Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics The Energy Forum "Is Nuclear Power a Viable Option For Our Energy Needs?"

Living just outside the 10-mile-radius "Kill Zone" of Three Mile Island, I can assure you that there are no mutant bananas (or any other kind of bananas) growing here...we're a little too far north for that. We do have some interesting variants on squirrels and chipmunks, though.

Schlack


Dammit Shclack!

Its: What could possibly go WORNG!!

TAT

That's what he meant, Tat, but he misspelled it.

Look, it’s unlikely I am going to change anyone’s mind on nuclear power who has already arrived at the conclusion it is bad, dangerous and scary. All I am asking is for you to consider some facts before you throw the baby out with the bathwater. I really don’t know where to begin, but I will make a stab.

Let’s take a look at coal, an energy source that provides a huge amount of electricity for the US and the rest of the world:
Chinese coal mines, the world's most deadly, claimed 5,948 lives in 2005. A 21 per cent decline in the number of miners killed would mean around 4,800 people lost their lives in coal mine accidents this year. And what about their choking, stinking air? The amount of greenhouse carbon released annually in China and elsewhere is off the charts, and this is a global issue. But, the miners were Chinese, so it’s probably doesn’t matter.

Underground mining {in the US} is the second-most-dangerous occupation, after a category that includes farming, forestry and commercial fishing, according to the Labor Department. Twenty-two coal miners were killed last year in separate incidents, the lowest number of miner deaths in at least 10 years. Nationally, there were 3,382 injuries of coal miners in 2004, up from 3,342 in 2003 and less than the 3,925 in 2002. The numbers are down since 1980, when more than 16,000 injuries were reported and there were more coal mines in the U.S. And, they probably drove Fords in the country, not Volvos in town.

France currently gets about 75% of it’s electrical power from nukes. Have you heard of any problems or disasters there, other than not releasing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere?

France derives 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy. This is due to a long-standing policy based on energy security.
France is the world's largest net exporter of electricity, and gains over EUR 3 billion per year from this.
France has been very active in developing nuclear technology, and reactor technology is a major export.

I would suggest that fear of nuclear power strikes the same nerve centers in the brain as fear of terrorists. They are unknown, and anywhere and everywhere, and they are out to get you. This fear is exploited by our government in their current war on “terror” to get a lot of people to cave on their desire to lessen of our freedoms and intrude on our personal lives.

Patrick Moore, formerly a leader of Greenpeace has come out in favor of nukes, much to the chagrin of his former party members. I don’t know what to make of the chlorine comment.

Dr. Moore, 59 years old, shrugs off the attacks. "I am often confronted by the
assertion that I am not an environmentalist because I support nuclear power...or
whatever they don't agree with," he says. "I respond by saying that they are not
in charge of giving out credentials for who is an environmentalist."

Dr. Moore, who left Greenpeace in 1986, insists he still holds true to almost
all the policies Greenpeace initially pursued: banning nuclear testing, whale
killing and toxic discharge. "I left Greenpeace because my fellow directors were
drifting into policies that I did not believe had any basis in logic or
science," says Dr. Moore, now chairman and chief scientist of Greenspirit
Strategies Ltd., a Vancouver consulting firm. One such policy, he says, was a
campaign for a global ban on the use of chlorine in drinking water, he says.
(Greenpeace says it has no record of a campaign to ban chlorine in drinking
water.)

3,500+ US soldiers dead in Iraq. Others with lost limbs, blinded, deaf, and suffering from untold mental problems. These soldiers will be back home to haunt their families, themselves, and the rest of us in our quest for oil. Was Iraq about anything else? So one could easily say petroleum usage is responsible for this. And wouldn’t be nice to get rid of a few dams on our rivers. Talk about an environmental disaster! Dams have wreaked havoc on Salmon runs in our beautiful Northwest and cause a plethora of other problems.

How many people have been killed in nuclear accidents in the last 20 years? My research could find none, but I am sure the hand wringers will be able to dig up a few. I can hear the word Chernobyl as I am typing this. Chernobyl was a graphite core reactor, a design that is inherently unsafe and has never been legal in the US. That, combined with the poor safely culture in the former USSR led to the disaster. It is a wonder there were not more disasters in that country. And Three Mile Island. was anyone injured there?

I do not expect this post to change anyones mind that is already made up. All I am asking for is a rational look at the issue.

"I do not expect this post to change anyones mind that is already made up. All I am asking for is a rational look at the issue"



nuclear accidents

" 13 March [1980]
SAINT LAURENT DES EAUX, FRANCE - An accident occurred at the second reactor at Saint Laurent des EAUX. No official description was given but it was admitted that repairs would take several weeks. It was reported that there was a break in the protection around the fuel charges. A similar accident there in 1969 led to a shutdown for a year. (W.I.S.E. Ibid)......

27 March
CHOOZ, FRANCE - The Chooz nuclear power plant closed until the end of May due to a damaged reactor. (W.I.S.E. Ibid) ....

...15 April
LA HAGUE, FRANCE - France came very close to a major nuclear accident when fire caused a breakdown of the cooling system at the waste dump and reprocessing plant at La Hague.

April
LA HAGUE, FRANCE - Divers completed repairs to a faulty undersea pipeline which carries radioactive water from the nuclear treatment plant for the second time in a month. This time the breach occurred in calm water and spilt radioactive water into the channel. This is the 39th time the pipe has broken......

April
FESSENHEIM, FRANCE - According to Mr. ETEMAD, a nuclear expert who used to work with the French reactor building company FRAMATOME, there are cracks in the Fessenheim nuclear power plant where ten relatively minor accidents have occurred. The Director of the plant had to admit that faulty parts had been built into the reactor"

and thats just in the first few months of 1980.

safe? hardly h

igh standards? hardly

potentially disasterous? hell yes.

more nuke stations more chance of something catastrophic going on. and thats not even mentioning the everyday contamination from the likes of

Sellafield in Englad

site of numerous nuclear mishaps, oopsies and boo-boos, right accross the Irish sea from me. Ireland is non nuclear and yet we still get the ill effects from our neighbours use of it. they regularly pump radioactive water into the Irish sea and have done so for decades.

and the leukemia custer and the leukemia cluster nearby

correlation is not causation i know but then this is a hell of a coinkidink

"Childhood Leukemia in Germany: Cluster Identified near Nuclear Power Plant"


Irrational fear? no, a great big dangerous bloody problem on my doorstep.

this is no abstract fear Ken,its only a matter of time before we have REAL fish fingers

the benefits using of nukular power are not worth the risk.

ok even if we take the obvious risks out of the equation its still not worth it.

how long would the uranium last were a large proportion of the worlds energy derived from it? 100 years? more less? are we not just postponing the energy crisis that will come from the coming shortage of fossil fuels? we will then be faced with the uranium shortage? even with the recycling of nuclear weapons? (at last a decent use for them)

does it not make more sense that we take the billions that would go into developing new plants and disposing of the waste, and use that for developing fuel-less sources of energy on a large scale?

wave, wind and solar in particular. how much more developed would these technologies be i wonder the iraq war money had been pumped into R&D?

i wonder how much further advanced they would be had renewable power companies recieved the subsidies the oil and coal industries get.

Schlack--we really need to sit down sometime with several pints of Guinness and have a friendly discussion over all of this. I am sure we could arrive at some sort of middle ground. In the mean time I would like to thank you for confirming what I had previously said. I saw no evidence of so much as injury in your reasons for not supporting nuclear power, other than some vague fear of something possibly going wrong. Things break and need repair. 2nd law of thermodynamics being demonstrated. Have you never fixed your car or repaired your house? But we all know the real reasons for needing new power sources. There are just too damn many of us all wanting to throw the switch without a second thought. Our numbers are increasing rapidly, Chinas and India’s middle class is growing, and they are all going to want the stuff we have, but now, we in our infinite wisdom have decided places great strain on the environment. Who is going to touch that “tar baby”—with apologies to I think was Steve. After all, our commandment from God was to be fruitful and multiply. We have obeyed that command too well. And the Muslim world has taken it to a whole new level.

Are we to deny them stuff because we have come to the conclusion it wasn’t really worth it and they should take the hint from us that it’s not all that great anyway? And that they really don’t need to raise their standard of living? Because if they do, we in our brilliance and prior experience, know the consequences. More pressure on finite resources, more pressure on the environment, and more of us competing for dwindling “open spaces”. All of this requires more electrical and other power so it needs to be addressed in the most rational way that harms the environment least. Much to your chagrin, I am positing nuclear fits that bill. I think nuclear is a green source of power-after all the sun is a fusion reactor and some geologists posit that the center of the earth is one as well. There are potential problems with nuclear (as with any energy source) but they can be worked out scientifically in a very safe manner. Politically is a another matter.

I completely agree with your desire to increase alternative energies as well. There is a place for all of them and they need to receive tax breaks and encouragement from governments as well. But have you followed the latest on wind power? It seems some are now raising their arms, wailing and gnashing their teeth over the unsightly windmills that sully hillsides and can turn birds into hamburger. There is a cost benefit ratio to everything—nothing comes for free. I am sure if we are to pursue tidal and wave power there will be many complaining about the unsightly objects bobbing up and down in the waves offshore. And those solar panels, why “They’re reflecting the sun and blinding me. I wish those Smith characters across the street would change the angle on them. How inconsiderate of them!” It seems many people want perfection with absolutely no costs. Just ain’t going to happen—everything is a trade off. What works the best for the most is right in my book. Nuclear (and alternatives) to me fits that bill.

Unfortunately, Bush is proposing more nuclear generation so that in itself causes many to out and out reject it. I wish he would just zip his lip on the subject.

"At the current level of uranium consumption (67,000 tonnes per year) known uranium resources (2.8 million tonnes of uranium) would last 42 years – a fact highlighted by the European Commission in their Energy Green Paper [EC 2001]. The known and estimated resources plus secondary resources (such as the military inventory), a total of around 4.8 million tonnes, would last 72 years. Of course this assumes that nuclear continues to provide just a fraction of the world's energy supply. If capacity were increased six-fold then 72 years would reduce to 12 years."

a study in uranium supplies

now i believe the US has large indegenous uranium supplies and would be somewhat immune form supply problems in the short term. in the long term it will run out the same as the oil, especialy sooner if it fulfiling more of our energy needs.

it is a finite resource. i dont understand how this fits any bill. its at best a stopgap measure. at worst an expensive (with potential danger and massive clean up and storage problems and costs) diversion from where we should be focussing our efforts.

a waste of money on building new power stations what will be worse than useless after their lives has ended

Uranium is a finite resource, better to harness the huge energies that are already on the earth in in the form of currents, both wind and water.

There will of course be objections from some - but there are objections for every energy source. none more so that nulcear.

World's first commercial tidal energy generator to be built in Northern Ireland

a 1.2 mw generator. not too bad for the first.

*ps im desperately trying to ignore your dismissal of potential dangers on my doorstep as a vague fear (but as you see i cant!!)

*edited to fix link

Well Schlack—we in the good ol US of A have to worry about this! Hoo whee! When this baby hits you’ll be glad you’re in Ireland, at least for awhile—before the sun disappears for good along with all of our former worries.

http://people.uwec.edu/ERICKSKM/hazards.html

yeah well be fine for a couple of hours!

but good point, theres tonnes of geothermal energy that we could also tap.

geothermal energy plant in australia - in hot granite

its only a demonstration model, but its up and running, i hope to see more of these kind of projects in the near future.

until of course we crack the crust!

By pursuing this technology we can mitigate any perceived shortfall in uranium supplies. One thing to remember, technology and knowledge does not remain static. As time goes on, so does the increase of knowledge, and problems that seem insurmountable now vanish and become non existent. That tidal generator in off the coast of Ireland looks interesting. I hope it pans out.

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