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My numbers were for...

At first your numbers were assumptions, now they're for commercial next generation reactors that haven't been constructed yet. That's a major inconsistency in your argument there.

The energy spent during construction of a reactor containment building is a direct reflection of the strength of the construction, how much concrete is used and the building's capacity to sustain damage. You argue that the energy expenditure is less to construct next generation reactors and that is because there is less concrete and steel invested into the containment building making them cheaper to construct, i.e the dollar investment is a direct reflection of the strength of the containment building and the energy invested to construct it. Consider if the Chernobyl "accident" occured inside a strong containment building how much fall out could have been contained, why should we tolerate having new reactors built with any less assurance that the structure could contain such an event.

With an average 50 year lifespan on an average ... I think 50 years is conservative

Your first argument is that a 1GW reactor lasts an average of 50 years, now you "think" they will last 50 years. The bottom line is you can't show me where a 1GW reactor is that has lasted 50 years because it doesn't exist, so your argument is flawed on that point alone. Additionally what I didn't mention previously is your argument assumes that your 1GW reactor operates at FULL load for it's entire life outside it's 30% downtime, which is optimistic at best. At best even coal power stations are pushing it to last 40 years and that is established, operational technology. Even the document you sent me expects only 40 years from the reactor at Forsmark.

Overall power output has gone *up* as our reactors have aged (thanks to improving technology). What makes you think they're just going to keel over tomorrow?

hahahahahaha that's funny rei. You really illustrate a poor understanding of the limitations of a machine such as a nuclear reactor. Maybe this single example will help you understand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis-Besse http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/vessel-head-degradation.html

Then perhaps you can explain the operational characteristics of a Nuclear reactor throughout different phases of it's designed life. Tell me what happens when key components get "embrittled" towards the end of the reactor's life span.

Heh, and you criticized *me* for making up numbers -- what hat did you pull that out of? Here's a sample breakdown for you -- Vattenfall's independently audited, cradle-to-grave declaration...

...was ONE of the sources of data in the analysis from the link I provided and Vattenfall uses the same method to produce energetic calculations. So in criticising the data I got, you've criticised the data you got. But you picked the Swedish reactors, the best run in the world. I've seen their plans for a waste dump , the primary rock is GRANITE, it makes Yucca mountain look like a joke. You can dream of having a reactor program run that well in the U.S and it should be a example of what a *baseline* nuclear program would look like.

Of course you only picked construction you wouldn't mention the energetic expenditure for nuclear industry externalities have not even been estimated. Want to tell me what the energy costs are to seal up 65000 tons of depleted uranium from the enrichment process, what about the mine tailings? Still no answer from you there rei.

I don't know what you read that gave you these ludicrous numbers. "Stormsmith.nl"? You think that's some sort of credible source?

There's a legal limit on the nuclear industry's liability, so their insurance is in effect subsidized:

Also it is unclear the nuclear disposal fund into which utilities are paying will be sufficient to cover the actual costs of nuclear waste.

I've been personally involved in several amateur satellite payloads. As a secondary payload, there was no "permit" we had to obtain. If there was one, it was obtained by the Launch Provider as part of their service. However, we did have to meet a metric assload of materials, interface and operations requirements as dictated by the Launch Provider. Most of the restrictions centered around making sure the payload didn't present an unnecessary hazard to the flight. And by "unnecessary," I mean that propulsion systems carry triple-redundant safety structures to guarantee that the payload won't light-off prior to deployment, the RF section has redundant elements to prevent it from operating prior to deployment, etc. (I'm certain that you'd need a permit and gobs of oversight from the NRC if you were trying to launch a nuclear wessel, but that's a totally different animal.)

And that's my space junk, thankyouverymuch. I'm quite proud of having found a way to get some of my stuff off the planet ... I'd love to send something to the moon, even if I have to land at 11 km/s (aerobraking isn't an option.) However, getting from LEO (7.5 km/s) to escape velocity (11 km/s) has proven to be quite difficult, even for small spacecraft.

Vermont Yankee has been a sore subject in Vermont for a while, and not because of FUD. Doing things like losing spent fuel rods, and then trying to spin the situation as not-such-a-big-deal is not going to endear you to Vermonters or their neighbors.

Link: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/plant-specific-items/v ermont-yankee-issues/location-spent-fuel-rod.html

The rods are not in the cooling pool, they weren't found, and after observing this and other Yankee Nuke related issues as a concerned citizen I am convinced that Entergy and Co should get the fuck out of Vermont.

VT Yankee has been run too poorly for too long. Nuclear done right is a beautiful thing, nuclear done the VT Yankee way leads to disasters.

Regards from Burlington 05401.

Non - existant water contamination? The NRC report says there were 2.23 million gallons of contaminated water. It didn't escape the plant, but it still had to be dealt with.

We are supposed to believe that 9 gallons of enriched Uranium won't go into chain reaction but if you spill it onto a floor where it spreads out the chances of a chain reaction increases?

No, we're supposed to believe that an improperly sealed transfer line could allow sufficent uranium to accumulate in two possible places over the course of multiple transfer operations.

Report PDF

Keep in mind that this event's worst case result from this would have been:
"If a criticality accident had occurred in the filter glovebox or the elevator pit, it is
likely that at least one worker would have received an exposure high enough to cause acute
health effects or death." Keep in mind that the result of the second worst event for nuclear facilities for the year. Compare that with the coal industry or oil industry where there are multiple deaths annually.

Also this is fairly old news since it was in the NRC's "Report to Congress on Abnormal Occurrences - Fiscal Year 2006 (NUREG-0090, Vol. 29)". Which has a release date of April 2007. Take a look for yourself its on page 14
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nure gs/staff/sr0090/v29/sr0090v29.pdf

The information is available to congress is not notified everytime an incident occurs. Unless the accident could cause things to happen off site the public isn't notified until the annual list of inccidents, primarily because it would just create unneeded hystaria as seen by this FUD while the engineers review the facts and figure out REALLY happened. As far as the company trying to hide it. If it is not reported to the NRC within 24 hours of the event they would likely lose their license.

Just an FYI; highly enriched fuel is used for naval reactors (aircraft carriers, submarines, etc.) Typical power reactors aren't designed to burn this in large quantities.

Here's a photo of the facility. That's a guard tower in the right foreground.

They kept a lid on it for 3 years. I note that this was NRC policy, as opposed to a company cover up. The NRC is typically rather open about these sort of events.

I have supported the restarting of Browns Ferry Unit 1 for a long time. Because despite the issues nuclear power is an immediatly available and fairly clean power source. Browns Ferry Unit 1 has had a bumpy road to travel since it was commissioned, and then shut down, and then restarted. Since its restart it has contributed clean energy at a time when the Tennessee Valley has been hammered by record high temperatures.record rainfall deficits that have severely curtailed hydroelectric production and made for conditions calling for record power demand levels.

One occurance that also recently occured at Browns Ferry was the automatic shutdown of the reactor due to a coolant leak. TVA reported to the NRC that an unknown amount of reactor cooling water had indeed leaked and they spent last weekend repairing it. After restart the high water temps forced this shutdown. In fact this is nothing new though. We had the Sequoyah reactor using its cooling towers last year due to elevated water temps.

But yeah its been hot for sure. Also of interest is it looks like we are going to get the newest reactor in the US and that it be at Watts Bar. Unit 1 has been online there since 1996, and produces enough juice for 250,000 homes. Unit 2 at Watts Bar was roughly 80% complete when construction stopped. TVA is currently and exploring finishing the construction of Unit 2 giving us yet another clean power source. In September 2000 Watts Bar Unit 1 set a record for continuous operation of TVA reactors of similar design.

Get those as powders in a traditional bomb, and you've got a several mile cloud of you're-dead-in-three-days.

Can you back that up? According to the NRC, "Immediate health effects from exposure to the low radiation levels expected from an RDD would likely be minimal." (http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fac t-sheets/dirty-bombs.html)

You mention the Goiania accident as a parallel, but there were <5 deaths caused by that, and all were of people in close proximity to the concentrated radiation source. I'm not an expert, but nothing I've read supports the idea of a dirty bomb producing a "several mile cloud of you're-dead-in-three-days."

NRC has a big job keeping track of radiation sources and do a good job overall IMHO, but their feet still need to be held to the fire. See http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/even t-status/event/2007/20070302en.html for the nuclear errors reported in the US for one day this year. There are LOTS of licensed radiation sources out there, and many of them get lost/damaged/misused. Every day.

True, if you consider only radiating alpha particles stable, then yes Uranium is less a problem than the eventual transuranic waste product. The Nuclear reactor has a good handle on their waste. They store on site, which for the most part works fine. For the waste they do need to transport to a geologically secure burial site, such as Yucca Mt., they have highly fortified caskets (I'll leave you to read the specifications; they can be found [warning .pdf] here.) 1,300 successful transports in the last year and never a contaminating accident. Coal derived uranium, however? It spews forth into the air as a part of the ash. You are right, it is less dangerous than the transuranic waste. However, you are not breathing in the transuranic waste.

'The grid (as was shown by the outage on the east coast a couple years ago) is not very redundant'

Actually the grid used to more redundant until the utility companies stopped building standby generators and connected local systems to a central control station, to save on staff and to save money. They managed this by lobbying in Washington to get the regulations diluted.

The actual blackout was caused by the MS Blaster worm that caused the SCADA units to freeze. These Windows based units are used to provide remote reading of Remote Terminal Units (RTUs). As the operators were unaware that a single generator had tripped out in Ohio, they failed to respond when too much power was been drawn in from a neighboring area. This in turn tripped out other generators in a domino effect. Coincidentally enough ten months previously the SQL worm caused a similar crash of the SCADA units at a nuclear power plant owned by the same company.

Years later a report found (a) Unix to be responsible for the outage and (b) an operator had switched off a key piece of equipment and then went to lunch. This despite the fact that telephone transcripts showed that the operators were fully aware that something was wrong in the minutes preceding the blackout.

XA/21
http://www.nipc.gov/dailyreports/2003/August/DHS_I AIP_Daily_2003-08-18.pdf

MS Blaster
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/08/20/slammer_wo rm_crashed_ohio_nuke/

We have no idea what happened
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/04/blackout .hearing/index.html

transcripts
http://www.cnn.com/2003/fyi/news/09/04/transcript. fri/

potential vulnerability of plant computer network to worm infection
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen- comm/info-notices/2003/in200314.pdf

an engineer .. disabled an automatic periodic trigger
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/securi ty/recovery/story/0,10801,87400,00.html

RTUs
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/41

was: Re:What about a boogeyman attack?

In a way you're both right. Per 10CFR20.1201, a worker's total effective dose equivalent (TEDE) cannot exceed 5 rem/yr (there's a whole host of other limits, see link if you really care). The 100 mrem/yr limit is for a member of the general public (e.g. someone living close to a nuclear power plant, who receives the exposure without giving due consent) (10CFR20.1301). I suspect the 5 rem/yr limit would be the applicable one since the people on the space elevator would be doing so in the course of their employment, or would otherwise be making the trip voluntarily with full knowledge of the potential radiation exposure (along the same lines as a radiation therapy patient).

In a way you're both right. Per 10CFR20.1201, a worker's total effective dose equivalent (TEDE) cannot exceed 5 rem/yr (there's a whole host of other limits, see link if you really care). The 100 mrem/yr limit is for a member of the general public (e.g. someone living close to a nuclear power plant, who receives the exposure without giving due consent) (10CFR20.1301). I suspect the 5 rem/yr limit would be the applicable one since the people on the space elevator would be doing so in the course of their employment, or would otherwise be making the trip voluntarily with full knowledge of the potential radiation exposure (along the same lines as a radiation therapy patient).

They are responsible for their bottom line, and in the case of Entergy, concealing missing fuel rods happens to be profitable.

I can't say I'm intimately familiar with this story - but I did a little searching online. According to the NRC there doesn't seem to be any kind of foul play involved here. They apparently did an inspection and during auditing they found a discrepancy in the inventory. Later investigation uncovered the missing material in a different container. The material was a bit of an oddity as it did not fit into the standard containers, so it is understandable how stuff like this could get mixed up in a large inventory. That doesn't make it OK, but the fact is that the regulators did in fact spot the issue, make it public, and then ensure the issue was resolved. This is exactly what they should be doing.

Maybe there is more to the story than what was on the NRC website, but searching around there doesn't seem to be. Apparently the site was owned by a previous owner, who Entergy ended up suing to try to get them to pay for the fuel rod hunt (which seems appropriate).

Don't get me wrong - accounting for high level radioactive waste is important, and somebody dropped the ball here. However, it doesn't seem like the situation was mishandled, and it seems like the industry took the situation seriously. If they didn't I'd be all for making them pay dearly for it.

You're partially correct. Hanford was a research and production facility, it also had several reactors. WPPSS 2 reactor is within the Hanford complex. http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/wash2.html

Re-read my post, I'm discussing the impact of the push for modern nuclear power, vs the waste generated in comparison to current hydro dams.

You've just shown that you have no understanding of this issue. For example: your 145,000 tons of uranium is an isotope with a half-life of about 4 billion years. (The small amount of U235 has a half life of 700 million years, and doesn't change the overall total much.) Thorium is similar: it has a half-life of 14 billion years.

I'd suggest reading his post a bit better, he changed topics to talking about nuclear waste, which tends to be very hot indeed.

But let's do the math

It's not the best source, but This document seems to think that 4-13 watts/kilogram is the range for a spent fuel assembly in it's first year outside the reactor. Rods seem to run 320-658kg. at 13 watts/kilogram, 1 heavy rod will run ~8.5 kilowatts. At 5% efficiency, as mentioned elsewhere on the thread, we're back down to 427 watts. That would result in 3.7 kw/hours of electricity a year, worth ~$.45 at retail electricity rates. Probably not worth it. ;)

For the math freaks: I rounded my posts, not the calcs.

If the amount of radiation exposure to radon gas in those situations is ignorable then why bring it up?

Because there are people who don't understand that and make bad decisions based on their fear of microscopic radiation doses.

But not the proposed implementations by the people after some goverment hydrogen dollars unfortunately, where being made in the USA will over ride considerations as to whether the technology actually works or not - especially since nuclear is being pushed as the "fast" option to put in quickly to reduced CO2 - as if you can build any sort of large thermal plant quickly let alone an old nuclear plant design, so unfortnately the old irrational arguments still apply while the same old irrational players will be getting the contracts.

iamlucky13 is pretty much spot on. However, there's a couple points that he missed. There are substances that can be used to absorb the radiation without becoming radioactive themselves, even with neutron bombardment.

For example, plain water can aborb quite a shocking amount of it without becoming any more radioactive. That's part of why it's a popular shielding/cooling material.

As for the rest of it, they keep extending the life of current reactors, because they can produce so much power so cheaply. Finally, there's a huge difference between the reactors currently in operation and the designs we have today. If we were to build new reactors, they would be built safer and far more efficient than the old ones. Without greenpeace FUD, they'd likely be even cheaper for the capacity.

Add in how the Price-Anderson act works, and the more reactors you have, the more money is available in case of a disaster.

But seriously now, I've heard that the nuclear industry gets similar government rebates - can anyone quantify this? I suppose future governments having to deal with the waste could be seen as a government subsidy..

At least in the USA, all the government does for them is act as a forth level insurance underwriter. And they haven't had to pay out since TMI. It's the Price-Anderson act.

For 'cheap' incidents the companies insure themselves. For medium level events, like $300 million right now, they have individual insurance. After that, all the nuke reactor owners each pay $95.8 million($8.6 billion total), and the government still hasn't paid a dime. It's only after $8.9 Billion is paid by the nuclear industry that it's call a disaster and the federal government steps in.

Oh, and the $300 Million insurance only costs $400k a year. .13%, not a bad charge.

Could you imagine running for office with such a policy [?]

• Fort St. Vrain: An HTGR reactor, technically way different from typical power stations now in operation. It only ran for 13 years, almost NEVER at anywhere near it's rated output, because it kept having breakdowns and operational failures. (The short lifespan, and running at extremely low power, prevented the building materials from being irradiated in the way that the building of a "successful" power station would be.) The record of this reactor was a safety nightmare, and it was a financial nightmare for it's Colorado customers. Also, the "cost" of dealing with the high-level waste was hidden via sending it to the National Lab facility in ID (i.e., TAXPAYER subsidy). Here's a reference for some history: http://fsv.homestead.com/FSVHistory.html Note that although they claim to be fully decommissioned, the building is still sitting there, apparently not in use for anything which would expose people for exgtended periods.

• Shoreham: Gadzooks, want to you label this as a success story ??? It cost $6 Billion to build, it completed it's 5% power test successfully, and then it was promptly shut down forever (after less than 1 month). I agree that a nuclear power plant is easy to decommission, if you never actually use it to generate any electric power! But we're hopefully talking about power plants which actually generate electricity, right?

• CTVR Yes, the NRC fact sheet lists it as a decommissioned reactor... but a quick Google shows nothing about this reactor, except a copies of the NRC list. I don't think that this was a Civilian Electrical power station. Possibly, NRC and Military came up with some backroom "let's mark it cleaned up" deal to hide a mess. If you can find a URL for a public utility which operated it, please advise!

• Pathfinder only ran for 13 months http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/decommissioning/com plex/pathfinder.html, and was characterized by the GAO as "a small demonstration plant" (although it's actually listed as way larger than the CVTR toy, see GAO/RCED-99-75 'Nuclear Regulation'). Small output and barely a year of operating time == extremely simple and cheap to clean up. This is another "example" which hardly generated any electrical power at all.

• Douglas Point Per this PDF dated October 2004, http://www.nea.fr/html/rwm/wpdd/canada.pdf "No commercial nuclear power reactors are undergoing active decommissioning in Canada. Three prototype power reactors (NPD, Douglas Point, and Gentilly-1) have been partially decommissioned and put into storage with surveillance mode pending final decommissioning at an undetermined future date." Looks to me like it wasn't a commercial nuclear power station, (just an AECL prototype), and it hasn't yet been decommissioned..

Still... If you've got other candidates which (a) weren't "toy-sized"; and (b) ran for at least 20 years, let's discuss them!

>No nuclear power station has ever been fully decommissioned successfully.

Incorrect.

In the United States:
"Four nuclear power plants have completed the decommissioning process and have had their operating license terminated. These are:
-- Fort St. Vrain Nuclear Generating Station
-- Shoreham Nuclear Power Station
-- CTVR (Pressurized Tube, Heavy Water); and
-- Pathfinder (Superheat BWR)."
From:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact -sheets/decommissioning.html

In Canada, Dougles Point Nuclear Power Plant has been fully decommissioned, from personal experience.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/even t-status/event/2006/

The powerplant in PA that nearly destroyed the known universe. (Yes I know it wasn't all that bad, but no matter what I put there someone would have tried to correct me.)

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact -sheets/3mile-isle.html

When they tried to upgrade to faster connections they had some failure controling the reactor. Not sure exactly, but it was explained to me that the control rod motors need slight adjustments to keep the reactor "in balance". the faster connections caused more samples to be processed than the adjustment motors could keep up with.
Take this with a big grain of salt. I believe the person who told me believed it, and he used to work at TMI, but not sure where he got his info. Whatever..

1) First off, Chernobyl exploded because of idiocy in the Ukraine. You do not conduct an experiment on a nuclear power plant and turn all the safeties off. That is asking for trouble. However, NO FALLOUT WAS EVER RELEASED FROM THE FACILITY. The facility was 100% lost, but everyone was safe that was not inside the plant.
Um... NO . Not only no, but hell fucking no, you're wrong. You're probably thinking about Three Mile Island. How this shit got modded up, I'll never know. That half-assed link of yours also glossed over Chernobyl, which was actually a quite major event. I'm not saying nuke plants aren't much, much better than Chernobyl was, but we need to be continually cognizant of the dangers inherent in things like nuclear power. That being said, the greater the risk, often the greater the reward. We just need to make sure the risk is managed.

As far as the next generation of "traditional" fission reactors, I guess I've been more impressed with GE's ESBWR , than Westinghouse's APxxx ...
IANANE (I am not a Nuclear Engineer), but BWRs seem to have fewer problems (no steam gnerators to leak/plug up, no vessle head degradation) and are theroetically more efficent (single cycle)...
I wonder if anyone is going to make a bid for GENE (General Electric Nuclear Energy)...
I also wonder why we dont hear more about CANDU reactors . They use natural uranium instead of enriched uranium, which could provide more peaceful energy in unstable areas of the worls

Well, I believe that both our environment and our governments are much more fragile than many would like to admit.

You state that, "if we do something so bad that billions will perish, we won't be able to continue doing 'harm; and the planet will recuperate itself," as if that should comfort a population facing extinction. The article is saying that we've already done something so bad that billions will perish; here's how you can increase your chances of surviving. Nuclear war would cause major catastrophes, but what is the side effect of nuclear waste. Here's a map of nuclear reactors in the US. That waste creates hot spots that are buried around our globe. We can keep the sealed for some time, but not forever. And what happens to that waste if humans are no longer able to maintain it (to keep it sealed). The globe will become inhabitable by anything that can't handle high amounts of radiation.

You say that anything we do slowly to the environment will be quickly absorbed, as if the environment is some sort of sponge. Well, I'm sure that James Lovelock would say that we haven't done damage slowly, but very quickly. Many, many tons of greenhouse gasses in a period of 30 years.

The chaotic anarchy that Mr. Lovelock addresses is not global war. You can have large scale war with very primitive weapons, but you can not have large scale war without a large population. I believe Mr. Lovelock is suggesting that you will have wild anarchy in the areas where people survive.

The idea that war requires democracy is silly. War has been around long before people got the vote, and war continues though we don't have any true democracies on the planet.

You say, "we should work at arming our own households, investing in bountiful properties, creating communities of people who love one another but are no adverse to profit or personal gain." Why are your household of you don't fear a Mad Max type ending? Why buy bountiful properties, other than to develop them and make money? Do you want to create communities that love one another, or communities where people fear one another. It seems like you, as many misguided conservative, are promoting a form of corporate democracy. One where the people with the arms, or the people with the land, or the people with the money, rule. It seems like you believe you have little control of the environment.

You start your post by saying, "and people think us Christ followers are bonkers." What troubles me, is a group of Christian who believe that the Earth is just a middle point for us, and that we don't need to take care of it from an environmental stand point, because at some time doomsday will come, and the Earth will be left for the sinners, and you will rise to some better place. That would be a bonkers excuse to not care about the environment. It also seems like an excuse used by many Christian Conservatives to not take care of the environment.

Furthermore, you should understand the power of our environment. For the first time since the civil war, a major US city was destroyed, and not by war mind you, but by weather. A major factor effecting our economy is the price of power. The factors behind this are environmental in nature. I could even say that your views are shaped by the environment. You live in a comfortable climate, or if you don't, you have AC. Every time you try to breath, airs around. Every business deal you make that involves environmental policy, cost you money. Every business deal you make that doesn't involve environmental policy, makes you money. Regardless, you still have air to breath. It seems possible that environmental incentives have shaped the conservative views you express.

"twenty mile last radius"???

1. There was no blast. Therefore, there was no blast radius. The average dose of radiation to the people in the area affected by Three Mile Island was 1 millirem. To put that in perspective, a full set of chest X-rays exposes the patient to 6 millirem.

2. The area that was evacuated of pregnant women and pre-school children was a 5 mile radius.

Source: United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

In short, if TMI is a worst-case (or even close to worst-case) scenario, my local utility company has my permission to construct a modern nuclear power plant in my back yard any time.

"... comprehensive investigations and assessments by several well-respected organizations have concluded that in spite of serious damage to the reactor, most of the radiation was contained and that the actual release had negligible effects on the physical health of individuals or the environment."

Chernobyl was a disaster because the Russian government built it, with little regard to human safety. So in order to cut costs, they decided not to build contamination tanks, therefore when the reactor had a meltdown, it leaked into the atsmophere.

Three Mile Island never had a leak. This is because it was built by America, and they built contamination tanks. There was a meltdown within the plant itself, but it never breached walls, it simply went into the contamination tanks. Therefore making the "nuclear power is a disaster waiting to happen" propaganda totally blown out of proportion. No nuclear plant that had built-in contamination tanks has ever had a disaster like Chernobyl did. Ever.

Some good reading here.

As far as radioactive storage, I agree with the concerns over that, as there are no ways of safely destroying it, and storing it always adds risk. However, the current push for nuclear fusion will eliminate that worry, along with the concern of radioactivity altogether.

Even more recent is the incident at Three Mile Island. However, how does the threat of a rare meltdown compare with the problems and inefficiencies of burning fossil fuel to create electricity?

"And radiation did leave the plant during the accident."

OH MY GOD! TRACE AMOUNTS OF RADIATION WERE RELEASED!

SHUT DOWN THE COAL-FIRED PLANTS NOW!

Yes, coal-fired plants do release radioactive materials into the atmosphere. There's one plant in Utah that dumps more radioactive material into the atmosphere in a single day than the TMI accident. (This is due to trace amounts of uranium in the coal burned by the plant.) Oh, let's not forget that in addition to being radioactive, the uranium that the aforementioned coal plant releases is chemically toxic too, as opposed to the krypton released by TMI which is chemically inert and hence there is no way for it to bind itself to anything in the body. Let's not forget all the other chemical nastiness in the emissions from coal plants.

According to http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact -sheets/3mile-isle.html ,the average dose to people nearby was 1 millirem. That's 1/6th of the dose from a full set of chest x-rays and less than 1% of yearly exposure to background radiation.

In short, coal-fired plants do more damage to the environment each day than the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history.

Chernobyl does not count here, because it could not have happened in a U.S. power reactor, here are a few reasons why:
U.S. power reactors are fully water-moderated. If the water boils off, the core will likely melt, but the reaction will begin slowing down because the water is needed for the reaction to continue. Chernobyl, on the other hand, was graphite moderated and hence the reaction could continue even when water boiled off.

U.S. power reactors don't contain large amounts of superheated flammable substances in their core. The initial incident at Chernobyl was a steam explosion that wouldn't have been bad if not for the fact that it exposed the superheated radioactive graphite in the core to air, which immediately began burning violently, dispersing the core's contents into the atmosphere.

Operators of U.S. power reactors don't disable all of their reactor's safety systems in order to run dangerous experiments. (Chernobyl's reactor should have scrammed itself long before the accident occurred, but the operators intentially disabled all of the reactor's safety systems.)

Yeah, that probably explains why the US is in the forefront of technological innovation and Argentina is not.

May be this comment is just too stupid to be replied... but if someone really cares about USA and Argentina regulations they can compare them:

Nuclear Regulatory Commision (USA)
Autoridad Regulatoria Nuclear (Argentina)

They would probably be similar because these issues are usually discussed internationally by the International Comission on Radiological Protection and then the participant countries aprove their recommendations as regulations.

chemically the same @ wikipedia

the NRC also describes tritium as chemically identical. the iaea describes isotopes as "chemically identical but physically different".

maybe you should argue with them? i trust the iaea more than mr. random slashdotter aka you.

Nuclear pacemakers have been manufactured and used. They stopped being produced mainly due to public image problems. The patients also have to be tracked and monitored;
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen- comm/info-notices/1998/in98012.html

Since I'm probably not the only one that don't know my reactors that well: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact -sheets/next-gen-reactors.html :p

From the US Nuclear Regulatory Agency definition of low level radiation.

The radioactivity can range from just above background levels found in nature to very highly radioactive in certain cases such as parts from inside the reactor vessel in a nuclear power plant.

Emphasis added.

I believe we use gaseous diffusion.

People don't like nuclear power because of incidents like three mile island and Chernobly ,yet more damage is done each year by the cumulitive effects of coal/gas and oil plants.

I read somewhere that more people die in coal mines in russia every year than the total death toll (including long term cancer deaths) from chernobyl. And chernobyl was a crappy design that would not be allowed in the US. Cancer death estimates vary considerably, however. Additional eurasian cancer deaths would have to be compared to polution related deaths from power plants (which kills thousands every year). Directly attributable deaths for nuclear power, per terawatt years of power generated are 8 for nuclear power, 85 for natural gas, 342 for coal, and 883 for hydroelectric (dam's break). Add some cancer deaths for nuclear and pollution related deaths from fossil fuels. And add global warming related deaths to fossil fuels. Commercial power plants have 11000 reactor years of operation in over 30 countries with two major accidents. That is about one accident per 100 power plants over the projected life of the reactor and future accidents are likely to resemble three mile island rather than chernobyl. And coal plants release more radiation into the atmosphere than nuclear plants (yep, coal contains radioactive material).

Average radiation exposure to 2 million people around three mile island was 1mrem compared to 6mrem for a set of chest xrays. Exposure at the plant boundary was 100mrem which is less than the annual background exposure. So, even if you were standing near the plant, your total lifetime radiation exposure was increased by about 1.2%.

Studies indicate that US Nuclear reactors will survive a direct hit from a 767.

Nuclear waste disposal is an issue. Integral Fast Reactors have the potential to reduce the magnitude of this problem considerably.

About a year ago, James Lovelock, of Gaia fame, proposed nuclear power as the only alternative that could stem global warming in time

There is one new technology that is more suited for oil replacement and could be a decent alternative to nuclear as a fossil fuel replacement: Thermal Depolymerization . That is a new technology but a pilot plant is producing 400 barrels of oil per day. When run off of plant (or even animal) material, the net greenhouse emissions are zero and the process consumes waste (and a wider variety of waste than other technologies) rather than creating it.

I live about 30 miles from two nuclear power plants (and the site of what might be the first new power plant built in the US) and less than half a mile from a research reactor.

Never saw that before on a Government site. Anyone else seeing this? It seems to appear infrequently.

There's a modest demand for tritium. It's needed to recharge H-bombs. Fusion researchers need sizable quantities of it. It's used for night lights in exit signs, watches, and gunsights. Tritium has a half life of about 12 years, so you lose 5.5% every year as it decays to helium-3. So a new product that requires tritium faces a major supply problem.

The hazards of tritium exposure aren't high, but some precautions are required. Cleanup procedures for a broken tritium exit sign are as follows:

When an Exit Sign Containing Tritium (3H) Is Damaged (broken with the release of 3H):

1. Evacuate the area immediately.
2. Ventilate the area to the outside.
3. Isolate the area; do not allow entry.
4. Identify all individuals possibly exposed to the H-3.
5. Individuals possibly exposed should immediately:
   • Shower with soap and water (or at least wash face and hands).
   • Change clothing (retain in plastic bag).
   • Drink plenty of fluids.
   • Collect a urine sample immediately and then 24-hour cumulative samples and follow Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), state, or health physics consultant advice on where to send them for analysis.
6. Call the NRC Regional Office.
7. Call the State Radiation Protection Program.
8. Call manufacturer of signs for technical information.
9. Be prepared to hire a health physics consultant to deal with initial monitoring, decontamination, and disposal of the exit sign and contaminated materials.

   The protective clothing required for cleanup usually consists of gloves and booties. The broken sign should be placed in an air-tight container by a health physics consultant. If silica gel is available it should be placed in the container with the broken sign. The silica gel will collect tritiated water. At a minimum, the broken sign and any miscellaneous pieces should be double bagged and sealed in plastic. Disposal of the broken sign should be arranged through the manufacturer or a health physics consultant.

And people screw up, even with ordinary exit signs. Here's a Nuclear Regulatory Commission report from 2004:

• UNPLANNED CONTAMINATION

  USAF personnel in the Johnston Atoll in the Pacific were attempting to remove the "batteries" from an exit sign they believed to be battery powered. During the attempt to open the case, they destroyed the sign only to discover that it was a tritium sign. All tritium modules were broken.

  Five personnel were in the room at the time and all were potentially exposed to the tritium. The Radiation Safety Officer (RSO) isolated the room and the personnel clothing, etc. Pre-cleanup surveys indicated greater than 6 times the normal background survey readings in the room. The RSO double-bagged the sign and tritium module debris. The room and work areas were decontaminated. Post-cleanup surveys indicated normal background readings. Personnel uptake and dose evaluations are currently being assessed.

So, like the nuclear batteries of the 1960s, this will be a specialized technology of very limited application.

I can't believe I had to scroll to the 70th post before someone noticed this.

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news /1997/97-180.html

NRC levied a 2.1 million fine in 1997.

I'm not saying a nuclear disaster would be worse than a wardrobe malfunction. But let's not pretend the government doesn't know this. The government spends many, many millions of dollars per year on nuclear safety (see NRC homepage) and every aspect of nuclear anything is regulated down to dotting i's and crossing t's. That's not to say they're doing enough or the problem is solved, only that nuclear power is already regulated far more than I would ever want TV to be, whereas the Rolling Stone article implies the opposite.

Also my new computer which cost over 100 times what it would cost to build a 20 year old computer can do 5 things at once. Hmm why not spend that money on 100 older computers and do 100 things at once?

Because my computers are running SETI@Home. To get the same performance out of, say IBM PC XT's (or even the Compaq Portable I that I still own and was originally released in 1984), I would need a hell of a lot more than 100 of them. Check this out:

A Zenith Z-100 using 8088/8087 chip(s) running at 10.67 Mhz will do 0.0596 MFLOPS (Millions of Floating Point Operations a Second). That's almost 60 thousand FLOPS.

An Opteron x48 cranks about 4.5 GFLOPS. That's 4.5 Billion FLOPS. That's 75,000 times more work.

Let's do the math, shall we?

75,000 Compaq Portable I's (even tho running at only 4.7Mhz and no 8087 co-proc)
X
70W Power Supplies (IIRC)
=
5.25 MegaWatts! Which is just about 4/10 of 1 percent of the total output of the Palo Verde Nuclear Plant.

Hmmmm... 5.25 Million Watts or 400? I think I'll take the smaller of those two numbers, thank you very much. And I'm sure my neighbors and SETI@Home would agree.

Did those three years include 1979?

I guess not. Unless you understood what a millirem is.

[...] a very poorly designed reactor, a shutdown of the insufficient safety systems, and a government that didn't care about its people. None of those conditions exists in US nuclear power plants.

[...] a very poorly designed reactor, a shutdown of the insufficient safety systems, and a government that didn't care about its people. None of those conditions exists in US nuclear power plants.

This hardware is ancient, hardwired, and low tech. Suppliers are most likely limited to GE, Westinghouse and Combustion Engineering.

The side benefit is that the engineers would have to get out of their chairs and go walk their systems down. If they didn't get lost...those plants are huge.