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Author Topic:   Is nuclear power safe??
nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 46 of 57 (695080)
04-02-2013 1:49 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by New Cat's Eye
04-02-2013 12:57 PM


Re: Latest News
If nuclear power save more lives than it costs, then I'd call it "safe" and give it the green light.
But, but, but ...
"nuclear" sounds so much scarier than "carbon dioxide".

Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

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Replies to this message:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 47 of 57 (695083)
04-02-2013 3:02 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by New Cat's Eye
04-02-2013 12:57 PM


Re: Latest News
If nuclear power save more lives than it costs, then I'd call it "safe" and give it the green light.
This is hardly new news, but yes. This is why people like me and Obama support it.
In my opinion, utilizing nuclear power is the only way we're going to move forward into the future.
Well, not the only way. Look at Germany. But it is something that would help a lot.

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petrophysics1
Inactive Member


(4)
Message 48 of 57 (695142)
04-03-2013 12:21 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by nwr
04-02-2013 1:49 PM


Re: Latest News
NWR writes:
But, but, but ...
"nuclear" sounds so much scarier than "carbon dioxide".
This is a real problem. A couple of years ago I got a couple of MRI's and was talking with my neurologist and mentioned that in the oil and gas industry we had a borehole geophysical log called the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Log which worked on the same principle as an MRI.
He had worked with the first MRI machines and said they also at the time called it Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging but no one wanted to get near it or have it done so they changed the name to MRI (no one is afraid of magnets and resonance sounds like a nice thing from music).
Maybe the name should be changed to Natural Fission Power Plant and everyone told these are designed completely different than old Nuclear Power Plants (not completely untrue).

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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 49 of 57 (695151)
04-03-2013 2:34 PM
Reply to: Message 46 by nwr
04-02-2013 1:49 PM


Re: Latest News
But, but, but ...
"nuclear" sounds so much scarier than "carbon dioxide".
Ahem:

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 Message 46 by nwr, posted 04-02-2013 1:49 PM nwr has replied

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nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 50 of 57 (695153)
04-03-2013 2:37 PM
Reply to: Message 49 by New Cat's Eye
04-03-2013 2:34 PM


Re: Latest News
Ahem:
Nucular
Yes, I regretted not using "nukular" immediately after posting.

Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

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ViperAce
Junior Member (Idle past 3975 days)
Posts: 6
From: Phoenix
Joined: 04-10-2013


Message 51 of 57 (695988)
04-10-2013 8:56 PM


From what I know, nuclear power sounds like a good option. It has potential for life threatening accidents but if used properly it generates a lot of cost effective energy and creates very little greenhouse gas emissions, the main form of pollution that is a red flag for fossil fuel based energy.
It does generate harmful waste but this might be a good tradeoff compared to greenhouse gas emissions. If nuclear energy did become the dominate form of energy generation, a lot of work would have to be done in managing this waste.

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Pressie
Member
Posts: 2103
From: Pretoria, SA
Joined: 06-18-2010


Message 52 of 57 (696019)
04-11-2013 5:10 AM
Reply to: Message 51 by ViperAce
04-10-2013 8:56 PM


I completely agree with you, ViperAce.
In the end, at least in my country, what is needed would be to utilise all the potential sources of energy.
It's an integration of sources.
The future seems to be a combination of coal, nuclear, solar, wind, hydro,oil, gas; all of them. They all have advantages and disadvantages.
Unfortunately we don't currently have a choice. Hopefully some technological breakthrough is on it's way. Wish governments would put a lot more money into research on this issue.
Instead, in my country, the government uses a lot of the funds they generate from carbon tax on having things like extravagant, well-lit parties (energy from from both coal powered and nuclear power stations) held under disco balls. Then they switch off those lights to celebrate earth-day for an hour a year, using oil lamps while dancing in the dim light of another fossil fuel.
Only a small amount of the total tax generated by the carbon tax goes into research of renewable , clean, safe, energy sources. Sigh.
Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.
Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.
Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.
Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

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Taq
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Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


(1)
Message 53 of 57 (696048)
04-11-2013 1:31 PM
Reply to: Message 51 by ViperAce
04-10-2013 8:56 PM


From what I know, nuclear power sounds like a good option. It has potential for life threatening accidents but if used properly it generates a lot of cost effective energy and creates very little greenhouse gas emissions, the main form of pollution that is a red flag for fossil fuel based energy.
It does generate harmful waste but this might be a good tradeoff compared to greenhouse gas emissions. If nuclear energy did become the dominate form of energy generation, a lot of work would have to be done in managing this waste.
From what I have read and understood, new technology could make reactors much safer and they would also be able to use recycled nuclear waste which would cut down on the total radiation that has to be stored long term. For example, the design of pebble bed reactors makes meltdowns impossible. If the temperature gets too high the nuclear fission reactions shut down all on their own.
Pebble-bed reactor - Wikipedia

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Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(2)
Message 54 of 57 (696049)
04-11-2013 1:54 PM
Reply to: Message 53 by Taq
04-11-2013 1:31 PM


How about a molten salt reactor?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor
Or using Thorium instead of Uranium/Plutnium?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium_fuel_cycle
quote:
Nuclear fission produces radioactive fission products which can have half-lives from days to greater than 200,000 years. According to some toxicity studies, the thorium cycle can fully recycle actinide wastes and only emit fission product wastes, and after a few hundred years, the waste from a thorium reactor can be less toxic than the uranium ore that would have been used to produce low enriched uranium fuel for a light water reactor of the same power....
...
Thorium is estimated to be about three to four times more abundant than uranium in the Earth's crust,[19] although present knowledge of reserves is limited. Current demand for thorium has been satisfied as a by-product of rare-earth extraction from monazite sands. Also, unlike uranium, mined thorium consists of a single isotope (232Th). Consequently, it is useful in thermal reactors without the need for isotope separation.
The state of nuclear power generation is hobbled not by the laws of physics or the lack of capability, but solely by political nonsense spawning from irrational fear over the objectively safest power generation source currently known to man.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995.

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 Message 53 by Taq, posted 04-11-2013 1:31 PM Taq has replied

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9973
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 55 of 57 (696059)
04-11-2013 3:27 PM
Reply to: Message 54 by Rahvin
04-11-2013 1:54 PM


How about a molten salt reactor?
Molten salt reactor - Wikipedia
Or using Thorium instead of Uranium/Plutnium?
Thorium fuel cycle - Wikipedia
Those are also great options. It is sad that we are still using 50 year old reactor technology.
The state of nuclear power generation is hobbled not by the laws of physics or the lack of capability, but solely by political nonsense spawning from irrational fear over the objectively safest power generation source currently known to man.
Exactly. I think it is part of human psychology to fear the unseen and unfamiliar more than the threats you can see and do understand. For example, people freak out about what are really low levels of radiation while living in a city with very unhealthy smog levels. If people really knew the amount of radiation that granite countertops can pump out I wonder what they would do?

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Replies to this message:
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Pressie
Member
Posts: 2103
From: Pretoria, SA
Joined: 06-18-2010


Message 56 of 57 (696063)
04-11-2013 3:56 PM
Reply to: Message 55 by Taq
04-11-2013 3:27 PM


People living in a big town in my country, called Paarl (a far-flung suburb of Cape Town), are exposed to natural radiation of 7 000 mSv per year from that rock they love. A big granite dome in the form of a beautiful mountain.
Yet some of them demonstrate against the nuclear power plant closeby. Ignorance, I guess.
Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

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Huntard
Member (Idle past 2295 days)
Posts: 2870
From: Limburg, The Netherlands
Joined: 09-02-2008


(1)
Message 57 of 57 (700622)
06-05-2013 6:28 AM


New reports show: even if it all goes wrong, still no problems
According to this article, the disaster at Fukushima isn't quite the apocalypse the nutty greeners made it out to be.

  
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