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Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

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Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#31

Post by JackFr »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #24
asah wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...or the evacuation of highly populated Long Island. Three Mile Island was a * big * deal - if that had happened on Long Island, it would've been unimaginable disaster and permanent stain on NYC. To many people, "three strikes you're out" - 3MI, Chernobyl and Fukushima was the final straw, reasoning that even the Japanese can't safely manage this technology, so "Homer Simpson" stands no chance. Meanwhile, even the c…

You're missing at least three other major events. Sarov in 1997 Mayak Production Association in 2017 - nobody knows what happened to this day because Russia refuses to release any info about it but it was a huge release - over 100–300 TBq of ruthenium-106. There's the Nyonoksa explosion in 2019. Also, we might as well count Hanaford, because of massive amounts of radioactive material released starting in the 40's tha…

The aggravating factor is that in the event of an incident there’s simply not a feasible means of evacuation.

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#32

Post by xoxxala »

georgemcbay wrote: post #30
busymom0 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this is a dumb question but couldn't we ship the waste to another planet (of course once we have rockets capable of doing so but that's not far imo).

We could fly it into the sun, the problem is that until we have a space elevator the only way we have of getting it out of the atmosphere is via rockets and a rocket explosion with a nuclear waste payload would be very bad.

It would also be far cheaper to send that nuclear waste to Mars. It takes 55 times the energy to fly to the Sun than it does to go to Mars:

https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/its-surprisingly-hard-to-g...

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#33

Post by hollerith »

xoxxala wrote: post #32
georgemcbay wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could fly it into the sun, the problem is that until we have a space elevator the only way we have of getting it out of the atmosphere is via rockets and a rocket explosion with a nuclear waste payload would be very bad.

It would also be far cheaper to send that nuclear waste to Mars. It takes 55 times the energy to fly to the Sun than it does to go to Mars: https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/its-surprisingly-hard-to-g...

In addition, even sending it to Mars would be extremely expensive.

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#34

Post by georgemcbay »

xoxxala wrote: post #32
georgemcbay wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could fly it into the sun, the problem is that until we have a space elevator the only way we have of getting it out of the atmosphere is via rockets and a rocket explosion with a nuclear waste payload would be very bad.

It would also be far cheaper to send that nuclear waste to Mars. It takes 55 times the energy to fly to the Sun than it does to go to Mars: https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/its-surprisingly-hard-to-g...

Sure but since we're talking about pie in the sky stuff requiring tech we don't yet have to begin with, putting it into the sun is a better permanent solution.

I don't think Elon is ever going to colonize Mars, but other people may someday.

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#35

Post by [deleted] »

busymom0 wrote: post #28
asah wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...or the evacuation of highly populated Long Island. Three Mile Island was a * big * deal - if that had happened on Long Island, it would've been unimaginable disaster and permanent stain on NYC. To many people, "three strikes you're out" - 3MI, Chernobyl and Fukushima was the final straw, reasoning that even the Japanese can't safely manage this technology, so "Homer Simpson" stands no chance. Meanwhile, even the c…

Maybe this is a dumb question but couldn't we ship the waste to another planet (of course once we have rockets capable of doing so but that's not far imo).

[deleted]

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#36

Post by fakedang »

xoxxala wrote: post #32
georgemcbay wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could fly it into the sun, the problem is that until we have a space elevator the only way we have of getting it out of the atmosphere is via rockets and a rocket explosion with a nuclear waste payload would be very bad.

It would also be far cheaper to send that nuclear waste to Mars. It takes 55 times the energy to fly to the Sun than it does to go to Mars: https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/its-surprisingly-hard-to-g...

Shower thought: Why send it to Mars when we can send it to uninhabitable Venus? Even gravity might work in our favor.

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#38

Post by saulpw »

fakedang wrote: post #36
xoxxala wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would also be far cheaper to send that nuclear waste to Mars. It takes 55 times the energy to fly to the Sun than it does to go to Mars: https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/its-surprisingly-hard-to-g...

Shower thought: Why send it to Mars when we can send it to uninhabitable Venus? Even gravity might work in our favor.

Gravity does not work in our favor. It takes energy to go towards the sun.

Re: Long Island's decommissioned nuclear power plant

#40

Post by MostlyStable »

asah wrote: post #14
natnat wrote: post #11

What a depressing outcome. This could have powered hundreds of thousands of households, cheaply, without adding any CO2 to the atmosphere.

...or the evacuation of highly populated Long Island. Three Mile Island was a * big * deal - if that had happened on Long Island, it would've been unimaginable disaster and permanent stain on NYC. To many people, "three strikes you're out" - 3MI, Chernobyl and Fukushima was the final straw, reasoning that even the Japanese can't safely manage this technology, so "Homer Simpson" stands no chance. Meanwhile, even the c…

While I think you are accurately describing how people do/would react, the "big deal" you describe killed, injured, or caused adverse health effects for exactly zero people. It is possible that these are inevitable outcomes of human psychology, but a more rational world would have gone full steam ahead on nuclear power, even after all of the events you describe. A Chernobyl level accident every single year would have killed fewer people (by a few OOM) than particulate emissions from coal, and that's completely ignoring any climate effects.

Our societies risk tolerance with nuclear is literally orders of magnitude disconnected from how we treat risk from any other source, and as a result we are all poorer, less healthy, and have injured the environment to a dramatically greater degree relative to a pro-nuclear alternative timeline.

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