Nuclear Energy?

[Sansha]

2 pages in and no mention of the hazardous by-products of nuclear power?

Is that because it is not your problem because your country sends it's spent nuclear fuel to Australia to bury in the middle of our desert where it remains dangerous for thousands (maybe tens of thousands) of years causing god knows what damage to the ecosystem?

Or did everyone just forget about nuclear waste?

I don't think the vast, endless desert of Australia where nobody and nothing lives counts as an 'ecosystem'.
Plus, Australia gets paid metric fucktons to have the waste dumped there.
And besides, it's only Australia.

 

[GoaThief]

2 pages in and no mention of the hazardous by-products of nuclear power

Err, I did...

This thread is mildly amusing to say the least, seems that only those who dare to critic nuclear power in the slightest have to provide sources and citations for our collective panel of crack nuclear scientists. Anyway, 'tis wasted energy (pardon the pun) for the most part so I'll just depart leaving this here which covers about everything I've already said and more besides;

http://www.ehjournal.net/content/8/1/43

 

[Bradeck]

Can someone enlighten me as to what happens to radioactive waste? I thought not. Currently, America is dumping it's waste in the ocean, specifically the Marianis Trench, because it's the closest thing to the Earth's core. We also bury it at the bottom of mines, and then encase it in cement, and forget about it. Until we design a better and safer way to dispose of it, and prevent it from being enriched by madmen, I am against it.

 

[FireAza]

As I already said, modern reactor designs are able to re-use the "waste" a few more times before it's unusable. It's not like in The Simpsons where nuclear power plants are producing a gazillion glowing barrels of waste that you have to start hiding them in trees at the park. Come to think of it, I suspect The Simpsons is indirectly responsible for some of the misconceptions about nuclear power. For the time being, all we can do is store the waste, which is a hellva an improvement over ejecting it into the atmosphere like coal power.

 

[FireAza]

I think when people say nuclear is "clean, safe energy" they're talking about when compared to other forms of energy production. Sure, wind might be "safer" (unless you're a bat) and cleaner, but it doesn't produce near the amount of energy that a single nuclear reactor does. Eventually, you have to weigh up your practicality options, and if you want a form of power that can produce electricity equal to or exceeding coal, yet is safer and cleaner than coal, nuclear's your man.

 

[Antari]

Nuclear energy is just another resource limited power generating system. It will only work for so long until you run out of fuel for it. Hydrogen is the only answer for long term development. Its the only limitless source of fuel.

 

[Antari]

Can someone enlighten me as to what happens to radioactive waste?

For instance it gets re-enriched to be used as fuel a second time.

It's impossible to enrich spent nuclear fuel to weapons-grade radioactive material by the way. The only way to do that is to use the original fuel, and enrich it hugely.

Nuclear energy is just another resource limited power generating system. It will only work for so long until you run out of fuel for it. Hydrogen is the only answer for long term development. Its the only limitless source of fuel.

You're aware that you have to spend more energy than the combustion will yield, to create hydrogen in the first place?

That won't always be so, they are pretty rapidly improving the power requirements to create hydrogen in large amounts. The progress will put Nuclear energy into the history books in time.

 

[Abize]

2 pages in and no mention of the hazardous by-products of nuclear power

Err, I did...

This thread is mildly amusing to say the least, seems that only those who dare to critic nuclear power in the slightest have to provide sources and citations for our collective panel of crack nuclear scientists. Anyway, 'tis wasted energy (pardon the pun) for the most part so I'll just depart leaving this here which covers about everything I've already said and more besides;

http://www.ehjournal.net/content/8/1/43

Taken from the journal "Although previous results could be reproduced by the current study,the present status of radiobiological and epidemiological knowledge does not allow the conclusion that the ionising radiation emitted by German nuclear power stations during normal operation is the cause. This study cannot conclusively clarify whether confounders, selection or randomness play a role in the distance trend observed.". Basically there is a trend of diagnosed childhood with cancer (particularly leukemia) in relation to how close to nuclear power plants they are. But they can't confirm it is nuclear power or a factor that havn't considered. Though adults don't have a higher rate of cancer or weren't covered by the study.

 

[Phisi]

i am for nuclear energy but the safety implications are serious. Here in Australia where we have no earthquakes or tsunamis and a large granite blob to dispose of waste in it would be perfect for nuclear energy (and Solar but that is quite costly) while a country like Japan which is heavily industrialised and has those problems should be burning the coal we burn currently. Nuclear energy is not suitable for anywhere and any country and countries need to work together for ensuring everyone has safe energy with minimum pollution.

 

[Aurgelmir]

We need more of it. It makes no greenhouse gases, it doesn't care if the sun's shining or the wind is blowing, it's highly efficient(A reactor the size of a minivan can power hundreds of thousands of homes), it makes a great way to dispose of nuclear weapons not needed(Though I'm on the fence about actually doing this), you can siphon off medial isotopes fairly easily, and it's just plain fucking interesting to anyone who likes physics and powerful tech. Oh, and it's perfectly safe.

And that's just fission tech. Fusion is only going to improve it, provided we can make fusion actually work.




Build more reactors, goddammit! Dams only work in some locations, reactors work anywhere there's a large river.

I agree with you sir.

Although there is still the issue of storing nuclear waste, but how can we improve if we dont work on it?

A lot of people are afraid of nuclear power due to Chernobyl and now what happened in Japan. This has lead a lot of countries to start shutting down the reactors.
BUT here is the problem with those two plants:
One was built using a standard which is REALLY unstable.
The other is built in a country that has a HUGE problem with earth quakes and tsunami, meaning it was a high risk placement.

So yeah I am for putting nuclear plants in places where they are not at a huge natural risk...

 

[Leadfinger]

I'm writing this from Japan, where still a large part of Touhoku is a Chernobyl zone because of radiation. When the accident occurred there were blackouts and food rationing as far away as Tokyo. In short, the Fukushima disaster was of such a scale to effect the whole country for decades to come. When the costs of even one accident are so enormous, how can nuclear be seen as a viable energy source?

 

[s0p0g]

2 problems:
-when something goes wrong at a nuclear power plant, chances are good it gets really ugly really fast for a really long time
-waste disposal - we don't have nuclear power plants for a long time, nor radioactive waste disposal sites, and already problems occur

so not only do we have power plants which are not 100% save (the power plant itself, maybe, but when this planet gets so much as a hiccup, or the operators fuck up, things easily go...awry), we also have no long term solution for the dangerous waste - the disposal sites *must* be perfectly save for tens of thousands (that's a big number) of years, while in fact they don't provide the safety for just half a century - at least not every single one of them, and that is dangerous

are you going to be the one who explains to my grandchildren why their goldfish glow in the dark? ^^

so in its *current* state: no; it's the only thing that's capable of providing enough energy on a more or less long term for our energy-hungry society, but it doesn't work safely enough


also, what Leadfinger said.

 

[Abize]

I'm writing this from Japan, where still a large part of Touhoku is a Chernobyl zone because of radiation. When the accident occurred there were blackouts and food rationing as far away as Tokyo. In short, the Fukushima disaster was of such a scale to effect the whole country for decades to come. When the costs of even one accident are so enormous, how can nuclear be seen as a viable energy source?

It may be because a magnitude 9+ earthquake followed by a massive tsunami aren't common occurences anywhere in the world and the fact that the plant's physical structure withstood both of these and if only the flood water hadn't knocked out the backup generators to the cooling things would have been fine. Was it mentioned that this is the OLDEST nuclear plant in Japan that was a week from being shutdown?

If people base their entire view on something based off one freak accident, why on earth do we still fly planes, drive cars and travel in boats? They have all had accidents that have cost hundreds to thousands of lives yet we don't go demonising them the same way we demonise nuclear power.

 

[Antari]

That won't always be so, they are pretty rapidly improving the power requirements to create hydrogen in large amounts. The progress will put Nuclear energy into the history books in time.

Uhm, hydrogen can never become an energy source, because that would break the laws of physics, the first law of thermodynamics to be precies. It's not possible to create more energy than you're using up while making hydrogen.

Hydrogen is a form of energy storage.

I'm not saying we're right around the corner from the breakthrough, but we should quit wasting time on a clearly dangerous form of energy. It won't be the first or the last "law" of physics to be adapted to fit our capabilities.