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Nuclear Power -- Will It Always be a Four Letter Word in the USA?
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(this isn't directed at you K1052)
CONGRESS DOESN'T CONTROL REGULATION. The nuclear industry is not going to lobby for relaxed regulations jesus christ. The NRC is an extremely well run professional agency with very talented and smart people cross checking every single component of a reactor.
Everything that gets put into a reactor has to be traced to the mine from which the ore was obtained. Every single thing that happens to that ore is documented. Then every single component that is put into a nuclear reactor has to have a twin, which is Destructively tested. YES! they *essentially* build two reactors and destructively test every twin valve and mechanical acting device.
People who doubt the regulations on the nuclear industry have absolutely no f'ing idea what they are talking about. Just a bunch of clueless clowns commenting on a topic they nothing about.
P.S. I already informed you moonbeam, though you chose to ignore me, waste can be re-processed into something that after a hundred or so years is less radioactive than naturally occuring Uranium that is being mined from the Canadian shield. Your rants are pathetic, and show how indoctrinated in ignorance you are.
RyanPaulShaffer
Diamond Member
Until the myths about Chernobyl and TMI are dispelled, nuclear energy will always be demonized here in the US.
Amazingly enough, our president says that Iran should have the right to nuclear energy to address their energy needs, but we aren't allowed to embrace that same nuclear energy here in the States to address our energy needs.
😕
Wind/solar/hydro power are a pipe dream. They are far too inefficient and unreliable to power our country with. Coal/gas/oil are fine and dandy, but they aren't the sustainable future. Nuclear is by far the best option we have at the present time and for the foreseeable future, until wind/solar/hydro are improved to the point of being realistically usable, or something better comes along (fission?).
theeedude
Lifer
Today it's Democrat, when these plants are up and running, it may be Republican. Until this deregulate everything mentality is stamped out of our politics, I simply don't trust the government to properly regulate nuclear power over the long term and not be corrupted. No party is immune from it, and the temptation to let enterprises regulate themselves is still too strong.
K1052
Elite Member
Well, Congress is responsible in the end since an act of Congress chartered the NRC. Theoretically another act could alter it's structure but I really doubt that would ever occur. Even in the grip of the eval Republicans and GWB no such thing was even attempted.
Given how it's commissioners are appointed though I don't foresee much ability for lobbyists to tamper with the agency without it being insanely obvious to the general public.
SP33Demon
Lifer
NaughtyGeek
Golden Member
Or, maybe they actually are well informed on the subject and know what the actual risks involved are rather than some paranoid delusion brought on by a mind unwilling to take in FACTS.
This stuff comes out of the ground for anyone who doesn't know this. We didn't create radioactive material building/running nuclear power plants, we concentrated it into a small area. How much radioactive material is unearthed while mining for silicon for your solar panels? What wastes are created producing special composite materials for wind turbine blades? How much energy is used to process and create those technologies?
Every source of energy we have to date has a negative environmental impact of one sort or another. We have to find a balance of these downsides when planning and executing an energy plan for our future. Unfortunately, there's too many people involved in this process who are driven by unfounded fears or political motivation to insure a solid energy foundation can ever exist in the near term. Perhaps some day we can get these decisions back into the hands of scientists and engineers who actually understand the full scope of the technologies they are working with. Until then however we're stuck with politicians making decisions based on moneyed interests or the general stupidity of their constituents.
K1052
Elite Member
But the question is what are you getting for the money.
Nuclear plants have been operating with an average capacity factor of over 90% and produce no emissions. Also thanks to uprates due to instrumentation upgrades, turbine updates, and generator re-winding they're producing even more power than when they went online..
QuantumPion
Diamond Member
If you define "just as finite" as "finite, but will last for ~ a billion years more" then sure.
QuantumPion
Diamond Member
Not even. Those 4000 were estimated/predicted future deaths. Furthermore, even this figure is largely bunk since it is not based on any known data, it's an extrapolation. It would be like saying "drinking 10 gallons of water all at one will kill you, therefore if 100 people each drink 0.1 gallons of water, statistically one of them will die from water poisoning."
SP33Demon
Lifer
It was clearly explained that those numbers were for full life cycle costs (startup, parts, maintenance, cleanup, so on and so forth). If you don't like the cold hard facts, write the Energy Information Administration a letter and I'm sure they'd be happy to show you the specific $ calculations.
never cleaned up? wtf are you talking about? nuclear waste is stored in concentrated form rather than dumped in the environment like practically everything else.
at your home, do you put trash in your trash can or do you just spread it out all over your house? which of those two is clean? which of those two is more analogous to the current state of nuclear waste?
hell, the only reason we've not got a ridiculously long term storage solution is because of sky is falling people such as yourself and jking.
theeedude
Lifer
Huh? This is private industry being trusted with dangerous stuff without proper regulation.
Also, the government routinely lets private industry get away with dumping toxic chemicals and not paying for cleanup through all sorts of loopholes. Do we really need same for nuclear waste too? No thanks.
marincounty
Diamond Member
No emissions?
Text
B&W settles radioactive emissions lawsuit for $52.5 million
Babcock & Wilcox has settled a 14-year-long lawsuit for $52.5 million for personal injury, wrongful death and property damage to 365 claimants from the Apollo and Parks area.
U.S. District Court Judge Donetta Ambrose, chief judge for the Western District of Pennsylvania, approved the settlement Friday.
The plaintiffs alleged that airborne radioactive emissions from the B&W plants in Apollo and/or Parks, caused cancer, deaths and other illness, as well as property damage.
The properties formerly were owned by Atlantic Richfield Co. and the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC).
The companies operated the two plants in Armstrong County from 1957-86, producing nuclear fuel to power submarines and nuclear reactors, and other nuclear products.
According to court documents, the final agreement and its terms ? beyond the settlement figure ? are confidential.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs and representatives from B&W did not return calls for comment Saturday. Under the terms of the settlement, both sides have agreed not to comment.
B&W long has maintained that operations from its facilities in Armstrong County did not cause cancer, other illnesses and property damage.
The plaintiffs, though, have alleged the company and its predecessors ran sloppy operations and that its plant released radioactive emissions exceeding federal limits.
Because it was one of the longest running cases in the U.S. District Court of Western Pennsylvania, many of the plaintiffs and their lead attorney, Fred Baron, died while waiting for the case to conclude.
More than 40 percent of the 365 plaintiffs are the estates of people who died before and after the lawsuit was filed.
Paty Ameno, Leechburg environmental activist and plaintiff who contacted Baron to take on the case, was somber when speaking briefly yesterday about the settlement.
"It makes me feel sad that a lot of people who started out are not here -- including my champion and hero Fred Baron," Ameno said. "Fred literally fought on his death bed to make sure that the plaintiffs saw an end to this case."
Baron died of cancer in October. His Dallas firm, Baron and Blue -- which he shared with his wife, Lisa Blue ? continued to work on the case.
Ameno yesterday declined to speak on specifics of the case, deferring to her attorneys at Baron and Blue.
Baron told the Valley News Dispatch in July 2007: "The case will never be dropped as long as I'm alive."
He took on the case for Apollo-area residents on a contingency basis. He won a landmark decision in federal court that awarded eight of the 200 plaintiffs $36.7 million in 1998.
Judge Ambrose, however, threw out the verdict and granted a new trail, citing errors in the admission of evidence.
Complicating matters, B&W declared bankruptcy, and the case was put on hold.
After the company emerged from bankruptcy, negotiations continued. Ambrose ordered two trials to examine whether uranium and plutonium caused cancer before there was a third trial addressing the plaintiffs' claims.
The additional trials ordered in 2007 likely would make the legal proceeding last for years to come, Baron said at that time.
After much negotiation, Baron hammered out a settlement with B&W co-defendant Atlantic Richfield for $27.5 million in February 2008.
According to those close to the case, Baron worked on the Apollo lawsuit up until two days before his death.
A court-appointed mediator for the settlement, the Honorable Daniel Weinstein, a retired San Francisco Superior Court judge, characterized the settlement reached Friday as resolving "a substantial litigation risk for very reasonable amounts."
JeffreyLebowski
Lifer
More radiation comes out of a coal plant than nuclear plants. 3 Mile Island released an amount of radiation equivilant to the dosage you might get if you walked past a smoke detector. While there is a larger issue of what to do with the spent fuel rods, they can be buried in secure facilities and kept away from the population (and makes my company some $$$) .
Until we can get fusion working, we need to rely on fission.
SunSamurai
Diamond Member
You're about as dumb as a box of rocks in just about every thread Ive seen you in. Go look up how Nuclear facilities work today. No government conspiracies nor will your back yard be used to store anything vile. Only an all around improvement can come from Coal->Nuclear.More radioactivity comes from coal power, and more deaths. Why dont you actually go and research things before blindly latching onto a 'government is bad an gunna kil uz all!!1' ideal.
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