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Nuclear Power -- Will It Always be a Four Letter Word in the USA?
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LumbergTech
Diamond Member
Maybe they can make it like the FDA rules and the individual plants can make a set of rules about what the inspectors are and aren't allowed to do. I know that would make me feel safe.
My graduate professor was and still is on the Nuclear Regulatory commission Advisory Committee on Reactor safeguards. Pretty much the strictest/highest level of regulatory regulation. These people are through and through engineers who have nothing but the safety of the American people in there minds. They are hard workers and the system does not involve an ounce of lobbying I assure you.
In fact they can easily over regulate and frequently you have academia professors who come up with random concepts that they believe could break the plants. The plants are then forced to address these made up situations from Academia that really can't even happen in the real world.
I don't know whether you will believe me or not but I guarantee no other industry in the entire world is as closely watched and shepherded as the U.S. Nuclear Power industry.
The U.N. also conducted a study in Kuwait and Southern Iraq in the 1990s that showed no ill effects of Deplete Uranium rounds unless a person inhales particles from a shell exploding. To that I say if you are close enough to DP shells exploding you have other things to worry about than if you "may" develop cancer in 50 years. You may not make it another 50 miliseconds.
GroundedSailor
Platinum Member
Cogman
Lifer
Ho Ho? So now research constitutes looking at a Wikipedia article? Hey look I can quote too!
So it operates at 60% lower radioactivity then regular uranium does, after a couple of months it emits beta particles (not gamma) at the same rate as its alpha particles. So to safely store it, we need only a thin layer of aluminum. (or tin, or any metal really).
As for the study, the question was posed if one study had shown that it was dangerous, I showed one study, the first that came up when I googled it. This study related specifically to the usage of depleted uranium munitions, and it really isn't shocking that they are just as safe as regular munitions. Why? Because the entire round of depleted uranium is shielded by the metal ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/48/M900.jpg ).
right back at you anti-anything-radioactive hippy.
Anything handled improperly is dangerous. Radioactive materials are no different. However, they can also be very beneficial if used correctly.
Good, we can store it at your house. You surely won't have a problem. Or will it be a case of NIMBY. We have the technology to harvest energy from sunlight and wind, for chrissakes, and you're arguing for giant steam boilers that run off of a fuel that is positively lethal. What is wrong with you?
There is a huge infrastructure and massive amounts of money devoted to nuclear power and they want to keep and expand their jobs. I me me mine doesn't care about the future. These assholes have been promising to clean up their messes since day one and it has never happened. Any fool need only look at the record of what has been to know what will be. There will be nothing but promises that tomorrow they will have all the answers. Tomorrow we will store our toxins so they will be safe for millions of years. Tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow, we have all the answers. Let us create more and more killer waste and leave it out on the surface because we will soon have it all cleaned up. I am all for nuclear power, just as soon as all the toxic nuclear sites in the world are cleaned up. It will never happen. The nuclear industry are pigs. They shit on the world and leave their shit for their children. Immoral swine. No sane person will create that which kills for thousands of years. That is for folk who are totally insane, assholes motivated by hubris and cocky self centered egotism that for their own self interest they will pass on death.
One thing you can be sure of, almost all of them will be males, little testosterone idiots who have no use for kids. But the crazy mothers of this world will take away their toys. They won't let nuclear waste be stored where they live, little irrational ladies with no scientific sense, afraid of hobgoblins that are after their kids. Hehe, they can't even store it in Nevada where nobody of any importance lives.
Too bad the God Damned swines can't have their toys. They are such elegant toys, and so, so perfectly safe. So tragic to have your balls cut off by irrational women. Damn, it must hurt.
But we will always be better off with the insanity of women than the insanity of men. We will always be better off, there can be no doubt.
seemingly random
Diamond Member
So, I guess you're on the fence about whether to support nuclear energy or not...
WhipperSnapper
Lifer
Perhaps nuclear power is less expensive and more efficient? To hear you tell it, you make it sound as though large amounts of people in the United States and other first world Western nations have died from nuclear power.
WhipperSnapper
Lifer
Dude, the nuclear companies do want to store their waste--at Yucca Mountain. The problem isn't the nuclear power industry. The problem is the ineffectual and incompetent government that had contracted with them to store their nuclear waste somewhere. The government dropped billions of dollars into a facility for doing this and isn't going to use it now for political reasons.
Cogman
Lifer
Maybe not IN my house, but certainly in my backyard. Heck, dig a hole, line it with concrete, and pump it full of radioactive wastes, as long as its contained properly I couldn't care less how close it is to my home. Just like I wouldn't have any problem living near a nuclear power plant or high voltage lines.
And for your retarded "We have WIND power" Tell me, where do we get these materials for the wind power and solar power? How do we process and make solar cells, and here's a hint, there isn't a solar cell mine anywhere on this earth.
Nuclear power produces FAR less waste then any power generation we have on this earth. So you effectively are arguing against the MOST green solution we know of in favor of some of the MOST wasteful solutions on this planet. Solar is a terribly wasteful and inefficient method of energy generation, and wind is also extremely wasteful. Neither have the ability to power our infrastructure and they never will produce enough juice to do so. Even if they could, we would essentially have to create a giant battery system (Great, MORE toxic waste for the "green" solution) so that the lights don't go out at night.
You ask whats wrong with me? I ask whats wrong with you. You argue for solutions that have horrible impacts on the environment while dismissing a solution which cause far less of an impact. You argue against nuclear power because we can keep all the wastes from it contained in a box, yet you don't think twice about the wastes that are being dumped into the atmosphere by coal/gas plants (Ok, you think about it, but you would rather that form of power generation then nuclear power generation).
You cry "Deadly waste, Deadly waste!!!" And I say, what power generation DOESN'T have deadly wastes associated with it. Not only that, but I say that most of the nuclear waste could easily be used for things in the medical field and food industry (Think, no more salmonella, food that last for YEARS and tastes the same, and perfectly sterile medical environments). And that which is not used can be buried without little trouble. There is lots of room on this green earth where we could store this stuff. Heck, we could even dump it straight into the ocean and it would be diluted enough to cause absolutely no problems to any living creature (or very localized problems at worst).
Completely disengenuous and intellectually dishonest arguments. You're talking shit, and you know it. So, you know absolutely without a shadow of a doubt that all this spent material will magically be correctly contained forever, right? There's absolutely no chance any of this stuff will leak, enter the water table, etc? Man, I wish I could see into the future like you.
Where are we going to get the materials to build these nuclear reactors that cost roughly 3 billion to build? Off the nuclear reactor tree? Where did we come up with the money to change from the horse and carriage to the automobile? From the steam engine to diesel engines. From wooden ships to steel ones? Oh that's right, we never did. This is all a dream, and I'm going to wake up in the year 1700.
What waste does sunlight cause? What waste does the wind cause? What waste does running water cause, by itself? Fucking none. What waste does a nuclear reactor cause? Depleted uranium. I hear it's a hot product for weapons manufacturers. And where did you the idea I don't have a problem with coal/gas plants? We have three deserts in this country where the sun shines virtually all day long, 365 days a year that could be populated with solar panels, made in America, by American workers.
The problem here is you're fucking greedy. You care much more about money than other people. You're a corporate stooge, and as far as anyone here knows, you could be working for some scum sucking lobbyist. Your arguments are despicable at best, and sociopathic at worst. I cannot believe you honestly believe dumping raw depleted uranium into the ocean wouldn't harm "any living creature." And you're full of shit arguing you wouldn't have a problem with nuclear waste in your yard. You're obviously not married. No mother is going to allow her children to be anywhere near that stuff, for common sense reasons.
I feel dirty even being exposed to a sorry excuse for a human being such as yourself. Anyone who can honestly make the arguments you have that nuclear waste is safe enough to bury in your own yard has not one ounce of concern for other human beings.
Reality? You mean the reality that nuclear waste has never found a permanent storage site and accumulates around the reactors? Reality, like the fact that humans are pigs that are destroying the ecosystem of the earth? Jesus, pull your head out of your ass.
There is not a power company in the country that can finance a nuclear reactor. They all have to be financed by the government. Investors aren't stupid. And they all have to be torn down with on place to put the waste. Nuclear is for those who have no care for the next generation.
The sun is going to shine for a long time and for free.
Radiation from nuclear power is not a problem. The nuclear people will tell you that. But let congress pass a bill that nuclear waste will be stored under the congress and see if it passes. Nobody wants nuclear waste to be stored anywhere around them. It doesn't have to be rational to be REALITY. What you putzes can't seem to figure out is that nobody wants nuclear around them and especially women. So the nuclear folk are fucked. Welcome to my reality.
K1052
Elite Member
Several nations have selected sites for permanent entombment of their high level wastes and are constructing repositories. Waste disposal in the US is politically (not technologically) challenging.
Reactor construction without government insurance support was made impractical by the irrational panic caused by Chernobyl and TMI incidents. Several utility companies ate billions in losses trying to complete construction of their plants in that environment. Understandably the utilities desire assurances that the government will assist them should they encounter undue delays in plant construction due to the extremely expensive process they must go through to obtain a build and operate license.
What Congress should do is task the DOE to reprocess/burn off (using actinide burners) the spent waste and concentrate now much smaller/less radioactive remainder long term geologic storage on the same property.
Cogman
Lifer
HA HA HA! You're a fool.
Sunlight doesn't cause wastes, the materials to collect it does. And it requires a LOT more materials to collect the equivalent amount of energy from the sun then it does to make a nuclear power plant. Tell me, what kind of environmental impact would shading an entire desert create? What about when the solar cells stop working, what then? (And they do stop working, they have a half-life just like everything else) where do we dispose of a deserts worth of solar cells, In your back yard maybe?
I find it especially laughable that you are going to argue costs and materials of a nuclear power plant while simultaneously championing solar/wind power. Are you serious? And you call me intellectually dishonest. Think about it, One nuclear plant produces 600 MW. The largest solar power plant in the world will produce 30 MW. Do you see that? That's a 20 fold increase in power output. An you seriously want to argue costs? And not only that, but in 25 years, all the panels of the solar plant will most likely have to be replaced? The nuclear plant? It will still be running the same as the day it was built.
As for the ocean comment, I stand by it. 100 ft of water will absorb ALL radiation. And if we dilute the nuclear waste, the amount of radiation above background radiation will be zero. Do you realize how big the ocean really is? Do you realize how much garbage is already in it? Apparently you think the ocean occupies a space between Nevada and Utah.
Though, I'll agree with you, I have nothing against hydro-electric power generators. They at least are cost efficient. More expensive then nuclear, but more reliable and clean then solar and wind.
One thing you should consider as well. Depleted uranium CAN be used for future nuclear reactors. Look up breeder reactors if you don't believe me.
imported_K3N
Golden Member
theres something called thorium... 😛
green technology is a race to the bottom for humanity..
What Congress should do is stop wasting money on nuclear that creates toxins that kill for thousands of years and build wind and solar. Same energy, no killer radioactive waste, and no fuel shortage for millions of years.
Reactors are the toys of the nuclear boys, immature children pissed off by adults with better sense.
K1052
Elite Member
I'm not all that interested in my power bill going up 300-400% to roll out an immature and low power density solution that lacks a fixed load capacity. The supreme irony is that most of those cells would be produced in developing nations where the byproducts (silicon tetrachloride and heavy metals) are simply dumped into the ground or water supply.
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