jimreeve: Schmidt uses the word risk and that is realy the determining concept in this "nuc no nuc" issue. There are two different ways of calculating risk. One is used by the insurance industry and the other comes from engineering. The insurance companies in the U.S. will not insure any nuclear power plants simply because the risk calculations, as they do them, say "NO NUCs, NO WAY"
In order for the lay person to understand risk calculations as engineering applys them to Nuclear power plants I would make an analogy to aeronautical engineering. There are two numbers involved. One is the down side and the other is the numerical risk. If the down side is bigger the numerical risk must be smaller. For airplanes the downside is that the plane crashes and everybody dies.
Thats maybe 400 deaths and 50,000,000$. That is the downside.
I can't finnish this now because of time but maybe some engineering student could carry on and finish. The result is that if you do your engineering calculations properly you must come to the conclussion that we must build no more Nuclear power plants.

THIS MIIMICS PERSON IS TRULY AND INDUSTRIALIZED MENTALITY!

While we are doing that ~NASW~, the Arctic is thawing because of our polluted with coal soot atmosphere and the Arctic's methane gas will loose into the atmposphere and you won't have to worry aobut nuclear waste anymore, or worry about anything else for that matter.

I do enjoy reading your "fanatical" ideas. I'm a science fiction fan, a lousy speler though. You know, there are smart people who visulize sending atomic waste off towards the sun at th espped of light by the use of powerful laser type beams. And some scientists are actually trying to genetically alter bacteria that will consume atomic waste and render it harmless. Hope none of their germs get loose, like the killer bees did.

Meanwhile, we have to stop burning coal very soon and develop clean renuable energy to replace it. The sun ramps, ect, will have to take a back burner, we're talking twenty years time, not 60 to a 100 or more.

KEM

The word was "fantastical" -- different word entirely.

The reality is that some problems are serious enough that we need to keep an open mind and work to effect the widest array of possible solutions.

Yes, your suggestions do indeed "border" on the fanatical ~NASW~. In fact, they do more than "border", they have pole vaulted across the border and raced all the way around the planet and returned to your starting point. ___ LOL.

Reality is, we do not have much time left to promote and develop clean energy alternatives, maybe five to ten years time is all we have, if that much.

KEM PATRICK said:

"You can term it "SNIPING" ~NASW~, but I call it reasonable arguing or having a debate on the issue. For example, you're arguing about what I wrote and would you term that "sniping" on YOUR part?'

I wouldn't due mainly to the fact that I wasn't responding directly to a post of yours when I made that statement.

Regardless, I certainly was responding to what seemed to be an automatic and pessimistic dismissal of my POV on the subject. Yes, my suggestions may border on the fantastical, but I feel they also are grounded in what we know to be possible via technological trends that may already be in motion. I offered these ideas in good faith, and in the interests of adding to the discussion, only to find that they were being almost arrogantly dismissed.

I agree that there are problems NOW that need to be dealt with via the means we have at our disposal NOW. However, I am also firmly of the opinion that we need to examine what might be possible in the future if we devote real energy to creating the solutions we desire. Many of us criticise the right wingers and the corporatists for not taking the long view when it comes to issues of sustainability and stewardship, so I have to say it's a little sobering to find myself being growled at here for suggesting we look to the farthest horizons.

Yes, the issues are real, and they are serious; but I don't think that means we should abandon all hope, good humour, or open-mindedness. When we do, it often makes us on the left seem like just another bunch of dreary pessimists that alienate many of the folks in the middle of the debate who might otherwise flock to our side. One can dismiss it as petty pragmatism, but I would rather enlist the multitudes of Middle America via smiles and country fairs than have them drift to the right under the sway of those entertaining wags on Fox news and conservative radio...

Anyway, I digress. In response your concerns about contaminating space, I am suggesting that by using the Sun, there wouldn't BE any contamination, as the delivery vehicles and their payloads would be destroyed by the intense heat. Simple physics gives us the framework to ensure that the waste will go where it's supposed to. Should anything go awry, the vehicles would obviously be trackable and redirectable. Also, don't forget that, outside of the protective effects of our atmosphere and magnetic field, space is already a poisonous, radioactive expanse.

At the end of the day, I, too, am for renewables and, down the road (hopefully), fusion power. At this point, though, responsible and well-regulated fission power does offer some real benefits. Of course, it would be nice if we didn't feel inclined to use it at all, and I am not, and was not, suggesting that we should suspend development of alternative energy in favour of expanding fission power. It's why I am so big on getting more qualified folks into the mix, so we can have a bunch working to minimise the dangers of fission, while others blaze new trails on the alternative front. It's not a zero-sum game, after all.

MiMiCiS, The latest generation of nukes is not any safer. Check out Arjun Makhijani's "The Nuclear Deception". The pebble bed is just a different way of configuring the fuel.

The industry is telling us that they are so safe that they don't need containment structures because they are so safe - thus saving them money. Plus I think they know that nothing will contain a Chernobyl type explosion. The propagandists are fond of saying Chernobyl had no containment structure, which was true the second it needed it.

Also the idea that we are insured because of government action is backward. WE insure us, and the first money goes to the utility for THEIR loss. They are liable for about the first 200,000 or so, but after that, it's you and me.

I also don't believe the "coal is more radioactive then nukes" propaganda. Uranium is radioactive, but after undergoing fission becomes way, way more so. Millions of times more according to some.

Chernobyl was not much different or less safe then our reactors. It was graphite moderated just like some of ours, particularly the original experimental ones and the ones whose main purpose is making plutonium for killing people.

Oops, that CH4 is parts per "billion", not million. A typo.

Currently Ch4 is 1,800 parts per billion, but when the Arctic methane escapes, it will rise to 135 million plus the 1,800ppb. The 1,800 ppb is alarming. The 135 million added is much more alarming.

It sure will take it far beyond 385ppm and global warming will be totally out of control and there will be no turnig back when that happens.

Why?

No, sadly, it isn't.

Is my math incorrect?

Thank you for that ~CRAIG~. I agree, and also believe we should develop clean alternatives and phase out the current coal fired and nukers as soon as possible.

Off the main tppic here, but a closely related issue is "global warming", which currently is primarily caused from "burning coal", which has created the Greenhouse effect in our atmosphere and subsequent global warming.

Currently the Arctic is thawing at an alarming rate, it's not thawing over a million or so period of years, it's begun to rapidly thaw over a very few years, like ten or less and the thaw has really accelerated in the past 18 months.

For example, Last year was the first time in recorded history, that ships were able to traverse the entire Northwest Passage without having ice breakers lead the way.

The scary part for those who are scared when it's appropriate to be so is: The methane gas in the once frozen Arctic ice IS-going-to- release-into-our-atmosphere, it has already begun to do so. That is far far more serious than most of humanity by a long shot is aware of.

There is (3,000 times) the amount of methane in the Arctic's ice than currently is in our atmosphere, which last year reached (1,800ppm ). Multiply the current (1,800ppm ) by 3,000 and it is more than scary, it rises to (5,400,000ppm ).

Methane is (25 times) as potent as Co2 as a Greenhouse gas, if we multiply the (5,400,000)by 25, we have __(135,000,000 million ppm )___ added to the (1,800ppm) already in our atmosphere. Since (385ppm) of Co2 is (35) above the maximum amount desired, imagine what adding (135 milllion ppm) to the (385ppm) is gonna do to global warming. ___ Oh-oh.

Those are not my figures, they are those supplied by our NOAA. This is not a nightmare that I dreampt up. We must at least attempt to stop buring coal and do it right quick,___ ASAP,___ and a "massive effort" to produce clean energy is the only solution I know of.

No arguement here about the wisdom of exploring non-nuclear alternatives; it's just that most methods of comparing power generators ignores the waste disposal except for in nuclear plants. I see little need to expand nuclear when there's so much untapped renewable sources available, but by the same token, we should use what we already have as safely and efficiently as we can.
The reason I mentioned the CANDU reactors wasn't to promote them, but to show that something exists which can use some of the "waste products" (eg, DU or plutonium from recycled warheads) to make energy. Of course they'll still be radioactive and toxic afterwards, of course we'll have disposal problems. But I'd rather have those problems than loose nuclear warheads and DU shells that have entered the air as ultra-toxic dust.
BTW, the reason that CANDU reactors are considered safer than most is because the coolant and moderator are the same thing, deuterium oxide (heavy water). If an earthquake hits one, and breaks the reactor in two, once the cooling water leaks out the reaction stops with no explosion or meltdown. Not that 50 000 000 L of tritium laced, mildly radioactive water and highly radioactive debris where the plant was would be a minor problem!
I just hope someone makes the legal changes to allow micro-generation legal and able to sell back to the local utilities. Then you'll see people in small groups, or even farmers or other landholders, able to erect wind turbines and micro-dams with a reasonable expectation of profit. The day when people say "Look at the crazy things they had to do just to get power in the past" can't come soon enough.
Craig

1

Never mind ~Craig~, I Googled it and read the article about CANDU reactors. They can use both DU and plutonium for fuel. They also have the same if not more potential hazards than other types of nuclear reacors and there is still nuclear waste to be stored SAFELY away for thousands of years.

What I also found to be of interest was, the construction cost alone of just ONE plant is in the ___14 Billion ___ dollar range. According to the recent MIT report, for 15 billion, we could have geo-thermal developed and use geo-thermal to supply all of North America with no radiation risks whatsoever.

We currently have 100 nuclear power plants in the U.S., We'd need 2,000 nuclear plants to supply all of our projected energy needs if we stop burning coal, which we'd better do and soon. With the money required to build just 20 nukers, we could have truly clean and safe energy for all of our needs.

Oops, sorry ~CRAIG~, I only read half of your post and missed your paragraph about the "CANDU" reactors. Interesting. Could you offer a link that explains that fully?

I've read KIDDOFSPEED ~Craig~, I've been posting the link here on Common Dreams nuclear articles for several months now. I agree with you, it's a fine documentary.

Why are you for nuclear when geologists state the fuel supply will likely be exhaused within 50 years or less and the price of uranium will double every few years as it has done lately?

What is wrong with clean renuable energy sources? What danger is there from developing solar, wind, geo-thermal, etc? A recent MIT report says there is enough Geo-thermal here to supply all of North America's energy needs for the next 50,000 years if we'd just put our money there instead of into nuclear energy.

A recent article here at C/D explained how a solar power plant system located in the Sahara, could supply ALL of the electrical energy required for all of Europe. A few tidal and wave power plants are operating and they are working just fine with no pollution or waste to store forever to even think about.

Why gamble with nuclear when another Chernobyl type of disaster is always a possibility. Just one example of gambling is, we have many nuclear plants located near quake fault lines, as do Japan, India, Indonesia and China.

I do not understand why intelligent people suport nuclear energy, as it is not safe or cost effective without the subsidies, it never was and it never will be. Sure we have to accept some risks in life, but when there are better alternatives that can eleminate risks, why not go that way? We all know why, some of the very few who control the gold want nuclear, that's where they make their gold.

KEM, I think the "Kid of Speed" site is the single best memorial to Chernobyl that exists, and have made reviewing it a mandatory part of any class I teach involving radiation. If you haven't seen it, please look.

Samson, you describe exactly the problem with nuclear power. As I put it, Nuclear could be a good solution, but not with Homer at the controls and Mr. Burns as the CEO.

Three things that I rarely see addressed, though, and I was wondering about peoples opinions:

1. Why is it that we talk about nuclear waste disposal as an issue against building future nuclear plants? Obviously it will be problematic to dispose of, and dangerous for geological time eras (far longer than human civilization has existed) so I don't mean to imply that it's safe. What I do mean is that some people talk as if whatever solution we will eventually adopt to dispose of it will not work if we, say, double the amount of waste. We have to bury this stuff in a concentrated format, or we run into problem #2.

2. Why do we focus on the radioactive waste disposal from nuclear power plants only? Coal is about 6 parts per million uranium - that's one way that you can date the time it was formed, by radioisotopes. If I were to refine said uranium and put it in a nuclear plant, I'd have to dispose of it all at the end, as a small, concentrated pellet. If I take the same amount of coal and burn it, then I have lots of mildly radioactive fly ash, or lots of uranium dust from burning the coal. If we can allow coal plants to dispose of nuclear waste this way, why would we object to a nuclear power plant grinding it's waste to dust and scattering it to the winds from a smokestack? (No, I'm not suggesting this!) Why the "free pass" to fossil fuels?

3. One misconception about nuclear power plants is about their lack of insurability. Nobody sane would insure a nuclear power plant, but not because of its inherent dangers. The real reason that the government insures them is because the government also wrote laws (at least in Canada) that says that in the event of an accident, the plant owners are liable for all effects of the accident. The victims do not need to show proof of damages. This was done so you or I don't have to do detailed proof that a cancer came from one blast of radiation, which is obviously impossible. But it means that if a plant melts down and spills radiation, you could sue them for cancer treatments, dizziness causing you to slip and break your leg, lack of concentration 6 months later causing a car accident, etc - you see the problems.

Though on balance, I'm for nuclear power. If you read "Under a Green Sky", you'll read about what we might be creating with greenhouse warming. The article about the Dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico also reports on Hydrogen Sulfide production, if you'll notice. Based on this and similar problems, we'll be better off building nuclear power plants EVEN IF THEY ALL EXPLODE LIKE CHERNOBYL AFTER 30 YEARS than relying on fossil fuels. Sorry to shout, but that's the level of problems that we're dealing with from global warming, and though I'm 100% for renewables we have to get them produced first.

One last point - in Canada, we have CANDU reactors, running on DU (U-238), so it is possible to build a reactor that uses uranium sources that won't run out for centuries.

Thanks for reading my long post.

Craig

You can term it "SNIPING" ~NASW~, but I call it reasonable arguing or having a debate on the issue. For example, you're arguing about what I wrote and would you term that "sniping" on YOUR part?

Yes, technology "MAY" be beyond our comprehension in 50 or 100 years. It may not be in regards to shipping payloads of nuclear waste into space. We will be out of uranium for fuel in 50 years, so what do we do then with the nuclear facilities and the waste we have accumuloated world wide? We'll MOST LIKELY be safely storing it. ___ Safely?

Shooting nuclear waste to the sun by any methods is not reality, what is occurring today and into the forseeable 20 to 30 year future is reality. Another thing is, why would we even consider contaminating our outer space, our solar system with radiactive poison for future millions of years?

The major issue and most serious problem humanity faces is, we must seriously think about and then act on right away, is the global warming issue. We must develop clean alternatives for energy NOW, not 20 or 50 years from now and nuclear power is not the energy we should consider.

Iceman212 said:

"Can we truly know the effect of sending large payloads of radioactive material into the sun? What if the rocket explodes while lifting off. Tons of radioactive waste and rocket fuel seems to me some bad ingredients. Nano-tech? For real? Come on."

I'm no expert, but I think we can be pretty sure that the effect of sending large payloads of radioactive material into the (itself radioactive) Sun would be the vapourisation of the vehicle and its payload before it even got near the Sun's surface. It is that hot.

Yes, an exploding rocket would be a disaster, which is why I DID NOT SAY "ROCKET." I merely suggested the importance of devising a safe means of orbital delivery. That could be a largely passive vehicle lofted form a very large ramp, or even raised into orbit on an orbital elevator; both being delivery technologies that may be feasible given a few more advances in materials science and the creation and maintaining of the political will to fund such endeavours.

Uhh, yes, nano-tech, for real. If nanomachines don't get out of hand and annihilate us first, then, quite frankly, it is entirely possible that they could be used to disassemble hazardous waste. The level of manipulation such technology would enable is one of the reasons it's being pursued in the first place.

At any rate, the basic fact is this: Used atomic waste is a hazard and a nuisance on such a scale that its safe elimination is very likely to be the focus of intense efforts by very clever people, using sophisticated computing power that will make our current top super computers look like toys. It IS a problem now, but how about instead of griping and sniping at people who offer potential solutions, you direct that energy towards pressuring big science to keep up the pace, or by gently guiding kids you might know into the science and engineering fields?

"We humans have not been able to SAFELY store nuclear by-products for 60 years. It is not reasonable to believe that we can store it for another 50, 100, or a million plus years. It's not only not reasonable, it's insane to truly believe that."

I wasn't talking about storing it for "a million plus years." What I was suggesting is that, if things go even remotely well, it shouldn't be an issue then. Considering many of the technological trends of the past 60 years, it's possible that by your 50 or 100 year marks, there may well be innovative solutions to the storage and disposal problem based on technologies we can scarcely imagine right now. At least I hope that's how it works out, considering the scope of the problem. What is unreasonable about extrapolating from established technological trends?

Bastard Big Energy doesn't want to support clean energy because they know that real clean energy doesn't include their dirty hands on the pump.

People keep making excuses for nuclear saying, "Oh, Chernobyl, but that was an old design problem solved by addition of a containment dome." Well, a recent report I read states a containment dome can be penetrated by a jet liner just like those on 911. A crash into a nuclear facility stands to kill more people than lost on 911 AND all Americans lost in conflict over the past 50 years.

Here's the bottom line: Every machine ever invented by mankind eventually broke down sooner or later. Pursuing the nuclear 'genie' is like playing Russian Roulette with 5 bullets in a 6 shooter. You might dodge a bullet once, but shouldn't you be a bit uncomfortable pulling the trigger again. Chernobyl & TMI are lessons to be heeded, not ignored. There's an alernative to insanity, you know...think renewable.

Rocket our nuclear waste to the sun? ___ Wow, I do wonder how many rocket launches we'd need for that job? Wonder what that would cost?

If Yucca Mountain ever opens for business, there will be several tractor trailer loads of nuclear waste criss-crossing the country daily for years delivering that poison. Even our NASA shuttle flights can only hold one good sized truck load. Imagine trucking the junk to a launch site and maybe shooting off ten or twelve rocket loads a day. ___ Common.

As there is a "finite supply" of uranium available for nuclear fuel, I wonder why we even consider nuclear? Wonder why we aren't developing "clean and safe" alterntives where the fuel is free and is infinite?

There have been numerous posts here that rightfully explain why nuclear energy is really stupid. ~SAMPSON~ began with some of the best reasons. Humans err, and when errimg with nuclear energy, bad things may an do happen.

Certainly Chernobyl was an outdated nuclear plant, but does anyone "honestly" believe, a modern plant cannot suffer a meltdown, an explosion from an act of human error, or an 7.4 or higher magnatude earthquake, or a class 4 or 5 torando?

How about sabotage by a trusted employee, one who is pissed off at his wife or his boss and decides to end it all and get even at the same time and go out with a bang. Ever hear of that type of a nutcase? Hell, even one of our very best, an astronaut just went bonkers and did some really crazy shit. It would olny take one bad act, to wipe out an area of land the size of New York and PA combined.

We humans have not been able to SAFELY store nuclear by-products for 60 years. It is not reasonable to believe that we can store it for another 50, 100, or a million plus years. It's not only not reasonable, it's insane to truly believe that.

We do not have to gamble with nuclear energy, we have the sunbeams, the wind, the ocean's waves and tides and geo-thermal.

One can Google any of those four clean energy subjects a get a thousand plus credible articles about them, that detail how they are all proven to be viable alternatives to coal, oil, gas and or nuclear energy powered plants.

A lot of ground covered in just a few posts. Nuclear is here to stay. The need is to keep making every part of the industry safer and safer.

Samson has some great points. Between "risk managers" taking risks to ensure profit, Murphy's Law, "familiarity breeds contempt", ego tripping, and poor decisions to hide problems from the public, there will continue to be minor spills, leaks, worker contamination and bad press.

The new generation of reactors are "passive", mostly meaning the reactor coolant will circulate even if the power fails. They have fewer parts and are easier to control. Engineers are working on rods for some future designs that would expand enough when overheating to separate the atoms far enough to shut down the reaction. There should be no Chernobyls or TMIs from the new reactors.

There has been a lot of work on "burnup" of waste from today's reactors. Argonne National lab had a fast reactor demonstration project that ran on DU and recycled its own waste, and waste from other reactors. This would conceivably expand the supply of uranium to many hundreds or thousands of years, and leave only short-lived waste.

(Shades of MiMi's paranoia, the project was shelved in the 1990s and the team reassigned to other projects. Maybe thousands of years of free fuel runs contrary to capitalism.)

The French built the commercial scale Superphenix reactor with a similar purpose, but it didn't work out. Their goal is to eventually burn up their nuclear waste. For now its partly recycled, but still piling up or maybe going to Russia.

The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) involves almost every major country with nuclear power. The sharing of technology is unprecedented. (Of course, the US wants to start recycling under the GNEP banner using the same dirty old facilities that shoud be (or stay) shut down. Leave it to Dubya!)

Its obvious from the recent French accidents, and "report cards" from La Hague and Sellefield, that even the best recycling and reprocessing technologies need improvement.

Mining and enrichment have to produce some pollution. A lot of closed mines actually mined uranium as a tailing to vanadium before we knew much about radioacivity, so little care was taken. Pumping solutions into bore holes to extract uranium and using ozone depleting fluoracarbons to enrich uranium... All of this needs strict regulation and oversight.

Reading about the London Array windfarm and proposed projects off the New Jersy coast, it should cost about $3b to build 1000-1200 MW capacity. This is in the same ballpark as nuclear IF the modular standardized new nuclear designs are produced in large quantity. Differences are nuclear fuel is an expense while wind is free, and a nuclear plant on a thousand acres can produce as much energy as maybe a thousand gigantic wind turbines over a hundred square miles (and associated wildlife and navigation hazards).

The nuclear industry, national labs, international organizations, and universities are working on all this stuff. Its here to stay, makes only a tiny, tiny fraction of fossil fuel GHGs, doesn't require ripping up and polluting vast areas of West Virginia and Alberta, and its going to keep getting better.

Can we truly know the effect of sending large payloads of radioactive material into the sun? What if the rocket explodes while lifting off. Tons of radioactive waste and rocket fuel seems to me some bad ingredients. Nano-tech? For real? Come on. Give people tax incentives to fit their homes/properties with solar cells and wind turbines. That will not only create long term savings for families, but job growth in the industry itself. We need to think small. There is no silver bullet or energy messiah gonna save us.

ICEMAN said:

"i hadn't heard that love causes cancer, can someone point me to the article?"

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11819-oral-sex-can-cause-throat-cancer.html

I myself am mixed on nuclear power. Handled properly, it offers allot over coal and oil and doesn't require unlikely leaps of imagination by industry and congressional leaders like many renewable sources might.

The waste is certainly an issue, thought it does not have to be a LONG TERM issue, like so many seem to insist. Were we to focus on development of a completely failsafe method of lofting large payloads into orbit, then we could simply send th waste on a long, slow, perfectly harmless trip to the Sun. End of problem. And not as impossible as some might think.

The problem with nuclear waste, besides its relative danger, is that allot of us on the left like to talk about it in hyperbolic, apocalyptic terms; stressing that it will be around "forever" or "for eons."

While that all could turn out to be true, it is just as likely, if not more so, that it won't be around forever. Given at least some degree of continual technological progression, it seems quite possible that, given the time frame involved with the waste, humans will feel compelled to do something about in in decades or centuries to come, with technologies we can only imagine right now.

Whether that means safely send the stuff into the Sun, or employing advanced nanotechnology to disassemble the waste into base molecules, or something else entirely, I don't know. Considering the risks of having more and more of it pile up and sit around, tough, I'm pretty sure something (and, hopefully, something other than just making allot more DU munitions) will be done, quite possibly sooner than we think.

The word "accident" is one way to describe events like Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and the hundreds of lesser calamities that have happened in connection with nuclear power generation.

But these things can be considered to be "accidents" in at most a very limited sense. A better description of the occasional occurrence of such events would be that they are statistically inevitable.

Why are such "accidents" inevitable? Because the whole concept of dealing with large quantities extremely dangerous materials like Uranium and even worse, Plutonium, rests on the shaky proposition that we can somehow keep these materials contained and isolated completely and forever -- or at least for thousands of years.

Remember it takes one microgram of Plutonium in your lungs to give you caner. Nuclear plants deal with materials like this by the ton. Who can say where every last microgram might have gone?

We cannot hope to build a world that tries to deny the Second Law of Thermodynamics. That Law holds that in inanimate nature, randomness or chaos is a far more stable condition than a high degree of organization -- such as keeping these ultra dangerous materials forever contained. Multiple accidents are bound to occur, and some of them may be serious beyond comprehension.

As one of the other contributors to this forum has already noted, we have not yet found a way to solve the waste disposal problem. Moreover, a nuclear power plant and its surrounding highly radioactive cooling pools of radioactive waste would seem to present irresistible targets to would be terrorists who want to cause immense damage to a region.

I'm for renewable.

Since nuclear power came on line, the global population has increased by a couple of billion of people. Accidents happen in all industries. Good engineering and technology limit the consequences of these anticipated accidents.

Look at the BHOPAL, a pesticide plant that killed 20,000 people and injured 100,000 others. Of course, that was in India.

Chernobyl was a Soviet reactor, poor technology, and may even have been an act of sabatoge like TMI (happened on FEMA's first day of operation) to discredit nuclear power and make us dependent on the oil cartels.

The latest generation of nuclear reactors is much safer. The problem in the US is that unlike Europe, they won't allow the spent fuel to be reprocessed, because they are "fearful" of nuclear proliferation.
So this creates a storage issue that otherwise would not be significant.

Since when did Americans become so fearful.

i hadn't heard that love causes cancer, can someone point me to the article?

Good point you made, Sampson, about Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal site not being open until 2020 (if ever since they just had an earthquake in the area). What you didn't mention, however, is by all estimates it will be at capacity immediately upon opening. Then it's back to square one, likely with nuclear waste piling up around power plants again as it is now.

I sure am glad I always carry a NukAlert on my keychain. Google NukAlert to see why.

Wasn't there another article similar to this on CD last week. Funny, I can't seem to find it anymore. Kind of like the nuclear power issue, any bad news of 'accidents' rarely reaches the collective public eye, is redacted, or deleted. Billions (or even trillions) of dollars involved in the nuclear power 'resurgence' couldn't have anything to do with that, now could it? ;-)

Excelent posts here ~SAMPSON~. On another recent type article here, a blogger named ~TOAST~ blasted me several times for saying similar things about coal fired plants, a subject wich you have stated so well here. He kept charging that I was promoting nuclear power, ___ which is not so and neither are you.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever that "WE" cannot develop clean energy,

(solar, wind, geo-thermal, wave and tidal combined)

and have those plants on line within ten years or less, producing all of the electrical power we'd ever need and phase out every coal fired and nuclear power plant.

By "WE", I mean HUMANITY, a world wide, massive program, to develop clean re-nuable energy which is affordable, the technology is available, it would create millions of good payng jobs and "WE" could begin to clean up our atmosphere. If we don't clean up our atmosphere, we won't be here discussing this in another twenty or so years. America should lead the way, we have done the most polluting.

This recent, timely and scientifically proven report, from our "very own" National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080423_methane.html

We have little time left to stop the madness.

Flying in a commercial airliner is highly regulated, yet still they crash. Even if there had not been a fatality for ten years, there is still the risk.

But when Monty Burns owns the power plant, and Homer Simpson is in charge of safety? And Monty Burns always DOES own the power plant, and Homer Simpson always IS in charge of safety.

But even if it were not that way, there is still the spent fuel to be disposed of. And I still would not want it.

Hi ~NANNIE~ yep it takes a couple of minutes for the photos to load, but it's worth the wait. That's a great and well told episode, scary too.

On a good day, if I had to live just down wind from a power plant, it would be better to live downwind of a nuke plant than a coal plant. Not only is their less pollution and black crap in the air, but there's actually less radiation. Coal has Carbon-14, the radioactive isotope that's used for 'carbon dating' in it.

The thing is, that's on a good day. But what about on a bad day. On a bad day near a coal plant, you might see some fire trucks and emergency vehicles going in. You might have a local brownout from a cut in power supply. You might even have to evacuate for a short time. But that's nothing at all like what happens if that neighborhood power plant does a Chernobyl.

All in all, I'd rather the good days be not quite so good, but not have the risk of the really disastrous bad day.

Nuclear power is massively subsidized. First you can think of the free insurance given by the US gov. What do you think the premiums would be on an insurance policy that might have to pay to replace an entire major city if there was a problem? Private insurers wouldn't touch it. So, in their usual paen to free enterprise, the US gov promises to cover all loses over a certain limit.

Most of the research into nuke power was government financed. Remember it was the US Navy that developed a lot of this.

Back in the seventies, the rate payers for the utility companies got stuck with most of the bill in special assessments on their power bills. The power companies built a bunch of reactors that either couldn't make money or sometimes couldn't even be completed. The stockholders didn't eat the costs of those mistakes, instead they were passed on to rate payers in most instances.

And of course there's the whole question of waste disposal. The US gov has promised to take the waste off the hands of the utility companies. Since they are a decade late in doing that, and since their current plan says they won't be ready to do it until 2020, I'd imagine they are probably paying the utilities for the costs of storing all that waste at the reactor sites.

What would nuclear power 'cost' if the utilities had to pay for insurance that would cover all loses in the event of an accident and if they had to pay to properly care for and dispose of that waste for the next 5000 years?

My college degree is in nuclear engineering.

I've always felt that on paper and on computers, I could design a safe nuclear power plant that could easily work perfectly through its lifetime.

The problem is, that's not the real world. A real-world nuclear plant is a human organization of thousands of employees. So, it gets all the issues of training and competency and bureaucracy as any other human organization.

Humans aren't perfect. Humans make mistakes. And leaders of such organizations, at least in America are tasked with goals beyond operating safely. In America, a nuclear plant is a profit making machine. The managers of the plant work to maximize profits.

So, for instance, normally during a shut-down is when you'd want to do all your repairs and inspections. A typical nuke plant can run about a year and a half without refueling. Then it needs to stop and get some of its fuel rods replaced and the rest cycled to other spots in the reactor. This is when you would normally do all your safety related repairs and inspections.

But, since the goal is profits, not safety, the management wants that shut down to be as short as possible. They'll quickly remind everyone of how much money the company is losing every day the plant is not running. So, instead of using the shutdown to methodically make sure the plant is absolutely safe, they want to push as hard as possible to get the plant running again ASAP. So, work is rushed and any safety related work that would delay the restart of the plant faces a lot of pressure from management to not do it.

The question above how many of these incidents go unreported ties into this. The last thing management would want is to shut down a operating plant before its time to refuel because of an accident. And a NRC investigation into an incident is a pain in the rear for everyone. So, if a company thinks they can keep a problem from being reported, what do you think they'll do?

Like I said, on a computer, I think I could design nuke plants that run perfectly. But that's not the real world. In the real world, with real humans, mistakes can be way too costly. And like any engineer, I think Murphy's Law was a work of genius. What can go wrong will go wrong.

Ellydishes, I disagree that nuclear power gives a lot of "bang for the buck". In the US nuclear power is heavily subsidized government with our tax $$. The nuclear industry couldn't survive without it.

I do agree that mining is foul and unconscionable.

And then there's the contaminated waste that lasts for oh, just about forever. That's not something I want to pass on to future generations, if there are any.

There's a lot to be said for nuclear power, at least as the lesser of many other evils. You do get a lot of bang for your buck. I don't object as strongly as other environmentalists do to nuclear power plants, partly because the biggest issue with nuclear power, at least within the States, isn't the safety of the plants. It's how uranium is mined. The impact of uranium mining to humans and the environment is astounding. I find it peculiar that so many articles focus on villainizing the plants when the mining, the foulest offense of the whole industry, goes unmentioned.

Hey KEM with my new DSL I can really see Kiddofspeed now.
I saw it before when you postedit but now I can really see it.

EVERYONE SHOULD SEE IT...

Http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chapter1.html

JUST SAY NO! -to new nuke energy-(or coal and other dirties)

just say yes!! TO RENEWABLE ENERGY OPTIONS!!!

How many of these accidents go unreported?

"But there is nothing in the world, not even love, that is without risk."

Wind, Solar & Conservation?