why do people suddenly fear nuclear power plants?

[Jegsimmons]

well, i live in an area with tons of nuc plants, and let me say, they are pretty damn safe.

japan suffered earthquakes, tsunamis, and now a fucking volcano. whats happening to the power plants was unpredictable.

but if anyone thinks about it, nuclear power is one of the best ways to get power, it has very little environmental hazards, and produces a huge amount of energy. the only negative (besides meltdowns) is that the waste has to be sealed in like 5 feet of concrete and buried for 1000 years (whoopde doo, thats like what? a hundred yards of no digging zone?)

the only other options for power is either fossil fuels (which im fine with because global warming is bull), hydro electric which is fine but limits you towards water.
solar isnt efficient enough and probably wont be for wide spread power

 

[Gaming King]

I'm completely neutral on nuclear power.

 

[Andy03]

The main problem with the reactor at Japan was the backup generators went out when the tsunami hit. My ignorant moral of the day, find a better way to maintain those backup generators.

 

[Freshman]

The general public is retarded so whenever they hear the word "nuclear" they freak out. /thread

...Although after that whole Chernobyl thing I can see how the Russian public can be more scared than other publics

That would rather be the Ukrainean public, don't you think? Along with almost every nation in Eastern Europe, Central Europe and Scandinavia.
I think after what happened, the public over here has a right to be sceptical about nuclear power and its safety.

Yea, I don't know my locations of historic events very well. And probably, the old soviet union wasn't exactly know for making reliable nuclear (insert noun here)...

 

[Iron Lightning]

why do people suddenly fear nuclear power plants?

It's really quite simple: the recent Japanese tsunami totally destroyed a couple incompetently built power plants. They were incompetently built, they had seawalls for just this sort of thing but they weren't tall enough. Solution: in the future design for the very worst case scenarios.

The other problem is that people are generally afraid of things that can kill them if something goes wrong, still doesn't stop them from driving twice-a-day though.

 

[roostuf]

One word, Chernobyl.

 

[Steven True]

So what brand of magic concrete is guaranteed to last for 100,000 years?

The Roman Collesium and the Pantheon were made from concrete, hand mixed by slave labour from pumice and ash and other stuff, and with even that low level of technology it's lasted 2000 years. See also some Roman underwater works still present.

Both of those structures are not intact. Both are effectively in ruins and that was only 2000 years. For nuclear containment you need a system that will not sustain any major degradation for up to 100,000 years; no cracks, breaks, etc. That is 50 times longer. There is NOTHING we know how to design that we know will meet that standard.

I think you'll also find that most of the long-term storage solutions don't rely on just concrete, but also high-strength glass (engineered to behave like naturally occuring volcanic glasses such as obsidian) containers enclosed within stainless steel and then placed deep underground in seismically-stable (and remote) bedrock. Yucca Flats in the US, for example, or here in Canada locations in the North on the billion-year-old bedrock under the Canadian Shield.

That would be a safer system. I was responding to somebody who's solution was to throw the stuff in a hole and fill it with concrete.
The problem with the systems (or any system) you describe is that we have to guarantee it's integrity for 10,000's of years.

1) What we take out is uranium ore. That is far less dangerous than the enriched uranium and fission byproducts that we would be putting back.

Only if we're being foolish. Spent fuel rods still containing enriched uranium can be used to fuel other reactors. CANDU, for instance, can burn that fuel with very little reprocessing. Burying that stuff is wasteful.

I agree reprocessing is better, but unfortunately many are this foolish because reprocessing is not universally implemented. And then you get into the problem of transport from reactor to processing facility and back, moving this stuff on rails or trucks often through or near population centers.

You're also assuming that degradation will be rapid enough to pose a risk.

The problem is guaranteeing this for 100,000 years.
Any disposal facility will require monitoring, but this can't be assumed when the period for monitoring is an order of magnitude longer than civilization itself has lasted.

 

[Saucycarpdog]

Nuclear plants can't explode. It's just not possible.

And the reason people are freaking out is because they don't understand how hard it is for a meltdown to occur. On top of that, the media will always jump on a chance to cause fear because it creates more news, which in turn gives them more stories to report. It's a vicious circle, and a rather sickening practice (it's also why I refuse to read, watch, or listen to the news). All these protests will end when people finally pull their heads out of the sand and actually go and attempt to learn about things that they don't fully understand.

That being said, the Japan incident was indeed a close call, bu because of the numerous safeguards, they were able to keep everything under control, and they still do have it under control. There really isn't anything to fear...But let the protesters have their way; they'll find themselves in a quandary when a good 70-80% of the power just doesn't exist anymore.

I would caution the "under control" part.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42066534/ns/world_news-asiapacific/

 

[Internet Kraken]

One word, Chernobyl.

that would be valid if the US government or Japan wanted to build all their nuclear power plants faster to impress...say China so they installed no safety features and lied to everyone.

Which is exactly what some other, less developed countries might end up doing if we invest more in nuclear power. Other countries already cut corners in everything else, I don't see why nuclear would be the exception. Sadly the effects of their negligence would still be disastrous. One reason I don't want nuclear power to spread is so that these countries don't try and build nuclear power plants any time soon.

Also for those who really think nuclear storage is not an issue, then please explain why the US government still has not developed a long term storage plan debating about it for over 20 years.

well, i live in an area with tons of nuc plants, and let me say, they are pretty damn safe.

japan suffered earthquakes, tsunamis, and now a fucking volcano. whats happening to the power plants was unpredictable.

but if anyone thinks about it, nuclear power is one of the best ways to get power, it has very little environmental hazards, and produces a huge amount of energy. the only negative (besides meltdowns) is that the waste has to be sealed in like 5 feet of concrete and buried for 1000 years (whoopde doo, thats like what? a hundred yards of no digging zone?)

the only other options for power is either fossil fuels (which im fine with because global warming is bull), hydro electric which is fine but limits you towards water.
solar isnt efficient enough and probably wont be for wide spread power

I wasn't aware that a highly hazardous waste that continues to be a problem for thousands of years is now considered a "little environmental hazard". Also you missed the downside of nuclear being a nonrenewable energy source that will, at best, last 100 years based on current consumption rates of uranium.

 

[srm79]

But why not use solar and wind power? It will never explode and produces absolutely no yellowcake. Why invest in a type of power which produces waste instead of clean ones which can potentially continue until the sun explodes in 5 million or so years.

Great idea! In fact, UK plc has those damned windmills all over the place. They produce a reasonable amount of energy all things considered, but we found a little problem with them this winter: when the entire fucking country was buried under 4 feet of snow and temperatures were lower than they had been since the '60's, there was no wind. Guess how much power those stupid windmills were generating just when our need for power was higher than its ever been? Sweet fuck all, that's how much. Utterly useless. Solar power has similar problems if you live anywhere other than the middle of the Sahara Desert, in that you can't guarantee an uninterrupted supply of sunlight. You did forget to mention wave-turbines, but I suspect they would have fared much worse than the buckets of sunshine did in the face of a tsunami...

 

[burningdragoon]

probably a lot of debate in here that don't feel like reading or getting into, but to answer the title question:

something bad happened, so people start to worry about it. Just like if you get into a car accident, you'll probably be a little nervous about driving again. Or you hear about some crime in you neighborhood and you might get a little nervous about that. That's how our brains work.

 

[Unesh52]

...no matter how "safe" you make nuclear power plants, they still produce dangerous radiocative waste that is going to be a problem for thousands of years. And when some unforseen disaster does occur, even "safe" nuclear power plants are suddenly a massive danger to the enviornment. Nuclear isn't a renewable energy source, and if we suddenly started using a lot more uranium it probably wouldn't even last 100 years.

I need more information on this, to be sure, but they're working on reactors that actually burn the U-235 U-238 waste from the U-238 U-235 reactors. The waste produced from this process is negligible, and there are yet more proposed reactors that could burn that waste as well.

And like Steve was saying (Did you reply to him? I couldn't find it.):

Caution certainly is merited, but given our experiences with environmental radiation releases it's getting harder to claim that it does "massive damage".

I don't know where people are getting this claim that radiation makes huge tracts of land uninhabitable for decades. I actually have a source on what he says about the Exclusion Zone in Chernobyl. It's from the Chernobyl Forum [http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/Chernobyl/chernobyl.pdf], which is an international group composed of multiple relevant agencies, including the UNSCEAR, the UN's team that studies the effects of radiation.

Following the natural reduction of exposure levels due to
radionuclide decay and migration, biological populations have been recovering from acute
radiation effects. As soon as by the next growing season following the accident, population
viability of plants and animals had substantially recovered as a result of the combined
effects of reproduction and immigration from less affected areas. A few years were needed
for recovery from major radiation-induced adverse effects in plants and animals.

...

The recovery of affected biota in the exclusion zone has been facilitated by the removal
of human activities [i.e. the evacuations of the local people] ...the Exclusion Zone has paradoxically become a unique sanctuary for biodiversity.

The claims about the environmental effects of catastrophic meltdown in a nuclear reactor seem exaggerated at best, and frankly made up at worst.

Finally, I think you underestimate first the positively ridiculous amount of energy that nuclear fission produces, and second the innovation the industry is looking at in terms of new fuel sources. Thorium, U-235 U-238, something called "liquid-fusion" that I don't really understand -- sure, they're all in varying stages of development, and none are in production as far as I'm aware, but that probably has a lot to do with the fact that no one is willing to fund R&D. We could power the world on nuclear tech for centuries at least.

But you are right about one thing: it's non-renewable. Eventually we will run out. That's why the other, renewable resources are so important. We should be investigating the potential of all our possible energy sources, and weighing the pros and cons of each. Don't forget that renewable energy in its current state is inefficient, meaning it takes an awful lot of space to make good use of it. Nuclear power is almost improbably efficient, and so far the biggest argument against it -- that it's a hazard to health and the environment -- is unsubstantiated. I'm not an economist, and I don't have much to say about exactly what the ratio of the various sources should be, but I do know that nuclear power is a perfectly viable source with massive untapped potential, and it shouldn't be dismissed out of an unsubstantiated or irrational fear.

EDIT: I messed up. U-238 is the abundant element, U-235 is the rare one used in fission generators.

 

[bad rider]

Yeah, but if something DOES go wrong, stuff goes, very, horribly wrong.
See: Chernobyl outskirts.

Chernobyl. Was. An. Anomaly. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.241623-Probing-The-Inaccuracies-Nuclear-Power]

Stop using it as an example.

An anomaly that sets a fucking high bar for "When shit happens." Keep using it.

 

[Space Lion]

Nuclear power plants should be built in secret undersea complexes guarded by military dolphins. You all read it here first, it will happen, I am a genius.

 

[LittleChone]

 

[Internet Kraken]

-snip-

I am very much aware that the effects of nuclear radiation are typically exaggerated by the media, though some people still suffer from exposure to radiation in Chernobyl I believe. However, nuclear waste is still incredibly hazardous and any meltdown that wasn't contained would cause a lot of damage. Of course it wouldn't be on the apocalyptic scale often depicted in the media, but it would still be incredibly destructive.

As for thorium reactors, they are very much dependent on the development of technology currently not available to us. Hence why you won't see them in use on a large scale any time soon. To make thorium reactors viable would require huge investments of time and money, which would be better allocated to improving clean, renewable sources of energy like wind and solar. People always say these sources are inefficient and can't be used on a large scale, but their efficiency has greatly increased since their initial development. If the government actually invested in them as much as they do in nuclear we would see a lot more progress.

Third, nuclear waste is a serious problem and will continue to be one for thousands of years. While nuclear reactors may be "safe", the storage of nuclear waste doesn't look so good. To properly store nuclear waste would require designing a facility that could be maintained and preserve for thousands of years by future generations, something our society has never managed to accomplish. It's impossible to predict what would happen over such a huge span of time, and something could easily occur that turns this safe facility into a major hazard. We already have a hard enough time handling what little nuclear waste we've already produced. I don't want to churn out more of it when nuclear power may not even last more than 100 years due to rapidly depleting uranium deposits.

 

[Giuglea]

its funny that people still think that an nuclear plant will blow up like a nuclear bomb..and get scared if they know that the plants that are close together will spell apocalypse..the plant won`t have an explosion like that because there is nothing there to start the chain reaction..fire doesn`t actually start an nuclear reaction..it would just crack the reactor thus leading to massive radioactive leakage..and if they are clumped up together and one explodes the others will probably be unaffected..maybe people don`t know how a nuclear reaction works..well a neutron is shot at an plutonium 239 isotope..the atom is split in 2 and releases other neutrons that split the next atoms thus creating a chain reaction..there is a difference of mass between the initial atom and the 2 halves(the halves are actually lighter)..that difference is transformed into pure energy..e=mcSq..
(energy=difference of mass*the speed of light in void square)yes that is a lot of energy..that is why nuclear plants(and nuclear bombs) are so efficient..the point was that setting fire to uranium won`t start a nuclear reaction..actually no natural phenomenon will(i`m taking a guess here,i can`t think of anything that might spew neutrons on its own)