quote Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]: At the risk of having to read all thirteen pages of this, I figured I'll just ask outright... Do you support Nuclear energy? I think you said a few pages down you supported something similar but that it just never took on?

I used to, very much so. I grew up on SF and authors of the day almost always mentioned nuclear fission and fusion as the key source of power underlying the utopian societies (and even dystopian, for the most part) portrayed in their stories. Golden age of energy would be about the best way to sum the look and feel of it. I was still a kid when TMI happened. I remember it being in the news, but didn't think much of it because it was so far away and I wasn't being forced to evacuate. Then Chernobyl happened. I was an adult by then and starting to really think about the picture that was bigger than just me, becoming aware of how things interrelate on more than just the simple levels that I'd experienced as a child. Chernobyl really did the heavy lifting in my paradigm shift. Nuclear power seemed so enticing, lots of power in a small footprint, no pollution (I was thinking of pollution in terms of smokestacks and stinky air back then), but the hidden (and not so hidden) costs and issues started to become apparent to me.

Then they built Comanche Peak not too far from here. It took a decade. Because of running changes driven by newfound safety problems that occurred while it was being built, it wound up costing $13,000,000,000.00 to build rather than the original projected price of 1,000,000,000.00. A thirteen hudred percent cost over-run. The first thing that happened when the plant went on line was that our electricity rates went up over 10%, with more increases to follow. Back then we had a strong public utilities commission that regulated rates of regulated monopolies. The utility had to request a rate increase and, more importantly, open their books to prove why the increase was justified. As a regulated monopoly they were allowed a fair profit but no more. It wasn't uncommon for a requested increase to result in a rate decrease when it turned out the figures the company provided didn't add up after all.

Along about that time a burger chain, Burger Street, switched from paper food packaging to polystyrene. It made the news, and since I had sympathies toward environmental causes stemming from my Boy Scout days and because many activist environmentalists were decrying this change for various reasons including biodegradability and fossil fuel feedstock sources I wrote an angry letter to the president of Burger Street complaining about the change. He wrote me back a partly hand-written letter with many supporting documents explaining why they made the change, and boy was that an eye opener. I was at a park not too far from the Post Office when I opened the letter. I wanted to read it right away. I remember that day well, the weather was cool and pleasant, a calm spring morning. What the letter described was that the reason they changed was to reduce their end to end environmental impact. The attachments showed their figures on pollution produced during the entire life cycle of the packaging, from energy used to cut down trees or produce the natural gas, from making paper, making styrofoam, shipping, etc, It talked about what happens in landfills, how virtually all landfills are designed to prevent biodegradation because of various effluent reasons, etc. It was probably 25 pages of information altogether, and it radically altered how I view things, from just the part right in front of me to all parts of it, end to end. I changed my views that morning, and learned a very important lesson. If I was going to be concerned with the environment, I have to look at the full lifecycle of whatever it is I'm going to form an opinion on, and I'd have to think long-term, beyond my lifetime (that part came from reading SF which often is centered around timelines longer than an individual lifetime).

After Chernobyl I really had doubts about the ability of engineers to design a completely safe and fool-proof system, and began to understand that unlike any other technology that exists in this world, nuclear had the potential to mess things up on really, really monstrous scales both physically and chronologically. It was a few years later when it become known to me that Chernobyl wasn't even the first giant-scale nuclear disaster the Soviets had had. Kyshtym, also referred to as Mayak, had happened in the 1950's and though our government knew about it almost from day one, had kept it classified. It wasn't until '76 when it became widely known, and the Soviets declassified it in 1990.

During the Comanche Peak permitting and construction process the subject of waste came up. When I was a kid all the cartoons about nuclear power showed a little atom or bit of material producing massing amount of energy. I had no mental scale of size, volume, or mass of much of anything outside my treehouse and bicycle. As an adult I still didn't realize not only the dangerousness of spent fuel, but the sheer amount of it. I also didn't realize the technical difficulties of handling and storing it long-term, didn't know about corrosiveness and radiation embrittlement, all those issues that make handling it so difficult, and expensive. Since then I've learned a lot.

It was the waste issue that was the last big nail in the coffin for me, that turned me away from nuclear as a viable long or even short term option. Comanche Peak's rates did not, and currently do not, factor in costs for long-term storage and handling of the high-level waste produced there. They also do not factor in the estimated (as of 1990 or so) $30,000,000,000 in 1985 dollars it will take to decommission that plant when the reactor structures are too embrittled to be safe to operate anymore, sometime in the next few decades.

Two other nails:

1. Nuclear waste is so common, and so effective in a "dirty bomb", that I don't see any way to prevent it's eventual acquisition and use by terrorists.
2. We are not economically self-sufficient in uranium supplies and have to import half what we use today, and even more as we build more reactors.

To sum it up, to me nuclear as we do it now is far too expensive when you factor in the full end to end dollar costs of waste storage and decommissioning, and becomes even more so when you factor in the costs of incidents such as Fukushima, TMI, Chernobyl, etc. There is even a law that exempts the American nuclear industry from most liability stemming from accidents, further exacerbating the issue. Then there's the terrorist with waste problem, and the potential giant-scale physical and chronological problems from accidents like Fukushima, and engineering mistakes like Chernobyl.

Recently I experienced a change WRT my views on nuclear. I now am for nuclear using Thorium. According to the information I've read, we are easily self-sufficient in that element, it is nearly as power-dense as pure Uranium, it cannot be used to make any kind of fissile weapon, it's a fraction of the cost for fuel than Uranium is, and it's inherently safe. In other words, if Fukushima had been a Thorium-based nuclear power plant we wouldn't be having this discussion because there'd be nothing to talk about. The worst-case scenario with Thorium is, well, nothing really important.

You wanted my views, there they are. It took me a lifetime to arrive at this point, with some sharp turns and revelations along the way. I didn't arrive at this point willy-nilly, blindly, or in ignorance. It took a lot of hard thought and research.

quote Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]: I support whatever is the most cost effective and environmentally friendly form of energy based on location. So for example, places that have geo-thermal energy that's readily available... then steam power is what we should be using (I think there's only a couple of places, one in Las Vegas???). Wind power helps, I know... but doesn't do all that much in the grand scheme of things. Solar of course... I'd like to see more homes come with a series of panels when built new... I would even potentially support a bill that mandated new homes have a certain level of solar panels on them. At the very least, it would reduce the amount of power used.

I support whatever form of energy production that frees us from dependence on tin-pot dictatorships and countries that want to pull our strings and make us do their dirty work. I'm for energy that's relatively pollution free (I say relatively, because all man's industrial activities produce pollution) and whose pollution is relatively benign. I fully believe that there is no single-point solution, no silver bullet, no magic wand. We had a huge energy trust fund in the form of fossil fuels, which like any adolescent culturally speaking we've squandered quite thoroughly without giving much thought to the future.

And, since energy consumption and production is a mathematical formula, very simple: P=C, anything you do to reduce the C side is exactly the same as increasing the P side. So, mandating that homes be more energy efficient (green standards, LEEDS, etc) or mandating more efficient appliances, etc, etc, is the same as building new power. Same result as mandating solar cells.

[This message has been edited by JazzMan (edited 05-05-2011).]

quote Originally posted by JazzMan: I support whatever form of energy production that frees us from dependence on tin-pot dictatorships and countries that want to pull our strings and make us do their dirty work. I'm for energy that's relatively pollution free (I say relatively, because all man's industrial activities produce pollution) and whose pollution is relatively benign. I fully believe that there is no single-point solution, no silver bullet, no magic wand. We had a huge energy trust fund in the form of fossil fuels, which like any adolescent culturally speaking we've squandered quite thoroughly without giving much thought to the future. And, since energy consumption and production is a mathematical formula, very simple: P=C, anything you do to reduce the C side is exactly the same as increasing the P side. So, mandating that homes be more energy efficient (green standards, LEEDS, etc) or mandating more efficient appliances, etc, etc, is the same as building new power. Same result as mandating solar cells.

Yeah, I understand what you're saying about the life-cycle... so as in, having people use solar cells on new construction could have a bad side in the effect that the materials and energy needed to produce those panels may not off-set the benefits of having them to begin with.

So if Thorium is so beneficial, and is essentially like uranium with only half of the draw-backs, why then aren't we using it? What is the major purpose that we having switched to that?

I did read everything, I just don't have a whole lot to add to it because you explained a lot of what I would have questioned anyway...

We aren't using thorium, due to the fact thorium does not produce weapon grade materials for us to use in nuclear weapons. Thats probably not an issue today, as they recycle, but when the plants were built, it was the reason.
They were playing with thorium reactors in the 50's, but we needed weapons grade material to build nuclear bombs.

1 - We have been converting nuclear bomb fuel into reactor fuel. That flies in the face of any idea that curently we are using uranium to produce nuclear bomb fuel

2 - Since CARTER which is when the cold war was still on, we have not reprocessed spent civil reactor fuel. All of it is kept on site at the reactors.

So for 30 years there has been an easier/better way to do things but we just don't because of ????

[This message has been edited by phonedawgz (edited 05-05-2011).]

quote Originally posted by phonedawgz: 1 - We have been converting nuclear bomb fuel into reactor fuel. That flies in the face of any idea that curently we are using uranium to produce nuclear bomb fuel 2 - Since CARTER which is when the cold war was still on, we have not reprocessed spent civil reactor fuel. All of it is kept on site at the reactors.

I did say it didn't apply today, I also said when the plants were first built, of course if its not broke you don't fix it, so why would they switch to thorium after the 1st gen reactors were retired. When they decided to use Uranium based reactors, it was an issue to have that material available.
Why isn't Iran interested in Thorium based reactors? Because its useless for nuclear weapons.
Its been a lot longer than 30 years that Thorium based reactors were around, I believe the first test reactors based on Thorium were in operation in 1952.

[This message has been edited by dennis_6 (edited 05-05-2011).]

quote Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]: So if Thorium is so beneficial, and is essentially like uranium with only half of the draw-backs, why then aren't we using it? What is the major purpose that we having switched to that?

Simple answer, really. Thorium and Uranium were both being investigated in the 40's and 50's. The federal government needed material to make bombs with and it's easy to make that with Uranium reactors and impossible to make with Thorium reactors, so R&D/subsidies were used to grow the Uranium nuclear industry in order to have a ready source of bomb-making material. Currently the Uranium reactor industry is monstrously huge and has a good deal going, and no interest in changing over to Thorium since that would cost money from profits. They also spend many millions in lobbying to keep it that way, as any multi-billion dollar international industry is required to do in order to maintain fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders.

Even though we essentially invented the technology before abandoning it, currently India and China are developing it for their own use. It's quite likely that we may be buying their reactors at some point in the future, much like we bought cars from Japan when the automotive technology shift happened a few decades ago.

Here's a good article on it from Wired Magazine, it was this article that got me rethinking nuclear: http://www.wired.com/magazi...009/12/ff_new_nukes/

[This message has been edited by JazzMan (edited 05-05-2011).]

So with a heat engine of any type, you need a heat source and a heat sink. The power can be obtained by using these two. The cooling towers of a nuclear power plant are not to cool the reactor. They are to dissipate the 2/3s of the heat energy that can't be converted into mechanical energy.

Considering the thorium reactor is just an alternative heat source, the need for cooling to provide a heat sink to generate power with is still needed.

Overall the article seems to make sense, but it seems to fail on that point.

You also must realize that the issues at Fukushima weren't issues with an operating reactor. All the reactors had shut down at the first waves of the earthquake. The thing they are saying about the thorium reaction is that it is self regulating while operating But in Fukushima the issue wasn't/isn't regulation during operation. It's the decay heat during shutdown. In a shut down thorium reactor the decay heat would most likely still be an issue.

Finally there is no way they would convert an existing nuclear plant. Remember once built they are some of the lowest cost of energy. There is no way they are going to shut that down until they are forced to or it's no longer economically feasible.

[This message has been edited by phonedawgz (edited 05-05-2011).]

quote Originally posted by phonedawgz: They still aren't letting people back into the exclusion zone correct?

Correct, and they haven't proven that those just outside of the zone are safe. Correct?

quote Originally posted by carnut122: Correct, and they haven't proven that those just outside of the zone are safe. Correct?

idk. What are they measuring at?

Another article and Thorium reactors...
http://www.dailyglobal.com/...he-way-with-thorium/

The two articles are proposing different types of reactors. One is a critical mass moderated/self moderated reactor. The other is a less than critical mass reactor that is excited by an external source.

Hawaii Connection Helps Fukushima Group Escape Radiation
So-Called Fukushima 15 Make Desperate Call For Help

POSTED: 4:41 pm HST May 5, 2011
UPDATED: 5:00 pm HST May 5, 2011
[EMAIL: Hawaii Connection Helps Fukushima Group Escape Radiation] Email [PRINT: Hawaii Connection Helps Fukushima Group Escape Radiation] Print
[COMMENTS: Hawaii Connection Helps Fukushima Group Escape Radiation] Comments
(0)
Bookmark and Share

Embed this Video
x

*
o Email
*
o Facebook
o Digg
o Twitter
o Yahoo Buzz
o Reddit
o Delicious



Link

FUKUSHIMA CITY, Japan -- The Japanese government recently increased what it considers "allowable levels" of radiation exposure for school children - which sparked an outcry by parents.

And fears of radiation are stronger than ever – especially in places such as Fukushima City - less than 40 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

Radiation levels read higher there than in closer cities because of wind patterns.

Luckily for one group, an old connection from Hawaii has become their kind of miracle.

KITV4 Reporter Lara Yamada and Photographer Rex Von Arnswaldt visited them in Japan at a Fukushima neighborhood Kindergarten.

“Hi! Good morning, good to see you,” said Nobuko Kobuko outside the school. She is a teacher at the Kohitsuji Kindergarten.

More than a month after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, she's quick to mention something else: radiation. Listen to how she describes it:

“We could feel, something was fuzzy with the faces and the skin and everybody knew something was strange, even inside the building,” she said.

A week after the explosions at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant, she was so worried, she gathered 15 people, children and adults, and decided to leave.

“People in this Pearl City Baptist call them ‘Fukushima 15,’” said Former Reverend Tatsuya Ban. Yamada met him at Ala Moana Park shortly before she left for Japan.

Nobuko knew of Ban through a friend and she decided to call him in desperation.

“I felt like this was part of our family and especially those evacuees from Fukushima area,” said Ban.

By late March, the Fukushima 15 made it to Honolulu. They were quickly welcomed into Hawaii homes.

“We had such a wonderful experience,” said Nobuko. “They were all were so kind and warm, everywhere, everywhere. They're like a friend.”

It was their first trip to Hawaii, and despite the children's excitement, the reality of what they've been through, soon hit home.

“We cannot go to the beach because of a strong wave coming and we're going to have trouble!” she said explaining the children’s first reaction when they went to the beach.

“But it looks like they got over it,” said Yamada, the two of them looking at pictures of the kids and adults playing in the water along the shore.

“We are very honored to take them in and spend 11 days with them,” said Ban.

“It was like family so much like a family and we all changed,” said Nobuko. “We really like Hawaii now we want to go back,” she laughed.

“People were crying when they were leaving,” said Ban.

11 days after they landed in Hawaii, the so-called Fukushima 15 are back in Japan, but not because they wanted to return.

The group was traveling with young children without their parents.

When school started, as scheduled, the group had no choice but to return.

“Are you worried about the children?” Yamada asked Nobuko in her Fukushima City kindergarten class.

“Yes. A lot of them already want to go out so bad,” said Nobuko.

The children are masked, covered up and cooped up.

The playground outside, sprinkled with cherry blossoms, stands untouched.

Nobuko said she has no idea when they'll feel it's safe to play outside.

Inside, 3 year old Tsukasa, and 5 year old Ryoma remember well their Hawaii getaway.

“Beachie!” said Ryoma, when Nobuko asked him what he liked the most.

As for Tsukasa: “He wants to go to Hawaii again to pick up some shells and crumbs I mean crabs!” laughed Nobuko. “He said he liked it all, everything!”

They are memories no tragedy can erase, from island friends, who knew, the help they needed comes from the heart.

“They thought about their friends in Hawaii!” smiled Ban, “because what they needed more than anything else was hope and encouragement.”

Read more: http://www.kitv.com/news/27...l.html#ixzz1LXjDCQSQ
http://www.kitv.com/r/27795841/detail.html

quote Originally posted by phonedawgz: Remember once built they (uranium nuclear power plants) are some of the lowest cost of energy.

I agree, once the plant is actually running the fuel costs per unit of usable energy delivered is one of the lowest around. However, there are far more costs associated with nuclear than just the fuel, just as the operating cost of owning a car is far more than just the cost of the gasoline put into the tank.

For instance, the cost of constructing and forever maintaining a permanent storage facility for spent fuel and associated waste materials is not factored into the cost of producing electricity from this source. How can it be, it's not even designed or built yet. AFAIK, ratepayers also aren't paying for anticipated decommissioning costs, nor are they paying for the amount of insurance needed to cover a Fukushima-level cleanup. In fact, the only insurance they're require to pay for by law would cover only about 12.2 billion, the rest is borne by others not related to the industry (namely, us taxpayers). Other hidden costs include loan guarantees, various tax abatements won by lobbying, capital cost writeoffs from bankruptcies, etc.

Here's a bit from the wiki on nuclear power that sums up my thoughts fairly well:

Analysis of the economics of nuclear power must take into account who bears the risks of future uncertainties. To date all operating nuclear power plants were developed by state-owned or regulated utility monopolies[105] where many of the risks associated with construction costs, operating performance, fuel price, accident liability and other factors were borne by consumers rather than suppliers. In addition, because the potential liability from a nuclear accident is so great, the full cost of liability insurance is generally limited/capped by the government, which the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission concluded constituted a significant subsidy.[106] Many countries have now liberalized the electricity market where these risks, and the risk of cheaper competitors emerging before capital costs are recovered, are borne by plant suppliers and operators rather than consumers, which leads to a significantly different evaluation of the economics of new nuclear power plants.[107]

From an interview of Doug Koplow here: http://www.globalsubsidies....money-fuels-industry

DK: All operating nuclear power plants in the U.S. were built with substantial public subsidies. These included large subsidies to research and development, plant construction, uranium enrichment, and waste management. Since its inception, the industry has also benefitted from government programs to shift key risks of the nuclear fuel cycle away from investors and onto taxpayers.

A handful of studies have quantified subsidies to the nuclear-power industry over the decades, indicating aggregate subsidization at well over US$ 150 billion, and a subsidy intensity (government support per kWh output) normally exceeding 30% of the market value of the energy produced.

These subsidies have enabled our existing commercial reactors to remain viable power providers, but only with additional capital write-offs. These write-offs have occurred not only through bankruptcies, but in the form of compensation for "stranded costs" as well. Basically, a cost was considered stranded if it made a plant uncompetitive at the time the electricity industry was being deregulated. Nuclear generation accounted for large share of total stranded costs in the United States, with nearly US$ 100 billion (2007$) of nuclear-related infrastructure deemed uncompetitive transferred as a liability to be bailed out by ratepayers. Although the industry frequently points to its low operating costs as evidence of its market competitiveness, this economic structure is an artifact of large subsidies to capital, historical write-offs of capital, and ongoing subsidies to operating costs.

Subsidies to the nuclear power industry have gone through cycles. During the early 1980s the industry benefitted from very high subsidies to capital formation. Today the United States is going through another surge in subsidies to nuclear plants, with a slew of new policies to guarantee plant construction capital, insure against cost overruns, reduce the latitude of public oversight on new plant construction, and to provide output-related tax credits for nuclear energy. The industry may also benefit from large windfall profits on carbon credits under some of the proposed credit allocation rules. Risk transfer on liability insurance and waste management continue.

Yes, the relative cheapness of the fuel is a definite advantage to the plants because it's extremely profitable, and because of that low cost it's even more profitable when the nuclear generators raise their rates to match the much higher costs of natural gas, which is what they do here in Texas. Thankfully I won't e alive when the Comanche Peak decommissioning and waste disposal bill comes home to roost.

[This message has been edited by JazzMan (edited 05-06-2011).]

quote Doug Koplow, subsidies researcher and founder of Earth Track, answers questions: With what environmental organization are you affiliated? I'm the founder of Earth Track in Cambridge, Mass., which focuses on increasing visibility of environmentally harmful subsidies. This visibility comes through direct analysis, consolidation of research from around the world, and descriptive materials understandable by general audiences. Subsidies transfer value from the public sector to private interests, sometimes in cash, but more often via complex and hard-to-track methods. A good general observation is the quicker your eyes glaze over reading eligibility requirements, the bigger the subsidy is likely to be. At an estimated trillion dollars per year globally, these subsidies degrade and destroy our natural environment. They contribute to many of the most challenging environmental problems we face today, including climate change, fisheries loss, deforestation, water depletion, and declines in biodiversity.

http://www.grist.org/article/koplow

----

Sounds like this guy doesn't have a job unless he can come up with a story of subsidies are going to kill us all.

[This message has been edited by phonedawgz (edited 05-06-2011).]

quote Originally posted by phonedawgz: http://www.grist.org/article/koplow ---- Sounds like this guy doesn't have a job unless he can come up with a story of subsidies are going to kill us all.

That's the problem with trying to find authoritative cites, the pro-nuclear lobby won't address the points and when the anti-nuclear folks do they get decried as lunatic fringe. The points themselves are real, though. got any hard info addressing all of the points raised by me and by the Koplow interview?

WRT decommissioning costs, only 15 of the 122 units the 1998 report describes are fully funded, and 43 had less than half of the funds needed? At least in 1998 they all seem to be on track to be fully funded by shutdown, aside from some reporting ambiguities and premature shutdowns. Got any info that's more current than 13 years old? Also, though they say fully funded, I'm having a hard time figuring out how they can even know this since there's no place for them to dump and store the high-level waste yet. I suspect the decommissioning costs exclude actual waste disposal of the high-level waste bits. And, part of the disposal costs will be permanent extreme-security protection of millions, perhaps billions, of pounds of this very hazardous waste. This can't be cheap, and it will get more expensive as time goes by, so it's an open-ended high-dollar expense that can only be guessed at.

quote Originally posted by phonedawgz: idk. What are they measuring at?

That's my point. It's impossible to know what's the "tipping point" of what is "safe."

[This message has been edited by carnut122 (edited 05-06-2011).]

quote Originally posted by carnut122: That's my point. It's impossible to know what's the "tipping point" of what is "safe."

I do believe that you believe that. However the scientific world has a pretty good general consensus of what can be considered safe. Radiation has been studied for over 100 years.

quote Originally posted by carnut122: So, can we agree that the "truth" is somewhere in the middle?

No, the truth isn't necessarily somewhere in the middle. The truth is the truth. This sounds like the I'll start at $1.00, you start at a million and we settle at 500 thousand.

[This message has been edited by phonedawgz (edited 05-06-2011).]

The truth is usually in the middle, especially when you have to polarized extremes both distorting the truth for their causes.

quote Originally posted by dennis_6: The truth is usually in the middle, especially when you have to polarized extremes both distorting the truth for their causes.

This type of weak thinking, if one or both of the parties involved knows or thinks you are using it, will tend to move one or both of the polar opposites to an even more extreme position. The wacko woman who I posted surely seems to be operating under this kind of belief. So in her mind she can rationalize exaggerating her 'facts' to try to get more people to believe what she believes.

I'd rather just know the true facts.

quote Originally posted by phonedawgz: This type of weak thinking, if one or both of the parties involved knows or thinks you are using it, will tend to move one or both of the polar opposites to an even more extreme position. The wacko woman who I posted surely seems to be operating under this kind of belief. So in her mind she can rationalize exaggerating her 'facts' to try to get more people to believe what she believes. I'd rather just know the true facts.

Weak thinking is buying into either party line... They are both lying, you have the pro-nuclear industry telling you this isn't even a concern for the people in Fukushima, and you have the anti-nuclear crowd screaming, its the end of the world. Lies, both directions. Where is the truth? Somewhere in between those two extremes. By staying informed, one can obtain an educated guess at where between those extremes the truth really is.

The way I see it, this isn't an issue of buying into a party line. This is an issue of searching out the truth, wherever it may be.

Yes, but your truth isn't my truth, so who gets to decide what truth to use?

For instance, it's the truth that there are millions of pounds of high-level waste that will need to be somehow transported and stored for longer than human civilization has existed, secure from very determined people with bad intent as well as secure from all known and all possible anticipated malfunctions both geologically and mechanically.

My truth is that it's not possible to be perfect, what is your truth?

There are significant downsides to nuclear power, and what frustrates me is that proponents simply wave those downsides away and pretty much ignore the real problems with the technology. Sure, it has great advantages, but it has extreme disadvantages as well. I, for once, would just like to hear the proponents acknowledge that fact in real and meaningful terms.

It's not possible to be perfect.

Not with cars burning gas, not with hydroelectric, not with natural gas, not with coal, not with non-Russian* nuclear. I can state which of those energy sources has produced the least amount of deaths. I do realize that fact doesn't matter to your thinking.

It does matter to my thinking however.

I agree, YOU will never be able to accept nuclear. That is because you expect it to be perfect and of course that can't happen. I however don't expect anything to be perfect. I am however looking for the best possible realistic source of power, both short term and long term.

* or any non-containment nuclear

[This message has been edited by phonedawgz (edited 05-09-2011).]

quote Originally posted by phonedawgz: It's not possible to be perfect. Not with cars burning gas, not with hydroelectric, not with natural gas, not with coal, not with non-Russian* nuclear. I can state which of those energy sources has produced the least amount of deaths. I do realize that fact doesn't matter to your thinking. It does matter to my thinking however. I agree, YOU will never be able to accept nuclear. That is because you expect it to be perfect and of course that can't happen. I however don't expect anything to be perfect. I am however looking for the best possible realistic source of power, both short term and long term. * or any non-containment nuclear

So actually directly-attributable death rates are the most important factor to you?

Do appreciate the derogatory and sarcastic tone, wonder why I don't give what you say much credence?

quote Originally posted by phonedawgz: No, the truth isn't necessarily somewhere in the middle. The truth is the truth. This sounds like the I'll start at $1.00, you start at a million and we settle at 500 thousand.

So, the "truth" is absolute?

As for the quote, " However the scientific world has a pretty good general consensus of what can be considered safe. Radiation has been studied for over 100 years." Didn't Madam Currie die from the radiation she studied-not to mention hundreds of unwitting witnesses to the, "Hey soldier, how would you like to see a nuclear explosion?" So, yes, nuclear radiation has been studied, and people died in those studies. As for Fukushima, I'm sure GE did all kinds of studies (or maybe not as it wouldn't help their bottom line) as to the results of 4 cores having no functional cooling systems. All I keep hearing is how safe it is for others to live nearby, but I won't be a believer until TEPCO's administrators and investors are willing to put themselves and their families into the "safe zone" for an extended period of time. So, if the cores in the Clinton, IL plant were melting and possibly breaching their containment, that wouldn't bother you in the least?

James,
Thanks for taking the time to explain your viewpoint.

While I still support the use of nuclear energy (and plan to research the Thorium idea a bit more) I can appreciate your views.
My reason for my continuing support is that I believe we learn from our mistakes. I don't believe that Fukushima will happen again. Certainly not Chernobyl.
New reactor designs eliminate the failure points of the Fukushima design. (The newer Westinghouse design has been the preferred design, AFAIK, since the 70s - 80s, at least in my neck of the woods.)

One final comment:

You said...

quote Originally posted by JazzMan: ...and engineering mistakes like Chernobyl.

From what I've been able to gather, Chernobyl was not an "engineering mistake". There was a long line of screwups that led to that disaster.
It was a willful disregard of basic safety devices, done in order to cut corners. There was no containment. Period. The reactor design was inherently unstable, on top of that.
It was not designed for any sort of perceived "worst case". It was designed with the idea that nothing unusual was going to happen. Ever.
The technicians/operators who initiated the test that caused the explosion were not trained for the task at hand.
(There was a link posted earlier that explored this whole scenario in great detail. I think it was in this thread.)

Chernobyl was typical Russian junk engineering.

quote Originally posted by Raydar: James, Thanks for taking the time to explain your viewpoint.

I appreciate the fact that you read it rather than just dismissed it out of hand.

quote Originally posted by Raydar: From what I've been able to gather, Chernobyl was not an "engineering mistake". There was a long line of screwups that led to that disaster. It was a willful disregard of basic safety devices, done in order to cut corners. There was no containment. Period. The reactor design was inherently unstable, on top of that. It was not designed for any sort of perceived "worst case". It was designed with the idea that nothing unusual was going to happen. Ever. The technicians/operators who initiated the test that caused the explosion were not trained for the task at hand.

Everything you mentioned was an engineering mistake. No containment, no safety systems to prevent the operators from doing what they did, no systems in place to deal with any unanticipated worst case scenarios (itself root to my objections simply because I finally realized that it is literally impossible for even the smartest humans to anticipate all possible worst-case scenarios), a reactor core design that was not inherently safe (and even today there are no reactor designs that are inherently safe except maybe pebble bed, but those only get about 10% efficiency, terrible uranium mileage as it were), etc. Fukushima was due to engineering mistakes as well, because the placement of the diesel backup generators was most definitely an engineering function. Any other technology we can afford OJT because no matter how bad the screwups by the engineers the worst case scenarios only result in short-term local damage that is cheap and easy to deal with (relatively speaking), especially compared to nuclear.

About the only other technology of any kind that comes to mind that has nuclear's capability of wide-spread long-term damage and contamination limiting human use is biological weapons. Anthrax Island

And, if one wants to say that the engineers got it right but the project managers writing the checks to the contractors are to blame, one is in effect still saying that it's impossible to engineer a perfect system because management limitations on engineering aren't really functionally different than materials limitations and environment limitations. I would be ok with a nuclear power system that was engineered 100% by engineers with no consideration to cost. I would feel assured that such a system would be very, very safe. However, I suspect such a reactor would probably cost a good fraction of a trillion dollars and produce power that, when factoring in all end to end costs including construction, decommissioning, and waste storage, would be far more expensive than any known source in production or being contemplated.

As a parting thought: What's the contamination radius of a worst-case failure scenarios for wind, solar, geothermal, natural gas, or even coal (though I despise coal as the absolute worst non-nuclear source) for that matter?

* Top
* News/Features
* Business
* Views
* Cool Japan
* Environment
* Fun Spots
* Sports
* What's on
* Biz Info/Press Release

Reactor in Fukui Prefecture shut down after radiation levels spike

BY KOSAKU ADACHI STAFF WRITER

2011/05/08

Printopen the story for print

Share Article このエントリをはてなブックマークに追加 Yahoo!ブックマークに登録 このエントリをdel.icio.usに登録 このエントリをlivedoorクリップに登録 このエントリをBuzzurlに登録

photoThe No. 1 reactor, front, and No. 2 reactor at the Tsuruga nuclear power plant in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

TSURUGA, Fukui Prefecture--A reactor at the Tsuruga nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture has been shut down May 7 for an emergency check following a jump in radioactive readings.

Japan Atomic Power Co., the plant operator, said May 6 the irregular readings at the No. 2 reactor could indicate damage to fuel assemblies in its core.

During scheduled maintenance May 2, radioactive noble gas was measured at 3,900 becquerels per cubic centimeter, 750 times normal, while iodine was two to four times normal.

However, the readings were still within safe levels, Japan Atomic Power said.

This is the first reactor unaffected by the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami to be shut down since the accident, according to regulator Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

The shutdown will bring the number of reactors offline in Fukui Prefecture, including reactors undergoing repair and regular inspections, to five. There are 13 commercial reactors in the prefecture.

Japan Atomic Power said it will check the emergency core cooling systems (ECCS) and examine fuel assemblies in the core while the No. 2 reactor is down.

The check of the ECCS is a reaction to Fukui Governor Issei Nishikawa's call for the plant operator to develop extra safety measures against quakes and tsunami while reactors are offline.
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201105070140.html

This is a different plant than the daiichi plant normally talked about.

quote Originally posted by JazzMan: So actually directly-attributable death rates are the most important factor to you? Do appreciate the derogatory and sarcastic tone, wonder why I don't give what you say much credence?

So which statement do you consider derogatory? That your arguments ignore the actual safety records involved?