Atomic Power

[piasabird]

I started watching this program on HULU about Nuclear Power plants. Most of the nuclear power plants in the USA are 40 years old or older. 75% of all the USA nuclear plants have had a tritium leak. Almost all Nuclear power plants are leaking every day. Tritium is H^3 or a radioactive isotope of Hydrogen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium

Think about 3 mile island and it wasnt till years later that they determined that the reactor there had a meltdown. However, no one was notified about the real severity of the incident at the time. The power company and the government inspectors hid the truth. Either that or the people running the plant did not have a clue about what is going on.

Wonder why people have cancer alot? Is it the nuclear power plants?

Watch this if you are curious:
http://www.hulu.com/#!watch/442227?playlist_id=1953&asset_scope=movies

If you think government inspectors have your best interests at heart you are very very wrong.

 

[glenn1]

I started watching this program on HULU about Nuclear Power plants. Most of the nuclear power plants in the USA are 40 years old or older. 75% of all the USA nuclear plants have had a tritium leak. Almost all Nuclear power plants are leaking every day. Tritium is H^3 or a radioactive isotope of Hydrogen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium

Think about 3 mile island and it wasnt till years later that they determined that the reactor there had a meltdown. However, no one was notified about the real severity of the incident at the time. The power company and the government inspectors hid the truth. Either that or the people running the plant did not have a clue about what is going on.

Wonder why people have cancer alot? Is it the nuclear power plants?

Watch this if you are curious:
http://www.hulu.com/#!watch/442227?playlist_id=1953&asset_scope=movies

If you think government inspectors have your best interests at heart you are very very wrong.

Fine with me, I don't give a shit about carbon emissions anyway so bring on the coal and petroleum fired power plants. Global warming people can all move to Amish country and use horse-drawn carriages to get around for all I fucking care if they don't like it.

 

[Agent11]

We need to switch to LFTR's and dismantle all the light water reactors.

 

[Moonbeam]

We need to implement solar and hydrogen on a massive scale and eliminate unemployment and welfare in the process. He who is energy independent rules the world.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

It will take many combined cycle, wind, solar, and alternative fuel power plants to replace the nuclear and coal fired plants in the US. The bigger problem is upgrading the power grid, all it takes is a couple plants going down and that causing the upper midwest/northeast poser grid to experience massive blackouts.

 

[Greenman]

I thought tritium was relatively harmless? Isn't it used on high end watch dials and gun sights?

 

[unokitty]

I started watching this program on HULU about Nuclear Power plants. Most of the nuclear power plants in the USA are 40 years old or older. 75% of all the USA nuclear plants have had a tritium leak. Almost all Nuclear power plants are leaking every day. Tritium is H^3 or a radioactive isotope of Hydrogen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium
...

If you think government inspectors have your best interests at heart you are very very wrong.

Obviously you don't understand the science. If you did you would know that the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission has already promised that:

"Our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter... It is not too much to expect that our children will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history, will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds, and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age.

Besides isn't the science clear and don't all the scientist agree that

As climate and energy scientists concerned with global climate change, we are writing to urge you to advocate the development and deployment of safer nuclear energy systems. We appreciate your organization’s concern about global warming, and your advocacy of renewable energy. But continued opposition to nuclear power threatens humanity’s ability to avoid dangerous climate change.

We call on your organization to support the development and deployment of safer nuclear power systems as a practical means of addressing the climate change problem.

Since at least 1954, when the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission made his promises, the situation has been clear and all of the scientists have agreed.

A denier are you?

Uno

 

[Agent11]

We need to implement solar and hydrogen on a massive scale and eliminate unemployment and welfare in the process. He who is energy independent rules the world.

Solar isn't the answer. Solar companies all over the world are going bankrupt as soon as their subsidies dry up.

What we need is liquid fluoride thorium reactors. That is how you will produce hydrogen economically. People get too distracted by these green energy designs which are inherently dirty, destructive and inefficient.

 

[norseamd]

thorium and next generation nuclear are the right way along with solar and wind and other green energy technologies. remember that coal pollutes the environment with radioactive waste in much greater amounts than nuclear along with tons of mercury.

the reason why people in the western us get cancer a lot is because of nuclear testing in the nevada desert. all the chemicals we use everyday also contribute

 

[K1052]

Most of the US reactor fleet should have been replaced years ago with new models. I don't think the plants were built envisioning this length of service.

The US should make more extensive use of loan programs and combined with limiting license extensions to induce the utilities to replace their plants.

 

[NTMBK]

If it weren't for the damn anti-nuclear lobby, all of these older models could have been replaced. Same story in Japan. The Fukushima reactor which failed was scheduled to be decommissioned years earlier, but they had been forced to keep it open because politics was preventing the building of new reactors to replace the old, outdated ones.

 

[Moonbeam]

Nobody wants nuclear power in their back yard but everybody would welcome free electricity from their roof. Nonspecific location of energy generation is a matter of national security. The power transmission issues are greatly reduced and the threat of terrorism is largely eliminated. The demand for solar energy is growing world wide and represents a massive investment opportunity.

 

[boomerang]

People that think the sun always shines and that the wind always blows amaze me. And not in a good way. They've infiltrated our government to the extent that tax dollars are utterly wasted to satisfy the urges of people that think like adolescents.

Until these people are eliminated from the political equation, no progress will ever be made.

 

[BUTCH1]

People that think the sun always shines and that the wind always blows amaze me. And not in a good way. They've infiltrated our government to the extent that tax dollars are utterly wasted to satisfy the urges of people that think like adolescents.

Until these people are eliminated from the political equation, no progress will ever be made.

It's not that solar or wind can't produce energy, they can, but it's just nowhere near enough or priced cheaply enough to make a huge difference..

 

[Moonbeam]

It's not that solar or wind can't produce energy, they can, but it's just nowhere near enough or priced cheaply enough to make a huge difference..

The motor car is impractical because it doesn't run on hay.

 

[Zxian]

The motor car is impractical because it doesn't run on hay.

And if we ran all of our cars with actual horses we'd run out of hay. There simply isn't enough accessible (and on-demand) energy from sunlight to generate the plant matter to fuel every horse to pull every human (and other package) from point A to point B. Hydrogen is a joke - the energy density for transportation purposes simply isn't there.

You're still missing the point. Nuclear is still a "dirty" word in its own right. Many people are afraid of anything related to "nuclear".

There are nuclear-based technologies that exist that are not dependent on high-energy fission (the technology that has caused problems in the past). Liquid thorium has its own challenges (most of it is in the processing of the raw thorium into the salt used in the reactor), but once processed it's non-weaponizable (major security plus) and about as dangerous as the fuel in your car.

Another bonus to all this? A handful of thorium (and yes, you can hold it in your hand) is enough fuel for your energy use for your entire life.

LFTRs in 5 minutes

 

[Londo_Jowo]

It's not that solar or wind can't produce energy, they can, but it's just nowhere near enough or priced cheaply enough to make a huge difference..

The biggest thing that hurts solar and wind power is they can't provide rapid reserves (rotating reserves) in the event of a power outage at another plant like a nuclear, coal, or combined cycle plant can. Many plants run at a partial load so they can rapidly supply power when needed to maintain the grid power.

 

[fskimospy]

People that think the sun always shines and that the wind always blows amaze me. And not in a good way. They've infiltrated our government to the extent that tax dollars are utterly wasted to satisfy the urges of people that think like adolescents.

Until these people are eliminated from the political equation, no progress will ever be made.

What's amazing to me is that someone would be so far gone into fantasy land that they actually thought this is how their political opponents think.

What a weird, weird world you must live in.

 

[boomerang]

It's not that solar or wind can't produce energy, they can, but it's just nowhere near enough or priced cheaply enough to make a huge difference..

Exactly right. Not enough is the biggest hurdle.

 

[boomerang]

The biggest thing that hurts solar and wind power is they can't provide rapid reserves (rotating reserves) in the event of a power outage at another plant like a nuclear, coal, or combined cycle plant can. Many plants run at a partial load so they can rapidly supply power when needed to maintain the grid power.

So to say it even simpler, our system of power distribution is far more complex than the average hope and change thinker believes it to be.

 

[norseamd]

renewable power does not have to make all the power needed to make a difference. that said we need to use nuclear to make up the difference.

a huge problem is that many liberals and environmentalists (not being derogatory as i am third way or a mix of libertariasm and socialism) refuse to ever actually learn about nuclear power or change their views on it

 

[Zxian]

So to say it even simpler, our system of power distribution is far more complex than the average hope and change thinker believes it to be.

And it's also far more complex than it needs to be. Smaller, more efficient power plants closer to the points of demand lead to an overall lower operating cost than the present infrastructure.

The "power issue" is a lobbying power issue (no pun intended... ok maybe a small pun). Like I said earlier, "nuclear" is just as dirty of a word as coal or oil in the minds of many. Many naysayers simply point to Chernobyl as a basis that all nuclear power is bad.

 

[norseamd]

chernobyl was aearly generation 2 power plant apparantly. seems this type of reactor is the oldest type of reactor still in world wide service. they should probably be replaced. this is what you get with an unregualted energy market. honestly the government should be running all nuclear power plants anyways. the gen 3 nuclear power plants seem to have much lower failure rates and are also more efficient.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor#Reactor_types

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Nuclear_Power_Plant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RBMK

 

[Zxian]

It was also the result of severe human error. You're still looking at traditional high-pressure systems with more safeguards in place.

Ditch the old-style breeder reactors altogether.

 

[werepossum]

It was also the result of severe human error. You're still looking at traditional high-pressure systems with more safeguards in place.

Ditch the old-style breeder reactors altogether.

I don't think anyone is running a breeder reactor today except for research and perhaps fuel reprocessing. Too much danger of a runaway reaction. Apparently though the thorium thermal breeders are thought to be fairly safe.