Do you support or oppose nuclear power generation?

sorry tom i mis-spoke about the gov not wanting WIPP. i could not find that he made any refernce to WIPP.

alby - i believe the reference was to an unshielded spent fuel rod shippment. but as it's designed, there is no more inherant danger at Yucca as working in a nuke plant.
 
Its getting a little over my head with the rems and rads thing.

I have no trouble believing that that statement was written with the intention you suggested. It was kind of my point about when you write that we can't increase corn production because the rivers will all die an irreversible death...its a scare tactic...

so anyway...I read that anything over 800 rems is a fatal dose of radiation...whats the diff between a rad and a rem...BTW I found some interesting stories about "radiation treatment gone wrong" along the way...
 
riz wrote:
but as it's designed, there is no more inherant danger at Yucca as working in a nuke plant.

Except for the fact that there would a heck of a lot more all at one place as oppose to amounts distributed between plant locations...

The big fear discussed about Yucca is the earthquake potential...what happens when they have one of those? Especially with the frequency of quakes in that part of the country...
 
1st off, a rad is a specific amount of energy deposited in a given mass, 1 erg/gram. 1 rem is a measure of biological damage done by that eneregy. there are different types of radiation, alpg, betta, gamma, neutron etc, and they cause different amount of biological damage for the same amount of energy deposited tisssue. that's the short answer.

as for yucca mountain, i do not believe there are many and if there some they are small.
http://www.data.scec.org/recenteqs/
 
You realize that map shows only one weeks worth of movements...and yucca is just across the border from CA...thats pretty regular movements in my book...of course its better then if they built the place on the coast...geez...it showed a half dozen there in the last hour...
 
yea i know. its the best map i could find without looking at 100000 hits. also they are small, 2 or 3 magnitude.
 
Jack- what is your stance? Seeing how it was your poll.


I think we better have nuclear power in China and India or we might not be able to breath.

Did you know that China now imports coal to meet demand.
(and they have coal reserves)


America companies are benefitting greatly from this.

Consol
GE
Westinghouse

The rail companies have been on a multi-year tear as well shipping it. CSX,BNI,CNI
 
acristickid wrote:
Jack- what is your stance? Seeing how it was your poll.


I think we better have nuclear power in China and India or we might not be able to breath.

Did you know that China now imports coal to meet demand.
(and they have coal reserves)


America companies are benefitting greatly from this.

Consol
GE
Westinghouse

The rail companies have been on a multi-year tear as well shipping it. CSX,BNI,CNI

Actually Jack created the poll for me after I couldn't seem to set it up. (Not that I mind Jack voicing an oinion.)

I think it's the only scaleable way create power without using a non-renewable source. I haven't researched the waste fuel problem as much as I have other aspects of alternative energy. I thought I'd let the discusion play out a bit before I added my comments. BTW my uncle was the general manager for the construction of and initial operation of a nuclear plant here in PA. He was also the Chief Engineer for the power company that owns it and has degrees in electrical and nuclear engineering. I have to give him a call and get his insights on the waste fuel solution.
 
While there are problems, its the cleanest large source of energy we have.

Wind and solar are great to supplement the grid, but can never be large enough scale to take a significant bite out of coal. Geothermal is great too, but can be large scale for electricity in only a few areas. For houses (heating and cooling), it can be done pretty much everywhere, and the long-term economics are beneficial, so it should be pursued aggressively.

The only way to take a bite out of coal's influence on the large-scale electricity generation is nuclear. Its practically carbon free, if you believe in global warming (not trying to start debate). Even if you don't, it has no problems with acid rain, or mine acid, a huge factor for fishermen like us. Its inherently cheaper too. Though the cost of getting through the red tape and building a plant today make it so its not, even with those shortcomings its still competitive economically.

Regarding waste, we keep our old plants around, which make waste on an enormous scale compared to what modern plants would make if we built them. Yet we don't build them, why? Environmental concerns? It doesn't make sense. We also do not reprocess our waste, and the rest of the free world does. The vast majority of the waste we have around could be used as more fuel, and the stuff that comes out afterwards is much less radioactive (less dangerous and a half life on the order of 2-3 hundred years, as opposed to millions), elimintating or at least vastly reducing our storage problems. It seems counterintuitive, but a breeder reactor (which we don't use do to Jimmy Carter and proliferation concerns) actually winds up with more fuel than it started with. Consider, our aircraft carriers can stay at sea, under full power, for 50 years on a few pounds of fuel.

As far as safety. There are lots of safety problems. A properly running nuclear plant actually puts out less radioactivity than a properly running coal plant. Yes, there's been accidents. Chernobyl is most notable, but if you go through the list of design flaws and blatant disregard for safety, it truly baffles the mind that it could ever happen. TMI was big too, but the safety measures worked, and nothing all that bad actually happened. Accidents will occur, but modern reactors, which we could build today are immune to the "big one." And even with our poor reactors running, compare nuclear's safety record with that of coal, and its not even close. Now add all the deaths and injuries in mining accidents and its even more lopsided. Now consider the health effects of acid rain, AMD, siltation, etc, and its a no brainer.

The last part is hydrogen, probably the eventual winner to power our transportation. Right now, hydrogen can be made from oil, which has obvious limitations if we were to fuel our cars with it, we'd need a lot more oil per mile than gasoline needs. Or it can be made from water, by putting electricity through it to separate oxygen and hydrogen, and saving the hydrogen. The problem is, if it was 100% efficient (and it isn't), you'd get the same energy back as you put in via electricity. Essentially you'd be shifting the power from oil to coal, and I'm not sure thats an upgrade, certainly not with regard to emissions, carbon dioxide, and smog. Nuclear solves this. Because uranium is essentially free and endless, the cost of nuclear power is in building the plant and cutting red tape. It doesn't take any more money to run a plant at 100% capacity than it does at 30%. So at 4 a.m. when the demand on the grid is low, nuclear energy can be making hydrogen from water on a huge scale, and cars can be powered with no emissions at any point in the cycle.
 
P.S.

Solar - great on a small scale. To power a city like Philly you'd need a panel the size of an average county. And doesn't work at night, so it needs batteries the size of which we just don't have. Just won't work. Putting it on roofs, etc, to help lower demand from individual buildings is great though.

Wind - See solar, except instead of sunlight, you need wind.

Hydro - has its own problems, but overall its wonderful. The problem is that we've pretty much used all of the places where it can be used on a large scale, there's not too many high gradient, large rivers that aren't dammed up to near capacity. Additional ones will be smaller scale, thus more expensive.

Wave/Tides - great idea, I think it'd be small scale again, though more research is needed. Large scale tidal can be done in very few places. You need a large bay, projecting into a fairly high elevation area, with sturdy land protection, and a choke point where you can build an expensive dam. There's only a handful of places in the world.

Geothermal - can be large scale for power in a few places, and there's room for expansion in some of those places. For the home geothermal heat pump, it can be used pretty much everywhere, and should be. Economic break even point for a home is 10-20 years currently, and varies by location.

Nat Gas - Better than oil or coal, but not perfect. Can be expanded short term, but is a fossil fuel and we'll run into the same problems as oil within 20 years.

Oil - Fairly clean compared to coal, but still not environmentally friendly. But we're running out, and it ain't gonna turn around.

Coal - By far the worst environmental, safety, and health disaster of mankinds history. Think of the impact that the whole operation has had on us, from mining to production, and not even considering global warming. With huge reserves all over the world, its cheap, and will remain so. China and India are increasing its use like crazy, so any solution we have best be economically competitive or else moving away from coal will ruin our economy. It doesn't take a genious to relize if they're power is much cheaper than ours, the cheapest products will increasingly come from overseas, and our jobs will leave.
 
"Solar - great on a small scale. To power a city like Philly you'd need a panel the size of an average county. And doesn't work at night, so it needs batteries the size of which we just don't have. Just won't work. Putting it on roofs, etc, to help lower demand from individual buildings is great though. "

I was thinking about that the other day. But to be a little more accurate, I believe that solar farms covering all of Nevada and New Mexico would power the US. Which of course, is still untenable. But...

The US military is working on a fiber that can be worked into clothing. The application is to recharge batteries and other equipment used by soldiers. Now... if that fiber were mixed into asphalt, we could turn all the interstate and surface roads into solar generators. Surely we would be very close to having the surface area needed to generate electricity.
 
Like pcray said, most of these alternatives are good on the small scale. But what if you put all of the small scale together, it would lead to large scale.
So combind various ideas/form for generating energy and we could be better off.
All houses and buildings have solar panels.
Cities along the coast use tidal.
Areas over hot spots use geothermal.
Windy areas get a couple wind generators.

There is so much energy out there that is produced naturally that why not?
 
MKern,

While I will always be "for" renewables, your comment strikes me as a bit naive.

With all due respect, putting all of the small scale together adds up to... still a drop in the bucket (but a slightly bigger drop than before). I don't remember the exact numbers, but with expected increase in demand over a 20 year peroid, just holding onto the market share of renewables (not including hydro), they need to increase they're production over 10 times what they have now. To offset our need for ADDITIONAL coal, gas, or nuclear plants, its something like 150 times. Feasible? Maybe, but we still haven't reduced our demand for coal, oil, and nuclear, just stabilized it. To take out 10% of current non-renewable capacity, now your talking multiplying current renewable capacity by thousands in 20 years, now its not really feasible, as this may take a quarter of our GDP per year.

Keep working on the renewables. In the meantime, we're going to need some large scale, centralized capacity. The bulk of it will probably be gas, which is better than coal. But it just means that our pollution, emissions, etc., will grow at a slower rate than if the new plants were coal, but still growing nonetheless. And in 20-30 years when the gas runs low? Nuclear is the only thing out there than can stabilize our pollution, and possibly reverse it, without completely ruining our economy the likes of which have never been seen in history. There's also enough readily available to power the earth for thousands of years.
 
pcray I am all for nuclear power, but it's side effects are hysteria and poorly informed citizens. When it comes to a society that votes, the masses usually win and unfortunatly our masses are relatively not very knowledgable on how nuclear power works. Matter of fact I only know because I chose to take Chemistry and the Environment class in college; without taking this volluntary class I'd probably still have no idea how it worked, and would think nothing but that nuclear power create glowwing green toxic waste.

If every home/building was forced to have solar panels, this would put a large dent in our dependance for oil and coal. Not a sollution, but a step in the right direction. And at @ $5,500, not a bad investment, to not have electric bills.

Remember most of the sun's energy hits and is absorbed by the oceans.
 
MKern wrote:
pcray I am all for nuclear power, but it's side effects are hysteria and poorly informed citizens. When it comes to a society that votes, the masses usually win and unfortunatly our masses are relatively not very knowledgable on how nuclear power works. Matter of fact I only know because I chose to take Chemistry and the Environment class in college; without taking this volluntary class I'd probably still have no idea how it worked, and would think nothing but that nuclear power create glowwing green toxic waste.

If every home/building was forced to have solar panels, this would put a large dent in our dependance for oil and coal. Not a sollution, but a step in the right direction. And at @ $5,500, not a bad investment, to not have electric bills.

Remember most of the sun's energy hits and is absorbed by the oceans.

Well maybe we should save the solar panel discussion for another day. I'll dig out some old research I did and start a seperate thread.
 
As noted, I just created the poll. I think I did vote for "it is worth the risks." My feeling is that the devil will be in the details. Will we continue to regulate it carefully to make sure, to the greatest extent possible, that an "accident" doesn't happen? Will profits trump safety as the industry grows? Will the energy generated remain as affordable as it should be, or will the corporations or individuals controlling supply price the energy on what the market bears, even if that results in profit disproportionate to cost?

As for the waste issue, I have always, perhaps naively, wondered whether it could safely be jetisoned into the wild blue yonder with an effective one-way ticket to a far-off galaxy.
 
JackM wrote:
As noted, I just created the poll. I think I did vote for "it is worth the risks." My feeling is that the devil will be in the details. Will we continue to regulate it carefully to make sure, to the greatest extent possible, that an "accident" doesn't happen? Will profits trump safety as the industry grows? Will the energy generated remain as affordable as it should be, or will the corporations or individuals controlling supply price the energy on what the market bears, even if that results in profit disproportionate to cost?

As for the waste issue, I have always, perhaps naively, wondered whether it could safely be jetisoned into the wild blue yonder with an effective one-way ticket to a far-off galaxy.

My view is it should be priced at whatever the market can bear. If it's then highly profitable that will encourage additional investment and competition. If not how would you come up with a "fair" price and a "fair" return to investors?

As the two space shuttle failures and the recent spy sat shows every once in a while things come down and not where you want. Even a 1% failure rate on something like that would not be good.\

I think the Navy's record shows that with good disipline it can be done. Aren't there about 100 nuclear power plants in the US today? That's already a sizable amount and, while there is some room for improvement, has worked safely. (We could argue about TMI but even there the actual release was not threatening.)
 
Al the spent nuclear material should be sent to the largest nuclear reactor in the solar system, the sun. Seal it in a container, put it on a rocket, and send it to the sun. No more radioactive waste laying around. Problem solved.
 
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