56 replies to this topic

[boydwc]

I'm new to the forum here, but I enjoy looking through the conversations that happen here. I'm doing a project on nuclear energy, and I realized the last topic on nuclear energy happened a few years ago. I'm finding out that the positives of nuclear power really do outweigh the negatives, but with the recent events regarding nuclear power, I think it is a good conversation to have.

First off, nuclear is set apart from coal, oil, or gas because it releases no carbon emissions and therefore does not contribute to global warming. And as CASEnergy Coalition argues, it has the least impact on the environment for any energy source. Secondly, the amount of energy it creates is undeniable. Solar and Wind just aren't as efficient and cannot match the power one square mile facility creates.

Obviously, the waste is concerning, but it is safely secured. The waste itself is nowhere near as radioactive, and it can even be recycled for further use. Compared to industrial processing, this is actually amazing. Industrial processes create arsenic and mercury which will never decay. There need to be advancements in this area, but it is not as big a deal as people make.

Fukushima was a terrible incident, but how many people died? Zero. After a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a 40 foot tsunami, the plant survived with no deaths caused. This perfectly exemplifies the safety standards of nuclear facilities and the forces they can withstand. Need another example? An article in Science(I cannot put the link here at the moment) showed that nuclear facilities are literally airplane proof. The airplane disintegrated leaving barely a scratch on the facility. The safety of these facilities is striking.

Nuclear energy is extremely viable, safe, and ready. Solar and wind are admirable, but they need to be further developed in order to even come close for competition. As a society, we need to focus more on nuclear. However, I am interested in what you all have to say, so please respond!

[Mkw]

Hello boydwc,
     I find your point very interesting.  To begin with, I am glad you brought up that nuclear energy produces no carbon emissions.  For some reason, I feel that many are forgetting that.  With several recent "once in a lifetime" storms and weather constantly shifting to opposite extremes, it is hard to ignore what's happening to Earth.  Though some believe the risks with nuclear power are unfathomable and will inevitably lead to destruction of humanity, I truly believe that the carbon we emit into our atmosphere every single day is far more damaging.  
     The waste, actually, is not concerning.  For the most part, there is little trouble finding places to store it safely underground.  The source of all the concern is misinformation and fear.  People will lobby our government like crazy to prevent nuclear power plants, which have earned themselves such terrible connotations, while half of them don't know what they really entail.  
     I have never heard that power plants are airplane proof, but if so, that is truly amazing.  I can think of a lot more things for people to run around and be terrified about than a airplane crash-safe power plant!
     Although I understand your argument that Fukushima was exaggerated, it was frightening and extremely dangerous.  Although no immediate deaths were caused, the long term effects are likely to be substantial, and that is worth noting.  With that being said, though, these incidents are so much more rare than one would think.  This is because of how they are portrayed in the media, as well as within our own minds.  A nuclear catastrophe is very likely to be remembered, and since we remember it so clearly, it often seems that these happen more than other tragedies like murders which occur on a daily basis.
     I agree that we need to focus more on nuclear energy.  Now, how are we going to make that happen?

[boydwc]

Mkw, on 11 March 2013 - 06:08 PM, said:

Although I understand your argument that Fukushima was exaggerated, it was frightening and extremely dangerous.  Although no immediate deaths were caused, the long term effects are likely to be substantial, and that is worth noting.

There is the notion that nuclear fallout or radioactive materials lingering can harm human health. However, I have seen multiple sources that have said this is unbased and has not been proven. No zombies are being created here.

Mkw, on 11 March 2013 - 06:08 PM, said:

I agree that we need to focus more on nuclear energy.  Now, how are we going to make that happen?

The money needs to be put in the industry and the government needs to build more reactors. Very, very few have been built in recent years, and this restricts our energy access! Countries, like France, aggressively pursue nuclear energy, and it has profited them greatly.

[Charles]

Just because solar and wind power are not quite as powerful does not mean it is okay to replace them with nuclear power, which has been a threat to many innocent people. It's worth it to use more wind and solar power to get the same effects if it does not provide a health or safety hazard.  Besides, who said nuclear energy was "viable, safe, and ready"?  It would take a very long time for Americans and the government to approve something so dangerous.  Why not instead use that time harboring for SAFE energy?

[Mkw]

boydwc, on 11 March 2013 - 06:30 PM, said:

The money needs to be put in the industry and the government needs to build more reactors. Very, very few have been built in recent years, and this restricts our energy access! Countries, like France, aggressively pursue nuclear energy, and it has profited them greatly.

How are you going to convince a nation so against nuclear power to accept it?  The United States are not exactly open to change very often...

[boydwc]

Charles, on 11 March 2013 - 06:32 PM, said:

Just because solar and wind power are not quite as powerful does not mean it is okay to replace them with nuclear power, which has been a threat to many innocent people. It's worth it to use more wind and solar power to get the same effects if it does not provide a health or safety hazard.  Besides, who said nuclear energy was "viable, safe, and ready"?  It would take a very long time for Americans and the government to approve something so dangerous.  Why not instead use that time harboring for SAFE energy?

Charles, I think you misunderstand the danger of nuclear power. I provided a neat little graph below that compares the number of
deaths caused by various energy sources. Notice hydropower in there? A very clean source of energy, by our standards, but no one calls water power dangerous. Why not hold it to the same standards? Nuclear is safe and by "ready," I meant that the technology is there and does actually produce a huge amount of electricity, unlike solar and wind.

Image: Go to World-Nuclear (dot) org (slash) uploadedImages (slash) org (slash) info (slash) DeathsperTWh (dot) png

I apologize about needing to do that to the link, but fill in the spots as indicated and remove the spaces!

[boydwc]

Mkw, on 11 March 2013 - 06:36 PM, said:

How are you going to convince a nation so against nuclear power to accept it?  The United States are not exactly open to change very often...

Well, we actually aren't so against nuclear power. The media makes it seem as if it's despised, but I know that the approval rating for nuclear energy hovers around 60-70 percent, though it did decline immediately following Fukushima. Basically, we just need brave people to speak up and tell the story about energy straight. This means that we need the government to see this and put the money in.

[Charles]

boydwc, on 11 March 2013 - 06:54 PM, said:

Well, we actually aren't so against nuclear power. The media makes it seem as if it's despised, but I know that the approval rating for nuclear energy hovers around 60-70 percent, though it did decline immediately following Fukushima. Basically, we just need brave people to speak up and tell the story about energy straight. This means that we need the government to see this and put the money in.

Who is going to be putting the money in?  It costs around $7 million and many years to build one power plant.  The government doesn't have that kind of money to be spending right now.  So I still disagree that nuclear energy is "ready" when it takes this immense effort and cost to produce it.  Even with the dangers aside, the government isn't going to be willing to fund these things.

[eds]

You have the option to donate money with your income tax, for anything you want.
. . . I'm sure the IRS would accept everyones money,
. . . that wished to contribute towards building nuclear plants.
With 300 million people in the USA you shouldn't have any problem
. . . convincing enough of them to donate to your cause.
They might even build it in your neighborhood.

In the meantime, I'll continue to look for an affordable solar generator
. . . to start unplug'g from the grid.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

boydwc, on 11 March 2013 - 05:34 PM, said:

Obviously, the waste is concerning, but it is safely secured.

How do you know?
How is it transported? On trains. Trains sometimes derail.
Stored underground (once it gets there)-stored in what? Metal containers.
Rust gets to everything man has ever built.

Who will be watching the store in 500-1000 years from now?

Nope. Nuclear is not safe by any stretch.

[boydwc]

Charles, on 11 March 2013 - 07:23 PM, said:

Who is going to be putting the money in?  It costs around $7 million and many years to build one power plant.  The government doesn't have that kind of money to be spending right now.  So I still disagree that nuclear energy is "ready" when it takes this immense effort and cost to produce it.  Even with the dangers aside, the government isn't going to be willing to fund these things.

Sure, it takes a lot of money and time, but you have to put into context the costs that you put in. According to an article from The Energy Collective (which cited real nuclear power plants, wind farms, and solar panel fields), the cost per unit of energy created by nuclear is lower than that of wind and significantly lower than that of solar energy. The cost looks like a lot, but you're saving money in all actuality.

Shortpoet-GTD, on 12 March 2013 - 10:22 AM, said:

How do you know?
How is it transported? On trains. Trains sometimes derail.
Stored underground (once it gets there)-stored in what? Metal containers.
Rust gets to everything man has ever built.

Who will be watching the store in 500-1000 years from now?

Nope. Nuclear is not safe by any stretch.

Most often the waste is stored on site, so transportation isn't an immediate issue. Also, they are not disposed of until the waste has 1/1000th the radioactivity and is much safer. Unfortunately, they do have to be buried for 1000 years, but the barriers set to protect us and separate the wastes from the environment above are so thick and so strong that is simply impossible for the waste to reach us in that time. It's not just metal, the barriers include stainless steel, borosilicate glass, and bentonite clay (to protect from ground water), to name a few. This is exceptionally cautious and safer than is thought.

[eds]

Lest we forget Envradiation, it effects on the body, chernobyl, fukushima wind and solar.
. . . Are you willing to donate money to chernobyl, fukushima, the people effected by their radiation, and
. . . show how safe nuclear is by going to live next door to those plants, or their disposal sites,
To be fair, here's the impacts of your neighbor putting solar on their roof ?
. . . They might find a great investment.

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[Shortpoet-GTD]

And who's to say this won't happen again?
https://docs.google...._DlE6zL4l6N64VQ

Some current & older articles-

Leaking storage tanks.
http://forcechange.c...tored-properly/

http://www.nirs.org/...yuccaitaly1.htm

**It's like when Laurence Olivier asked Dustin Hoffman (in the movie Marathon Man)- "Is it safe?"

[Milton Banana]

There are new designs all the time.  Today's nuclear light water reactors were designed not only for power, but for weapons purposes too.  Thorium reactors are the wave of the future for nuclear power.  Light water reactors once online all the work done is to keep them from melting down.  If you got up and walked away from this design it would melt down.  Thorium reactors are quite the opposite.  All the work done is to keep them from falling out of reacting.  If you got up and walked away from a thorium reactor it would cease to react. Fuel is much more abundant and there is far less waste.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

From an articleon Salon. Yucca Mountain is no longer viable.



"The national stockpile stands at 69,000 metric tons. Every year another 2,000 tons of spent fuel is added to the total.
About 25 percent of the nation’s spent fuel is currently in dry-cask storage pods, which are usually stored on-site
at the atomic power plants. The rest is held in pools.
Many of them have exhausted the capacity of their pools."

(The problems of NIMBY {not in my backyard) are also discussed.)

[eds]

"Nuclear Power Is Dead" With Jeremy Rifkin

[punjabi]

sorry - i cut paste again. not good enough english paraphrase.








Using nuclear power in place of fossil-fuel energy sources, such as coal, has prevented some 1.8 million air pollution-related deaths globally and could save millions of more lives in coming decades, concludes a study. The researchers also find that nuclear energy prevents emissions of huge quantities of greenhouse gases. These estimates help make the case that policymakers should continue to rely on and expand nuclear power in place of fossil fuels to mitigate climate change, the authors say (Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es3051197).
In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, critics of nuclear power have questioned how heavily the world should rely on the energy source, due to possible risks it poses to the environment and human health.
“I was very disturbed by all the negative and in many cases unfounded hysteria regarding nuclear power after the Fukushima accident,” says report coauthor Pushker A. Kharecha, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in New York.
Working with Goddard’s James E. Hansen, Kharecha set out to explore the benefits of nuclear power. The pair specifically wanted to look at nuclear power’s advantages over fossil fuels in terms of reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
Kharecha was surprised to find no broad studies on preventable deaths that could be attributed to nuclear power’s pollution savings. But he did find data from a 2007 study on the average number of deaths per unit of energy generated with fossil fuels and nuclear power (Lancet, DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(07)61253-7). These estimates include deaths related to all aspects of each energy source from mining the necessary natural resources to power generation. For example, the data took into account chronic bronchitis among coal miners and air pollution-related conditions among the public, including lung cancer.
Read more here http://cen.acs.org/a...ths-Causes.html
Prevented mortality and greenhouse gas emissions from historical and projected nuclear power
Pushker A. Kharecha and James E Hansen
Environ. Sci. Technol., Just Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1021/es3051197
Abstract
In the aftermath of the March 2011 accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the future contribution of nuclear power to the global energy supply has become somewhat uncertain. Because nuclear power is an abundant, low-carbon source of base-load power, on balance it could make a large contribution to mitigation of global climate change and air pollution. Using historical production data, we calculate that global nuclear power has prevented about 1.84 million air pollution-related deaths and 64 gigatonnes (Gt) CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that would have resulted from fossil fuel burning. Based on global projection data that take into account the effects of Fukushima, we find that by mid-century, nuclear power could prevent an additional 420,000 to 7.04 million deaths and 80 to 240 GtCO2-eq emissions due to fossil fuels, depending on which fuel it replaces. By contrast, we assess that large-scale expansion of natural gas use would not mitigate the climate problem and would cause far more deaths than expansion of nuclear power.

[punjabi]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 27 March 2013 - 05:24 AM, said:

From an articleon Salon. Yucca Mountain is no longer viable.



"The national stockpile stands at 69,000 metric tons. Every year another 2,000 tons of spent fuel is added to the total.
About 25 percent of the nation’s spent fuel is currently in dry-cask storage pods, which are usually stored on-site
at the atomic power plants. The rest is held in pools.
Many of them have exhausted the capacity of their pools."

(The problems of NIMBY {not in my backyard) are also discussed.)

does NIMBY apply rare earth processing? make solar panels - very messy in china.

Also Mr Lovelock nuclear fan - cut/paste again

• 
  
  

  
  Dr. James Lovelock:
  “Nuclear power is the only green solution”
  http://www.independe...on-6169341.html
  “Gas is almost a give-away in the US at the moment. They’ve gone for fracking in a big way. Let’s be pragmatic and sensible and get Britain to switch everything to methane. We should be going mad on it.”
  http://www.guardian....iew-gaia-theory

• 
  
  
  In 1961 and 1962, the US and the USSR conducted hundreds of above groun nuclear tests prior to the atmospheric test ban treaty in late ’62. More anthropgenic nuclear radiation, by far, went into the atmosphere in ’61 and ’62 than in all of History’s other nuclear detonations and accidents combined. Is there any evidence of a spike in cancers or other diseases in people born between, say, 1957 and 1966, with particular focus on people who were infants, newborns, or in wombs in ’61 and ’62?

[eds]

Now that's funny

[Shortpoet-GTD]

punjabi, on 03 April 2013 - 03:52 PM, said:

does NIMBY apply rare earth processing? make solar panels - very messy in china.

NIMBY is an issue for all fossil fuels and their transport too; much more so than rare earths, imo.
http://www.treehugge...nadian-oil.html

NIMBY is alsos one of the issues with the XL pipeline.
As seen in recent weeks, pipeline breaks; contaminating entire neighborhoods.

http://www.treehugge...ake-conway.html

Also coal, drilling for oil in the Gulf or the Alaskan tundra; natural gas fracking and the contamination of aquifers
across the nation.


Mining for rare earths for solar is no different. The upside for solar (among others) is once the panels are built,
the pollution stops. Even transporting panels is not an issue.


Powering up that computer that we're on is a dirty business. Perhaps mining for rare earths for solar
is the least offensive? The other fossil fuels we use are certainly turning our planet into a toxic wasteland.

With coal for example, you have -
1-Mining; destroys the environment.
Coal sludge-
http://www.cnn.com/2...e.sludge.spill/
Coal miners death-
http://www.huffingto...0_n_802790.html

http://en.wikipedia....sh_slurry_spill

http://en.wikipedia....al_slurry_spill

2- Transportation-trains that derail occasionally.

(Just one example. There are many articles on it via Google.)
http://articles.chic...s-freight-train

3- And finally, the burning of it is warming the planet and giving kids asthma.  
http://www.nrdc.org/...al/contents.asp