Nuclear energy - Yay or Nay

[Inferno]

This is the second topic I've missed. There was one topic by Pulsar here, but that was two years ago and it only got three replies, which is a shame.

As with the other topic, I won't respond until two or three people have gotten their say.

Questions: Is nuclear energy a viable solution to our energy and environmental problems? Is nuclear energy inherently dangerous? If it is not, how can the public be made aware of that? Will we always have to deal with storing nuclear waste? And if nuclear energy is not a viable alternative, then what is? How can we successfully solve our problems?

 

[Engelbert]

This is a topic that I looked into for a while, in a general sense (the whole energy/CC/GW issue). My thoughts would just be a layman's opinion, since I hold no relevant qualifications in these fields. I think this whole area is incredibly difficult. I thought I might try and work in this general area in some capacity, but began to feel a little pessimistic about any contribution I might be able to make.

There are all sorts of problems with current nuclear power, but I think it is a viable solution to fill some of the demand in some locations around the globe. We can improve the technologies and make them cleaner and safer, but I think we will still have problems of safety and waste to deal with, which make it controversial and potentially dangerous. In my opinion the best hope we have for the energy crisis, seems to be the development of nuclear fusion. This is a cleaner safer and potentially far more fruitful form of power production. It is still in developmental stage and predictions of its potential economic viability are set at around 20-30 years from now. If fusion can be successfully harnessed and turned into a reliable power source, I think you can almost solve the energy crisis around the globe, but it is an IF at the moment and it is decades into the future. In the meantime, I think we just have to do the best we can. I am in favour of renewable energy, but when you look at renewable solutions, it becomes apparent just how expensive they can be and also how damaging they can be aesthetically and in other ways too. Wind farms are good, but would you want an array of turbines erected in the fields around your local village? There are all sorts of on going legal battles in Britain at the moment for just this reason, so it's not just expense that's the problem. People don't want massive turbine pylons erected in their local area. To me it just seems like an incredibly difficult issue and our global demand for power is only increasing.

 

[MindHack]

double...

 

[MindHack]

Hi!

My two cents on the topic.

Questions: Is nuclear energy a viable solution to our energy and environmental problems?

I would contend that uranium isn’t a viable solution.

Maybe other sources are available which don’t have the drawbacks uranium has.

With uranium there’s a limited supply of high quality ore to begin with. So there’s no structural solution using uranium.

There’s no solution for the waste the mining of ore generates. Large amounts of radiating ore is being dumped on site.

It also costs quite a lot in terms of carbon to make nuclear power, through uranium, operational.

Plants are expensive to build and their usage of large amounts of concrete poses a problem for the environment as well . Waste is sometimes burried in concrete too. Concrete sucks environmentally.

Also, power plants are a state risk, at least here they are. It's a bad sign, I think, that insurance agencies generally don’t provide insurance in case a tragedy should occur. As if they know it would bankrupt them in case of a serious incident. Governments do insure, and they also subsidise nuclair power agencies. effectively providing them with an unfair edge over more sustainable sources of energy. This should stop.

Further, the waste generated must be stored and there’s yet to be found a structural solution.

Nowadays it’s stored below ground where it may poison water supplies through leaking, or it is stored in bunkers where it will start leaking once maintenance should become halted (given that some components in waste remain dangerous for ages and the waste wants to leak through because of the heat it generates, the chances are that the places where it is stored today will become poisoned somewhere in the future. It's a moral question as well - we need power now, screw our kids...?

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Is nuclear energy inherently dangerous?

I don’t think it’s inherently dangerous, but I do think it doesn’t provide us with a cheap and sustainable option for combatting our structurally increasing energy demands.

If it is not, how can the public be made aware of that?

Being dangerous is only part of the equation. As long as the process is controlled and no natural disasters occur electricity production through the splitting of uranium isn’t overly dangerous. But it isn’t a solution in the long run. This is what the public should know imo.

Will we always have to deal with storing nuclear waste?

I don’t know. Some components are being reprocessed for new usage, but this too requires quite some energy input.

And if nuclear energy is not a viable alternative, then what is? How can we successfully solve our problems?

Given that the bulk of energy on earth is available through the sun radiating us I think further developing solar power is a logical option.

I have good feelings too about thermal energy from the earths core. But in general I think we should develop a more flexible way of our energy production and usage. By this I mean to say more decentralized mini-powerplants instead of major centralized plants. Such as solarpanels on homes supplying the net (where the net should become more global). A windmill in the garden. et cetera.

The most pragmatic solution I think is to try and limit our usage altogether

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

Is nuclear energy a viable solution to our energy and environmental problems?

Yes

Is nuclear energy inherently dangerous?

Inherently, no. but like with any other source of energy we have developed so far, there are some risks. Risks that can be minimize with foresight.

If it is not, how can the public be made aware of that?

This is the million-dollar question. Once you answer this, than we can take that same approach to climate change and evolution (and everything else the general population is confused about).

Will we always have to deal with storing nuclear waste?

If I am not mistaken, the waste from nuclear power plants can be enriched and used again. If this were true, then we would not have to store the waste. There are also ideas of placing the waste in subduction zones, that way it just goes back into the earth.

And if nuclear energy is not a viable alternative, then what is?

I do think it is viable for a long time, but it should not be the only resource we rely upon. Solar, wind, geothermal, etc… should all be looked into.

How can we successfully solve our problems?

A combination of different technologies, including power sources and machines that are more energy efficient.

 

[Dustnite]

I worked in the nuclear industry for several years before going into IT. It's definitely a viable energy alternative and the amount of energy one can produce a day is incredible. I've worked in the solar panel industry as well and one of those plants produces maybe 1%-2% the power that a steam generator can actually produce.

The problem is always going to be the waste byproduct of U-238 and the added problem if the US ever decides to use that spent fuel rod again to create an isotope of Plutonium which has a much longer half life. Right now, we just bury the waste in a pool and cover the waste in a concrete casket or ship everything off to Yucca mountain in Nevada to be buried in the salt mines there.

I personally would like to see the US become a leader in wind and solar since those industries desperately need innovation to get to the level of nuclear power generation because frankly nuclear power will always deal with waste in terms of centuries while a solar power plant deals in weeks or years in terms of waste and reuse.

Solar PV plants (photovoltaic cells vs thermal steam turbines) will be reaching a total levelized cost to operate by 2017 that will be close to the operating cost of a nuclear power plant and will be totally clean and recyclable, but can it meet the demand of a nation's power needs? I'm hoping so.

 

[Moky]

I am for nuclear energy all the way through. It is a viable solution, it is a very safe solution. The US has many nuclear plants, six in my own state, Illinois. Those six produce 48% of the total power used by my state. There has only been one scare from a plant, which was resolved in four minutes. That's not an exaggeration, it took just four minutes to resolve the issue. That's compared to 27 coal and some natural gas plants which give us the other 50%. Six nuclear power plants compared to 25 or so coal plants? Which do you think gives us the most waste and environmental damage? Our coal plants give us FAR more waste than the nuclear power plants. Coal mining involves strip mining, ruining the environment that the mine is in, that's not even counting the damage it does to the atmosphere when it is used for power.

Nuclear energy is not dangerous if proper precautions are taken. There have been more accidents from coal mining and coal power plants than there have been in nuclear power. So nuclear power has Chernobyl, the Three Mile Island accident and what happened at the Fukushima Power Plant. The first two happened due to serious mistakes. Chernobyl wouldn't have the death count it had if Russia pulled its head out of its ass and admitted to it and evacuated the residents before a nuclear plant in Sweden had a radioactive warning go off forcing Russia to admit that it fucked up. Fukushima's reactor got hit by a tsunami and a earthquake on the same day.

Despite the above, it's still safer than coal. Anything involving coal has produced a far higher accident and death count. The way the public can be made aware of nuclear powers safety is by taking on coal companies propaganda and informing the public that a TON of our power comes from just a few nuclear power plants in comparison to coal plants and far fewer people died from nuclear power accidents along with there being far fewer health effects from nuclear power than from coal. Also informing them that there are other options than Uranium reactors, there are Thorium reactors which produce less waste, but the process for getting Thorium is tedious and I'm not sure how much waste it produces. Storing nuclear waste does less damage than mining coal and using coal as a power source. The reason I'm ragging on coal so much is because of how much of our power comes from it. Every time someone is scared of nuclear power, it's because of the fears of what happened in Chernobyl, yet no one can think of a recent example besides what happened at Fukushima which in itself was a freak accident.

If nuclear power can not be used, then our next best bet is wind power, the US has places where it can be a viable alternative, those places are honestly a dime a dozen. Hell, set up a farm in tornado alley and hope a tornado doesn't rip through, there's a lot of places to go. Solar power needs to develop more before it becomes a viable alternative, but once again, the US has MANY places where a farm could be placed, the Western deserts have so much land that can't be developed because of how hostile the environment is and how expensive it would be to develop, why not put the farm there? The land isn't going to be used, it can't be used for anything else. Our problems could very easily be solved by nuclear power, but everyone is terrified of it.

 

[Dustnite]

If I am not mistaken, the waste from nuclear power plants can be enriched and used again. If this were true, then we would not have to store the waste. There are also ideas of placing the waste in subduction zones, that way it just goes back into the earth.

Well here's the problem. Natural Uranium or U-235 splits into isotopes U-238 or U-232 in breeder reactors which both have halflifes in the million year range. U-238 is also fissible and can therefore be reused, however the isotope IT creates is Plutonium-239 which does have a shorter half life or approx 25,000 years. This creates the problem that Pu-239 can be reused as dirty bombs or a poor man's nuclear bomb unless it is processed again.

So how do we avoid this? The US mandated in 1976 that nuclear fuel could not be reused to create isotopes past U-238 leaving waste that would last over a million years before even going through one half-life of decay. Europe and Japan already process U-238 to create Pu-239, however to avoid letting that isotope fall into the wrong hands they go through the very expensive process of MOX (mixed oxide fuel) so the fissible material cannot be easily used to make a weapon.

So the problem lies with how we must deal with the waste and keeping operating cost down for the plant to reuse spent fuel rods to create the much shorter half life of Pu-239 and the US simply doesn't do it right now. Meanwhile, the burgeoning wind and solar industry can typically operate for 15-25 years with a skeleton crew with full recycling capability with the only disadvantage of not being able to create huge capacities yet. The problems for nuclear have been there since the 70s and innovation can only go so far, but SOLAR and WIND can't even get their foot in the door because no one likes to invest in it. It's all catch-22.

 

[Engelbert]

Nuclear fission doesn't seem to me to be a universal and long term option. Issues of waste seem to be insurmountable. Perhaps these issues are technically resolvable, but not seemingly realistically. Making nuclear a global solution would just seem like a bad idea. In locations subject to seismic activity, there will always be a risk of disaster. Even if the threat to human health can be made minimal, what does a nuclear disaster do to local agriculture, environment and thus, the local economy and for how long? Many areas of high population and so high energy demand around the world are also seismically active locations. There's also the problem of proliferation.

I personally would like to see the US become a leader in wind and solar since those industries desperately need innovation to get to the level of nuclear power generation because frankly nuclear power will always deal with waste in terms of centuries while a solar power plant deals in weeks or years in terms of waste and reuse.

The wind resolution is a great option in my opinion, even if it is expensive, but it amazes me how many turbines you need to generate a good quantity of power. I certainly think we should move towards wind where we can use it efficiently and successfully, but to generate the amount of power needed, wind just doesn't seem to do enough. Of course it would be possible to power much of Britain by wind at the moment, but the sheer number of turbines needed would just start to destroy the countryside. This is something that many people just object to, despite being in favour of the principle. Are we not thinking a little wishfully to hope that renewables will resolve the future energy deficit? I'd like to be more optimistic, but at least for the near future I see them as only a bit part of the answer. Solar might be another very good option, but when compared to cheap alternatives, economically it is 2nd choice in most places at the moment. Do you know much about fusion? Because I tend to think that that might be the silver bullet, if it's possible. But it's decades away and an uncertainty.

 

[Dustnite]

The wind resolution is a great option in my opinion, even if it is expensive, but it amazes me how many turbines you need to generate a good quantity of power. I certainly think we should move towards wind where we can use it efficiently and successfully, but to generate the amount of power needed, wind just doesn't seem to do enough. Of course it would be possible to power much of Britain by wind at the moment, but the sheer number of turbines needed would just start to destroy the countryside. This is something that many people just object to, despite being in favour of the principle. Are we not thinking a little wishfully to hope that renewables will resolve the future energy deficit? I'd like to be more optimistic, but at least for the near future I see them as only a bit part of the answer. Solar might be another very good option, but when compared to cheap alternatives, economically it is 2nd choice in most places at the moment. Do you know much about fusion? Because I tend to think that that might be the silver bullet, if it's possible. But it's decades away and an uncertainty.

Well as I said, I've worked in both the nuclear and solar industry and I can tell you at least that Solar PV Plants utility scale are becoming extremely efficient in terms of power generation and in cost per watt. It's ALMOST cheaper than coal at this point, just nowhere near the capacity to even challenge the status quo as far as power generation is concerned. I've personally help build 4 PV plants in Arizona and New Mexico and I've worked on the Solar thermal tower in Germany and it's pretty impressive what's actually being designed right now. Keep in mind that utility scale solar and wind wasn't even a reality until very recently and Europe is simply beating the US in terms of alternative energy right now. (Germany has more solar PV fields than Arizona and we have 365 days of sunshine down here!)

The point is, this technology is not decades away. It's actually able to compete right now if companies start investing in it and start developing A) more efficient solar PV panels and/or wind turbines and B) start developing battery technology that can house the capacity before delivering it to the grid. You may be surprised to find out that renewable energy on a utility scale level just literally dump into the electrical grid right now with no type of storage available. For example, the plant I just worked on last year in Arizona is a 1.2 GW plant and it basically doesn't work at night except for the small trace of light it captures from the reflection on the moon.

This technology is not as uncertain as you might think.

 

[Engelbert]

The wind resolution is a great option in my opinion, even if it is expensive, but it amazes me how many turbines you need to generate a good quantity of power. I certainly think we should move towards wind where we can use it efficiently and successfully, but to generate the amount of power needed, wind just doesn't seem to do enough. Of course it would be possible to power much of Britain by wind at the moment, but the sheer number of turbines needed would just start to destroy the countryside. This is something that many people just object to, despite being in favour of the principle. Are we not thinking a little wishfully to hope that renewables will resolve the future energy deficit? I'd like to be more optimistic, but at least for the near future I see them as only a bit part of the answer. Solar might be another very good option, but when compared to cheap alternatives, economically it is 2nd choice in most places at the moment. Do you know much about fusion? Because I tend to think that that might be the silver bullet, if it's possible. But it's decades away and an uncertainty.

Well as I said, I've worked in both the nuclear and solar industry and I can tell you at least that Solar PV Plants utility scale are becoming extremely efficient in terms of power generation and in cost per watt. It's ALMOST cheaper than coal at this point, just nowhere near the capacity to even challenge the status quo as far as power generation is concerned. I've personally help build 4 PV plants in Arizona and New Mexico and I've worked on the Solar thermal tower in Germany and it's pretty impressive what's actually being designed right now. Keep in mind that utility scale solar and wind wasn't even a reality until very recently and Europe is simply beating the US in terms of alternative energy right now. (Germany has more solar PV fields than Arizona and we have 365 days of sunshine down here!)

The point is, this technology is not decades away. It's actually able to compete right now if companies start investing in it and start developing A) more efficient solar PV panels and/or wind turbines and B) start developing battery technology that can house the capacity before delivering it to the grid. You may be surprised to find out that renewable energy on a utility scale level just literally dump into the electrical grid right now with no type of storage available. For example, the plant I just worked on last year in Arizona is a 1.2 GW plant and it basically doesn't work at night except for the small trace of light it captures from the reflection on the moon.

This technology is not as uncertain as you might think.

I'm aware of large scale renewable projects and their success in specific locations as well as interspersed personal renewables in homes such as PV roof panels. Renewable technology exists and is good, but fails to meet the full demand. I'm all in favour of its continued development and would ideally like to see a totally green grid, but currently, I don't think renewables are up to completely satisfying the need realistically, although technically it might be possible. My question was about fusion. That's different and is the uncertainty that I was referring to. Nuclear fusion is a developmental technology, that is supposedly extremely clean, safe, efficient and productive. That's what my question was about.

 

[Dustnite]

Ok I misunderstood the thrust of the question. I haven't seen any development or talk about nuclear fusion from colleagues still in the industry. What I do see is a lot of companies coming in to do natural gas turbines and green technology.

Pretty sure nuclear fusion is still a pipe dream at this point...

 

[Engelbert]

Fair enough. So not very hopeful sounding about fusion. The latest idea in the UK is fracking, which is causing a bit of controversy, but I imagine it will get the go ahead.

With regards to fusion, I've heard varying views, with predictions for its arrival as a technology from scientists as soon as 20 or so years, but as late as 90 years or more, but not that it was completely out of the question. I have heard some scientists voicing more optimism though, which gives me cause to think a little more optimistically myself. Here are two.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gRnezJNFro

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7891787.stm

 

[Vivre]

@ Inferno

What is your intention with this thread?

Do you really ask if a radioactive contaminated environment is nothing to worry about?
Do you think all the deformed childbirths in Belarus and Iran are by chance and not worth considering the causes?

Do you eat the mushrooms you can collect in your country right away or do you also have them checked for radiation like we have in Germany for over 26 years now?
Do you enjoy wild meat without a thought?
Would you trust to swim in a river 2 miles downstream of a nuclear plant? Or on the beach of Fukushima?
If you think that the triple meltdown in Japan is under control you miss information. please visit ex-skf on interest

 

[Dustnite]

Do you really ask if a radioactive contaminated environment is nothing to worry about?

That's fairly reactionary to his initial inquiry. I think Inferno was merely investigating the merits of nuclear power vs alternative energy and what potential solutions exist to fulfilling the world's energy needs.

Honestly, Fukushima and 3 Mile Island are exceptions to a very safe form of power and merely focusing on those disasters without looking at the entire issue screams argument from ignorance. With that said, there are real issues about where we might store nuclear waste or structural integrity inside the reactor walls and at least in the US the NRC regularly checks for these things during normal plant operation. I've been on these inspections and they are very thorough.

I still would like to see an emphasis on green technology before we dump more money into nuclear power, but everyone should keep in mind that most of the plants in the US and abroad were built in the 70s and 80s and they are aging, so we won't be able to ignore a vital part of the world's energy production.

 

[Visaki]

Questions: Is nuclear energy a viable solution to our energy and environmental problems? Is nuclear energy inherently dangerous? If it is not, how can the public be made aware of that? Will we always have to deal with storing nuclear waste? And if nuclear energy is not a viable alternative, then what is? How can we successfully solve our problems?

Yes. No. Education. Yes. Nothing at the moment. Depends.

At this time there is no real viable option to nuclear power. "Green" wind and solar power has limitations and problems of their own and fossil fuels kill more people in a year than nuclear power has killed in it's lifetime (including the bombs, I believe). So in short run we're stuck with nuclear (fission that is) power, but how about long run? I don't think depending on fusion is a good idea since that might never come into fruition (I hope it does though) but waiting for that we have to invest more specially into better solar power options. An appartment building can (and an experimental building here in Finland does) generate much of it's needed power with solar panels integrated into it's structure. That should be the norm, not only in developed countries but also in developing so getting the prices down in important. Windpower can be important but I'm not sure if large scale windfarming is a good idea, or ever popular in habited areas. Also with the rare Earth minerals wind generators use they aren't as "green" as one might assume. The real problem isn't consumer power consumption, but industrial power consumption and energy storage or regulatory power sources (like water power, or nuclear) for those windless weeks and a cloudy weeks (or if you go to Lappland, a few sunless weeks).

One important thing to consider is the new generation of fissions reactors that are starting emerge from research these days. New gen thorium reactors might give us a solution not only to uranium shortage but also partly to the current nuclear waste problem. So research the heck out of that one too.

All in all the two largest problems with nuclear power these days are the ecological impacts of uranium mining and storage of nuclear waste. Both can be diminished but not eliminated.

 

[Rumraket]

I think here's a strong case to be made for Liquid Flouride Thorium (Molten Salt) Reactors which, despite being fission nuclear reactors, operate on a whole different principle than classic fuel-rod reactors:

 

[Inferno]

Do you really ask if a radioactive contaminated environment is nothing to worry about?

That's fairly reactionary to his initial inquiry. I think Inferno was merely investigating the merits of nuclear power vs alternative energy and what potential solutions exist to fulfilling the world's energy needs.

Not to worry, she's had a crush on me since day one. And by "crush" I mean "hates my fucking guts for reasons I have yet to figure out".
However, let's answer her, even though she never answered me:

What is your intention with this thread?

To generate a fruitful discussion about a topic that affects us one way or another, whether we like it or not. If there is even one piece of information I can learn here, then the thread was a triumph. I know that a lot of people don't know a lot about nuclear energy or are gravely misinformed, so this might give them an opportunity to learn as well.
I'd have thought that's a noble sentiment, but apparently that makes me the scum of the earth. I can live with that.

Do you really ask if a radioactive contaminated environment is nothing to worry about?

Red Herring. I specifically asked if nuclear energy is inherently dangerous so people could give arguments as to why it's dangerous, instead you immediately accuse me.

However, let's look at the facts for Chernobyl here. Biodiversity hardly suffered and may even have been growing due to humans abandoning the area. The initial effects were lowered reproduction, but that only lasted a decade or two. Rivers were initially contaminated, but already a year after the event the levels of radiation even in the cooling waters were reported safe.

The only real impact then is on humans. There is, as far as I'm aware, not a single reported death directly linked to Chernobyl.
Howls of protest, so let me clarify that. There is not a single reported death directly linked to Chernobyl. There were some estimates, but nothing more. I hope that was clear enough.

There have been about 6000 excess cases of thyroid cancer, but they've got a 30-year survival rate of 92%. If we count those, and note that it will be 30 years in 3 years, we've got about 480 deaths.
I often also find figures of 47 liquidators, but I can't quite pin them down. Whatever, let's say it's 47. (An IAEA-report says "some", so let's say 47.)
And malformed children? Nope, no significant increase.

So our best estimates give about 527 deaths for what is widely known as the greatest civilian nuclear disaster ever. (Claims of 1k+ deaths are likely to be an exaggeration, Greenpeace's 90-200,000 excess deaths are certainly political propaganda.)

Compare this to the greatest oil-related catastrophe (in excess of 1,000 deaths), the greatest hydro-electric dam failure (26,000 direct deaths)... Heck, even sporting events have larger one-off death tolls.

Fossil fuels win outright when it comes to deaths per TWh, which is how the human impact is measured for different energy types. Coal is at 161 deaths per TWh, Wind is at 0.15/TWh... and nuclear is at only 0.04/TWh! Nuclear energy is, when it comes to human deaths, far better than most other energy types on the market. In fact, nuclear energy is better than any other type of energy, including solar (0.44/TWh for rooftop installations) and hydro (0.10/TWh without the above mentioned disaster, 1.4/TWh if you include it.)

That's not to say that renewable sources of energy are intrinsically more dangerous than nuclear energy or that they're any worse for other reasons, but I want to put to rest that ridiculous myth that nuclear energy is somehow dangerous.

Do you think all the deformed childbirths in Belarus and Iran are by chance and not worth considering the causes?

As I mentioned there are no malformed children due to radioactive problems in Belarus and there are none I know of in Iran, but you might enlighten me about the latter.

Do you eat the mushrooms you can collect in your country right away or do you also have them checked for radiation like we have in Germany for over 26 years now?

I cook them first, but I don't check them for radiation.
Why?
Well first of all, most Mushrooms tested had below the threshold levels of radiation. For example, of tested Eierschwammerl (Chanterelle), only 11% were above the threshold of 600 Bq/kg. Just for the sake of comparison, if you ate 200g of shrooms, all of which were at the threshold of 600Bq/kg, you would receive about 0.0018mSv of radiation. A normal flight at 10,000 m height would give about 0.008mSv of radiation per hour.
(I don't know how to phrase it, but the calculations are official government figures, so I consider them safe.)

There is only one type of mushroom that should be avoided, the bay bolete (Maronen-röhrlinge). Most of them (60%+) exceed the threshold.

Short answer: If you live in Austria and you check for radiation then you shouldn't be looking for mushrooms in the first place since you're obviously confused about mushrooms.

In Germany, 34 Mushrooms were tested between 1994 and 2001 and 21 exceeded the (rather arbitrary?) threshold of 35Bq/kg, yet not a single one exceeded 600Bq/kg, which is the official threshold.

All in all, the official statement is that there is no immediate danger if one doesn't constantly eat mushrooms.

Do you enjoy wild meat without a thought?

For the very same reasons, yes. Two of my grandfathers, my grandfathers' wife and my father are all hunters, so we get a fair share of wild game. My grandfather is now 77 and he has yet to suffer any problems. OK, so that's cherry picking, but seriously, it's the same thing. There is no problem with radioactive meat in our countries.

Would you trust to swim in a river 2 miles downstream of a nuclear plant? Or on the beach of Fukushima?

Red Herring of epic proportions. Building a nuclear power plant, swimming next to one and walking next to a disaster area are three completely different and unrelated things.

I would not walk on Fukushima beach as the radiation is quite high after the meltdown.
I would however have no problems with swimming downstream of one. How come? A study between 1990 and 2008 concluded that the incidence rate was exactly the same next to a nuclear power plant (radius = 25km) as anywhere else in the country. (Canada)

Heck, we know that only 1% of all radiation we receive comes from the nuclear industry, while 14% come from the medical industry. The other 85% come from natural sources.

Anyway, that's that.


I agree with Rumraket, I think there's a lot of promise in LFTR-technology. I also agree that we should put as much as we can into renewable energies (excluding nuclear, even though that will last for about 20k+ years), but renewables are only one part of the equation. If we want to curb carbon emissions, we will have to produce a lot of our energy (and I'm talking about 75% here) by using nuclear reactors.

However, we should also make sure not to build old Russian reactors. The current best, as far as I know, are the French, building Gen-IV (passive-safety) reactors with highly effective designs. It would be irresponsible to build old designs.

I would be strongly in favour of adopting technologies which do not produce large amounts of waste, which again suggests LFTR-reactors. If I had the money, I would build one. As it stands, we may need to wait for the Chinese... Yippeeee, the Chinese are smarter than we are!

 

[Vivre]

Do you really ask if a radioactive contaminated environment is nothing to worry about?

That's fairly reactionary to his initial inquiry.

If that is the case - then sorry. Thus I can't comprehend it as reactionary - but maybe it's just a taste of words.


Radioactivity is no local and short-term concern but an unratable spreading and extremly long-term lasting deadly threat to life as such.

We should not take that chance - we can't ever take the responsibility for those damages.

I rather shiver in the winter time than to support further productions.
I don't need to consume like berserk and share what I have.

Although in Japan 50 out of 52 nuke-reactors where offline the last two years [nearly, due to progressive shutoffs] they didn't experience those 'prognosed' threatingly energie drops.

From my point of view the question of merit can't arise anymore but to ask humankind to come to reason and help with the way out.


Apart from that. From my professional standpoint I would aspire to focus on local depending solutions and support a variety of energy-harvestings (if I may say).
At my location wind / water / sun and biogas plants (...) could be a working mixture for a start.

I've been on these inspections and they are very thorough.

I'm glad you can say that.
Likewise I assume there are many good intended humans of various professions working in the nuclear industry. But the decisions are made on a separat level.

I still would like to see an emphasis on green technology before we dump more money into nuclear power

good idea

 

[Dustnite]

Do you really ask if a radioactive contaminated environment is nothing to worry about?
If that is the case - then sorry. Thus I can't comprehend it as reactionary - but maybe it's just a taste of words.


Radioactivity is no local and short-term concern but an unratable spreading and extremly long-term lasting deadly threat to life as such.

We should not take that chance - we can't ever take the responsibility for those damages.

I rather shiver in the winter time than to support further productions.
I don't need to consume like berserk and share what I have.

Although in Japan 50 out of 52 nuke-reactors where offline the last two years [nearly, due to progressive shutoffs] they didn't experience those 'prognosed' threatingly energie drops.

From my point of view the question of merit can't arise anymore but to ask humankind to come to reason and help with the way out.


Apart from that. From my professional standpoint I would aspire to focus on local depending solutions and support a variety of energy-harvestings (if I may say).
At my location wind / water / sun and biogas plants (...) could be a working mixture for a start.

Despite the disasters you cited, nuclear power remains a very safe technology to the environment and to humans. Plus, radioactivity is not an unmeasureable occurence and it CAN be dealt with safely. The NRC has specific protocols in place that measure all movement of radioactive material in and out of the plant and waste is dealt with in a very safe manner. Unfortunately, the NRC doesn't police the entire world so really the argument should be made for other countries to come in line on how to safely operate a nuclear power plant.

Frankly the argument you are making is rather sophmoric.

good idea

Good idea, sure, but it still doesn't solve the problem that green technology cannot come even close to generating the kind of power a nuclear power plant can generate. So, how do you intend to solve that dilemma? Hey everyone, go back to an agrarian lifestyle? See if that flies over.