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| Your thoughts on nuclear power...
Posted: 9/28/2007 1:34:12 AM | I am in favor of nuclear power myself. I'd drive a nuclear powered car if given the chance. I am against putting more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, out planet already makes enough of them to block out the sun with a powerful enough volcano (which according to research has happened at least once before). I would live next door to a nuclear reactor with how safe they are today. The waste isn't as bad a problem as media makes it out to be, there are already several very good storage locations for nuclear waste that never see the camera's of media, good stories just aren't as interesting to the masses as a scare story. Would you rather have an area of the Earth which you can never go near again, or the entire planet struggling to survive when the atmosphere gets thick enough to prevent crops from sprouting, starts the next ice age, so on so forth.
There are better generators though. One has been in existence since the 80's, but guess what, it's used to simulate nuclear bombs. There also isn't much a chance of the schematics being released anytime soon.
Even if you want to keep using fossil fuels for stuff like cars, generators, and the like. There are much much more efficient ways to use it. Like a feed of 93% hydrogen and 7% gasoline, is just as good as running straight gasoline in your vehicle, the 7% gasoline is somewhat required to prevent embrittling the engine block. Could you imagine how long fossil fuel would last, and how very little of it would be used every year like that. In a hydrogen explosion you'll lose body hair, get some very light burns, but not even close to a fraction of the damage gasoline explosions cause.
But there are two reasons truly good ideas are almost never used. Greed and media, it's not a conspiracy, it's conditioning, whether intentional or not. Coal plants themselves, which are still widely used, have killed more than 5 times the amount of people as nuclear reactors. | |
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| Your thoughts on nuclear power...
Posted: 10/1/2007 11:21:06 AM | Nuclear Power is brought to you by the same people the brought you the oil ecconomy, fiat dollars, and the War on Terror.
That should shed some light on how *they* feel about your safety and well being. | |
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| Your thoughts on nuclear power...
Posted: 10/1/2007 6:28:58 PM | Giving the nuke option a fair shake:
http://www.news.com/Giving-the-nuke-option-a-fair-shake/2010-11392_3-6210528.html | |
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Mr H2O
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Joined: 10/31/2006
Msg: 229 | |
| Your thoughts on nuclear power...
Posted: 10/7/2007 1:48:52 AM | The Cook nuclear plant is located in Bridgman on the Lake Michigan shoreline.
It is owned and operated by American Electric Power.
According to an August 2006 NRC report a 37 ton block
was dropped during the last refueling on March 27, 2006
The dropped load landed immediately next to one of its reactor cores
risking severe damage to the steel vessel that contains the chain reaction and highly radioactive materials.
On Oct 4th, 2007 they had another crane related accident where an
individual was struck when a rigging clevis (a piece used to connect a crane with something to be lifted)
dropped from an elevated position.
In recent years there was also an accident at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station just outside of Toledo, Ohio.
The power plant was operating and a corrosive event ate through 6 3/4 inches of carbon steel
in the reactor vessel head, narrowly missing an accident worse than Three Mile Island .
Three Mile Island, even by the NRC's account, released 10 million curies of radiation into the environment.
The University of North Carolina did do a study on the Three Mile Island event.
It was their conclusion, through their epidemiological study, that there were
statistically significant cancer clusters as a result of that accident.
There have been contaminated water releases, various venting of gases,
numerous small accidents over the years.
There are currently 103 operating nuclear plants in 31 U.S. states.
I'm not thrilled with nuclear reactors so close to the Fresh Water Great Lakes of Michigan.
There are too many possibilities for accidents within nuclear power plants.
We should really look at viable alternatives to having to store spent fuel rods. | |
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| Your thoughts on nuclear power...
Posted: 10/7/2007 11:17:49 AM |
The University of North Carolina did do a study on the Three Mile Island event.
It was their conclusion, through their epidemiological study, that there were
statistically significant cancer clusters as a result of that accident. I think the study you refer to was reported in 1997. You should read "TMI 25 Years Later". It has been agreed by many sources that not one single case of cancer can be attributed to TMI, with the combination of all studies done over the course of 20 years. Radiation release from TMI was controlled, and therefore, the radiation levels never reached a level higher than what someone would receive in other parts of the country. What I mean is, that if someone had been standing at the perimeter of TMI during the full 9 days of release, the maximum radiation that they would have received that year would be equivalent to someone living in Denver, CO.
Although I (and many others) don't agree with the results of the study they did, I do appreciate your choice of words in saying that it was "their conclusion" from "their study". | |
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Mr H2O
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Joined: 10/31/2006
Msg: 231 | |
| Your thoughts on nuclear power...
Posted: 10/7/2007 8:49:58 PM | There were 10 incidents at U.S. nuclear plants last year that merited ratings of 2
—"significant spread of contamination / overexposure of a worker"
and "incidents with significant failures in safety provisions,"
as the INES handbook puts it.
"Two reactor events and eight nonreactor events."
Among the eight nonreactor events was a spill at the Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc.
, fuel production plant in Erwin, Tenn., in March 2006.
More than eight gallons (31 liters) of highly enriched, weapons-grade uranyl nitrate,
the liquid form of transportable uranium, nearly pooled in a sufficient quantity
to achieve the conditions necessary for a spontaneous chain reaction
—uncontrolled fission, otherwise known as a criticality.
"Nothing did happen in terms of a criticality event," says NRC commissioner Gregory Jaczko.
"That would have been the kind of event that would have been a potential."
Because such fission was avoided, the incident was reported to the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by the NRC as a level 2 event on the INES scale.
Subsequently, the plant was closed for seven months and a major reorganization has been undertaken by Nuclear Fuel Services,
according to notes from a meeting with NRC commissioners.
Accidents are happening, they are being reported .
Scientific American News - July 25, 2007
It appears that NRC took control from OSHA for safety issues at nuclear power plants around the country,
but it appears that NRC did not replace OSHA regulations with an equal or stronger regulatory control.
It appears NRC ignores everything that can, by any stretch of reason,
be considered a non-nuclear accident at the plant..i.e crane mishaps.
All this nuclear waste has to be moved many times, by someone using a crane.
This accident and all lifting accidents at the plant should be considered
indicative of the licensee's nuclear-fuel-handling capabilities.
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| Your thoughts on nuclear power...
Posted: 10/8/2007 6:43:08 PM | >> Moon solar power for Earth
I've heard this brought up numerous times in the past, but can't see it happening.
Sure, you have a lot of area to work with on the Moon... but is there *really* any place at the poles that is continually sunlit? The Moon DOES wobble a bit in its' orbit...
Also, there's the question of receiving the energy. You can't set up a fixed spot on the Earth to receive the power - you'd have to ring the Earth with receiving stations. Aiming becomes quite complicated...
If we're going to explore the option of using space-based solar power, let's give some thought to SATELLITE-based solar generators. A satellite placed in geostationary orbit can focus its' transmitter on a fixed point on the Earth, to feed power into the grid from there. You only lose the beam for a short time, and only occasionally, when the plane of the orbit puts the satellite in eclipse. (And, if you use solar-thermal generators instead of photovoltaics, it won't matter at all...)
My opinion of nuclear...? It's a LOT better than some of the other technologies we currently use. Lots of people fret about the 'hazardous waste' it produces - but choose to ignore the millions of tons of CO2, SO2, etc., that get dumped into the atmosphere annually by coal and oil installations, or the dozens of square miles of land that get flooded by hydroelectric dams...  | |
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| Your thoughts on nuclear power...
Posted: 10/8/2007 10:19:35 PM | | I always find it interesteing, Mr H2O, that when I show someone just how asinine their claims about nuclear are, they immediately drop their claim as if they never made it (and they rarely ever try to defend it) and they then make all new claims. I just wish I had all the time in the world to go through them all. | |
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Mr H2O
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Joined: 10/31/2006
Msg: 234 | |
| Your thoughts on nuclear power...
Posted: 10/9/2007 2:40:34 AM | Did I drop something ? Did I fail to properly reference something ?
Apparently those crane operators are the ones dropping stuff !
You can't make the accidents go away, they exist, they are documented.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/regulationSafety/IAEA_revising_INES_event_reporting_scale-210907.shtml
People even took the time to put them in Wikipedia......they exist !
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_nuclear_accidents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nuclear_Event_Scale
The scale runs from a zero event with no safety significance to 7 for a "major accident" such as Chernobyl.
Three Mile Island rated 5, as an "accident with off-site risks"
though no harm to anyone, and a level 4 "accident mainly in installation"
occurred in France in 1980, with little drama.
Another accident rated at level 4 occurred in a fuel processing plant in Japan in September 1999.
** Other accidents have been in military plants** (these don't count....right ?? )
Until I see highly, highly trained, rigorously tested, repetitively drilled ,
precision crack teams building and running things at the reactors all hours
of the day and night, I'm apprehensive.
I see the mistakes made daily in logistics - wrong weights, wrong quantities,
wrong destination, lost trucks, lost railroad cars, lost loads of material, mis-counts, wrong part numbers, etc. etc. etc.
The only catch with those mistakes, the consequences aren't that bad.
I would almost like to see a day when an entirely automated nuclear plant
with sensors and robotic arms that just plain shuts itself down
when it's supposed to- unable to be over ridden at a moments notice.
We are sooo power starved and greedy for profit that it will never happen.
For the ""most"" part it's pretty safe...but we have to remain vigilant.
No one gets a free pass, no one cheats on materials, timelines, procedures, etc. :-)
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf06.html
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Mr H2O
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Joined: 10/31/2006
Msg: 235 | |
| Your thoughts on nuclear power...
Posted: 10/11/2007 5:38:14 PM | Guess what - A list of accidents at all those Non-Civilian nuclear reactors
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents
Perhaps all that rigorous Chain-of-command, constant drilling, training,
disciplined , military precision isn't worth a damn either.
Yep, yes-sir, absolutely 100 % safe to have in your backyard or kitchen
and let your kids play in the dirt along the fence and ride their bikes around.
Take that fishing boat real, real close because the fish just love that warm water
discharged from the cooling towers too....yummmy !
February 2003: Oak Ridge, Tennessee Y-12 facility.
During the final testing of a new saltless uranium processing method,
there was a small explosion followed by a fire.
The explosion occurred in an unvented vessel containing unreacted calcium,
water and depleted uranium.
An exothermic reaction among these articles generated enough steam to burst the container.
This small explosion breached its glovebox,
allowing air to enter and ignite some loose uranium powder.
Three employees were contaminated.
Keep in mind there have been approximately 20 Mishaps
That Might Have Started Accidental Nuclear War
On 30 September 2007 --439 nuclear power plant units
were in operation world-wide.
http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/n/nuclear-power-plant-world-wide.htm
Still worth the risk......?? .....your family......your neighborhood......???
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Mr H2O
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Joined: 10/31/2006
Msg: 236 | |
| Your thoughts on nuclear power...
Posted: 10/11/2007 9:17:35 PM | How did everyone GLOSS over message 41 ??????????????
A simple wave of the hand , like an illusionist made it all go away ?
PSU
""when I show someone just how asinine their claims about nuclear are""
NO One explained how they suddenly bacame """goof proof"""" !!!
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| Your thoughts on nuclear power...
Posted: 10/17/2007 8:50:56 PM | Whoa there - too many people here aren't willing to educate themselves on the fact of nuclear, instead choosing to appeal to fear instead of logic.
FACT: Your coal industry puts more radioactive substances into the air every year than the entire nuclear industry has since it first started (including Chernobyl, and all the nuclear bomb testing!).
FACT: The deaths attributed to nuclear power number in the hundreds. The deaths attributed to coal, oil, natural gas (from accidents, pollution, and waste) number in the MILLIONS
FACT: Modern nuclear plant designs actually have built-in failsafe elements that will make it impossible for them to blow up. Do a google search for "pebble bed reactor".
FACT:There are ways to make nuclear reactors WITHOUT using uranium - instead using Thorium. The advantage is that Thorium has a half life of about 50 years, instead of 10,000, and is also 1000 times more plentiful. No more need for burying waste for 10,000 years - just stick it in a cave for 100 years. | |
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Mr H2O
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Joined: 10/31/2006
Msg: 238 | |
| Your thoughts on nuclear power...
Posted: 10/18/2007 12:37:22 AM | Education involves history - no fear on my part - just the facts as they occurred in time.
I agree plenty can get messed up in the environment without using nuclear plants.
All you have to do is look at emerging industrial countries like China .
Who takes apart all the old nuclear power plants and updates them for the
latter part of the 21 st century in 20 years from now ? | |
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| Your thoughts on nuclear power...
Posted: 10/18/2007 5:29:55 AM | Re: Moon solar power
The idea that I have seen proposed is not to generate all of the power from regions of (nearly) permanent sunshine, but rather to generate most of the power from more equatorial places (which has a 2 week day and a 2 week night from Earth's point of view), and then transfer that power to Earth. The transfer could happen via satellites circling the Moon, or from polar transmitters. At Earth, it is likely there would need to be satellites in orbit, to transfer power to "farside" as well as nearside.
The thing that is nice about the lunar plan, is that we don't need to haul materials to the moon to make the solar cells. They would be made from lunar soil, in situ. Well, except for the small amounts of dopants needed to make N and P regions. Space based power needs us to haul everything up from somewhere. If we had manufacturing on the Moon, it would be cheaper to haul it up from the Moon than from here. But, that means getting manufacturing stuff to the Moon, or at least getting enough there to bootstrap manufacturing.
Reception isn't a problem, if you use the right wavelength. If you pick a wavelength that isn't strongly absorbed by anything except specially designed antenna, focus and tracking isn't important. The amount of power you are sending back isn't large compared to incoming sunlight.
Geosynchronous satellites are fine if you live near the equator, become a problem as you get closer to the poles. | |
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| Your thoughts on nuclear power...
Posted: 10/18/2007 1:17:55 PM |
Geosynchronous satellites are fine if you live near the equator, become a problem as you get closer to the poles.
But won't your relay satellites be in geostationary orbit as well...? From the lunar surface, beam spread over distance becomes a problem.
The whole idea adds an entirely new layer of infrastructure, as well. Generators and transmitters on the Moon, then receivers and re-transmitters in orbit, and finally receivers on the ground. Why not just cut out the one stage, build the generators in orbit, and not worry about relay satellites?
As to raw materials - it would be less costly to snag a Near-Earth asteroid (lots of high-quality metals in those...), bring it to a high-orbit mining/refining/manufacturing facility, and go from there. Since we're assuming easy and regular access to orbit, this would be easier than hauling stuff up from even the Lunar gravity well.
Why would reception from GSO be a problem at the poles...? If you can receive satellite-TV in Alaska, you can receive a power beam. True, the beam will tend to spread a bit more - you just have to make your receiver a little bigger. (And don't forget - this would be a problem with a satellite-relay system as well...) | |
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| Your thoughts on nuclear power...
Posted: 10/19/2007 8:01:18 AM | Just short: don't want to hijack thread.
If we aren't sending highly focused beams, we don't really need to track things. For a power transmitter on the Moon, what we want are "bending satellites" that are stationary from the point of view of the Moon. I am not a celestial mechanics person, but I don't think that orbit is geostationary. | |
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| Your thoughts on nuclear power...
Posted: 10/19/2007 10:08:08 AM | | My concerns are not great. The benefits would be huge. Why? Look at our Atlantic and Pacific carrier battle groups. Their only limitations on patrol or deployement envolve the well being and feeding of the crew. For a quarter century or so at least. | |
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| Your thoughts on nuclear power...
Posted: 10/23/2007 1:19:15 AM | I used to be an auxillary operator at hunters point steam generated power plant. I moved up to assistant control operator.
There was a huge petion drive to stop the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant from being built. It was built. A few months after it was on line it was oops we just found a serious fault close to the power plant. Since we are already in operation there is no point in shutting it down and losing all that money.
The reject operators from Hunters Point were most of the operators for the new nuclear power plant. These guys were lousy operators and had no business in any type of power plant.
The power plants themselves are not safe for the operators. A lot of research was done by operators that I knew personally who were thinking about working in the new plant.
Also a lot of the waste from nuclear power plants is dumped on Native American reservations whether they want it or not. the birth defects are horrid. My friend lives on the Pine Ridge Rez and has a dump site near her place. I get a lot of first hand information about the nuclear dumps sites on rezs.
There are several alternate energy systems that have been built but are not allowed to be used since it would not bring profit to a few rich jerks. A friend of a friend of mine developed such a system. His father was one of the oil guys. He had his son killed to keep the information from being used.
Even the steam generated power plants do a lot of damage to the environment.
Keela | |
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| Your thoughts on nuclear power...
Posted: 10/23/2007 6:49:13 AM | That the US has a power plant or two in a bad location, determined before or after the fact, isn't necessarily a bad thing. Japan almost has no choice but to build power plants in bad locations. The question is, how do you build a power plant safely in a bad location?
If you look at places like Mexico City, if they have a big earthquake, the ground starts to behave like a liquid. If the structure is less dense than the fluid, it floats. If it is more dense, it sinks. Having a power plant float is probably preferable to having one which sinks. Where is the center of gravity of this "boat"? You want the power plant to stay in near the same orientation, whether it is being supported by the ground, or is floating during a seismic event. You can't rely on the transmission system to stay connected, so you do want to shutdown as quickly as is possible. Not having control rods jam would be important. During the shutdown, is coolant available enough?
Seismic events in rocky places would be different than in places like Mexico City. But there are likely still a bunch of things which can be done, to produce a safe power plant.
And I am not assuming nuclear in any of the above. Any kind of power plant is sensitive to being situated in the wrong place. Sure, it is nice to be able to not build them in those kinds of places, but some regions of the world need power and having nothing but bad places to build. It is just a matter of how bad, and can you design around it. | |
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