Three-quarters of Japanese Firms Oppose Nuclear Power

[heymrdj]

Nuke power is barely even a third of the US's power, it has never been a economical power source. Here in CA we are doing fine without one of two nuke plants.

Common sense says if we shut down our old plants now, we save ourselves at least the inevitable fuku sized cleanup cost of a old plant crapping out. Use this investment for infrastructure upgrades and the move away from all carbons and nuke.

The cost of a aged nuke site going up is not worth economy/land destroying long term negative. To me this is common sense.

If we upgraded to smart grids in an effort like we did in the 30s for the electrification of the whole USA we would save the energy put out by all currently online nuke plants.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/4213223

I was reading about these on my last visit to the east coast. Some folks are looking at the feasibility of enough power from stronger parts of the Hudson River. It is enough power to shut down Indian Point nuke plant with spare change.

I hear these plants wreak havoc on the river's life. What's your response to that.

 

[WelshBloke]

... What he is saying is that almost every man made object is inherently unsafe in the real world.. .

I can't think of any other man made object that can cause as much devastation as a nuclear power plant when things go catastrophically wrong.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

I hear these plants wreak havoc on the river's life. What's your response to that.

Who gives a fuck?

 

[irishScott]

good, they'll become dependent on foreign oil/gas, have to actually use their "self defense" force to keep the oil flowing.

Again?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II

In July 1941, the United States, United Kingdom and other Western governments reacted to the seizure of Indochina with a freeze on Japanese assets, while the United States (which supplied 80 percent of Japan's oil[131]) responded by placing a complete oil embargo.[132] That meant Japan was essentially forced to choose between abandoning its ambitions in Asia and the prosecution of the war against China, or seizing the natural resources it needed by force; the Japanese military did not consider the former an option, and many officers considered the oil embargo an unspoken declaration of war.[133]

Japan planned to rapidly seize European colonies in Asia to create a large defensive perimeter stretching into the Central Pacific; the Japanese would then be free to exploit the resources of Southeast Asia while exhausting the over-stretched Allies by fighting a defensive war.[134] To prevent American intervention while securing the perimeter it was further planned to neutralise the United States Pacific Fleet from the outset.

 

[heymrdj]

Who gives a fuck?

That could be one response . Obviously ecosystems adapt to changing conditions to a limited extent, so if their damage falls in line with adapatability it's obviously just fine, damage will be done but life will move on acceptably. We also know, however, that we are all chained together, and that an affect on one body can have unexpedted consequences on other bodies. We would obviously be much better off with nuke with using water turbines would kill off entire species of fish, damage the water ways, cause water shortages, and kills off vital food production land. There's always a negative to a positive.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

That could be one response . Obviously ecosystems adapt to changing conditions to a limited extent, so if their damage falls in line with adapatability it's obviously just fine, damage will be done but life will move on acceptably. We also know, however, that we are all chained together, and that an affect on one body can have unexpedted consequences on other bodies. We would obviously be much better off with nuke with using water turbines would kill off entire species of fish, damage the water ways, cause water shortages, and kills off vital food production land. There's always a negative to a positive.

Or we can just dam up the entire river and. . . yea . . . I think you know what I'm hinting at.

 

[chris9641]

That could be one response . Obviously ecosystems adapt to changing conditions to a limited extent, so if their damage falls in line with adapatability it's obviously just fine, damage will be done but life will move on acceptably. We also know, however, that we are all chained together, and that an affect on one body can have unexpedted consequences on other bodies. We would obviously be much better off with nuke with using water turbines would kill off entire species of fish, damage the water ways, cause water shortages, and kills off vital food production land. There's always a negative to a positive.

This article goes more in depth to what you're saying. http://www.mibba.com/Articles/Nature/4014/Oceanic-Fish-Crisis/

So maybe you have a point, if these turbines kill off fish at a faster rate(I don't know if the article takes in account underwater turbines), we might be doing more harm than good.

 

[crashtestdummy]

That could be one response . Obviously ecosystems adapt to changing conditions to a limited extent, so if their damage falls in line with adapatability it's obviously just fine, damage will be done but life will move on acceptably. We also know, however, that we are all chained together, and that an affect on one body can have unexpedted consequences on other bodies. We would obviously be much better off with nuke with using water turbines would kill off entire species of fish, damage the water ways, cause water shortages, and kills off vital food production land. There's always a negative to a positive.

You could say the same thing about nearly every source of power outside of wind or solar. Here are the realities:

1) Our power usage is not going to go down in the future. We may be able to slow the growth, but don't pretend that we can cut our energy usage in half just because it's what's best for the environment.

2) While wind and solar are attractive, they are at best supplemental power sources because of their inability to provide baseline power. This may be solved in a few decades with new storage technologies, but for now, that's not possible.

3) Of the remaining options, nuclear power does less environmental damage than any other method, even including Fukushima and Chernobyl. Is there some thermal pollution from nuclear power plants? Absolutely. But that does not compare to the CO2 released by fossil fuels, or the dams for hydroelectric plants. Nuclear plants release less radiation into the air than coal plants. People make a big deal of the nuclear waste, but all the electricity I will use in my lifetime will make just enough waste to fill a beer can. Compared to the tons of fossil fuels I'd otherwise burn through, that's incredible.

4) Nuclear power is the safest energy option available. There are fewer fatalities due to nuclear power than all of those other options. We get a skewed view of nuclear safety because bad things happen in punctuated, severe events rather than large numbers of small events.

It may be possible that in a generation, we'll have the energy storage and transport capacity to make solar and wind our dominant source of energy. That time is a long way off, however, and that is no excuse to keep burning fossil fuels when we have a far superior energy alternative available to us.

 

[chris9641]

You could say the same thing about nearly every source of power outside of wind or solar. Here are the realities:

1) Our power usage is not going to go down in the future. We may be able to slow the growth, but don't pretend that we can cut our energy usage in half just because it's what's best for the environment.

2) While wind and solar are attractive, they are at best supplemental power sources because of their inability to provide baseline power. This may be solved in a few decades with new storage technologies, but for now, that's not possible.

3) Of the remaining options, nuclear power does less environmental damage than any other method, even including Fukushima and Chernobyl. Is there some thermal pollution from nuclear power plants? Absolutely. But that does not compare to the CO2 released by fossil fuels, or the dams for hydroelectric plants. Nuclear plants release less radiation into the air than coal plants. People make a big deal of the nuclear waste, but all the electricity I will use in my lifetime will make just enough waste to fill a beer can. Compared to the tons of fossil fuels I'd otherwise burn through, that's incredible.

4) Nuclear power is the safest energy option available. There are fewer fatalities due to nuclear power than all of those other options. We get a skewed view of nuclear safety because bad things happen in punctuated, severe events rather than large numbers of small events.

It may be possible that in a generation, we'll have the energy storage and transport capacity to make solar and wind our dominant source of energy. That time is a long way off, however, and that is no excuse to keep burning fossil fuels when we have a far superior energy alternative available to us.

Does this include indirect causes of fatality like cancer from the radiation? Or is that impossible to test since inhaling coal exhaust could attribute to cancer too?

After 9/11 many surviving firefighters developed lung diseases and cancers, they say was attributed to the dust from the collapsing buildings. Would you include those deaths in the total victim count, or is that too subjective(is that the right word?)?

 

[crashtestdummy]

Does this include indirect causes of fatality like cancer from the radiation? Or is that impossible to test since inhaling coal exhaust could attribute to cancer too?

After 9/11 many surviving firefighters developed lung diseases and cancers, they say was attributed to the dust from the collapsing buildings. Would you include those deaths in the total victim count, or is that too subjective(is that the right word?)?

The typical dosage plant workers receive is well below the amount expected to cause cancer (and they wear tags that make sure of it). The paper I cited does include the estimated indirect deaths from Chernobyl, but it was published before Fukushima (though I'm sure there's info out there).

It's a lot harder to track indirect causes of death for most of the other energy methods (although coal mining I'm sure counts in their stats). The article gives a shot at it, though, suggesting that particulates cause a million premature deaths a year.

 

[cybrsage]

I can't think of any other man made object that can cause as much devastation as a nuclear power plant when things go catastrophically wrong.

You never saw a chemical plant then.

 

[Sunburn74]

All fuel sources have cost. Coal, gas and oil are well known. Solar's cost comes from the manufacturing of the materials as well as the landmass needed. Its said that roughly a 100x100 square mile area with light equal to that received in the deserts of the southwestern US is all thats needed to supply our entire country's energy needs. However, thats a lot of land that you pretty much have to make unuseable (there is some talk about launching a big ass solar panel into space and beaming the energy down in the form of microwaves but its just talk; getting stuff into orbit is way too expensive). Wind is fairly unreliable and allegedly isn't as environmentally friendly as presumed (it causes some heating of land and air apparently). Water is promising, and so far has no known environmental consequences besides manufacturing costs. Geothermal causes earthquakes.

So back to nuclear. To even talk about nuclear power, you have to ignore basically every power plant in existence because they are too archaic in design to reflect what nuclear power will actually be in the future. Don't talk to me about chernobly or 3 mile island. Don't talk to me about japan. Lets talk state of the art. The future is probably going to be either breeder reactors or thorium reactors or the two in combination. The power output is astronomical, something like 1,000,000x compared to coal. The half life of the radioactive waste material should be around 2 decades, meaning that in 200 years the product should be totally inert. The drawback is you create some plutonium in the process which potentially can be weaponizable. This is probably where the money is at. If we can close every coal plant and natural gas plant and switch to electric cars and motors, I would do that in a heartbeat if it involved safer more modern nuclear plants.

You cannot live life always fearing the worst. I realize accidents will happen, but where would we be if we shut down the aviation industry because of the first few crashes? Or shut down cars?

 

[WelshBloke]

You never saw a chemical plant then.

Yeah Bhopal was bad, but a major nuclear accident in the same situation, handled in the same cavalier way would have been worse.

 

[cybrsage]

Dunno about that. But I think we both agree that we do not want to ever test it out.

 

[WelshBloke]

Dunno about that. But I think we both agree that we do not want to ever test it out.

Yeah I'm just going to open another beer to that. :thumbup:

 

[Steeplerot]

I hear these plants wreak havoc on the river's life. What's your response to that.

That you did not read, and knee jerked a canned Nuke industry talking point.