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285 Comments
- alpha88, on 04/28/2009, -10/+147Currently, Nuclear is the only viable option. Other sources are either too expensive, don't provide enough power, or create too much pollution.
Nuclear is far better than any other options *at the moment*. Not permanently, but right now, which is what is most important.
Also, people don't seem to understand that nuclear power plants aren't that dangerous. It's not like Chernobyl, it's impossible to manually override the safety system to perform something dangerous like they did to cause that accident. - darkened, on 04/28/2009, -23/+127"If climate change is the greatest threat facing mankind, what are the odds of the big environmental groups rethinking their longstanding opposition to nuclear power?"
A: Zero cause they're ***** idiots. - nysus, on 04/28/2009, -10/+89Founder of Greenpeace agrees: http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2007 ...
Let's say we have 10 Chernobyl-like meltdowns over the next century. As harmful as that might be, the meltdowns would probably do far less damage to the environment than a rapid increase in CO2. - r0g3r, on 04/28/2009, -5/+52People fear what they don't understand. Modern facilities are not like Chernobyl. Overheating causes less reactivity in a modern reactor, which is the opposite of Chernobyl types, and is a very significant failsafe against meltdown, because as the reactor approaches meltdown the reaction slows and therefore the reactor cools, preventing meltdown. (there are exceptions, but I think the focus should be on the safest types of reactors)
- alpha88, on 04/28/2009, -4/+46An average-sized family using nuclear power will, on average, produce nuclear waste about the size of a tennis ball during their entire lifetime.
That's not much at all compared to what we're currently using. - PopcornDave, on 04/28/2009, -2/+41Zero: because a lot of people still think nuclear plants work like the movie The China Syndrome and that technology never moves on.
Like with off shore oil rigs the technology does improve with time, but to some of these people it's a religious movement as fundamentalist as some of the far right christian groups.
I keep hoping that we're going to see some kind of compromise on this kind of thing but both sides seem to be so entrenched that nobody is going to blink first. - ashadocat, on 04/28/2009, -3/+40coal ash is more radioactive then nuclear waste. it also gets pumped into the atmosphere instead of stored in nice safe underground containers
"At issue is coal's content of uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements. They occur in such trace amounts in natural, or "whole," coal that they aren't a problem. But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels."
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-mo ... - mysmartypants, on 04/28/2009, -3/+36But they are stupid children.
- ldailey06, on 04/28/2009, -1/+32It's also worth pointing out that at this point the odds of even one Chernobyl style meltdown occurring are basically nil.
- drmangrum, on 04/28/2009, -5/+36Oh look, a hippie that hasn't read up on any new research in the last 30 years.
- gerrylazlo, on 04/28/2009, -3/+33What water pollution are you talking about? Heat pollution?
Also, compare the volume of uranium mined and transported next to coal. It's like comparing a volleyball to the sun. Plus the price of oil has brought the per MWH cost difference much closer, which has caused nuclear to be more and more attractive to countries wishing to wean themselves from oil. I would prefer we did all green energy myself, but until that becomes even remotely feasible economically, nuclear will rightly be an increasingly important element of our country's electricity production. - BrownieMix, on 04/28/2009, -8/+37Nuclear is the way to go. It's clean, efficient, and cheap.
- c010rb1indusa, on 04/28/2009, -2/+30Definitely, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island have plagued nuclear powers numerous benefits. There is enough Uranium to last us 250+ years, all the nuclear waste in the country doesn't take up more than a football field. Plus they create Jobs, and lots of them.
I'm a Democrat, and I'm 100% for nuclear power. - Chairboy, on 04/28/2009, -5/+33***** you, I love the planet. Nuclear power is the key to saving it. Your phobia is obviously stronger than your regard for Earth.
- Pimptastic, on 04/28/2009, -1/+24Chernobyl was more of an explosion than a meltdown. And anyone that puts any effort into learning about nuclear reactor safety and history can tell you that soviet era reactors are about as safe as pushing a blind and deaf kid down a hill on roller skates, as compared to today's modern US reactors.
- ldailey06, on 04/28/2009, -1/+24This is exactly right. Nuclear power is not a permanent solution, but it is a key transitional step.
- centran, on 04/28/2009, -2/+24Um... we had a place to put the waste but all the ***** red tape destroyed that option. I thought it was a great plan but when only one organization wants it and you are being attacked from every side and everyone(even the power companies) then it is hard to get people on board.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclea ... - inactive, on 04/28/2009, -4/+26Our country should have been running on 100% nuclear power decades ago.
- gerrylazlo, on 04/28/2009, -2/+23Agreed. If we want to sidestep fossil fuel, nothing else comes close to the practicality and energy output of nuclear. Until fusion becomes practical or there is a monumental expansion of wind, solar, and geothermal, this should be our go-to source.
- AdmiralAcbar, on 04/28/2009, -4/+25"possible meltdown which is irreversible" - Read up on CANDU reactors, *****. It is physically impossible for them to have a meltdown. As for waste disposal, put it back where it came from. The uranium is more radioactive than the waste is, so the area is already dead.
- CATSCEO2, on 04/28/2009, -0/+19Read up on half-lives, clickmyface.
- Ymeg, on 04/28/2009, -3/+22Grammer, we are not primitives. Our nuclear technicians and disposal experts make the process extremely safe.
- kiranlightpaw, on 04/28/2009, -1/+19This is only partially right.
There is no single answer to our energy problems. Nuclear is not the single answer, but it should play a BIG role in not just increasing our energy production in a more environmentally friendly way, but it serves as a good way to begin to get us off of foreign sources of power. I, personally, am very tired of being beholden to countries who we would otherwise have nothing to do with just because we need their energy resources.
I'll agree with you that there are people who are genuinely afraid of nuclear power. The problem is that these people are caught in the middle of a war between the rational people (scientists, engineers, policy makers who know nuclear power is safe and technically sound) and, quite frankly, whackjobs for whom opposing anything nuclear, even at the expense of any information to the contrary, has become almost religious in intensity.
What the nuclear industry needs is good PR, to get out the message to these people and to get it above the fear and misinformation being spread by the anti-nuclear people. - Lefts, on 04/28/2009, -8/+25As much as I would love a reinvestment into nuclear power (imagine how different it would be if we brought that to the 21st century), there is a major problem.
Some people are afraid of nuclear power. And they don't want to be dismissed as stupid children. - alpha88, on 04/28/2009, -2/+19Grammer: My source is someone working for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.
- Gloony, on 04/28/2009, -1/+17As a student of nuclear engineering I can verify the tennis ball claim - however that's with reprocessing to re-use fuel.
Another good fact to point out is that, using proper containment, that waste is actually completely harmless to personnel, even those not utilising CBRM PPE (although this goes against practice). - Gloony, on 04/28/2009, -1/+17Correction: Three mile island represents the worst case result (which was unpredicted prior) for a 30 year old reactor with a MTBE of 1,000,000 years for that scenario.
It was the product of the sharpest point of probability mixed with the lack of understanding of the metallurgy involved with neutron emissions.
With modern technology, the probability has been reduced by a factor of 10 and that particular failure mode of the core (basically the supports turning to glass) can no-longer occur. - flyssa, on 04/28/2009, -1/+17“…according to NCRP Reports No. 92 and No. 95, population exposure from operation of 1000-MWe nuclear and coal-fired power plants amounts to 490 person-rem/year for coal plants and 4.8 person-rem/year for nuclear plants. Thus, the population effective dose equivalent from coal plants is 100 times that from nuclear plants”
Gabbard, Alex. "Coal Combustion: Nuclear Resource or Danger." ORNL Review Vol 26 No. 3&4 5 Feb. 2008. Oak Ridge National Labratory. 19 Mar. 2009 <http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/ ...
excerpt from the paper i just wrote on the subject for English 201.
you take 100 times the dose equivalent of radiation from a coal plant do to flue ash from the other bits and pieces that arent coal in the coal they burn then a properly working nuclear plant. though they do admit that if you are the one that mines, processes, loads, and burns the uranium throughout the process you will get the same dose from the nuke plant as the coal one. - offrdbandit, on 04/28/2009, -2/+18In the US they are nil.
- da5id, on 04/28/2009, -1/+17Moreover, the US does not build Chernobyl reactors.Three Mile Island was our worst case scenario.
- r0g3r, on 04/28/2009, -2/+17Actually the difference I'm referring to is the temperature coefficient. All reactors in the US are negative temperature coefficient reactors, where Chernobyl and a very few of it's type still in operation in former Soviet satellite countries have a positive temperature coefficient. The most common US reactors are Pressurized Water Reactors, which have a negative coefficient and are therefore MUCH safer than Chernobyl when it comes to catastrophic meltdown. In fact, it's near impossible for a runaway meltdown to occur in such a reactor. In Chernobyl type reactors the higher the coolant pressure in the reactor gets, the more reactive the fuel becomes, which causes a runaway meltdown. This is completely the opposite in a negative coefficient reactor.
And we've learned from incidents like TMI, and there are safety measures to prevent the specific type of incident that happened at TMI from happening in a current reactor in the US. - gerrylazlo, on 04/28/2009, -1/+16Excellent and accurate analogy.
- darkened, on 04/28/2009, -3/+18You're referring to the Pebble Bed Reactors (PBR) currently in America there are zero PBRs. All of our reactors in the USA are the same fission type as Chernobyl however since we have immense safety regulations and systems on our reactors the chance of them ever melting down is effectively zero. Even the TMI incident was nothing, if it wasn't for human idiocy it wouldn't have even escalated to the point it did. It saddens me so much that people act like TMI was a threat and that it became the reason the USA stopped it's adoption of nuclear power.
What pisses me off to no extent is I live 10 miles away from TMI and get ZERO of my electricity from it. - AWBoy666, on 04/28/2009, -19/+34Nuclear is efficient, cheap, and safe. I'd be more than happy to live right next to one and/or keep the waste in my backyard. Don't have an issue with it.
Build nuclear NOW. (And vote Republican so this could actually happen) - drmangrum, on 04/28/2009, -4/+19Rabid environmentalists don't understand middle ground.
They protest coal and oil because of emissions.
They'll protest hydro power because of the environmental impact of the new lake.
They protest nuclear because they think it will all be like three mile island and Chernobyl.
They protest wind farm because it hurts birds and ruins the view.
They protest solar because you have to clear away large tracks of land.
Honestly, I if we could find a way to create power on unicorn farts, happy thoughts, and rainbows they would protest it. The only thing environmentalists know they want is cheap power. - Logrusmage, on 04/28/2009, -3/+17And how many people died?
For everyone's knowledge: No one. - redwire, on 04/28/2009, -0/+14To be fair Chernobyl couldn't really happen with modern nuclear technology, not because its got extra safeguards or anything but rather it works in a fundamentally different way, it has for a long time, "meltdowns" can't really occur anymore.
That's not to say its completely safe but its the best option avalable and fundamentally better in every way.
That's what 50+ years of R&D will do. :) - drmangrum, on 04/28/2009, -1/+15Part of the problem with the world today is people are afraid to speak their minds.
Some people act like stupid children. Until they are told so, they can't change. - stroudma, on 04/28/2009, -4/+18Nuclear Power 2012
- h8f8kes, on 04/28/2009, -2/+15Dugg for pointing out Doctor Moore's stance on this.
- darkened, on 04/28/2009, -1/+14I agree with you on the plant portion but not the nuclear waste portion, unless your talking a Yucca Mountain type storage facility that is buried 100s of feet under bedrock in my backyard then I'd be glad to lease my backyard to the government for it.
- Senturion, on 04/28/2009, -5/+18For people who worry about such long-term problems as global warming, environmentalists are remarkably short-sighted.
In the rush to get rid of incandescent lightbulbs they pushed CFLs on the world which will soon lead to an overflow of mercury in our landfills.
In their haste to rid the world of oil they led the charge towards ethanol which is now pushing up agriculture costs, creating genetically-modified zombie seeds and not reducing carbon emission one bit.
In their paranoia over nuclear power in the 80s power they pushed the U.S. back towards coal, which is now a leading culprit in the fight over climate change.
The environmental movement needs to start thinking more about practical, rational solutions to problems and not taking such knee-jerk reactions to things.
The world is not going to go back to squatting in caves so these hippies need to realize that there is more to protecting the planet than always saying "no" to everything, you have to be collaborative and be part of the solution rather than just a constant whiner. - johnomaz, on 04/28/2009, -3/+15Then shut off your power and go live in the wild. Where do you think your power comes from?
and @gpsea You *****...Nuclear power plants don't use weapons grade radioactive material. And please, learn proper english. - gerrylazlo, on 04/28/2009, -1/+13Actually it isn't. Half-life isn't just a game, you know.
- r0g3r, on 04/28/2009, -2/+14I'll take my nuclear power without the anti-science, creationist, war mongering, big oil supporting agenda, thanks.
- CommandoJoe, on 04/28/2009, -0/+11US reactors are far from *****, and their design is inherently much more safe than any Chernobyl style reactor...
- Brassbud, on 04/28/2009, -23/+34Environmentalists will never embrace nuclear power, not even fusion if it ever proves to be viable. The reason is that nuclear power is the opposite of what they want. It provides lots of power very cheaply, the fact that it does not contribute to global warming is irrelevant.
The true environmentalists, the ones at the top of the movement that create the agenda, don't really give a ***** about global warming. No, their interest in it is mainly in using it as a tool to make modern, industrialized life prohibitively expensive and illegal. They see the human being as an unnatural plague, and any technology that would allow for civilization's expanse will never be embraced by them. - randomface, on 04/28/2009, -2/+13how much of that cost is from ***** environmentalism lawsuits?
- armakaryk, on 04/28/2009, -0/+11I hear stalin is a big supporter of kittens.
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