Whats your thoughts on building new Nuclear power plants

[lokiju]

I've read a few articles discussing the possibility of new Nuclear power plants in the US and in my state (GA) they're currently discussing putting one in since Atlanta has grown so much and the surrounding areas that they're having difficulties with keeping up with demand etc (according to an article I read)

Then last night I watched on Discovery Times channel and show about Chernobyl and what happened from the day it blew to current times and how there is still lethal amounts of radiation in the area that will kill a person to this day, then they go on to say that the half life of the Chernobyl site is 250,000 years!!! shocked: Thats just half the time it'll take to go away!!) and that nothing will ever again live in that part of the world where it happened which was kind of sad to think about. They also showed how close it came to having a second explosion and if that second one would have happened it would have basically spread to all of Europe, making it uninhabitable even to this day.

Just really crazy stuff to think about.

I realize that Nuclear power is clean when all goes as planned and that it would greatly reduce our need for foreign fuels for things like power plants, but I have to still wonder how much technology has improved and if there can ever be a truly safe nuclear power plant, or if in reality we'll always be at risk of another Chernobyl as long as they exist?

Cliffs:

Positives:
Nuclear power plants are being planned to be built in the USA currently
Technology *should* make them much safer than ever
Less dependence on foreign fuels
Reduction of Global Warming (in theory)

Negatives:
Could one day be a Chernobyl all over again or worse
No where to properly dispose of spent plutonium rods currently until a federal storage facility is completed, and transporting spent plutonium rods is dangerous.

Discuss

 

[dug777]

NIMBY mate

 

[lokiju]

Originally posted by: dug777
NIMBY mate

:laugh: Had to look that up

But I guess thats why I'm asking, since it will be IMBY pretty much!

 

[Demon-Xanth]

I think we need to re-enrich the spent fuel from the reactors so they can be used. If the waste can be used to generate more power, then the waste will have less energy to be radioactive. The chernobyl disaster was a design flaw compounded by a management issue. Notice that there hasn't been a single nuclear disaster since three mile island? None of the carriers, subs, nor powerplants have had a problem.

 

[foghorn67]

Everything else is stupid. Only way to go.

 

[Queasy]

Chernobyl couldn't happen here. We use different kinds of plants/technology then what resulted in the Chernobly meltdown.

Still, nuclear power is a clean alternative that can meet our growing demands. Texas is supposed to exceed their power generating capacity by 2008. Since nuclear power plants are so difficult to build, they are building something like 4 clean coal burning plants out in the middle of nowhere north of College Station, TX. Now, coal burning plants aren't 100% clean but they are cleaner and more efficient than they have ever been....but still not as clean as a nuclear power plant.

 

[jhayx7]

Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
I think we need to re-enrich the spent fuel from the reactors so they can be used. If the waste can be used to generate more power, then the waste will have less energy to be radioactive. The chernobyl disaster was a design flaw compounded by a management issue. Notice that there hasn't been a single nuclear disaster since three mile island? None of the carriers, subs, nor powerplants have had a problem.

Also, three mile island was a design flaw. It was a bad pressure valve but because the interface that the humans used had blinking lights all over the place, they missed the one blinking light that said the pressure valve was bad. Since then, there have been major advancements in human interface layouts. I am all for nuclear power plants. The only downside is that we are not using 100% of the potential energy from the fuel rods. There is a project being built in France that is supposed to be the first to use 100% of the potential energy. I heard about that on the Science Friday podcast a while back.. Need to dig up more info, it was one of their best podcast ever.

 

[Amused]

I cannot possibly express how much I am for it.

I find it highly ironic that the people crying the loudest about human induced glabal climate chage are also the very same people who are so anti-nuke.

 

[Pantoot]

Originally posted by: Demon-Xanth
I think we need to re-enrich the spent fuel from the reactors so they can be used. If the waste can be used to generate more power, then the waste will have less energy to be radioactive. The chernobyl disaster was a design flaw compounded by a management issue. Notice that there hasn't been a single nuclear disaster since three mile island? None of the carriers, subs, nor powerplants have had a problem.

You are correct, but I think one of the SALT treaties prohibits us from using breeders or re-enriching fuel. I think we need more plants not only to add capacity to meet our ever growing needs but so that we can start retiring plants that are already decades past their original licensed operational lifetime.

 

[sao123]

Both cherynoble and 3 milr island were user error faults.

the technology has advanced, and the users operators have to be more cautious...


lets do it.

 

[j00fek]

build them

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: sao123
Both cherynoble and 3 milr island were user error faults.

the technology has advanced, and the users operators have to be more cautious...


lets do it.

You could also say that 3 mile island was a success since nothing leaked out.

 

[dug777]

Something you all blithely ignore is the security issue. Hit a nuclear plant hard enough and you've got Chernobyl on mainland USA, more than likely in or close to an extremely densely populated urban area. Add an unfavourable wind and you could have fallout across tens of states...

Unlikely, sure, but the results would be awful and awesome (using the word in it's correct context for once )

 

[loic2003]

As for chernobyl, it should be noted that modern reactors cannot fail in the same way, IIRC.

Nuclear power is truly useful, and I'm all for it. Go france with the highest percentage of nuclear energy!

 

[Canun]

Chernobyl was a Soviet made peice of crap without even a 1/3 of the protection mandated by the U.S.. Our own 3 Mile Island incident scared the U.S. public off nuclear energy, which is one of the reasons that this is the first time in a long time that the plants are being considered for building.

The only downside is the nuclear waste. Unfortunately, economically feasible energy sources right now all create pollution.

 

[Pacemaker]

Chernobyl was caused by a combination of stupidity and poor design. But, also the radiological effects seem to be less then we originally thought they would be, at least according to wikipedia.

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

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: Canun
Chernobyl was a Soviet made peice of crap without even a 1/3 of the protection mandated by the U.S.. Our own 3 Mile Island incident scared the U.S. public off nuclear energy, which is one of the reasons that this is the first time in a long time that the plants are being considered for building.

The only downside is the nuclear waste. Unfortunately, economically feasible energy sources right now all create pollution.

Coal with Geo-Sequestration makes sense to me

 

[iamwiz82]

That special on Chernobyl was really fascinating. For those that didn't see it, they talked about what the USSR right after the meltdown and how they contained it. 500,00 workers were used to clean the area and build the tomb. They had guys on the roof for 30 days straight for 45 seconds at a time shoveling contaminated graphite off so they could get more workers on it to build the structure. They had to use people because the radiation (upwards of 12,000 roentgens/hr) was causing havoc with remote-controlled robots.

 

[loic2003]

Originally posted by: Pacemaker
Chernobyl was caused by a combination of stupidity and poor design. But, also the radiological effects seem to be less then we originally thought they would be, at least according to wikipedia.

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

hmm, not so sure. We have a house in the alps of italy, and the mushrooms that grow there were dangerous for many years because of the 'fallout'.

 

[SVT Cobra]

All for it. Technology has made them much safer.

 

[Canun]

Originally posted by: dug777

Originally posted by: Canun
Chernobyl was a Soviet made peice of crap without even a 1/3 of the protection mandated by the U.S.. Our own 3 Mile Island incident scared the U.S. public off nuclear energy, which is one of the reasons that this is the first time in a long time that the plants are being considered for building.

The only downside is the nuclear waste. Unfortunately, economically feasible energy sources right now all create pollution.

Coal with Geo-Sequestration makes sense to me

Hmmm....read up on it a bit. It just seems to take alot more energy to do that approach.

 

[herbiehancock]

Since Chernobyl used a very poor reactor design known to have serious design flaws, the fact that the reactor that blew up and burned had only been built with partial containment instead of complete containment, its use of graphite control rods, and numerous other problems (such as conduction tests while disregarding numerous safety procedures), I'd honestly think any reactor constructed in the U.S. today would stand up a great deal better than a reactor built without oversite by a secretive government. And I do live within 60 miles of a functioning nuclear power station and really don't have much worry.

 

[Feldenak]

Yay for nuclear power. I grew up in East Liverpool, OH...about 10 miles from the Shippingport Nuclear Power Plant.

 

[Ime]

Around where I live, it seems to be a NIMBY topic. People are for nuke power, but not close to their own homes.

 

[So]

Chernobyl was a disaster because it was house in a tin shed, not because of inherent danger in nuclear power plants. Nuclear safety is a completely solvable engineering problem, and one that has already been refined further on paper, but nobody is allowing anyone to build the new systems.