Since the disaster in Japan, I'm wondering how many still think that nuclear power is the way to go? I'm thinkin' that I will take wind power over nuclear, if something goes wrong the consequences are small. Kinda like having your neighbor bitten by your chihuahua, and you get bitten by their pit bull. The results hardly compare. :P :P
The key to utilizing wind and solar is in finding a way to make the electricity from them "base load". Currently, just creating electricity from these two sources doesn't provide a stable, continuous flow of energy onto the grid. Any wind or solar generation added to the grid has to be backed up somewhere on the grid by another source, usually gas turbine, that can come online quickly when the wind dies down, or the skies turn cloudy.
What's needed is a way to "store" the electricity generated by wind and solar to where it can be placed on the grid in a controlled, constant manner. There are multiple ways to do this, but none that are really cost effective, yet. One that is utilized is using wind energy to pump water uphill into reservoirs, then releasing the water through hydro-electric generators during peak load times. This is done some in the western states where topography and economics make it feasible at times.
Other ways would be to use the wind and solar electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, then use the hydrogen in place of natural gas turbine generation. Or you could store the electricity in batteries, but the right kind (read cost-effective) of battery has yet to be developed.
However it is eventually done, wind and solar will become a larger part of our mix of energy sources, but keep in mind that we are currently using natural gas to back them up.
Lots of information, not answering the question though. :D
Sorry.
My thoughts on nuclear power are very hard to explain, and I told myself I wasn't getting into the Politics section and yet here I am!
Very short answer - I am hesitantly pro-nuclear.
I've been sitting on the fence for the last few years, but watching japan has kind of started to push me towards thinking its a bad idea. I'd say that its probably best to see how the situation unfolds before deciding. If I had a plant being built near me, I'd really work hard to try and at least delay the completion until we really saw the final outcome of whats going on in japan.
If we are smart enough to over design the buildings and place them in relatively safe areas, not on known live fault lines or in tsunami prone areas, I have no problem with it. We have Three Mile Island, Oyster Creek, Salem and Peach Bottom not that far from us. We watched very intently when Three Mile happened. My chances of being killed in a vehicle accident are hugely greater than from a nuclear accident. It was the tsunami that caused the problems in Japan, not the earthquake. Areas should take advantage of what they can use for power, there doesn't have to be just one answer. Sometimes there are huge accidents from gas too, yet we don't abandon it.
Again, lots of information, but not answering the question? ::)
Kansas is the breadbasket of the world. So where is there a nuclear power plant? Wolf Creek ! If something goes wrong there, the area will be ruined for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.
Colorado's nuclear power plant at Fort St Vrain went on line in 1976 and functioned, more or less, until 1989 when it was decommissioned after being plagued by many problems. It became a literal money pit.
It had a new design that proved troublesome. Its owner gave up the huge expense of constant repair.
It took three years to remove the nuclear material and then another four years to convert to gas turbine operation.
Today, it has a capacity of 965 megawatts vs the 1200 megawatt capacity of Wolf Creek.
So, Waldo, are you fer or agin?? Nuclear, I mean.
I'm anti-nuclear because of the storage life of the expended fuel rods which is leaving a problem for the future generations to solve. With this said we stilll have permit them due to the needs of this wasteful nation / world.
Need more nuclear.
If everyone would quit shying away from it and constantly improve the technology, chances of horrible events like this would be much less likely to happen. Also, from recent reports I've heard, it sounds like what is happening was actually a known issue/design flaw since the plants were built and were never dealt with.
Well, what I'm hearing is that the plants were built by GE in the early 70's and they were only designed to last for 40 years. GE also has built 25 of the same kind of plant here in the US, and some of them had their permits renewed despite being older than 40 years.
Do we really want people running these plants to be the same people who believe in making a buck at any cost? Do we really want to repeal regulations and cut funding to oversight for the plants? And if you think nuclear is great, and we should be using it, what do you propose to do with the spent fuel?
Quote from: Dee Gee on March 16, 2011, 10:14:03 PM
I'm anti-nuclear because of the storage life of the expended fuel rods which is leaving a problem for the future generations to solve. With this said we stilll have permit them due to the needs of this wasteful nation / world.
YOU do realize that you don't have to store spent fuel rods. THey can be redone to fuel different reactors. THe ONLY REASON we are stuck with having to store them is because Jimmy carter killed that business. He banned recyling them when he was in office to prevent reclaimation of plutonium. By the time president reagan lifted the ban, the industry had died in this country.
You can use and reuse the rods til there is virtually nothing left of them. And out of that that is left you can use the isotopes from it to supply medical and industrial use of isotopes.
Quote from: mtcookson on March 16, 2011, 10:18:51 PM
Need more nuclear.
If everyone would quit shying away from it and constantly improve the technology, chances of horrible events like this would be much less likely to happen. Also, from recent reports I've heard, it sounds like what is happening was actually a known issue/design flaw since the plants were built and were never dealt with.
The plants were never designed to take a 9.0 earthquake then be hit with a tsunami. I can bet ya that all plants in the next year that can be possibly hit with a tsunami are going to have electric lines run from a powersource that is dedicated to that plant.
IT does take events like this to show what something is capable of, and quite frankly the reactors held up pretty darn good considering.
The one question you gotta ask is how many people were killed by it!? THen ask how many people were killed by the tsunami. That ought to put it into perspective
BTW The answer for me is, we need to double or triple the reactors we have already, certify them for the 40 -50 years, then set them up on a program where they get redone after their lifespan. Rotate out a third at a time. Put x number of dollars into a fund from the profits of each plant to replace the plant, make sure it cannot be raided too.
If we ramped up our nuclear generation to produce 60% of our power from nuclear then we would win on the energy front. Right now only 20% of our power is generated from nuclear.
So Steve, we can put down as 'fer'? Mark, you spoke about lost lives right now, but in the future? How many then? If they are so safe, why is some scumbag on Ebay making a mint selling iodine on line for beaucoups amount of money? Why is the US urging its' citizens to leave or remain indoors with sealed access? Thanks everybody for the reasonable discussion on this. It is important, easy to hit the panic button but there is that niggling little voice------? ???
Quote from: srkruzich on March 16, 2011, 10:56:36 PMThe plants were never designed to take a 9.0 earthquake then be hit with a tsunami. I can bet ya that all plants in the next year that can be possibly hit with a tsunami are going to have electric lines run from a powersource that is dedicated to that plant.
Quote from: sixdogsmom on March 17, 2011, 01:28:12 AM
So Steve, we can put down as 'fer'? Mark, you spoke about lost lives right now, but in the future? How many then? If they are so safe, why is some scumbag on Ebay making a mint selling iodine on line for beaucoups amount of money? Why is the US urging its' citizens to leave or remain indoors with sealed access? Thanks everybody for the reasonable discussion on this. It is important, easy to hit the panic button but there is that niggling little voice------? ???
What they are saying is the fail safes that were supposed to keep this from happening were a known issue and was brought up 30 something years ago. A couple scientists involved with them told GE that this very thing would happen and nothing was done about it.
I agree, a 9.0 earthquake and a tsunami following is a major disaster but the core issue of what is happening with the plants seems like it could have been for the most part avoided according to those scientists.
From what I've been reading, here in the U.S. we've had 2 deaths due to a partial meltdown. Chernobyl killed 28 with up to an estimated 4,000 that could have got fatal cancer and this was due to a poor design and operator failure. Not sure on the death toll in Japan due to the reactor yet but it also had a design flaw.
The deaths were horrible but with something that is considered so bad, the death toll is actually not that bad and the highest amounts were caused by design failures and operator failure.
In the U.S. the partial meltdowns occurred between 1954 and 1979. Our technologies have improved dramatically since then so these events should be even less likely to happen if they're made right. Still, the record for major nuclear disasters is pretty low. Heck, we've probably had many more deaths from mining than we've had from nuclear reactor disasters.
This girl rides through chernobyl quite often and documents the area. She is the daughter of a nuclear physisist and is very knowlegable.
I would listen to her more than the experts as she has the cahones to go look for herself.
Interesting thing about that place, its repairing itself and recovering. Wildlife has returned and is thriving.
Some people live in the area. Not recommended but they would rather risk it and live at home than anywhere else.
http://kiddofspeed.com/
Design flaws yes i agree, but in all reality it takes events like japan to show what is needed. There will never be anything that is disaster proof. shoot the second you try, a huge meteor will land on one.
http://www.oweakuinternational.org/Owe_Aku_IJP/Crying_Earth_files/EnvironmentaJusticePDF[1].pdf
this is for you Sixdogs and other interested parties. It's just information, I hope the link works. For some others I'm not putting it here to argue it, the woman who wrote it LIVES there.
This is the website if it doesnt......http://www.oweakuinternational.org click on read Debra Whiteplumes article,
Crap...thought I fixed it but guess not......have to go the long way thru the website ....Sorry bout that :P
If the wolves and boars come back, that means their food is also there. But it doesn't mean their food is pure. It was the stark devastation that really struck me.
Quote from: twirldoggy on March 17, 2011, 11:35:08 AM
If the wolves and boars come back, that means their food is also there. But it doesn't mean their food is pure. It was the stark devastation that really struck me.
I know and never said it was pure. Just that the earth has a good record of repairing damage to itself. There are no birds there that is one thing i noticed, also i don't believe there are any frogs. But give it time.
No birds or frogs means no insects. Some of those should have made it back.
Also I did not quite understand why the man was lying on the ground. Guess he might be a criminal who was drinking.
The earth does have all the elements to repair itself. But in how many hundreds of years.
I have thought long and hard on how I felt about this. My first thought is that I am against Nuclear Power and the problems in Japan just reinforce that. We have far more of the Nuclear power plants than any other country in the world. If we shut them all down the Cost of Electricity in this country would be much higher, the biggest cost would be the big increase in Natural Gas that you use.
Pam, thanks for the website, sobering to say the least. Frank, thanks for your input; lots of people respect your opinion, as do I. Even though I rag you about big oil, I still respect you. Keep on peeps! I'm hearing some good input from both sides.!
I don't understand how people can talk about the death toll near these facilities without discussing the tremendous rise in cancer rates in the areas where these disasters occurred. 2 deaths in the US from a partial meltdown is absurd.
Furthermore, some people are saying Japan shows us what we shouldn't be doing. Let me say this again, we have 25 of the exact same design power plant operating here in the US. Secondly, This is not something that we should be doing trial and error with when we have better energy alternatives available
And what are we doing to ourselves just to acquire the uranium? Folks near the mining sites suffer from accelerated kidney disease as well as cancer rates from the water contamination. This has to do with the methods of mining used to recover the uranium. There is also a depletion of water tables in the areas being mined; water that many of the central United States depend upon for drinking water. Hmmm--- are we thinking ahead on this? We have a foreign country running a mining operation on United States soil that is contaminating our water as well as producing nuclear grade waste. Hmmm----, makes you wonder don't it? :(
I think that Japan now has a dead zone that will last hundreds or even thousands of years.
Quote from: frawin on March 17, 2011, 02:00:16 PM
I have thought long and hard on how I felt about this. My first thought is that I am against Nuclear Power and the problems in Japan just reinforce that. We have far more of the Nuclear power plants than any other country in the world. If we shut them all down the Cost of Electricity in this country would be much higher, the biggest cost would be the big increase in Natural Gas that you use.
Frank, you have long touted nuclear power here on the forum. You mention that you have thought long and hard on this subject and I, as well as anyone, respect that as a true statement. (Bonus points added for you being my Uncle and more knowledgeable about energy issues than the average bear ;)) Due to the problems in Japan, I understand your and everyone's hesitation. I too have concerns about nuclear power. I still think we should not abandon nuclear energy, just take lessons from this and perfect it to a better level. In the next few days I will try and post some of the newer and smaller examples of nuclear power that may cover many of our concerns. No source of energy is without its problems and disasters. I too agree that natural gas is the most current example of how the US should proceed. It too is not without its disasters; just check out the San Bruno, Ca natural gas explosion of 2010. (Of which I am positive my Uncle Frank is well aware.) Let's not all abandon the possiblity of increasing our nuclear power. We are good at technology and I think we can ameliorate the problems that it presents. That being said, I am not ready to have one of these old technology nuclear plants ibuilt in my backyard today.
David
Thank you for your response, David. This issue reminds me of an old popular print that I have seen a couple of times. It depicts a boat with immigrants going to a new land. All of the old folks are looking back to where they had come from, and the young ones are looking to the new shore. Maybe this has to do with fears of the past against the fears of the future and the unknown. I don't know the resolution, but I do know this; if I had a very young child, I would not send them to cross a busy highway by themselves. That can be considered as looking backward, I think. Caution should be the byword here, and it was not used when building the reactors in Japan (earthquake zone). We are barely a lifetime into the nuclear age, slowly beginning to understand the consequences of this genii we have released. I do hope and pray that we have not made a mistake. :'(
(AP) FUKUSHIMA, Japan - Japan said radiation levels in spinach and milk from farms near its tsunami-crippled nuclear complex exceeded government safety limits, as emergency teams scrambled Saturday to restore power to the plant so it could cool dangerously overheated fuel.
The food was taken from farms as far as 65 miles from the stricken plants, suggesting a wide area of nuclear contamination.
While the radiation levels exceeded the limits allowed by the government, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano insisted the products "pose no immediate health risk."
Complete coverage: Disaster in Japan
Firefighters also pumped tons of water directly from the ocean into one of the most troubled areas of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex — the cooling pool for used fuel rods at the plant's Unit 3. The rods are at risk of burning up and sending radioactive material into the environment.
The first word on contaminated food in the crisis came as Japan continued to grapple with overwhelming consequences of the cascade of disasters unleashed by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake on March 11. The quake spawned a tsunami that ravaged Japan's northeastern coast, killing more than 7,200 people and knocking out backup cooling systems at the nuclear plant, which has been leaking radiation.
The tainted milk was found 20 miles from the plant, while the spinach was collected between 50 miles and 65 miles to the south, Edano told reporters in Tokyo.
More testing was being done on other foods, he said, and if tests show further contamination then food shipments would be halted from the area.
"It's not like if you ate it right away you would be harmed," Edano said. "It would not be good to continue to eat it for some time."
Edano said someone drinking the tainted milk for one year would consume as much radiation as in a CT scan; for the spinach, it would be one-fifth of a CT scan. A CT scan is a compressed series of X-rays used for medical tests.
Just outside the bustling disaster response center in the city of Fukushima, 40 miles northwest of the plant, government nuclear specialist Kazuya Konno was able to take only a three-minute break for his first meeting since the quake with his wife, Junko, and their children.
"It's very nerve-racking. We really don't know what is going to become of our city," said Junko Konno, 35. "Like most other people, we have been staying indoors unless we have to go out."
She brought her husband a small backpack with a change of clothes and snacks. The girls — aged 4 and 6 and wearing pink surgical masks decorated with Mickey Mouse — gave their father hugs.
Low levels of radiation have been detected well beyond Tokyo, which is 140 miles south of the plant, but hazardous levels have been limited to the plant itself.
Nuclear reactors at the Fukushima plant began overheating and leaking radiation into the atmosphere in the days after the March 11 quake and the subsequent tsunami overwhelmed its cooling systems. The government admitted it was slow to respond to the nuclear troubles, which added another crisis on top of natural disasters, which officials estimate killed more than 10,000 people and displaced more than 400,000 others.
The complex is deeply troubled, Edano said Saturday, but it's not getting worse.
"The situation at the nuclear complex still remains unpredictable. But at least we are preventing things from deteriorating," he said.
Photos: Chernobyl - Visit to a nuclear ghost town
A fire truck with a high-pressure cannon was parked outside the plant's Unit 3, about 300 meters from the Pacific coast, and began shooting a stream of water nonstop into the pool for seven straight hours, said Kenji Kawasaki, a spokesman for the nuclear safety agency.
A separate pumping vehicle will keep the fire truck's water tank refilled. Because of high radiation levels, firefighters will only go to the truck every three hours when it needs to be refueled. They expect to pump about 1,400 tons of water, nearly the capacity of the pool.
Emergency workers are also funneling water into the complex's most troubled reactors — Units 1, 2 and 3, officials said.
A power company official said holes had to punched in the roofs of the buildings housing Units 5 and 6, as workers tried to prevent dangerous buildups of hydrogen gas — a sign that temperatures continued to rise in those units' fuel storage pools. Firefighters had started pumping water into Unit 5's pool, and the temperature had gone down, but a pump broke, delaying the refilling, the official said.
Meanwhile, Hidehiko Nishiyama of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said backup power systems at the plant had been improperly protected, leaving them vulnerable to the tsunami that savaged the northeastern coast.
The failure of Fukushima's backup power systems, which were supposed to keep cooling systems going in the aftermath of the massive 9.0-magnitude earthquake, let uranium fuel overheat and were a "main cause" of the crisis, Nishiyama said.
"I cannot say whether it was a human error, but we should examine the case closely," he told reporters.
A spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co., which owns and runs the plants, said that while the generators themselves were not directly exposed to the waves, some electrical support equipment was outside. The complex was protected against tsunamis of up to 5 meters, he said. Media reports say the tsunami was at least 6 meters high when it struck Fukushima.
Spokesman Motoyasu Tamaki also acknowledged that the complex was old, and might not have been as well-equipped as newer facilities.
Plant operators also said they would reconnect four of the plant's six reactor units to a power grid Saturday. Although a replacement power line reached the complex Friday, workers had to methodically work through badly damaged and deeply complex electrical systems to make the final linkups without setting off a spark and potentially an explosion.
"Most of the motors and switchboards were submerged by the tsunami and they cannot be used," Nishiyama said.
Even once the power is reconnected, it is not clear if the cooling systems will still work.
The storage pools need a constant source of cooling water. When removed from reactors, uranium rods are still very hot and must be cooled for months, possibly longer, to prevent them from heating up again and emitting radioactivity.
People evacuated from around the plant, along with some emergency workers, have also tested positive for radiation exposure. Three firefighters needed to be decontaminated with showers, while among the 18 plant workers who tested positive, one absorbed about one-tenth tenth of the amount that might induce radiation poisoning.
As Japan crossed the one-week mark since the cascade of disasters began, the government conceded Friday it was slow to respond and welcomed ever-growing help from the U.S. in hopes of preventing a complete meltdown.
The United States has loaned military firefighting trucks to the Japanese, and has conducted overflights of the reactor site, strapping sophisticated pods onto aircraft to measure radiation aloft. Two tests conducted Thursday gave readings that U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel B. Poneman said reinforced the U.S. recommendation that people stay 50 miles away from the Fukushima plant. Japan has ordered only a 12-mile evacuation zone around the plant.
Emergency crews at the plant faced two continuing challenges: cooling the nuclear fuel in reactors where energy is generated, and cooling the adjacent pools where thousands of used nuclear fuel rods are stored in water.
The tsunami knocked out power to cooling systems at the nuclear plant and its six reactors. Since then, four have been hit by fires, explosions or partial meltdowns.
The government on Friday raised the accident classification for the nuclear crisis, putting it on a par with the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979, and signifying that its consequences went beyond the local area.
This crisis has led to power shortages and factory closures, hurt global manufacturing and triggered a plunge in Japanese stock prices.
Police said more than 452,000 people made homeless by the quake and tsunami were staying in schools and other shelters, as supplies of fuel, medicine and other necessities ran short.
On Saturday evening, Japan was rattled by 6.1-magnitude aftershock, with an epicenter just south of the troubled nuclear plants. The temblor, centered 90 miles northeast of Tokyo, caused buildings in the capital to shake.
Still not enough to make me worry about a nuclear reactor near me. Considering that core 3 i believe has pretty much melted down, i'd have to say that the proceedure in place worked pretty good. I've had more radiation in me in the last 2 months than what they are getting and i don't glow.
cleanup is in a good position too as it is confined to the reactor core. That will make it easier to handle. I suspect they will get the rods cooled down, moved to a spent pool, cleanup the area the reactor is in and probably turn that reactor into rubble and rebuild. The rubble can be cleaned up enough to bury under where a reactor will go keeping it contained.
In just a few days people willl start to die from radiation exposure.
Quote from: twirldoggy on March 19, 2011, 05:13:37 PM
In just a few days people willl start to die from radiation exposure.
No they wont! Sheesh. there hasn't been enough exposure.
First of all there are no alpha or beta particles to inhale or ingest. That is what usually kills people. It goes in and sits and turns to cancer.
Secondly Gama radiation is the one that is being emitted. You get 25mr of radiation flying on a plane,
Radiation measurement in russia i think is called microroentgen. typical city in america is 10 -12 per hour. Normal. You get around 25 per hour flying on a plane. The fatal dosage of which your speaking of would require them to get 500 microrotentgens in a 5 hour period or 100 per hour. They aren't getting anywhere near that in japan. Even at the nuclear plant that is melted down their not getting hit with that kind of radiation.
The radiation being emitted is not radiation. Its a radionuclide which is not the same it has a half life of seconds and is based on Oxygen and nitrogen. They split off and are back to their normal happy selves.
That is whytheyused the type of reactor they used. IT is a boiled water reactor.
Main thing is to get the rods cooled off, pulled out and sent out for reprocessing. Once that is done, repair the block core or dismantle it and replace it. There will be very little left.
Is it dark there with your head in the sand?
Quote from: thatsMRSc2u on March 19, 2011, 06:53:53 PM
Is it dark there with your head in the sand?
I would say the ones who want to stop all use of nuclear power, oil, coal are the ones with their heads in the sand. Not going to happen and they had better get used to the presence of all three.
The resources are there to extract for us to use and it is foolish to not utilize a efficent means of creating power.
Saw an interesting deal on that maybe low levels of radiation might actually be good for you, according to some scientists. Something about a bunch of women that had TB and kazillion chest x-rays then they had fewer cases of breast cancer than women not exposed to so much radiation. I wish now I hadn't dozed off when it was on TV.
Just a few thoughts on this...
1) Our tech. may have imporved but nothing is fail safe. Why take the chance? Coal and natural gas plants may have problems but even if they explode the land around them isn't unihabitable for hundreds of years.
2) Power plants, espcially nuclear ones, do make for fine targets.
3) With the hype about enegry consumption, I think more time should be spent on finding alternatives to what we have and on ways to cut down on the amount we use.
4) We have to start thinking long term in this country. Not just one or two generations down the road but 10 to 20. Even if the fuel rods can be reused what is the by-product and how will it be dealt with? I see it as a pandoras box kinda thing. I mean, just because we could invent the atomic bomb, doesn't mean we should have.
Quote from: Varmit on March 21, 2011, 03:25:25 AM
Just a few thoughts on this...
1) Our tech. may have imporved but nothing is fail safe. Why take the chance? Coal and natural gas plants may have problems but even if they explode the land around them isn't unihabitable for hundreds of years.
WHy take the chance? because there is a technology that if we can improve on it and understand it more, implement it, we can eventually bring nuclear fusion into use and use that instead of the fission we use in our reactors. WIth fusion if things go wrong it stops reacting and you don't get the spread of radiation.
Quote2) Power plants, espcially nuclear ones, do make for fine targets.
Maybe but it would take a huge missle to penetrate the reactor cores with 8' concrete walls.
Not going to happen with a suicide bomber.
Quote3) With the hype about enegry consumption, I think more time should be spent on finding alternatives to what we have and on ways to cut down on the amount we use.
This is the best alternative we have available. Its power for the next millenium. Shrug. It will outlast coal, oil, which you have to have both to make windmills and solar panels....
Quote4) We have to start thinking long term in this country. Not just one or two generations down the road but 10 to 20. Even if the fuel rods can be reused what is the by-product and how will it be dealt with?
Spent fuel rods can be reprossessed up to 95 percent. The 5% that is left over can be used in breeder reactors. So there really is no reason for not using it. There isn't any waste leftover in the actual process. BUT you got idiots like carter, and obama that outlawed reprocessing of the fuel rods.
Quote from: srkruzich on March 19, 2011, 07:27:00 PM
I would say the ones who want to stop all use of nuclear power, oil, coal are the ones with their heads in the sand. Not going to happen and they had better get used to the presence of all three.
The resources are there to extract for us to use and it is foolish to not utilize a efficent means of creating power.
Oh I've gotten USED to a LOT of STUPID things in my life........doesn't mean I have to LIKE them. What most people don't get about me is the fact that I am both a REALIST and an IDEALIST....I know how things should and could be in a better world....while seeing the futility of ever expecting things to change because the majority of people just don't give a shit....they want what they want when they want it and don't give a shit how they get it because in all reality they don't care what happens when they are dead because it won't be THEIR problem anymore.
SOMETIMES progress and innovation is NOT a good thing...sometimes it's God giving you the means of your own destruction just to see if you are stupid enough to use it.
I don't like the fact that nuclear power is necessary, but as long as we are so power hungry for some areas it should be an allowed option .All our plants are getting old now and will soon need major repairs or updates. We need to do it now.The spent rod thing we should be taking advantage of ourselves, taking in the rods from other countries to recycle here. Russia is doing just that now. We should too. If we have them, they don't and can't extract the bomb making parts.
The making of power has always had its dangers. Dams sometimes break, coal miners get terrible lung diseases. Gas explodes. Life has never been risk free. It just seems that the last two generations expect life with no risks. Previous generations accepted that bad things happen, dealt with it and moved on. Every family has stories of deaths by disease or industrial or farm accidents, fires, falls, drowning and on and on.
Right out of the fire safety classes I teach...everybody has to decide what level of risk they are comfortable with. Some people just have to have their appliances that work on timers, yet we know that they occasionally fail and cause fires. So do clothes dryers and on and on. Some people refuse to install smoke detectors and every year some of them die in fires. Why? You all are comfortable with your tornado risk yet every year some people die. I'm comfortable with our hurricane risk because we know we can leave. I would be unhinged over an earthquake, yet people take the risk because they love where they live.
Our water supply could be at risk, but it already is. Copper mining, coal mining,( See Centralia PA.) gold extraction, uranium mining and many, many more things we do put our water at risk but if it isn't obvious we look the other way. The oceans are full of junk now, sewage sludge has lots of heavy metals. Every day problems. But since nuclear failures are invisible and rather science fictionish we are afraid. Unless we change our ways soon, something will have to give.
Quote from: Diane Amberg on March 21, 2011, 09:03:13 AM
I don't like the fact that nuclear power is necessary, but as long as we are so power hungry for some areas it should be an allowed option .All our plants are getting old now and will soon need major repairs or updates.
I don't believe that its because everyone is power hungry. Lord knows i don't want to pay anymore than i do for electic. It is just that there are about 100 million more people than back in the 70's. These plants are nearing 40 years old and are being inspected and if found to be stable and in good condition, there is a new 20 year lease on them. Thats to be expected in that they didn't know for sure how long they would last to begin with.
I totally agree with the leasing extensions. THat way we can start working on new plants and building them with a longer life expectancy. We already know that the old design will last 60 years now so lets improve that design to last 100 years.
Secondly we need to set up various types of reactors. breeders, BWR's ect... The issue here is keeping folks from extracting the plutonium. It by itself isn't very radioactive. In fact i believe it can actually be handled. But its danger is that it is one of the most powerful elements on earth if put into a bomb.
QuoteWe need to do it now.The spent rod thing we should be taking advantage of ourselves, taking in the rods from other countries to recycle here. Russia is doing just that now. We should too. If we have them, they don't and can't extract the bomb making parts.
I totally agree with we should be reprocessing the worlds supply of rods. That would control the plutonium. Also pay for a lot of our own plants. The more i have read the more i have learned that you can essentially use every bit of the rod til its used up which would give us thousands of years of power generation. the last 5 % requires breeder reactors.
the issue of getting rid of the plutonium is solved in the fast breeder reactor. It will burn up the plutonium 100%. Fuel eficiency is extremely high. You get 75-80% power for the fuel consumed. Thats the most efficient form of power generation we have. And with the new designs coming out, their looking and hoping to increase it into the 90% range.
QuoteThe making of power has always had its dangers. Dams sometimes break, coal miners get terrible lung diseases. Gas explodes. Life has never been risk free. It just seems that the last two generations expect life with no risks. Previous generations accepted that bad things happen, dealt with it and moved on. Every family has stories of deaths by disease or industrial or farm accidents, fires, falls, drowning and on and on.
Damn Your right on on that! (checking to see if hell froze over from me agreeing with ya....)
QuoteRight out of the fire safety classes I teach...everybody has to decide what level of risk they are comfortable with. Some people just have to have their appliances that work on timers,
I don't use timers except for maby lights for my seed shelves.
QuoteSome people refuse to install smoke detectors and every year some of them die in fires. Why?
I am guilty of this in that i can't ever find a smoke detector that doesn't go off every time the dog farts.
Power hungry... I hate that term. There are A LOT of people on this planet and that requires a lot of power. If we just completely stopped using petroleum and coal and tried surviving on solar and wind I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the world population dropped down to 1 to 2 billion, probably closer to 1 billion.
Just think how farming alone would be affected, not being able to use the big machines we have. Then of course transporting that food around the country and the world.
Heck, even pumps for our water supply wouldn't likely be on reliably enough for constant water like we have now if we tried going solely wind and solar (even hydroelectric thrown in there).
The simple fact is, we NEED huge amounts of energy to keep such a massive world population alive. If by some slim chance we run out of petroleum before Christ's return the world WILL NEED massive, reliable, efficient energy sources likes nuclear to even stay alive. If nuclear was embraced more strongly the technology would improve even faster and you could even start moving away from petroleum powered vehicles using the hydrogen the plant could generate. Nuclear batteries could power vehicles without requiring a recharge/replace for a long, long time.
Here's an interesting quote I found as far as safety goes:
QuoteComparing the historical safety record of civilian nuclear energy with other forms of electrical generation, Ball, Roberts, and Simpson, the IAEA, and the Paul Scherrer Institute found in separate studies that during the period from 1970 to 1992, there were just 39 on-the-job deaths of nuclear power plant workers worldwide, while during the same time period, there were 6,400 on-the-job deaths of coal power plant workers, 1,200 on-the-job deaths of natural gas power plant workers and members of the general public caused by natural gas power plants, and 4,000 deaths of members of the general public caused by hydroelectric power plants.[11][12][13] In particular, coal power plants are estimated to kill 24,000 Americans per year, due to lung disease[14] as well as causing 40,000 heart attacks per year[15] in the United States. According to Scientific American, the average coal power plant emits more than 100 times as much radiation per year than a comparatively sized nuclear power plant in the form of toxic coal waste known as fly ash
Also, here's the story on how radiation can actually be good for you. Not a huge amount, of course, but more than the government says is good. A Glowing Report on Radiation (http://www.anncoulter.com/)