Nuclear: the eco-clean power

[FrankZappa]

This is a rant. Has anyone else seen this commercial that nuclear power is the best option because it has no adverse side affects? They are advertising that because there is no smoke stack like a coal refinery, it is the perfect fuel. From their site:

Environmental Preservation

Lowest impact on the environment. Of all energy sources, nuclear energy has perhaps the lowest impact on the environment, especially in relation to kilowatts produced, because nuclear plants do not emit harmful gases, require a relatively small area, and effectively mitigate other impacts. In other words, nuclear energy is the most "eco-efficient" of all energy sources because it produces the most electricity in relation to its minimal environmental impact. There are no significant adverse effects to water, land, habitat, species and air resources
source: http://www.nei.org/index.asp?catnum=2&catid=38

My Rebuttle:
When it works properly,

The rate of decay of an isotope is inversely proportional to its half life; a short half life means that it decays rapidly. Hence, for each kind of radiation, the higher the intensity of radioactivity in a given amount of material, the shorter the half lives involved. Half lives range based on the indivudual atom, anywhere from very short (10 to the -6 seconds) to the very, very, very long (10 to the 24 years, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years)

The ultimate disposal of vitrified wastes, or of spent fuel assemblies without reprocessing, requires their isolation from the environment for long periods. The most favoured method is burial in dry, stable geological formations some 500 metres deep. Several countries are investigating sites that would be technically and publicly acceptable. The USA is pushing ahead with a repository site in Nevada for all the nation¹s spent fuel.

One purpose-built deep geological repository for long-lived nuclear waste is in operation in New Mexico, though this only takes defence wastes.

After being buried for about 1,000 years most of the radioactivity will have decayed. The amount of radioactivity then remaining would be similar to that of the naturally-occurring uranium ore from which the fuel originated, though it would be more concentrated.
http://www.uic.com.au/wast.htm and wikipedia

That\'s when the system works. When it doesn\'t, we get these:

Oct. 7, 1957 — A fire in the Windscale plutonium production reactor N of Liverpool, England, released radioactive material; later blamed for 39 cancer deaths.

Jan. 3, 1961 — A reactor at a federal installation near Idaho Falls, ID, killed 3 workers. Radiation contained.

Oct. 5, 1966 — A sodium cooling system malfunction caused a partial core meltdown at the Enrico Fermi demonstration breeder reactor, near Detroit, MI. Radiation contained.

Jan. 21, 1969 — A coolant malfunction from an experimental underground reactor at Lucens Vad, Switzerland, released radiation into a cavern, which was then sealed.

Mar. 22, 1975 — Fire at the Brown\'s Ferry reactor in Decatur, AL, caused dangerous lowering of cooling water levels.

Mar. 28, 1979 — The worst commercial nuclear accident in the U.S. occurred as equipment failures and human mistakes led to a loss of coolant and a partial core meltdown at the Three Mile Island reactor in Middletown, PA.

Feb. 11, 1981 — 8 workers were contaminated when 100,000 gallons of radioactive coolant fluid leaked into containment building of TVA\'s Sequoyah 1 plant in Tennessee.

Apr. 25, 1981 — Some 100 workers were exposed to radiation during repairs of a nuclear plant at Tsuruga, Japan.

Jan. 6, 1986 — A cylinder of nuclear material burst after being improperly heated at a Kerr-McGee plant at Gore, OK. One worker died; 100 were hospitalized.

Apr. 26, 1986 — In the worst nuclear accident in the history of nuclear power, fires and explosions resulting from an unauthorized experiment at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near Kiev, USSR (now in Ukraine), left at least 31 dead in the immediate aftermath and spread radioactive material over much of Europe. An estimated 135,000 people were evacuated from the region, some of which was uninhabitable for years. As a result of the radiation released, tens of thousands of excess cancer deaths (as well as increased birth defects) were expected.

Sept. 30, 1999 — Japan\'s worst nuclear accident ever occurred at a uranium-reprocessing facility in Tokaimura, NE of Tokyo, when workers accidentally overloaded a container with uranium, thereby exposing workers and area residents to extremely high radiation levels.

March 9 1981 -  Japanese power plant leaks radioactive waste

A nuclear accident at a Japan Atomic Power Company plant in Tsuruga, Japan, exposes 59 workers to radiation on this day in 1981. As seems all too common with nuclear-power accidents, the officials in charge failed to timely inform the public and nearby residents, endangering them needlessly.

Tsuruga lies near Wakasa Bay on the west coast of Japan. Approximately 60,000 people lived in the area surrounding the atomic power plant. On March 9, a worker forgot to shut a critical valve, causing a radioactive sludge tank to overflow. Fifty-six workers were sent in to mop up the radioactive sludge before the leak could escape the disposal building, but the plan was not successful and 16 tons of waste spilled into Wakasa Bay.

Despite the obvious risk to people eating contaminated fish caught in the bay, Japan’s Atomic Power Commission made no public mention of the accident or spill. The public was told nothing of the accident until more than a month later, when a newspaper caught wind of and reported the story. By then, sea**** in the area was found to have radioactive levels 10 times greater than normal. Cobalt-60 levels were 5,000 times higher than previous highs recorded in the area.

Finally, on April 21, the Atomic Power Commission publicly admitted the nuclear accident but denied that anyone had been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. Two days later, the company running the plant declared that they had not announced the accident right away because of “Japanese emotionalism toward anything nuclear.” The public also learned for the first time that, in an earlier incident at the same plant in January 1981, 45 workers had been exposed to radiation.

All the fish caught in Wakasa Bay following the accident were recalled and reports indicate that fish in the area displayed far more mutations than normal for several years after the incident. In May 1981, the president and chairman of the Japan Atomic Power Company resigned.

But hey, the air would be clean!
[MAD]idiots[/MAD]

[Spacey]

Nicely done, FrankZappa, nicely done.

They are really trying to push Nuclear Power these days, although it is completely unstable.

[FreeSpirit]

:lol: have we learned NOTHING from watching Homer at work?! rotfl

[kindm's]

Not that I am pro nuclear power but if you consider the fact that a new reactor hasn\'t been bulit in the US since the early 1970\'s it says a lot about NIMBY and other factors.

Sure they create "clean" power if you dont take in to account the nuclear waste that needs to be handled when they replace the rods. But in the large scope of creating electrical energy what is the better soultion ?

oil - we know whatthat does.
Solar - sure its great but extremely expensive and not very efficent (its getting better)

wind - need to be some place specific. doesn\'t work everywhere

Fussion ? - they aren\'t there yet.

The reactors are very stable it is just the security risk as well as the potential for bad things to happen like 3 mile island. although many design changes have been made since then.

If you have to make a choice between all of them Nuclear isn\'t so bad.

[chooglincharley]

:lol: have we learned NOTHING from watching Homer at work?! rotfl

i dont think the people in charge of making the decisions have ever seen Los Simpsones

[Jim Cobb]

i live like 5-10 miles from the most unsafe nuclear power plant in the country which also happens to be built on a fault line that is expected to become active within the next 10-15 years.

[FrankZappa]

Not that I am pro nuclear power but if you consider the fact that a new reactor hasn\'t been bulit in the US since the early 1970\'s it says a lot about NIMBY and other factors.

Sure they create "clean" power if you dont take in to account the nuclear waste that needs to be handled when they replace the rods. But in the large scope of creating electrical energy what is the better soultion ?

oil - we know whatthat does.
Solar - sure its great but extremely expensive and not very efficent (its getting better)

wind - need to be some place specific. doesn\'t work everywhere

Fussion ? - they aren\'t there yet.

The reactors are very stable it is just the security risk as well as the potential for bad things to happen like 3 mile island. although many design changes have been made since then.

If you have to make a choice between all of them Nuclear isn\'t so bad.

don\'t get me wrong, while I don\'t like it, it is one of the better short-term results power systems. However, my problem is with the comercial that advertises it as being the best thing in the world, while coal is so evil just because nuclear doesn\'t polute the atmosphere the same way. It\'s like they think we\'re idiots that don\'t know how the system works. Thats what I have an issue with.

[Todd]

Being a stock holder in a company that makes "scrubbers" for smoke stacks, the whole idea that coal is extremely dirty is bull. The cost of a scrubber is astronomical. But, if the government would require and possibly subsidize their use around the country, rather than letting all these dirty plants still operate, even after passing a "fresh air act"(:sigh:), the cost would surely go down. One draw back is the destruction to the land coal comes from.

Another source of electricity, that not many people know about, is being explored right now. It works on the same basis as a hydroelectric plant, only in the ocean. This would not require the building of reservoirs, destroying habitats, disrupting fish, etc.

Nuclear power is NOT the way to go!!!!

[FreeSpirit]

i live like 5-10 miles from the most unsafe nuclear power plant in the country which also happens to be built on a fault line that is expected to become active within the next 10-15 years.

:rooster: that explains the hair...

[Todd]

i live like 5-10 miles from the most unsafe nuclear power plant in the country which also happens to be built on a fault line that is expected to become active within the next 10-15 years.

:rooster: :point: that explains the hair...

 rotfl rotfl

[Dyed_Tie]

Another source of electricity, that not many people know about, is being explored right now. It works on the same basis as a hydroelectric plant, only in the ocean. This would not require the building of reservoirs, destroying habitats, disrupting fish, etc.

Yeah, they ocean is the way to look I think for renewable sources of power.  We know that we can produce a lot of power through those hydroelectric dams.  So you would think that setting up that same idea along the beaches to collect energy from the movement of tides and incoming waves.  Also even if we get hit with a tsunami at least the power won\'t be out.

[FrankZappa]

actually, a tsunami would most likely create so much power that it would trip the breakers and cause stations to shut off the main system to protect themselves from overloading and blowing up, causing major blackouts a-la the 77 northeast outage starting in niagara.