear waste must be resolved before we barrel blindly forward.

[anigbrowl]

176. What is the point of addressing your complaints if you just ignore it?

I tried to meet you half-way and suggest different criteria, workarounds and compromises but apparently you preferred to ignore that and just cut-and-paste your arguments. Have a nice day.

[suffragette]

187. Actually, I responded to your assertions with facts

The items I cut and pasted were from articles in which experts and concerned citizens addressed ongoing and current issues that need to be resolved. My argument is that these do need to be resolved before we can or should move forward in this arena.

Have a nice day.

[ladywnch]

186. and what happens when there is an earthquake 'out west'

or just one of those containers fails and leaks and then seeps into the ground. There are dormant volcanoes out west and pressure has been shown to be building in couple locations. Deserts do channel ground water to other places. Nothing is full proof and given that somebody the likes of Halliburton would likely get the contract god only knows what the failure rate would end up being.

[AtheistCrusader]

144. There's one way

Burn the waste again, using fast breeder reactors, and other new technologies. "Waste" produced in the 70's can be used as fuel today.

[Fredda Weinberg]

169. Sorry, but that only reduces the problem. I remember the debate

in my chemistry classes decades ago ... and there have been no advances since then. There are no "new technologies".

[AtheistCrusader]

174. Simply untrue.

Pebble Bed reactors are finally being brought to market. Yes, the technology was tested and conceived in the late 50's, but was never made practical till now. The General Electric ESBWR series or Gen3+ light water reactors have made incredible advances in passive safety systems, reduced complexity, and reducing the number of failure points in the standard reactor designs.

To say nothing of the conceptual Gen IV and V reactors on the horizon. Imagine a liquid lead cooled reactor. Or one that uses photovoltaics to convert core output into electricity, instead of steam turbines. This is not a stagnant industry. Safety and regulatory concerns do mean it moves at a fairly glacial pace, but it's very exciting stuff to watch.

[Fredda Weinberg]

204. Sorry, but you can't bury the truth w/BS. Everything you've cited has

nothing to do with spent fuel. Every time you reuse it, it will be less efficient - and there will always be residual material with no where to put it.

You are not smarter than my professors. I listened carefully and have been following developments. The industry will choke on its own waste.

[mod mom]

197. WASTE-is definitely a major reason besides profiteering of the corps who own them.

Think of First Energy allowing their facilities to be run down, un-repaired. Too dangerous.

[panhead1961]

199. Yucca Mountain

Has been built to store the spent fuel in containers underground. The same way France and other counties do. There is also a plan to reclaim a lot of the power left in the rods to further decline the waste.

[phantom power]

3. If you want to have some fun, post that question in the E/E forum.

:popcorn:

[Nihil]

196. Oi you!

Can we please leave this festering heap of ignorance here?
(where it belongs :hide:)
:spank:

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

4. When you live 15 minutes by car away from one, & the school asks your permission to give your kids

sodium iodide just in case...there might seem as if there is something wrong.

[spoony]

96. Do they also do fire drills?

Would you rather they not because the probability of a fire is low?

[truebrit71]

5. Nothing. Except for that whole "glow in the dark" thing if it all goes wrong...

...Plus there's that whole "Built by the lowest bidder" concept I find so encouraging....

Oh...and the waste is a little troublesome I hear...for the first 10,000 years or so...

[libnnc]

6. Um...

How old are you?

Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, etc...

[ccharles000]

11. I am 19.

[libnnc]

23. As someone upthread suggested

Look up the Chernobyl disaster. It happened during the waning years of the Soviet Union.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/environment/jan-june06/chernobyl_4-26.html

[NeedleCast]

70. Yes, you shoud look up the Chernobyl disaster

If you do, you'll see that the explosion there occurred due to extraordinarily bad maintenance and a test gone wrong at a poorly designed Cold War era facility. Using Chernobyl as an example of why nuclear power is unsafe is like cutting the wings off a plane then pushing it off a cliff and claiming air travel isn't safe because planes can crash.

[libnnc]

77. there are plenty of examples here in the states as well

[spoony]

89. Examples of what? Problems? Not catastrophes.

Everything has problems that the media (and those with agendas) use to scare the shit out of people. Hell, tomatoes can't be trusted anymore because some may have made people sick. If we listen to fear-mongers, we'll never accomplish anything.

[spoony]

88. Lol, brilliant analogy

I'll remember that one for future reference :)

[Lerkfish]

179. chernyobl in fact occurred.

denying it did is pointless.

the plant may have been run incompetently, but don't look now, many of our plants in the US have also come close. Simply saying the chance of something is low does not mean there is no chance whatsoever.

[pitohui]

190. with the usa's aging infrastructure we ARE the former soviet union

our bridges and levees are falling down around us, to pretend that what happened in chernobyl won't happen here is just plain ludicrous, it already is happening here, anyone unaware of the usa's failing infrastructure is needs to put down the mccain birthday cake and catch up on the news

i give you this test: call your insurance agent and how much it will cost you to buy insurance against nuclear disaster/meltdown that destroys your home -- she will tell you that you can't buy it -- at ANY price -- what more does a sane person need to know?

[spoony]

193. Then you simply don't understand what happened at Chernobyl

It isn't a matter of age. US reactors are over-engineered and on top of that so are the containment structures, the latter being demonstrated in the case of TMI, which--if it were built like Chernobyl--would have looked like it as well. But it just isn't the case.

And, while I have a few ideas depending on what you think happens during a meltdown, I'd like for you to expand on the idea of a meltdown destroying your home. As in, how that happens.

[Asgaya Dihi]

7. There's a few of them

For one thing politics plays too big a role, look at where they've built some of them. I still can't believe we've got one nested in the middle of a bunch of fault lines in Southern California. How's that going to work out when they get that "big one" we keep hearing about? If we've got to have them we can certainly do better than that and the fact that in some cases we haven't should concern us.

There's limited fuel. If the world shifted hard toward it we'd have enough to last for some span of time, how long I'd guess is open to debate, but eventually we end up right back where we are today. diminishing fuel supplies, rising costs, and so on.

There's waste, we don't really know what to do with it and every time we think we have a solution it leaks or something. We need 10,000 year storage and we can't manage to do it successfully for 10.

It's subsidized to the point that it can be viable to run, it doesn't run well without those subsidies. Given the huge subsidies we've offered to that, to oil companies, to others as well, we could have if we'd invested the money into renewable resources maybe been a lot farther along by now or even had the problem solved. There's a lot of noise about potential bio-fuel from algae, from waste products, and so on. There's potential to do a lot of things which may or may not work but nobody has been looking until recently because we've been subsidizing things people make money off of rather than things we need. Feeding the status quo instead of the future.

I'm sure there's more but that's a quick off the top of my head list. If you can do it safe, economically, without subsidies and without tying us into another diminishing resource go for it. Don't expect us to stop there though or to put renewables aside for it.

[MercutioATC]

9. Can we store spent fuel in your back yard?

Will you move your family 2 miles downwind from one?

Will you help pay for encapsulating the entire plant in 25 years or so when it's too irradiated for further use?


If you answered "no" to any of these questions, you're starting to get the idea.

[havocmom]

155. Ever notice that proponents of nuclear ALWAYS disappear when we ask that one?

If it's all so safe, why don't they take it home with them?

[jeanruss]

10. atomic suicide

Walter Russell's book "Atomic Suicide" explains why nuclear power is so dangerous and shows how Hydrogen is the fuel of the future. It's cheap, clean and safe as well as plentiful. We could have had it 70 years ago, but the Oil monopolies prevented that. I have also read that it is nuclear fall-out that is mainly responsible for global warming.

[A HERETIC I AM]

46. Where does all this "Plentiful" Hydrogen come from?

Any idea?

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

[jeanruss]

59. new periodic chart

Walter Russell, who actually was the true discoverer of plutonium, presented the scientific community with a new periodic chart that was much more extensive than the one we have been using for so long. He explained that what we consider finite elements are actually different substances that can be created by varying pressures. It was an entirely different science that, at the time, could be accepted because it was so different from what scientists believed. At the Westinghouse labs, Russell created 17 different substances from water. He also developed an engine that ran on hydrogen that he exhibited for NORAD. He sent a message to the President that the world was finally free of fossil fuels. Of course all of this has been squashed and buried and Russell's name and research have been wiped away as if they never happened. We had an American genius who solved our most pressing problems because of the greed of a few. As an example, he projected that a ship could used the water beneath it to fuel its engines as it traveled around the world.

[pt22]

60. P.T. Barnum sure called it.

:eyes:

[jeanruss]

117. tesla

You sound like those who mocked Tesla-an open mind is a sign of intelligence. Tesla was a good friend of Walter Russell (as was Teddy Roosevelt and FDR). He told Russell to put his science away for a thousand years until people would start to accept it. Only problem is we don't have a thousand years to solve our energy crisis. "The Man Who Tapped the Secrets of the Universe" by Glenn Clark is a biography of Walter Russell. It is really amazing what he accomplished in one lifetime. It's not a very big book. You should be able to handle it....

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

145. So even Tesla thought Russell was a nut?

Ouch, that's got to hurt.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

85. lol

[bean fidhleir]

111. Someone's not a scientist, that's for sure!! (nt)

[anigbrowl]

127. Not everything that is obscure is true

And indeed, not everyone that is brilliant is right all the time. Newton was probably the greatest scientist ever, but in addition to getting many things right he also got many things hopelessly wrong.

[cynatnite]

12. Nothing is wrong with it and we should be investing in it...

France has dealt with it responsibly and with maturity unlike here in the US where even intelligent people freak out over it. The only problem France has at this point is how to handle the waste. They built facilities to stockpile it and have researchers looking into ways to reuse it with the support of the people.

Unlike the US and Russia, France embraced it and has been very successful. No Chernobyl and no Three Mile Island for them.

Here is how France has managed their program...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/readings/french.html

[navarth]

18. what was that little thing about the waste again...?

facilities to stockpile it? looking into way to reuse it?

call back when you figure that part out, maybe we can talk then about all the OTHER problems.

[cynatnite]

22. It's a hell of a lot better than hiding under the bed...

like many Americans do when the word 'nuclear' is whispered.

[navarth]

106. hiding under the bed?? WTF

so if I don't want to indulge in an unsafe energy source I'm hiding under the bed? tie that together for me, pal.

[anigbrowl]

34. I'm OK with burying it inside a mountain

That seems a lot more responsible to me than just filling up the atmosphere with CO2. So, the waste is horrible and literally radioactive and stays that way for hundreds or thousands of years but putting it in one or two spots makes it relatively easy to manage. I used to be dead against nuclear power when i was younger but I've changed my mind. It's not THE solution, but it's part of the solution.

[roody]

93. Do you have a mountain you would like to donate?

Or are you planning to use the sacred sites of indigenous people?

[anigbrowl]

126. There's a lot of mountains. I'm sure a suitable one can be found somewhere.

I don't believe that every single suitable site is necessarily someone's sacred unique and irreplaceable spiritual property. Personally, I'm not taken by BANANA people (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone) or CAVE people (Citizens Against Virtually Everything).

No matter what your goal is, there will always be some people who have some kind of objection but getting things done means weighing those objections fairly and finding a solution acceptable to a large majority. As I said earlier, thoughtless consumption of fossil fuels has done quite enough damage to the environment as things are (emissions, strip mining, groundwater contamination) so if we can find alternative sources of energy where the downsides are limited and relatively easy to manage, we should do so. We should reduce our energy use as much as possible but it's quite unrealistic to think we can just throttle it back to zero, nor is it wise to postpone the problem in hopes of discovering some magic zero-impact future technology.

[TCJ70]

42. Launch it into space! n/t

[SteppingRazor]

66. Seconded.

We could have clean nuclear and reinvigorate NASA at the same time!

[hedgehog]

80. And if there is an accident that scatters the payload.?....

[trusty elf]

81. You forgot the sarcasm sign.

You're joking, right?!

[enough]

14. Cost.

[ccharles000]

15. Thanks everyone.

I guess we should stick to wind,water,and solar. I don't support nuclear anymore.

[navarth]

16. If you dig a bit deeper, there are numerous really bad problems.

1. The waste lasts 96,000 years...the ultimate pollution
2. Billions and billions invested before it turns a profit
3. The energy and resources used to construct it = prohibitive

Consider this: why won't any insurance companies insure them?

[anigbrowl]

129. These are not as bad as you think

1. the waste lasts 96000 years, but it's pretty easy to contain so it doesn't have to involve major pollution. Dumping it into the groundwater would be bad, storing it underground in the middle of nowhere is reasonable.

2. So it takes billions and billions. Well, that's the nature of large infrastructural investments. It's quite OK if it breaks even over the long term and leads to a net economic benefit.

3. Obviously the energy and resources used to construct it are not prohibitive or it wouldn't be used at all. France doesn't appear to have gone bankrupt recently.

Insurance companies won't insure them because they can't absorb so much concentrated risk. Government is the insurer of last resort. This is actually not as unusual as you might think; in fact, the scale of large infrastructural investments is something that private money generally can't handle, and one of the inconvenient truths often overlooked by libertarians that think the federal highway system and the Hoover Dam built themselves. No insurance companies have a policy covering the Hoover Dam either, for that matter.

[Terran]

17. It's not a renewable energy source?

Seems like there's a very finite supply of uranium.

[mdmc]

25. too much waste

not enough ability to deal with the bi-products

[ColbertWatcher]

26. Nuclear power is the death penalty of energy sources.

While I am completely against the DP in every case, there are some who say it should be used.

Those people believe that it can be used in certain cases and when it is, everyone involved is very careful and professional.

Despite all that care, mistakes will be made, and when they are, they cannot be undone.

That's the danger of nuclear power: we cannot trust politicians and/or bureaucrats to oversee it.

We had professionals running FEMA before the GOP got a hold of it and look what happened in the Mississippi gulf coast.

We had professionals running the FDA before the GOP grabbed the White House and now we can't trust the food to be edible or toys not to be poisonous.

Nuclear power is too dangerous to be left in the hands of people who can't even pronounce it correctly.

[senaca]

39. leaks at a plant historically have not been reported.

Take Hanford. All the while the community living there were told that nuclear was the safest, cleanist energy, there were unreportable leaks in which the community was not told. Another byproduct of the nuclear plant age is the plants that were buried and most of the community does not know they were even there. One instance would be near Rifle, CO. This complicates things when oil and gas want to drill there.

I highly agree with your post that we can't trust politicians or even big business to oversee it when profit motive is king.

[ColbertWatcher]

40. Thank you.

It is rarely ever the science or the hope of a new technology, but its application that is always faulty.

[Eric J in MN]

50. The Hanford site in Washington state produced nuclear weapons.

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

[senaca]

83. Hanford speaks to the trust factor or lack thereof.

[spoony]

90. Then the same goes for health care, social security, education...

All those things are, by your logic, too important to trust to government. Quite libertarian of you, really.

[ColbertWatcher]

125. Very republican of you to twist it the way you did! n/t

[anigbrowl]

150. No, it's a fair rebuttal.

If you hold a conspiracy-theory view of government (and governments have indeed done bad things), then logically it can't be trusted on anything important. Don't truth the government on nuclear? How can you trust them on alternative energy? Maybe they'll just built 1/3 as many wind farms as needed, use the extra money to prepare against the breakdown of society, and when the crunch comes they'll just shrug and say 'sorry, but you wouldn't listen so we salvaged what we could and built a giant wall around Washington DC'.

Government is a flawed institution run by flawed people. I'm a big believer in the idea that you should never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Inept bunglers far outnumber evil geniuses.

[spoony]

165. Very...incoherent of you to say so.

Like I said. Boring. You've got nothing.

[varelse]

114. Your argument is the strongest one I've seen

"Nuclear power is too dangerous to be left in the hands of people who can't even pronounce it correctly."

[baldguy]

28. Reminds me of those drug ads.

"This pill will get rid of your halitosis, but it may cause blindness, brain tumors, sterility, toenail cancer, and leprosy."

Nukes may help to alleviate our energy needs, but the possible side effects far outweigh the benefits.

[Bluerthanblue]

30. the waste is being dealt with by denial- not a good solution-

until a genuine solution is found, we shouldn't be creating more.

peace~

[SergeyDovlatov]

36. Earlier nuclear power plants designs were so unsafe

that no private insurance company was willing to insure the plant against possible nuclear accident.

"Luckily", US passed Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price-Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act

so NPP could be built.

Until private insures are willling to insure NPPs, it is not safe enough.

However, there are some designs with "passive safety". Meaning, if you don't do something special. It shuts down all by itself. Whereas most (all) previous design required active safety, and if it fails, run for the hills and hope that containment building is sturdy enough.

Pebble bed reactors are "passively safe" and seem promising.

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

[truth2power]

38. Everything else aside...and people should reflect on this..

Nuclear power is an incredibly costly way to Boil Water

Boil water --> Produce steam --> Turn turbine --> Produce electricity.

[ColbertWatcher]

44. That's crazy witch talk. n/t

[truth2power]

100. ...

What??

[ColbertWatcher]

124. I'm joking. n/t

[Cleita]

48. And then there is the sun, which in the Southwest we have plenty of. It's

clean and will last as long as the sun does with relatively little waste to deal with and it's not nuclear waste.

[pt22]

63. And under ideal conditions you can get about 100 watts per square meter

from insolation. That's at perfect efficiency.

[Cleita]

68. We have an Environment/Energy Forum here at DU.

I'm tired of battling you guys and your faulty information here. That forum has really good information on this subject. Now go read it, get some facts and then come back and post something.

[pt22]

71. I don't need a forum to find out how much solar energy falls on the earth's surface.

I resent you calling my information 'faulty.' Obviously the figures vary wildly depending on latitude, season, weather, etc. Maybe 200 is feasible in the United States as a ball-park average. Obviously it's a hell of a lot less in Thule. :eyes:

[anigbrowl]

130. Pwnage! :-)

S/he's right you know.

[pt22]

86. Here is some info from U of Oregon

http://zebu.uoregon.edu/disted/ph162/l4.html

[ladywnch]

188. hadn't thought about it that way, but......yeah....... eom

[poliscifanboy]

43. uhhhhh.......its evil!

Nuclear energy is pure evil. All it does is kill people.

[guitar man]

45. nothing except greed

If it ends up being owned and managed by private interests, they are bound to cut corners eventually, resulting in disaster. Wealth addiction is a serious disease and it causes the aristocrats to act with reckless disregard for anyone but themselves.

This is one area where the "private sector can do it better" crowd is most certainly wrong. If she were alive today, Karen Silkwood could attest to that.

[Cleita]

47. There are many things wrong but on the top of my list is

disposing of the nuclear waste. Our local nuke power plant has pretty much filled up their storage and will have to look for more ways to dispose of it. If we add more nuke plants, there is that much more nuclear waste to try to get rid of. This waste can't be thrown into a landfill but must be contained forever almost. I think spending that money on solar and other alternative energy sources would be more efficient and less costly in the end. However, those technologies though don't line the pockets of the energy industry like nuke plants do so that's why they are pushing it above all other technologies.

[raincity_calling]

49. Nueclear power and CO2 - Nuclear power is promoted as a way to

reduce carbon emissions, but at what cost? Furthermore, no one talks about the CO2 emissions caused at the front end during the uranium mining phase. A significant proportion of greenhouse emissions from nuclear power stem from the fuel supply stage, which includes uranium mining, milling, enrichment and fuel manufacturing

Besides creating toxic waste, it uses huge amounts of water. We are facing water shortages too.

I suggest people begin thinking more in terms of sustainabilty. I suggest people read the book "The Natural Step." Then you will begin to understand why nuclear power is no solution and will only contribute to the destruction of the environment.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7371645.stm

http://www.naturalstep.org/com/nyStart/

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

[damntexdem]

53. Not a thing at all, other than ...

no adequate permanent storage system for nuclear waste exists;
temporary waste storage sites, including on-site, are limited;
risk of accidents, from minor, through 3-Mile Island, through Chernobyl, to much worse;
China syndrome;
radiation is nearly forever;
environmental risks of uranium mining.

And likely a few other issues, some of which we may yet have to encounter.

[MadHound]

55. Two big problems,

What to do with the waste and human error

The waste problem is a biggie. There is currently no safe, stable place to put the tons of waste. The cost is prohibitive to launch it to the sun, and besides, an atmospheric burst ala Challenger and Columbia would be a major disaster.

Despite how well they design nuclear reactors, they simply can't design out human error. Two big examples, Chernobyl and TMI come to mind, but there are many, many smaller examples that occur on a regular basis, sometimes without being reported.

There are other issues too, cooling water supplies(nuke plants in MN and France both had to close down the past couple of summers due to a severe drought sucking all the cooling water right out of the rivers) and the fact that the US doesn't have much left in the way of domestic supplies of uranium. We would be exchanging an oil addiction for a uranium addiction.

Nuclear simply isn't the way to go, especially when we already have other clean, renewable alternatives.

[Carnea]

56. There really isn't one. But a lot of older people have emotional baggage

tied up with protesting it. Nuclear Power is to liberals what fluoride (or the Gold standard or Communists) is to Conservatives. I guess if you spent twenty years protesting nuclear power and then woke up and environmentally groups are supporting it you might feel a little bitter as well.

One of our local schools had a fundraiser to buy DDT infused mosquito nets for African villages to help save the children from Malaria. Well you should have seen some of the grey haired warriors hyperventilate at that. Us younger progressives (You know 40 something) tried to explain in calm rational tones why this was a good thing but there is no getting through to some of them.

Don't worry let them vent its good for their digestion. Soon it will be nap time and the rest of us can get to solving the problems of the future rather than lining in the past.

(I purposely wrote this in a demeaning way because nothing pisses me off more than a self declared progressive that is stuck in past. And is unwilling to except new ideas.)

[pt22]

64. Excellent point. To some, it's like seeing their deity exposed as a child molester.

:D

[Greyhound]

121. would you like to be bludgeoned to death with facts, or are you comfortable in your ignorance? n/t

[KamaAina]

58. 56 posts and no one's mentioned weapons proliferation?

Proliferation is bad. That's why we're gonna have to attack Iran, so the bad guys don't get any nukes. :sarcasm:

And certain types of nuclear reactors produce waste that, in the wrong hands, could become nuclear weapons. :scared:

[spoony]

94. The US already has enough nukes, and "wrong hands," to

turn the earth into a glass ball, so it's really not applicable to our using nuclear power. And really there are lots cheaper ways to get a nuke than to spend the time and money setting up not only a reactor, but many, and then the equipment to process the plutonium. Cheaper to just buy them.

[pt22]

61. It's not perfect but it beats the shit out of whatever else we will have when the oil is gone.

But zip up your asbestos underwear, there are a lot of Luddites even in the "progressive" community.
:D

[JerseygirlCT]

62. Nuclear waste. nt

[singilarpoint]

69. I am 100% in favor of nuclear power

IT'S CALLED THE SUN!!!!!!!! O8)

[pt22]

72. Yeah but those 93 million mile extension cords are hell to untangle.

;-)

[JerseygirlCT]

101. LOL! nt

[Greyhound]

120. Fusion not fission. n/t

[LanternWaste]

67. I think it should be on the table

I think it should be on the table.

France receives over 75% of her electricity from nuclear power-- and actually exports electricity to Belgium and Italy; and I believe there are just over 100 nuclear reactors in the U.S supplying us with just under 20% of electric power.

But, not being a nuclear physicist (or a physicist of any kind-- heck, I'm lucky to know how to spell physicist), I'd wind up deferring to the actual experts and the position papers they put out.

But it seems like a pretty good idea to me (all other things being equal). There have been 3(?) nuclear accidents in the West with no direct deaths resulting-- which is an inviable record compared to the other energy industries... how many Westerners have died as a direct result of coal ming this year alone?

[NeedleCast]

73. It's Very Safe, the downside is the storage of waste

but even that can be curtailed with certain rector designs. The problem is and always will be two-fold. The first part of the problem is big oil. They more nuclear power we used, the less coal we burn and the less money they make. I think Big Oil sees nuclear power as one of the few power sources that could bring about it's true death.

The other problem (and you can already see it on this thread) is the hand-wringers. Generally, the first word out of their mouths when the topic of nuclear energy comes up is Chernobyl. They'll ignore the facts that several other people have posted in this thread about the plant condition and maintenance at Chernobyl in favor of the "OMG IT WAS TERRIBLE!" argument because it's the knee-jerk reaction. Yes, unfortunately four to eight thousand people died but to hear them tell in the area around Chernobyl is a nuclear wasteland that glows green at night when in reality it's currently teaming with wildlife due to the lack of humans.

There has been one fairly minor incident on US soil (three mile island reactor leak) and I think someone upthread pointed out that a grand total of one (1) death has been attributed to it.

Meanwhile, oil/coal power continues to pollute the hell out of the environment and produce far more toxic waste than a well run, modern nuclear plant would produce.

[Occam Bandage]

74. Media-inflated fear of the improbable.

[NeedleCast]

75. Yup!

Pretty much sums it up.

[JackRiddler]

104. Would you play Russian roulette with 10,000 bullets? Would you play it every day?

Isn't there a formula for assessing improbable events that, when they happen -- and you can become more certain that, given decades and centuries of reactor use, they will -- result in total disasters such as making whole cities uninhabitable to humans?

[Occam Bandage]

105. Depends on the number of chambers, the reward for playing, and the alternative to playing.

[theboss]

137. Don't I do that by driving every day?

Car crashes. School shooters. MRSA. NYPD. Something is going to kill me eventually.

The problem with nuclear power is that we can't even have a discussion on it.

As soon as someone suggests it, another person screams "Chernobyl!!!!" and that's that.

[JackRiddler]

175. We're having a discussion of it right now. Such as it is, on an Internet board.

But as to your question: No. Someone else here pointed out, if you crash your car, it doesn't poison the vegetables in Sweden.

[spanone]

78. the waste has a shelf life of hundreds of thousands of years...other than that...

radioactive waste - safely....ain't gonna happen

[slackmaster]

92. A lot less wrong than there was 30 or 40 years ago

The technology has gotten much safer. What to do with the waste is still a big one, but it's really just an engineering problem. Nobody really needs to pull a rabbit out of a hat to fix it.

[intaglio]

97. Big Problems

Windscale (aka Seascale, Sellafield) Several massive accidents with no immediate fatalities but large releases of radioactive products

Three Mile Island

Chernobyl

Now for the ones you haven't heard about

Japan - Coolant leak at Tsuruga; Workers exposed again Tsuruga; Radioactive waste leak Tokaimura; Tokyo Electric power Generator leaks small amount radiation; Tsuruga at least 11 workers suffer radiation poisoning and I believe 1 later died.

USA - Nine Mile Point; Ginna and La Salle; 1957, core Meltdown in Idaho; 1958, Accidental meltdown at Oak ridge; 1965 Fire and exposure of workers at Rocky Flats, Denver

Link to a Greenpeace article on Nuclear Accidents http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/nukes/chernob/rep02.html

[NNN0LHI]

98. I think it is cost prohibitive

http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/NIPSCO-INDUSTRIES-INC-Company-History.html

<snip>In 1974, three years after its original filing date, NIPSCO received a construction permit from the Atomic Energy Commission to build its first nuclear plant at a site adjacent to its Bailly station and to the Cowles Bog, an ecologically unique wetlands area within the recently created Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. An enormously controversial and costly project, Bailly Nuclear One was eventually abandoned in 1981 after $191 million had been spent with only one percent of the construction being completed, according to Robert Barker in Barron's. Despite NIPSCO's eventual triumph in state supreme court litigation over the placement of the facility, new cost projections caused by the delays proved insurmountable. Intensifying NIPSCO's loss was the Indiana high court's later ruling that NIPSCO could not amortize the failed project's costs over a 15-year period, forcing the company in 1985 to declare a net loss of $94.8 million.

[JackRiddler]

103. Low risk, but of total disaster, plus mountains of radioactive waste.

[and-justice-for-all]

108. I do not have an issue with Nuclear Power...

it is however the 'waste' that I am concerned about. Find something to do with that Nuclear Waste other then hiding it in mountains or burying it, than it is all good.

We are exposed to radiation on a daily bases, it permeates everything. You can be exposed to 100 milliceavers(I think that's correct, might be misspelled.) of radiation and it will have no effect on you. Anything over that, well, it's not good.

[navarth]

109. Take all the money you want to waste on nuclear

and spend it on developing wind and solar.

and develop a more sustainable lifestyle.

[bean fidhleir]

110. Very little, actually. It's a temporary solution because uranium ore is in limited supply

but I think that's about the only thing.

There's less to the oft-cited disposal problem than meets the eye, since spent fuel rods dropped into the ocean over a site of plate-tectonic activity (e.g., the one in the Caribbean) will be taken care of by Earth herself without muss or fuss.

It's the only current technology that will generate a LOT of power without burning something and increasing the greenhouse effect.

Presumably it's much more a gateway technology to fusion than any other.

It's probably going to soon be the power source of choice for intercontinental travel, or at least for intercontinental humanitarian operations. If a NY-London sailing ship with 500 passengers gets into trouble in mid-Atlantic, a nuke boat is about the only way to rescue them.

[JackRiddler]

113. Stuff I learned from the pro-nuke crowd...

1) The Maginot Line is impenetrable.

2) Waste? What waste?

3) It's all right to play Russian roulette with New York City. What the hell, Bush has been doing that for eight years already, and it only got hit once.

4) I mean, the odds are just soooooooooooo low and you're really hypocritical to mention them on a medium that requires electricity.

5) In complex systems, all possible accidents over a decade or a century's time can be foreseen and prevented through good design and conscientious operation.

6) Enron is not a typical energy company. Stories of corporate malfeasance and negligence and technical things apply in every industry except the nuclear, which is perfectly well-regulated and totally conscientious about its meticulous standards.

7) Nuclear power is, apparently, the first activity in the history of mankind never to result in any deaths whatsoever. Nuclear power has killed less people than playing bridge.

8) The only accident that ever happened was Chernobyl.

9) Accidents that revealed decades after they occur don't count.

10) Hey, hippie, you like that electric guitar? Gotcha!

I now also know from up-thread that Chernobyl's not uninhabitable, since lots of plants and animals live there.

[spoony]

185. The terrible thing is you thought this was clever enough to

post it as its own thread. There is a rather big difference between satire and a pile of raggedy strawmen.

[Phred42]

115. ccharles000 your mom said she wants you to clean your room and get a job

Do a little research before you admit your utterly clueless alternate universe to the world

[navarth]

133. The guy asks honest questions and you treat him like that?

You might want to re-evaluate that attitude.

[Phred42]

134. I didn't take that as an honest question

It's too easy to do a little homework.

If the guy needs spoon feeding.......

[navarth]

136. WTF

Seems to me like THIS WAS HIS RESEARCH asking questions in a place full of interesting, bright people.

Again I say

WTF

[pt22]

159. Why are you being such a prick to him?

:eyes:

[spoony]

183. Very adult of you.

[XOKCowboy]

116. Do you want children? Do you want them to have children?

Well all of the highly radioactive waste will be left for them to deal with and it'll be highly deadly for many generations to come. No one has come up with any way to safely store or decontaminate the waste. Until they do I'll be totally against nuclear power.

[anigbrowl]

163. I think it can be safely stored

It is not that difficult, but people imagine that wherever it is, its contaminating power is somehow going to reach all the way to wherever they live. Everyone knows that nuclear waste is radioactive for thousands of years (bad! bad!) but few bother to consider that its intensity diminishes according to an inverse-square law or learn much else about the science. It's impossible to have a scientific discussion with someone who just keeps saying 'it's dangerous, it's dangerous' over and over and refuses to learn enough about it to quantize the level of danger and discuss proposals about how to manage it.

[XOKCowboy]

171. Nice postulation but do you have any proof?

The Half-Life of Plutonium-239 is 24000 years. That means that in 24000 years it will just be half as radioactive. Have I missed anything so far? France produces 84000 tonnes (1 tonne = 2205 US pounds) of highly radioactive waste PER YEAR and that's just France. What do you propose to use to contain that waste safely for even 1000 years?

I'm sorry but it's up to those of you who favor Nucular Power to figure out "how to manage it". I'd like to hear ONE reasonable proposal to handle the waste.

[Old Hickory Fan]

118. Yikes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MUST READ

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080617/GREEN02/806170368

[DebJ]

119. No one knows how to dispose of the entire PLANT when it starts

breaking down . . . the entire plant, that is. According to my professor at college. The cement in the plants won't last forever, but we have not yet reached that
point based on the ages of plants built to date. I can't remember how long it takes, but if I recall, it is substantially less than a century. No one has a clue
what to do when we reach that point, from what I was taught.

[deaniac21]

135. Iran seems to be doing a good job with it.

[theboss]

138. Want to know why nuclear power is actually fairly trust-worthy?

It's self-insured.

[McCamy Taylor]

192. Lies! It is federal government insured after the first 10 billion. That wont pay for a fraction

of a major city. GE alone makes 10 billion a year from its nuclear energy section. And if one of its nukes were to take out a major city the cost would be way above 10 billion. How much is NYC worth? Or Chicago?

[leftofthedial]

139. no problem at all

chernobyl was no problem.

massive amounts of waste that remains deadly for millenia is no problem.

Heating groundwater beyond the safe limits for local fauna and flora is no problem.

leaks and releases of deadly substances is no problem.

assuming there will be someone around with sufficient technology to maintain the reactors and deal with the waste for tens of thousands of years into the future is no problem.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

147. Besides problems with human error and nuclear waste already mentioned...

there's also the prohibitive cost of nuclear reactors. None have been built in the last thirty years because it's not profitable. Wind farms and solar cells? Lots of those going up.

And nuclear fuel itself is in limited supply. If we went over to nuclear power, we'd run out of fuel in a few decades and wind up in the same problem we are now with petro.

[GaYellowDawg]

148. Wow.

nuclear fuel itself is in limited supply

I'd never thought of that - it's a great point.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

149. The counterpoint to that...

is that we could develop and use new breeder reactors that could use fuel more efficiently.

The often unmentioned drawback to that is that the danger and waste products would be worse than those produced in conventional reactors now.

[anigbrowl]

152. It hasn't been profitable because the price of oil has been low

If the baseline cost of energy goes up, so does the profitability of nuclear. I am a big fan of tidal, solar and wind power but the fact is that none of them deliver in quantity and consistency the same way nuclear can, so they're not the whole answer.

Tidal only generates power 50% of the time, and it's a limited amount of power. Maintenance is expensive. Solar doesn't work everywhere and in any case it only supplies power then the sun is up. Wind is great but it doesn't blow all the time. I also like geothermal power, but like hydro it isn't practical just anywhere. We have no clues about how to pull power from 'the fabric of space' or the earth's rotation, so various proposals based on pseudoscience are about as useful as proposals for perpetual motion machines.

Nuclear fuel is in limited supply, but it's not as limited as all that. Additionally, various other designs are possible that have just not been implemented up to now. As people have been eagerly pointing out, nuclear waste remains super-radioactive for many thousands of years. It's far more radioactive than raw uranium, in fact the problem is that we're not sure how to manage such concentrated radioactivity. Of course, radioactivity is a form of energy release, so the more radioactive something is the more energy is stored within it, meaning that highly radioactive plutonium rads are in fact giant batteries that we just haven't figured out how to properly exploit yet.

[kiranon]

153. For those for it, can the plant be placed in your home town?

I lived through the bomb testing in Nevada. Animals died and later people died from cancer in much higher numbers but so much time had passed no one could prove it was from the radiation. The cost of decommissioning a nuclear plant far outweighs any benefits from it. Conservation, solar and wind can get us out of this energy crisis. Nuclear will just put us into another crisis down the road with horrible consequences. In memory of my sister and my best friend who died from ovarian cancer in their fifties. In memory of my mom and dad who died from cancer and all the kids I graduated from high school with who also died from cancer. At our school reunions there is hardly anyone left.

[high density]

167. Sure

My neighborhood is near 250,000 barrel tanks of crude oil. I don't fear those, nor do I fear nuclear power plants. A nuclear power plant is not nuclear bomb testing.

[pt22]

172. Er, you are equating nuclear power plants with bomb testing?

:eyes:

[spoony]

184. Oh, brother. Nuke plants do not = nuclear weapons

Exploding nukes in open air was the dumbest possible thing to do, but it has absolutely nothing to do with nuclear energy.

[high density]

166. Good question

Beyond a lot of fear mongering (see above) it seems to be a better energy source than burning oil or coal. Yes, the waste is a problem but we can deal with that. Europe, Japan, etc have shown that nuclear can be safe.

[pitohui]

189. the laws of physics mean the problem of nuclear waste CAN'T be solved

the half life of radioactive products is what it is

if you think there is nothing wrong with nuclear power, no one is stopping you from moving to france or any other place you like where you can have a nuclear power plant practically in your backyard

by federal LAW, if my home is destroyed by a meltdown from a nuclear power plant, i cannot buy insurance to compensate me, i have lost my only possession of any value, one i worked decades to pay for -- THAT'S what's wrong w. nuclear power -- no one in the usa who owns a home can support nuclear power in their area, you'd have to be crazy to take such a risk for NO benefit to yourself and the chance of losing your entire life's work (if not your life itself)

if nuclear power was safe, you could insure your home aga. meltdown from nuclear disaster, no insurance company in the world passes up free money


the facts of physics and economics do not lie -- of course we always believe it's the other person who will "enjoy" the disaster, floods, fire, earthquakes, and chemical meltdown only happen to "other" people, so you feel perfectly safe, but in the real world, a disaster can happen to you and your family just as easily as it can happen to mine and people whose plans are based on "it can't happen to me" should not be allowed to vote or be involved in public policy in my view

because radiation is invisible, i'm confident we've had many more "events" than we've been told about -- there are areas such as long island where women of means, with every kind of access to medical help, are dying at unusually high rates of breast cancer, and it's probably because of leaks from a nearby nuclear reactor, don't you think? but maybe you're not a woman and, again, it wouldn't affect you, so who cares?

[spoony]

191. "probably because of leaks from a nearby nuclear reactor, don't you think?"

What cause do we have to think that, except that you suspect it's the case? Is radiation the only thing that causes cancer out there?

And is "if you don't like it move to France" really legitimate debate? I mean, where have we heard that before?

[sir pball]

206. Assuming it's Long Island s/he's talking about

Then it probably IS a result of a tritium leak from the BNL reactor, and it's not a secret - it's quite the opposite, a HUGELY publicized fuck up (which as with 99% of ANY industrial accidents is a result of shoddy maintenance and management, not an inherent problem with the technology).

Ref

[panhead1961]

203. Radon from decomposing granite is all around

New types of fuel and new ways to get more out of the fuel bundles will greatly reduce the waste. Areva (french company) is working at reclaiming the spent fuel to greatly reduce waste. Your concern about insurance will be a big part of the licensing of a new plant.

[Deja Q]

195. Ditto. 100%.

Properly set up and maintained, it's a very worthwhile source.

As is solar.

[yurbud]

200. Why not use renewables to the max instead? something like 71 sq miles of solar

could power the entire US. We've got land here in Southern California that's only being used for raising tumbleweeds and scorpions that could be used for solar.

[yurbud]

202. oil & power companies like nuke because it can be monopolized--wind & solar can be dispersed

If our system is based on wind and solar and the utilities charge to much, people might decide to slap some solar panels on their roof and make their own energy.

You can't do that with nuclear power, which is why they like it--it gives them a stranglehold on our wallet.