Shunning Nuke - a Stupid Development

DGS49

Diamond Member
Apr 12, 2012
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Pittsburgh
Is it not striking to recall the events of last March, when we all fretted over the endless news about the nuclear "catastrophe" in Japan. Hundreds of thousands were evacuated, workers were in peril, we were looking at a MELTDOWN. The Japanese were talking about the "America Syndrome"! (Just kidding).

But now the dust has died down and we learn that nobody died from nuclear radiation. Nobody got sick. There is no credible evidence that anyone in Japan or elsewhere is any more likely to die of some radiation-related illness or cancer, ever.

According to every quantitative analysis imaginable, this was a singular catastrophe, caused by a literally unbelievable coming together of several different extremely improbable and rare events, the peculiar physical location of those couple plants, and some just plain bad luck. One hesitates to use the word, "never," but statistically speaking, the possibility of this ever happening again is so close to zero that it is incalculable.

And yet the anti-nuke forces of the world were able to exploit this one instance and employ empty-headed, nonsensical scare tactics to seemingly turn the whole world against nuclear power. There are no nuclear plants currently operating in Japan right now, and it would take a lot of politicians with a lot of balls even to try to get them started up again. And such people have not shown up so far.

In Germany, they are now committed - against all logic - to shutting down all of their commercial reactors within ten years. They speak of a pipedream that the power generation can be replaced by "renewables" or wind or some sort of magic, but even the ones saying this know that the only viable option is burning carbon. You can build windmills until you capture every zephyr that flows across the North Sea, but the wind doesn't blow all the time, so you need baseload. Burning stuff. They talk about CO2 sequestration, but the caverns where they would store it are currently filled with Russian natural gas. Sorry.

While nuclear power plants are insanely expensive to build, once operating, they are the least expensive and cleanest source of base-load energy known to man. The made-up problem of storage of nuclear waste is just that: made up. It is more accurately called "spent fuel,' and we have the technology to reprocess spent fuel virtually forever. Rest assured that all the spent fuel we are worrying about now and storing in caves and whatnot will one day be pulled back out to be reprocessed. The only reason we are not doing it now is because reprocessing facilities can also make bomb materials, and politicians are uncomfortable with that fact.

I'm not personally all that concerned about "global warming," but the abandonment of Nuke will inevitably result in dramatic increases of CO2 and other greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere. Even natural gas generates tons of CO2.

We have world energy policies being driven by junk science and irrational fear. Pretty sad, really.
 
The Fukushima death toll | Asia News – Politics, Media, Education | Asian Correspondent

Five people are dead, none attributed to radiation, not yet.

"Large amounts of radioactive material have been washed into the sea, which may cause a contamination problem for some time, but is essentially a great place for radioactive elements to go, because water is one of the best shields for radioactivity."

The ocean is also being used, to process large amounts of CO2, into carbonic acid, which with pollution can stop the entire oceanic food chain, starting with plankton, reefs, eggs, little fish, and shellfish. Let's see if those Japanese are so very clever, to keep radiation from being a problem, all the way to 10,000 years from now!

There are 31 reactors in the US, of the type which can lose electricity, and then they depend on generator-powered pumps, to prevent a melt-down. This type of reactor has no standing coolant, poised above the reactor vessel, or any other media, to prevent disaster.

This is the kind of thing, going on, where people who cannot pronounce so good go around saying 'nukuler this, nukuler that,' and we end up in trouble, before even 1000 years elapse, of the required 10,000 years, till chill of waste. We are always a second's misstep away, from dying or from seeing kids born, without a face, skull, fingers, arms, or legs.

People who favor nuclear media do not think so well, and I don't want any of these controlling public agendas. But ya'all do that, somehow, and nobody thinks to re-green the CO2-poisoned planet, before the seas acidify, from carbonic acid, and the food chain collapses. There is always something to get done, before letting lunatics spend all our money, on yet another stupid, deadly nuclear device.
 
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DGS49::

Be patient. True environmentalists are taking another look. Global warmists are taking another look. There's a 30 yr backlog of technology improvements to be tested.

The waste stream from nuclear is gonna look like child's play compared to the tonnage of the waste stream from EV and Solar batteries in 10 years. And THOSE toxics NEVER fade out. Once in the landfill or habitable environment -- THEIR HALFLIFE is forever..

There's a mile long list of eco-whack miscalculations, unintended consequences and failures. The list of alternatives is getting whittled down.. We'll get back to the point of finding REAL energy sources pretty soon now..
 
While nuclear power plants are insanely expensive to build, once operating, they are the least expensive and cleanest source of base-load energy known to man. .

Nonsense.

Total system levelized cost - USD/Mwh

Advanced Nuclear 113.9

Advanced coal 109.4

Wind 97.0

Hydro 86.4

Cost of electricity by source - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Most of our post seems to be about finding a single solution for a single problem - which makes your post fairly pointless. Energy generation varies enormously depending on local conditions - how you generate electricity in Miami need not be the same as in Scotland, nor in Texas and Alaska.
 
While nuclear power plants are insanely expensive to build, once operating, they are the least expensive and cleanest source of base-load energy known to man. .

Nonsense.

Total system levelized cost - USD/Mwh

Advanced Nuclear 113.9

Advanced coal 109.4

Wind 97.0

Hydro 86.4

Cost of electricity by source - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Most of our post seems to be about finding a single solution for a single problem - which makes your post fairly pointless. Energy generation varies enormously depending on local conditions - how you generate electricity in Miami need not be the same as in Scotland, nor in Texas and Alaska.

Yeah let them burn garbage in Scotland. They seem to be all for that there. Why don't you tell us what energy Jamaica should be using??? It's easy to say that energy sources should vary by region. It's harder to design a RELIABLE 24/7 electricity grid that's not gonna go dark at night when the wind doesn't blow.. Or do leave the hard part to the engineers and the politicians?

The numbers from Wiki on cost are different from country to country. Depends on how much regulation and paper work is required for the most part. NOT referring to labor rates to build it.
 
Yeah let them burn garbage in Scotland. They seem to be all for that there. Why don't you tell us what energy Jamaica should be using???

Scotland is a world leader in tidal energy, and will likely see that as the future, with some wind and incineration.

I don't know the local conditions in Jamaica, but given 90% of buildings have a solar panel in countries like Cyprus and Malta, I suspect strong use of solar might play a major factor.

I think everyone knows that the grid requires mixed production to balance peaks and troughs, and that costs will vary considerably from country to country or even state to state. There are dozens of variables, from labour costs to feed-in tariffs.

So every country needs to look at its own picture, and make choices based on science as opposed to politics.
 
Now Saigon, isn't fair to confuse the 'Conservatives' with facts.

The all of the above solution seems to be outside their ideological horizon. Primary problems with nukes is siting and cost. They produce very expensive electricity compared to other sources. However, they are a very dependable base load.

Siting is another whole issue. One has to use Murphy's Law here, because even one catastrophic failure is one too many with a nuke. Fukashima is still in the danger zone, until all the reactors and the pool with the rods in it are cooled and can no longer increase in heat on their own, it remains a danger. In the hills above Fukashima are stones centuries old with inscriptions that read, "build no lower than this". Apperantly no geologists were consulted in the building of those reactors.
 
Now Saigon, isn't fair to confuse the 'Conservatives' with facts.

The all of the above solution seems to be outside their ideological horizon. Primary problems with nukes is siting and cost. They produce very expensive electricity compared to other sources. However, they are a very dependable base load.

Siting is another whole issue. One has to use Murphy's Law here, because even one catastrophic failure is one too many with a nuke. Fukashima is still in the danger zone, until all the reactors and the pool with the rods in it are cooled and can no longer increase in heat on their own, it remains a danger. In the hills above Fukashima are stones centuries old with inscriptions that read, "build no lower than this". Apperantly no geologists were consulted in the building of those reactors.



And if we do have a catastrophic failure, the Nuclear Energy profit makers walk away with little liability
but-----but we the taxpayer pay thru the nose.



Insurance
Globally nuclear liability risks resulting accidents are largely covered by the state, with only a small part of the risk carried by the private insurance industry. Worst case nuclear incident costs are so large that it would be difficult for the private insurance industry to carry the size of the risk, and the premium cost of full insurance would make nuclear energy uneconomic.[47]



IOW - not a single American insurance company is willing to take on the risk of fully insuring any nuclear reactor in the USofA. What that means to us taxpayers is, we the people insure nuclear reactors via Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act or-----or put another way privatize the profit, socialize the losses. -pewsh!-
 
And if we do have a catastrophic failure, the Nuclear Energy profit makers walk away with little liability
but-----but we the taxpayer pay thru the nose.


Indeed...assuming you are alive to pay for it, of course.

Climate sceptics so often insist that the push for renewable energy is driven by profit motives, but seem to forget that the nuclear and oil industries have done fairly well for themselves over the years, and aren't generally known for their warm, caring approach to contracts and taxpayers.
 

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