JackM
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(how's that?)
(how's that?)
MKern
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I support it. It is clean, that white smoke coming out of the stacks is water vapor. However, there is a problem with the waste product, becasue it's radioactive. They can contain the biproduct now, but after another 10 years of solely nuclear power, where are you going to stick it all?????
I agree, it is the only likely succession to coal at this point in time.
Wind -- nobody wants fans in their backyard, even though they make no noise. However, they are expensive to repair, and what if it's not windy?
Hydro -- good idea, but will never happen. You guys know that if every body on Earth died, the hydro electric plant at the Hoover dam would run for a few years unmanned (if the zebra mussels didn't clog the inlets that cool the turbines).
Tidal Power -- great idea, but people with never go for it.
Solar -- best solution. The sun is never ending and enough solar energy hits the Earth everyday to power it for years.
Hydrogen Power -- stupid. The only way to separte hydrogen from H2O is to heat it extremely high (using fossil fuels, or nuclear power) because hydrogen doesn't exsist by itself at our level in the atmosphere.
Did you know... The plan to lower the Earth's temperature is to place thousands of mirrors just out of the atmosphere to reflect sun light. What kind of solution is that. What happens when the Earth cools, scoop them back up?
I agree, it is the only likely succession to coal at this point in time.
Wind -- nobody wants fans in their backyard, even though they make no noise. However, they are expensive to repair, and what if it's not windy?
Hydro -- good idea, but will never happen. You guys know that if every body on Earth died, the hydro electric plant at the Hoover dam would run for a few years unmanned (if the zebra mussels didn't clog the inlets that cool the turbines).
Tidal Power -- great idea, but people with never go for it.
Solar -- best solution. The sun is never ending and enough solar energy hits the Earth everyday to power it for years.
Hydrogen Power -- stupid. The only way to separte hydrogen from H2O is to heat it extremely high (using fossil fuels, or nuclear power) because hydrogen doesn't exsist by itself at our level in the atmosphere.
Did you know... The plan to lower the Earth's temperature is to place thousands of mirrors just out of the atmosphere to reflect sun light. What kind of solution is that. What happens when the Earth cools, scoop them back up?
tabasco_joe
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Thanks Jack. I still need to figure out what I did wrong. But that's a challange for another day.
Padraic
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I think we need to solve the problem of spent fuel before we expand nuclear power. The spent fuel is stored onsite at the power plants. This is really not secure. The national repository at Yucca mountain is supposedly not safe either, and is being built at tax payer expense. I'm not a fan of underwriting private industry with public funds. This is another form of corporate welfare, and I've spent enough time and money as a volunteer on AMD impacted streams to personally resent industries that don't solve their own environmental impact.
tomgamber
Well-known member
Nearly all our electricity was Hydro in Idaho and it was practically free...I paid $7.50 in the summer and $40 in mid winter and I had electric baseboard heat...
...now where did all those salmon go?
tomgamber
Well-known member
I agree with the waste fuel problem...most do not store it on site for very long but you'll never find out when they ship it out either...
We used to do stories on this place when I worked news out west...
There was also a "storage" facility at the INEL facility in eastern ID which consequently, sat above the largest fresh water aquifer in North America...
MKern
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Exactly, that was in Idaho. Now who is going to power NYC, LA, and all of the other major cities. I bet NYC uses more electricity in a day than Idaho uses in a year.
You are right about the fish disapearing. Think about it, every town that boarders a stream will have at least 1 turbine in the water. Think how fish migratory practice will be affected.
albatross
Well-known member
I'll admit there are some risks associated with nuclear energy, but compared to burning coal for power I think its relatively safe. How many coal miners die? How many people die in accidents with coal trucks? How many people die from the air polution (well maybe this doesn't actually kill them, it just hurries them along when they are otherwise ill)? And don't forget, how many trout streams are compromised by acid rain?
Padraic
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albatross,
I don't expect we'll settle this, but... I don't think that having problems with one fuel source justifies jumping to another without trying to solve the issues with the new one. To my mind that is repeating the past and hoping for a different result. It's true we never addressed the issues with coal, but is not addresing the issues with spent nuclear fuel progress? The spent rods are dangerous for thousands of years, and could be used to create "dirty" bombs.
I agree we need to move off coal as quickly as possible. But the "as possible" assumes a solution to the disposal issues.
I don't expect we'll settle this, but... I don't think that having problems with one fuel source justifies jumping to another without trying to solve the issues with the new one. To my mind that is repeating the past and hoping for a different result. It's true we never addressed the issues with coal, but is not addresing the issues with spent nuclear fuel progress? The spent rods are dangerous for thousands of years, and could be used to create "dirty" bombs.
I agree we need to move off coal as quickly as possible. But the "as possible" assumes a solution to the disposal issues.
albatross
Well-known member
Pad,
I'll concede that storing the spent fuel in hundreds of individual reactor sites is bad policy. We need a permanent solution for storage which no one wants in their backyard. Difficult problem, but not a show stopper in my opinion.
Isn't it funny that the Google adds on this thread are related to nuclear power jobs?
I'll concede that storing the spent fuel in hundreds of individual reactor sites is bad policy. We need a permanent solution for storage which no one wants in their backyard. Difficult problem, but not a show stopper in my opinion.
Isn't it funny that the Google adds on this thread are related to nuclear power jobs?
tomgamber
Well-known member
Thats because Westinghouse is about to build a bunch for China...just saw an article in todays Trib about using the 8billions gal/min flow of the Gulf stream to turn turbines...
MattBoyer
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I've been told that there is more radioactive material laying around on the ground outside coal fired plants than is actually used as fissible material in our nuclear reactors. I agree that containment is an issue, and the person who solves that issue will be the million dollar baby of the millennium. My problem is, that currently we still use nukes, but have a moratorium on building new plants. Sooooo,we are still going to be producing waste, but will be doing it by a far less efficient process in the name of not proliferating nuclear plants. Good old American armchair activism at its best.
Boyer
Boyer
R
riz
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so pad what's so unsafe about yucca mountain?
tomgamber
Well-known member
Here's the result of a mere 30 seconds research...
Scientific uncertainties.
Many studies by federal government scientists and independent contractors suggest that Yucca Mountain is unsafe for holding nuclear waste and keeping it out of the environment. In fact, State of Nevada scientists believe that the site, under the DOE's own guidelines, should already have been disqualified.
Nuclear waste.
Radiation from nuclear waste proposed for Yucca Mountain burial is so intense that anyone with direct contact would receive a fatal dose instantly. Spent nuclear fuel contains tons of plutonium, an extremely toxic byproduct with a half-life of 24,000 years. One-billionth of an ounce, if ingested, can cause cancer or genetic defects.
Politics and economics. Many feel these influences are too great to allow for an objective evaluation of the site. Dump proponents and the nuclear power industry are eager to get the site approved despite significant environmental and health and safety problems. Should the site not work out, the nuclear industry believes it would be set back decades in its goal to build new nuclear power plants.
10,000 years.
Since a dump like this that must last for 10,000 years — almost twice as long as mankind's recorded history — has never been built anywhere in the world, proponents believe that Nevadans should rely on DOE safety evaluations and predictions that it will leak no more than permitted by regulations. The DOE's track record in handling nuclear materials, however, is extremely poor.
Scientific uncertainties.
Many studies by federal government scientists and independent contractors suggest that Yucca Mountain is unsafe for holding nuclear waste and keeping it out of the environment. In fact, State of Nevada scientists believe that the site, under the DOE's own guidelines, should already have been disqualified.
Nuclear waste.
Radiation from nuclear waste proposed for Yucca Mountain burial is so intense that anyone with direct contact would receive a fatal dose instantly. Spent nuclear fuel contains tons of plutonium, an extremely toxic byproduct with a half-life of 24,000 years. One-billionth of an ounce, if ingested, can cause cancer or genetic defects.
Politics and economics. Many feel these influences are too great to allow for an objective evaluation of the site. Dump proponents and the nuclear power industry are eager to get the site approved despite significant environmental and health and safety problems. Should the site not work out, the nuclear industry believes it would be set back decades in its goal to build new nuclear power plants.
10,000 years.
Since a dump like this that must last for 10,000 years — almost twice as long as mankind's recorded history — has never been built anywhere in the world, proponents believe that Nevadans should rely on DOE safety evaluations and predictions that it will leak no more than permitted by regulations. The DOE's track record in handling nuclear materials, however, is extremely poor.
tabasco_joe
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I haven't researched the french approach. Do they store thier waste or process it?
R
riz
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Your search does not say why it is not safe and exactly who these people are that are reporting it. Is it greenpeace or some other enviro group, which I lump EPA, that says everything is unsafe.
a little more research would yield more information to base sound judgement.
Processing spent fuel does not make it less radioactive. When fuel is processed,the enriched uranium or plutonium, that is generated by the neutron capture reaction, is removed. All the fission productuct, which is what is very radioactive, still excists. Also, when processing fuel other types of hazardous waste is produced,because you have to basically dissovle the fuel and extract the 'good' stuff. To dissovle the fuel, very bad solvents are used and sre in of them selves are a menace. Now you have a mixed waste.
It should also be remembered that radioisotopes decay exponentially. Spent fuel does not remain glowing green for ten thousand years. Throughout the millennia, it is continually decaying, becoming less and less radioactive, less and less hazardous, as time goes on. And because the decay is exponential, most of it happens in the early stages so that the majority of time period is spent at a significantly lower level of activity than at initial disposal and in fact a level that is not especially hazardous at all. Compare this to those mercury and arsenic solid wastes from coal burning, which will be just as hazardous in ten thousand years as they are today.
However, it is of course the case that regulatory agencies are never happy with that, particularly when nuclear power comes into the mix, which is why agencies like the EPA demand that any methods of spent fuel disposal be able to contain the material for at least 10,000 years, even though it will have stopped being a significant hazard long before this. It should be remembered that regulatory agencies are always over cautious about things and so their criteria do not define the limits of safety. Safety comes well before their criteria.
As for the safety Yucca Mountain.
Yucca Mountain incorporates multiple barriers from the casks encasing the spent fuel to the geological stability of the area used. The case against the environmental security of Yucca Mountain is based on manufacturing an improbable set of circumstances over an excessive length of time.
First, it would require the climate to change making the now desert region turn into an area frequented by water and the geology would need to change to allow the water to permeate the currently impermeable rock so it comes into contact with the casks. The water would then need to erode down the concrete, which would take a great deal of time. Then it would have to eat its way through the stainless steel containers. Finally it would have to dissolve the spent fuel and whatever material is used to immobilise it. Then the material must be transported out of the repository to inhabited areas.
And the deadline for all this, climatic and geological shifts, erosion through multiple layers of hardened materials, and transportation over long distances, is 10,000 years. Normally, it takes many millions of years for something of this scale to happen and that is in circumstances where the barriers were not designed to be resistant to these things. There was no sophisticated containment for the Oklo reactor and yet no significant movement has happened even after billions of years.
Yet the originally planned opening date for Yucca Mountain has come and gone by 8 years and no sign of completion is on the horizon. It was not a subsidy that was supposed to pay for this. American nuclear utilities pay 0.1c/kWh towards a spent fuel disposal fund, which would be used by the government to provide the service. The utilities continue to have to store spent fuel on their plant sites at their own cost because of the delays (though it should be noted how remarkable it is that several decades worth of waste can still be stored in a relatively tiny space on site). The incompetence of the government at fulfilling their part of the business transaction has prompted the utilities to actually sue for damages, by wasting the money they have paid into the spent fuel fund while simultaneously forcing them to pay extra for continued interim storage.
That said, many people do not think Yucca Mountain is ideal, because it is seen as wasteful since it disposes of perfectly useful energy resources. Closing the cycle with fast reactors and reprocessing is the better solution for waste. The DoE policy of Yucca Mountain is based around these practises still being outlawed in the United States.
a little more research would yield more information to base sound judgement.
Processing spent fuel does not make it less radioactive. When fuel is processed,the enriched uranium or plutonium, that is generated by the neutron capture reaction, is removed. All the fission productuct, which is what is very radioactive, still excists. Also, when processing fuel other types of hazardous waste is produced,because you have to basically dissovle the fuel and extract the 'good' stuff. To dissovle the fuel, very bad solvents are used and sre in of them selves are a menace. Now you have a mixed waste.
It should also be remembered that radioisotopes decay exponentially. Spent fuel does not remain glowing green for ten thousand years. Throughout the millennia, it is continually decaying, becoming less and less radioactive, less and less hazardous, as time goes on. And because the decay is exponential, most of it happens in the early stages so that the majority of time period is spent at a significantly lower level of activity than at initial disposal and in fact a level that is not especially hazardous at all. Compare this to those mercury and arsenic solid wastes from coal burning, which will be just as hazardous in ten thousand years as they are today.
However, it is of course the case that regulatory agencies are never happy with that, particularly when nuclear power comes into the mix, which is why agencies like the EPA demand that any methods of spent fuel disposal be able to contain the material for at least 10,000 years, even though it will have stopped being a significant hazard long before this. It should be remembered that regulatory agencies are always over cautious about things and so their criteria do not define the limits of safety. Safety comes well before their criteria.
As for the safety Yucca Mountain.
Yucca Mountain incorporates multiple barriers from the casks encasing the spent fuel to the geological stability of the area used. The case against the environmental security of Yucca Mountain is based on manufacturing an improbable set of circumstances over an excessive length of time.
First, it would require the climate to change making the now desert region turn into an area frequented by water and the geology would need to change to allow the water to permeate the currently impermeable rock so it comes into contact with the casks. The water would then need to erode down the concrete, which would take a great deal of time. Then it would have to eat its way through the stainless steel containers. Finally it would have to dissolve the spent fuel and whatever material is used to immobilise it. Then the material must be transported out of the repository to inhabited areas.
And the deadline for all this, climatic and geological shifts, erosion through multiple layers of hardened materials, and transportation over long distances, is 10,000 years. Normally, it takes many millions of years for something of this scale to happen and that is in circumstances where the barriers were not designed to be resistant to these things. There was no sophisticated containment for the Oklo reactor and yet no significant movement has happened even after billions of years.
Yet the originally planned opening date for Yucca Mountain has come and gone by 8 years and no sign of completion is on the horizon. It was not a subsidy that was supposed to pay for this. American nuclear utilities pay 0.1c/kWh towards a spent fuel disposal fund, which would be used by the government to provide the service. The utilities continue to have to store spent fuel on their plant sites at their own cost because of the delays (though it should be noted how remarkable it is that several decades worth of waste can still be stored in a relatively tiny space on site). The incompetence of the government at fulfilling their part of the business transaction has prompted the utilities to actually sue for damages, by wasting the money they have paid into the spent fuel fund while simultaneously forcing them to pay extra for continued interim storage.
That said, many people do not think Yucca Mountain is ideal, because it is seen as wasteful since it disposes of perfectly useful energy resources. Closing the cycle with fast reactors and reprocessing is the better solution for waste. The DoE policy of Yucca Mountain is based around these practises still being outlawed in the United States.
tomgamber
Well-known member
Actually it comes from the Governor of the state of Nevada's Office.
I'm not sure what your point is any more..the rest of your post only supports what my post said...
Remember, I'm not against nuclear power, just the current methods for "storing" spent fuel. If you read the info on the link I provided in an earlier post, the WIPP site (if they'd ever use it), while still not ideal, is much better equipped to handle this waste...
R
riz
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I'm suspect of any report from the governor's office. his, is the most active group opposing the site and would do anything to keep WIPP from happening. for this country to move foward toward energy relief, we must be able to use this site to store spent fuel. the current storage ares in the power plants are full and can not hold any more fuel rods. plus as was stated they are a hazard and risk to the local communities becasuse they can be targeted by terrorists and more easily breeched than a forified central location.
tomgamber
Well-known member
Why would the governor of Nevada be opposed to a site in New Mexico if he's not happy with Yucca in NV?
I understand all the terrorist paranoia...true or not, this problem has existed long before 9/11.
I understand all the terrorist paranoia...true or not, this problem has existed long before 9/11.
albatross
Well-known member
Tom,
A statement like "Radiation from nuclear waste proposed for Yucca Mountain burial is so intense that anyone with direct contact would receive a fatal dose instantly.", just frosts me. It is so obviously false. The fatal dose of radiation is X number of rads. In order to receive X rads instantly the radiation source would have to spew radiation at the rate of infinity which just doesn't happen in the real world. The only purpose of a statement like this is to scare people, it certianly doesn't educate them as the statement is false and misleading.
A statement like "Radiation from nuclear waste proposed for Yucca Mountain burial is so intense that anyone with direct contact would receive a fatal dose instantly.", just frosts me. It is so obviously false. The fatal dose of radiation is X number of rads. In order to receive X rads instantly the radiation source would have to spew radiation at the rate of infinity which just doesn't happen in the real world. The only purpose of a statement like this is to scare people, it certianly doesn't educate them as the statement is false and misleading.
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