Explosion at Japanese nuclear plant, fuel may be melting

Re: Explosion at Japanese nuclear plant, fuel may be melting - Officials

#41

Post by potatolicious » Sat, Mar 12, 2011, 11:50 AM UTC

maigret wrote: post #14

waterlesscloud wrote: post #4

I was a pretty solid supporter of nuclear power, but if Japan can't make it safe, I don't believe anyone can.

This is actually a proof that nuclear energy is not green, not safe, and should not be used any more. Nuclear plants can't resist direct airliner impact or big earthquakes or anything that the engineer didn't think about.

The alternatives are even more dangerous, just not quite so visibly. For example:

Coal ash produced by coal power plants actually release more radioactive waste than the equivalent power generated via nuclear. Not only that, nuclear waste is highly controlled and the general population has no contact with it save extremely rare catastrophes - compare with pumping this ash into the atmosphere. Not to mention that inhaling radioactive material is orders of magnitude more dangerous than physical contact.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is...

Nuclear energy isn't perfect - but it's a hell of a lot better than anything else we've got.

Re: Explosion at Japanese nuclear plant, fuel may be melting - Officials

#42

Post by JanezStupar » Sat, Mar 12, 2011, 11:55 AM UTC

maigret wrote: post #37

JanezStupar wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't know what you're talking about. At this point of history we NEED power and there are only two power sources with high enough availability and low enough cost. It's either thermo plants or nuclear plants. Everything else wont cut it. And turning off the lights won't do a shit to alleviate possible lack of energy if we stop using nuclear. Your PC ain't consuming that much power, we need power for industry. So…

I may have reacted too emotionally, but one of the point am I questioning is whether keeping old nuclear reactors is safe (I should probably have given more background on the German discussion). We may come to the conclusion that replacing them by new reactors could improve the overall safety. Of course that is going to cost money, and then we might find out that we are building us a debt that is not paying in the lo…

You are deceiving... Where did your get your information that nuclear power is "minor part" of electric energy production?

See this table: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/nshare.html

If you see this is practically a list of major industrialized countries.

Two of the biggest (China and India) countries that will grow their energy needs tremendously are going to rely on nuclear power massively in the future.

EDIT: Darn, I apologize :).

Re: Explosion at Japanese nuclear plant, fuel may be melting - Officials

#43

Post by potatolicious » Sat, Mar 12, 2011, 12:00 PM UTC

maigret wrote: post #33

rosser wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to cobble together some statistics on the safety of nuclear power, but unfortunately, the IAEA site is slammed presently (wonder why...), so I'm left with assembling them by hand, from Wikipedia. If anyone out there can point me at a better source for this data, I'd be most grateful. As a preliminary indicator of my findings, I've gathered start-up dates (and shut-down dates for reactors that are no longer…

You can have a look at another (rough) estimate I did on my answer to geuis. I agree with you, and as I stated in my other answer, things like barrage breakings (due to an equivalent earthquake) can be also devastating for civilization. What I think would be useful is to have a public look at the track record of nuclear and compare it's impact with other energies. Nuclear power is going to stay for now, and that's pr…

> "and compare it's impact with other energies"

This is where your argument falls apart. What other energy sources are there?

Let's see... burning fossil fuels is not only environmentally unsustainable but also, as part of its regular operation, releases more radioactive material into the atmosphere than nuclear power plants.

Solar? Workable on small scale, physically impossible to provide the majority of humanity's energy needs. Same goes for tidal, wind, and hydro.

Geothermal? Ditto - only possible in very selective environments, zero chance of being able to provide significant power generation outside of very limited circumstances.

There simply isn't a better technology out there right now. Until fusion comes along, nuclear is the best we've got. Nobody here is claiming it isn't without its risks, but it sure beats the pants off of what we're doing right now.

Even if we completely ignore the environmental angle, the social angle, and the economic angle, and consider these choices purely on how much radiation exposure they will subject people to, nuclear still wins. That's how far apart these options are. You are choosing between an extremely low chance of being exposed to a potentially damaging dose of radiation... or a guarantee of breathing down radiogenic material for your entire lifetime.

Anti-nuclear paranoia has been one of the most insidious and evil things to infect our collective consciousness in the past decades. It has enforced a continued and growing reliance on depleting fossil fuels, which has not only damaged the environment via greenhouse gas emissions, but pumped gigatons of radioactive material into the atmosphere to be inhaled by everyone. It has caused wars and famine and anti-science paranoia (did you know that the MRI was first called the NMRI? Guess why they had to rename it?).

Re: Explosion at Japanese nuclear plant, fuel may be melting - Officials

#44

Post by maigret » Sat, Mar 12, 2011, 12:01 PM UTC

JanezStupar wrote: post #42

maigret wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may have reacted too emotionally, but one of the point am I questioning is whether keeping old nuclear reactors is safe (I should probably have given more background on the German discussion). We may come to the conclusion that replacing them by new reactors could improve the overall safety. Of course that is going to cost money, and then we might find out that we are building us a debt that is not paying in the lo…

You are deceiving... Where did your get your information that nuclear power is "minor part" of electric energy production? See this table: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/nshare.html If you see this is practically a list of major industrialized countries. Two of the biggest (China and India) countries that will grow their energy needs tremendously are going to rely on nuclear power massively in the future. EDIT: Da…

On the same site :D "The IAEA projections would give nuclear power a 13.5 to 14.6% share in electricity production in 2020, and 12.6 to 15.9% in 2030." http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf17.html

BTW there is currently around as much renewable energy than nuclear worldwide.

Re: Explosion at Japanese nuclear plant, fuel may be melting - Officials

#45

Post by dmfdmf » Sat, Mar 12, 2011, 12:06 PM UTC

maigret wrote: post #38

dmfdmf wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are just demonstrating your ignorance. The reality is that the only choice to power industrial civilization is fossil fuels or nuclear power. Even if this accident results in a core melt, in the large sweep of history, it will hardly slow down the transition from oil to nuclear power.

So you think that graph is wrong? https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:EIA2007_...

I thought we ran out of fossil fuel a few years ago?

Re: Explosion at Japanese nuclear plant, fuel may be melting - Officials

#46

Post by maigret » Sat, Mar 12, 2011, 12:12 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #43

maigret wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have a look at another (rough) estimate I did on my answer to geuis. I agree with you, and as I stated in my other answer, things like barrage breakings (due to an equivalent earthquake) can be also devastating for civilization. What I think would be useful is to have a public look at the track record of nuclear and compare it's impact with other energies. Nuclear power is going to stay for now, and that's pr…

> "and compare it's impact with other energies" This is where your argument falls apart. What other energy sources are there? Let's see... burning fossil fuels is not only environmentally unsustainable but also, as part of its regular operation, releases more radioactive material into the atmosphere than nuclear power plants . Solar? Workable on small scale, physically impossible to provide the majority of humanity's…

Renewable energies are almost making the same output as nuclear power, so this should be possible to get off nuclear without flooding the world under CO2 https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Nuclear_power

You may also look at that http://energypriorities.com/entries/2010/12/renewables_nucle...

Re: Explosion at Japanese nuclear plant, fuel may be melting - Officials

#47

Post by maigret » Sat, Mar 12, 2011, 12:20 PM UTC

dmfdmf wrote: post #45

maigret wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you think that graph is wrong? https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:EIA2007_...

I thought we ran out of fossil fuel a few years ago?

Of cheap oil, yes. Dirty oil is still to be found, I don't know of a consensus yet on peak oil.

Re: Explosion at Japanese nuclear plant, fuel may be melting - Officials

#48

Post by maigret » Sat, Mar 12, 2011, 1:09 PM UTC

JanezStupar wrote: post #42

maigret wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may have reacted too emotionally, but one of the point am I questioning is whether keeping old nuclear reactors is safe (I should probably have given more background on the German discussion). We may come to the conclusion that replacing them by new reactors could improve the overall safety. Of course that is going to cost money, and then we might find out that we are building us a debt that is not paying in the lo…

You are deceiving... Where did your get your information that nuclear power is "minor part" of electric energy production? See this table: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/nshare.html If you see this is practically a list of major industrialized countries. Two of the biggest (China and India) countries that will grow their energy needs tremendously are going to rely on nuclear power massively in the future. EDIT: Da…

To your edit... No problem :) My karma is getting slammed on this discussion anyway :D

To your precedent point about computers and home electricity consumption: most energy actually goes into heating/cooling, that's where passive improvements can do most - better isolation, passive air cooling etc. They are huge possible gains with that. And implementing these improvements makes local small companies thrive, rather than multinational energy companies.

Re: Explosion at Japanese nuclear plant, fuel may be melting - Officials

#49

Post by JanezStupar » Sat, Mar 12, 2011, 1:24 PM UTC

maigret wrote: post #48

JanezStupar wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are deceiving... Where did your get your information that nuclear power is "minor part" of electric energy production? See this table: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/nshare.html If you see this is practically a list of major industrialized countries. Two of the biggest (China and India) countries that will grow their energy needs tremendously are going to rely on nuclear power massively in the future. EDIT: Da…

To your edit... No problem :) My karma is getting slammed on this discussion anyway :D To your precedent point about computers and home electricity consumption: most energy actually goes into heating/cooling, that's where passive improvements can do most - better isolation, passive air cooling etc. They are huge possible gains with that. And implementing these improvements makes local small companies thrive, rather t…

Be kind and provide some references.

I'm pretty certain that heavy industry is helluva big consumer.

Regarding home cooling and heating - I would expect that at least heating is primarily done via other means not electricity. Cooling may be a bigger problem, especially in the most developed countries.

In any case I agree with you that we need to make our housing more energy efficient. And there are a lot of ways to do it, once we realize that concrete bricks might be fast and cheap to produce but beyond that not quite the best option.

Re: Explosion at Japanese nuclear plant, fuel may be melting - Officials

#50

Post by maigret » Sat, Mar 12, 2011, 1:52 PM UTC

JanezStupar wrote: post #49

maigret wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To your edit... No problem :) My karma is getting slammed on this discussion anyway :D To your precedent point about computers and home electricity consumption: most energy actually goes into heating/cooling, that's where passive improvements can do most - better isolation, passive air cooling etc. They are huge possible gains with that. And implementing these improvements makes local small companies thrive, rather t…

Be kind and provide some references. I'm pretty certain that heavy industry is helluva big consumer. Regarding home cooling and heating - I would expect that at least heating is primarily done via other means not electricity. Cooling may be a bigger problem, especially in the most developed countries. In any case I agree with you that we need to make our housing more energy efficient. And there are a lot of ways to d…

I like to have heated discussions... Helps getting to the deepness of the topic :)

I think I provided more link that most of the people contradicting me here. You are one the few providing links.

Yes you're right: note than electricity is a subset of energy, so the part of nuclear in the total energy produced is even smaller. Think of transport. Electricity heating is strong where nuclear is strong, take France. So I think both are related, but your point is still valid.