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They are talking about the Global Warming Potential of the gas. Global Warming Potential is based on infrared adsorption spectra of the gas in question. What that statement means, is that methane adsorbs 21 times as much energy in the infrared spectrum as CO2. The amount of thermal energy trapped in the atmosphere by methane is 21 times that of CO2.

As for the ozone layer part, I have to agree that that seems to be a confused writer.

With coal all that radiation is dumped into the air slowly.

Of course, what power costs you, the consumer, isn't what it costs, full stop. There's greenhouse gas emissions and other power plant exhaust pollution, depletion of resources, destruction of wilderness by mines and their associated infrastructure, and more.

Most of Australia's electricity is generated by coal-fired power plants, which emit an awful lot of carbon dioxide. And coal plant fly ash contains radioactive uranium and thorium in surprising amounts. Even if the ash is effectively caught by filters, something still has to be done with it.

Not that fly ash scraped out of a filter and dropped into a bucket is actually amazingly dangerous stuff, but waste of similar levels of activity that happens to come from nuclear power plants is treated like pure megadeathium. You certainly can't get away with burying it in dams .

Synroc looks like one possibility, although it still needs development.

The wikipedia node on radioactive waste has some more interesting information.

Asinine is defined as "Utterly stupid or silly." Doesn't that disqualify true statements? Caffeine is more toxic than plutonium.

I searched vitrification in Google and got this site. It's informative (if not biased) and contains info on waste management.

103 Commercial nuclear reactors with operating licenses at 64 sites in 31 states

Nuclear energy provides about 20 percent of the United States' electricity and is its number one source of emission-free electricity.

# Percent of worldwide electricity: 16% from 441 reactors. See 2002 World Nuclear Power Generation and Capacity.

Uranium is also abundant, and technologies exist which can extend its use 60-fold if demand requires it. World mine production is about 35,000 tonnes per year, but a lot of the market is being supplied from secondary sources such as stockpiles, including material from dismantled nuclear weapons. Practically all of it is used for electricity.

It occurs in most rocks in concentrations of 2 to 4 parts per million and is as common in the earth's crust as tin, tungsten and molybdenum. It occurs in seawater, and could be recovered from the oceans if prices rose significantly.

Googling a bit gives us the statistics of West Virginia Coal association (around 164 million tons in 2003), and trace info on west virginian trace amounts of uranium in coal (1.59ppm mean value). This might be a small fraction, but it's probably accurate.

So we have 1.59 mol uranium per million mol coal. I'll also assume that a ton is a metric ton and that coal exists entirely of carbon.

164M tons at 12.0107 g/mol gives us 13654491411824 mol. At 1.59ppm, we have 21710641 mol of uranium. At 238.0289 g/mol, we get 5167132640g = 5167133kg = 5167 tons.

Looks about right. Now let's do a rougher world estimates. This site says coal accounts for 93 Quadrillion BTUs. The number of BTUs per ton of coal varies, but according to Wikipedia's Coal entry, it's around 20M BTU/ton, so 4650M tons of coal. We'll still assume 1.59ppm U. Doing the same as above gives us 146515653621g=146515 ton. Since we used estimates and estimates of estimates, we'll just say "over 100,000 tons".

The usage of uranium? 42,500 tonnes. I suppose that's different fron tons, but screw that, I'm tired.

So yes, if my calculations hold, it's true. There is a lot more uranium in the coal than what we mine.

seems to me the north shores of germany would be an excellent place for hydro-electric power.

Which is kinda funny, since more poeple have died from hydro-electric power plants than nuclear power plants. Much more.

The tally so far, for direct deaths caused by power plant failures:

Nuclear: 34.
Hydro: 3500 in India alone.

Source:link

Then it would be like the cost of nuclear energy (cost > energy produced).

MeThinks you are confusing fusion power (which currently genereates less energy than it produces) with fission power, which is operated in power plants in many countries.

Here's another link at the about the economics of nuclear power

If you want more data, do some googling on nuclear power economics

Then it would be like the cost of nuclear energy (cost > energy produced).

MeThinks you are confusing fusion power (which currently genereates less energy than it produces) with fission power, which is operated in power plants in many countries.

Here's another link at the about the economics of nuclear power

If you want more data, do some googling on nuclear power economics

"I only see one problem with nuclear -- the small amount of waste that is generated needs to be handled properly. It can be done, but it just has to be done right."

This can be done right. Synroc developed by Ringwood and his friends here in Australia is the answer to displosal of radioactive waste.

This "problem" has been solved.

Yeah, disposal is a problem.. but it's not like it wasn't just lying around to begin with.

Oh please.. that old, tired argument again. YES, uranium occurs in most rocks in concentrations of 2 to 4 parts per million and is as common in the earth's crust as tin, tungsten and molybdenum. HOWEVER, uranium in the natural state is a mix of two isotopes; 99.3% U-238 and 0.7% U-235. And guess what? U-238 is barely radioactive, with a halflife of about 4500 million years. U-235 on the other hand is way more radioactive, and thus the part they are interested in using for reactorcores.

Guess what? The enriched uranium they use in reactors contains in the region of 3% to 4% U-235 - making it litterary too hot to handle. Even 'spendt' reacorfuel contains more U-235 than ordinary oranium-ore, as well as more than a bit of Pu-239 and Pu-240 (the longer the fuel stays in the reacor, the more Pu-240). And Pu-239 and Pu-240 is two isotopes of an element better known as plutonium... granted, it's not weapongrade plutonium, but it's still something I wouldn't have scattered about.

Fact: There is little or no pollution from an operative reacor.

Fact: Spent fuelrods from reactors are a major enviromental problem.

You might find this and this webpage interesting.

In terms of individual accidents hydro-electric power is the LEAST safe form of generation and nuclear is the safest. Individual hydro-electric accidents, while rare, typically kill thousands. Long term, oil and natural gas are probably the least safe, but nuclear is still the safest (maybe solar is safer, but that doesn't really count). For some data, you might want to check out these tables.
And don't forget that when considering the human hazards of coal and oil you must consider the deaths and injuries associated with mining and drilling/refining operations.

At $3 Million, it beats the pants off a cold fusion plant, which would cost between 5 and 7 Billion (if we could figure out how to get one working)
Cold fusion aside, how does this measure up to currently available methods: Nuclear energy averages 0.4 euro cents/kWh, much the same as hydro, coal is over 4.0 cents (4.1-7.3), gas ranges 1.3-2.3 cents and only wind shows up better than nuclear, at 0.1-0.2 cents/kWh average. (The Economics of Nuclear Power)
The article does not mention overall cost per kWh, nor does it say whether the plant will use the shells as biomass for gas production or if it will burn the shells directly. I think burning them would be more cost effective, the CO2 output would probably be roughly the same.

How abundant are macadamia nuts? I eat plenty of macadamia nuts and butters made from them, very nutritious. Good for athletes and people who need lots of fats/calories, but if you sit on your ass all day you probably want to avoid them.

Damn, there's a lot of uninformed opinions floating around on this topic.

A while ago I stumbled upon this great article which deals in detail with a lot of the issues concerning nuclear power: http://www.uic.com.au/ne.htm

Admittedly it comes from the pro-nuclear camp - I'd be interested to know if anyone can point me to information which contradicts what's stated (claimed?) in this document?

Oh, and for all those who believe that we should be designing a manned mission to Mars, let me be perfectly clear:

The only way we will get humans to Mars will be using nuclear propulsion and nuclear power sources(RTGs). Period.

And for those who question the safety of launching RTGs... this link describes the cases where this has already happened. RTGs have survived abort detonations of REAL missions right after launch with no radiation leakage. They have also survived re-entry (Apollo 13) with no leakage. The safety technology is mature and works.

This is our only ticket for orbitter missions to the outer planets.

As the world's largest supplier of Uranium this could be a boon. UIC

France derives 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy. This is due to a long-standing policy based on energy security.

France is the world's largest net exporter of electricity, and gains some EUR 2.6 billion per year from this.

Wastes: The national policy is to reprocess spent fuel so as to recover uranium and plutonium for re-use and to reduce the volume of high-level wastes for disposal. Waste disposal is being pursued under France's 1991 Waste Management Act which sets the direction of research which is mainly undertaken at the Bure underground rock laboratory in eastern France, situated in clays. Another laboratory is researching granites.

When was the last time a coal powerplant had a catastrophic failure that endangered all who lived near it?

Right! Pumping out invisible carcinogens over a period of years and inflicting gross environmental damage from coal mining is sooooooo much better.

You're like the people who are afraid to fly, despite it being statistically safer than driving.

Take a look at this page, then reflect that NOT ONE member of the general public has ever been killed by the U.S. nuclear power program. Not one. Also reflect that these figures don't include the cancer deaths from coal fumes.

This is a good summary of the energy returns of various methods of power generation. To summarise: (Figures are the precentage of the energy that you get as a net return)

Hydro: 98%

Nuclear fission: 90-98%

Coal: 95%

Natural gas, piped: 96%

Natural gas, LNG imports: 83%

Solar: 73-90%

Wind: 83-98%

Well you have got a little bit of Americium in your house or place of work right now. Every smoke detector has some of the radioisotope in it.

The following document probably has a certain bias (it's prepared by the Uranium Information Centre), but I've found it to be an excellent discussion of the world's energy requirements in general, and electricity and nuclear power in detail.

Good explanations of the pros and cons of different energy sources, as well as explaining which sources are appropriate for base-load and peak-load electricity production. Read this and you'll understand why Denmark isn't aiming for 50% of their power from wind.


http://www.uic.com.au/ne.htm

Warning, it's quite long. Hit sections 2 and 6 for the high-points of alternative energy sources.

The LONGER the material is radioactive the LESS harmfull the radiation from the material is.

Yup. For instance, Uranium 238 has a half-life of about 4 billion years, which means that a given quantity of U-238 is safer than the same quantity of just about any other radioactive isotope.

The problem with PU isn't the radioactivity it has, it is the fact that it is a heavy metal which is very toxic much like lead. With soemthing that stays "hot" for a 100,000 years the toxicity of the material is what your concerned about not the radiation.

This part is incorrect. Pu is indeed a heavy metal, but it is almost completely insoluble in water (with a concentration expressed in parts per million). Another heavy metal is Bi (bismuth), the active ingredient in Pepto-Bismol. If Bi were water-soluble, Pepto-Bismol would be a deadly poison, as it is immediately right of Pb (lead) and two rows down from As (arsenic). (Bi also has the interesting distinction of being the heaviest element with at least one stable isotope.) In addition, Pu-239 (both the most common and the most stable Pu isotope) has a half-life on the order of 20,000 years, making it a rather "warm" isotope. To get a medically significant amount of Pu into your bloodstream by ingestion in a single incident, you would need to swallow a significant fraction of a kilogram of the metal, which would be more than enough to blast your intestinal epithelial cells with a strong alpha burst. The 100,000 year figure in the article takes into account (a) secondary radioactivity induced by the waste in the surrounding materials, and (b) the composition of the waste. Fission waste is a blend of many radioactive isotopes of widely varying half-lives: some "hot", some "warm", and some "cool".

If the U.S. bureaucracy would stop sheep-bleating and pull its collective head out of its ass and pay attention to ongoing fission research, they would find out that the Yucca Mountain project is totally unnecessary because the time it takes for fission waste to cool could be dramatically cut by re-"burning" the waste mixed in with fresh fuel, allowing the "warm" waste to become "hot", thus reducing the danger to a span of a mere century or two at most. They would also start the gears turning on building plants based on the fuel-pellet design operating in Europe, where an overheat of the (liquid metal) coolant causes the fission reaction to spontaneously stop without human intervention and without risk of hydrogen explosions, eliminating the most prominent dangers of traditional fission reactors.

Unfortunately, they're opposed to the former because it's the same process used to turn U-238 into Pu-239 in the first place, making it a "security risk" (Waste recycling is a security risk, but multiple tons of highly radioactive waste stored at a well-known location for 100,000 years isn't?), and they're opposed to the latter because the voting public is anti-nuclear-anything. (Better ban smoke detectors next, they use Americium created in fission reactors!)

Sigh

We use dams. Pretty clean (albeit dangerous to wildlife).

In fact, dams are by far the most dangerous form of power generation on a death/amount of power generated basis. Take a look at the chart labeled Comparison of accident statistics in primary energy production at the bottom of this report

Ok, so I've gotten into this geocaching thing lately, and while working on a cache to be hidden in about 60 feet of water off the coast, it occured to me that a blinking LED might make it easier for divers to spot. No problem, whip up a blinker circuit with an LM3909 and a super-bright green LED and we're set. But what about power? Sure, four D-cells would let it run for close to a decade, but where's the fun in that? The undersea environment is quite dynamic, and there's got to be some power down there that can be harnessed. What I need are some ideas on how to do that.

We keep seeing stories here about tidal power, and that's cool, but I don't see how it can be done without a column rising all the way to the surface. So here are the ideas I've got right now. Keep in mind that the device will probably be housed in a length of 4-inch PVC or ABS pipe, and it needs about 0.5 ma at 1.5 volts:

• Surge power. Put a couple of funnels back-to-back with a CPU cooling fan-sized turbine and generator in the middle, and run the output through a rectifier and capacitor. But how reliable will those moving parts be after years underwater?
• Self-winding watch concept. Float the thing tethered to the bottom and install some sort of pendulum inside with a magnet on it, moving through a coil. The moving parts are protected, but will it be enough power?
• Yank the chain. Again, tether it, but use the varying tension on the tether to drive a dynamo of some sort.
• Nukes. Anyone got a spare radioisotope thermoelectric generator? Any idea how many smoke detectors I'd need to cannibalize to get enough Americium-241?
• Magnetohydrodynamic generator. Like the surge power thing, but using the flow of cunductive seawater through a magnetic field to generate a current. I have no idea how much power this would generate, if any, or how to deal with ion accumulation at the electrodes.

The generator need not fit inside the 4-inch cache tube, but it shouldn't be huge, either. It needs to be practical to build, and not terribly expensive. Above all it's got to be reliable and enduring. Any ideas?

While I don't agree with aspects of this other study (pro-nuke), it suggests a 5-10 for 1 return on energy investment in PV. http://www.uic.com.au/nip57.htm Personally, I feel wind, PV, and increased energy efficiency can supply all our power needs. Remember, over 1% of the US land area is already taken up with space used for power production, between power line right of ways, mines, related roadways, and so forth.

The only energy crisis I see is one of ignorance, vested interests, and lack of imagination. Personally, I would rather see land based solutions than space onces because I would prefer the political implications of decentralized ground based power over centralized space based power. I think there are reasons to develop self-replicating space habitats (mostly just as fun places to live for trillions of people, and as refugia in case bad things happen on Earth for whatever reason), but beaming energy back to Earth is not a major one.

"I think the numbers are something like $3 per killowatt whereas natural gas is over $300 dollars per killowatt. That's right, over 100 times the cost of nuclear power" This is so patently absurd that I don't know why I am bothering to answer it. The last time I looked at the stats nuclear power was four or five times more expensive to produce than gas or coal. These stats are from the UK. Obviously it depends on the local factors. But not that much.

Ah. Argument by higher authority. Usually used in the absence of knowledge.

Nuclear power has its uses. My argument is simple. Nuclear power has with it an associated risk of catastrophic failure. The results of this failure are greater than that which I think it is reasonable for society to bear. Okay?

Uranium is a by product of gold mining in South Africa and the price of gold has been lagging for some time now. The Forbes 500 companies with the highest growth in profits are the oil companies (reported last week) and venture capital for energy grew an average of 115%/year from 1995 thru 2000 it only makes sense for Dutch Boers to team up with the internationally respected black African politicians of South Africa to overcome the barriers, both technical and political, between their mining infrastructure and the already growing world market for uranium.

The problem is that many types of electricity generating plants cannot be "turned on" and "off" quickly. Things like nuclear plants and hydroelectric are great for supplying the base load but for the peaks you need something you can bring online quickly and take off just as quickly. Natural gas and coal are the most popular choices here. Bad Things (tm) happen if you have more or less generating capacity than the load you're trying to supply.

After doing some more research on the internet, I need to rectify some facts:
Since 1986, no more that two reactors of the Chornobyl plant, have been operative..

In 1991, one of the two reactors caught fire and was taken offline and was taken back online in 1995. Currently there's only one reactor operational, the second one was taken offline in 1997 because it exceeded it's lifespan. The remaining reactor, is in such a bad shape, that it needs a half year of service for every half year of operation. Ukrainia has scheduled the last reactor to shut down before 01-01-2000, but is now probably forced to use it until end Q2 Y2K, because they still haven't received any money to finish building their new power plants and winters are very harsh over there..

Currently, Ukrainia had only power 22/24 hours, before powering up #3 and the Ukrainain public transport is largly electrical powered.


In the first year after the accident, the number of cleanup workers in the zone was estimated to be 211,000, and these workers received an estimated average dose between 165-250 millisievert (16.5 rem). In total, around 600-800,000 workers have been involved since 1986 and around 8000-10000 of them died.

Right after the accident, the main health concern involved radioiodine, with a half-life of eight days. During which those 135.000 people were not evacuated.. Today, there is concern about contamination of the soil with cesium-137, which has a half-life of about 30 years.
It is true that the reactors themself are based on old analogue technologies, but the powergrid, auxialiary control units and power backup units aren't.

The POWERGRID and NOT the reactor itself perse, is THE main Y2K concern, according to the CIA.
If the powergrid fails or miscommunication etc, the 5 powerplants Ukrainia has, have to be taken off-line. The ironony is, that reactors need power from the grid to be able be be shutdown, as the Chernobyl test disaster prooved. It is feared, that the current power backup system takes to long to get online, altough it has been improved (providing it is not hit by a y2k problem).

America has offered to send batteries and power generators and also offered to improve current reactors.. But is hindered by politics.. I'm in general anti-America, but it seems like America is the only one who cares.. The G7 still hasn't payed.

How precare is the situation of #4 at the moment?
* In 1991, the Chornobyl plant suffered from an earthquake.
* There is leaking rain water into the "sarcophagus" of unit 4, causing massive corrosion and major damage of the structural integerity as robot surveying showed. There's imminent need of $700,000 todo some very short term repairs to #4, but money lacks...
* #4 contains still 70% of it's original fuel in dust form.. The roof of the 'sargophagus' is imminent to collapse. Does the term 'fall out' ring a bell to anyone? If it would collapse, the disaster would be much much bigger than in 1986.. Providing it won't ignite the nuclear fuel in #3, causing a real global disaster, which is a real fear.
And don't forget the 1991 fire..

Russia and Lithuania still also are using 14 RBMK light water graphite reactors such as at Chornobyl. The RMBK 1000 model VVER 440-230 in Novovoronezh NPP (Russia), the same as used in Chornobyl, has already failed 17 times, during it's life...
Some article on Sovjet reactors.
Some other articles: Russia today , more info this and this

"The odds of a meltdown are one in 10,000 years. The plants have safe and reliable controls that are protected from any breakdown with three safety systems." Vitaly Sklyarov, Minister of Power for the Ukrainian SSR., February 1986

After doing some more research on the internet, I need to rectify some facts:
Since 1986, no more that two reactors of the Chornobyl plant, have been operative..

In 1991, one of the two reactors caught fire and was taken offline and was taken back online in 1995. Currently there's only one reactor operational, the second one was taken offline in 1997 because it exceeded it's lifespan. The remaining reactor, is in such a bad shape, that it needs a half year of service for every half year of operation. Ukrainia has scheduled the last reactor to shut down before 01-01-2000, but is now probably forced to use it until end Q2 Y2K, because they still haven't received any money to finish building their new power plants and winters are very harsh over there..

Currently, Ukrainia had only power 22/24 hours, before powering up #3 and the Ukrainain public transport is largly electrical powered.


In the first year after the accident, the number of cleanup workers in the zone was estimated to be 211,000, and these workers received an estimated average dose between 165-250 millisievert (16.5 rem). In total, around 600-800,000 workers have been involved since 1986 and around 8000-10000 of them died.

Right after the accident, the main health concern involved radioiodine, with a half-life of eight days. During which those 135.000 people were not evacuated.. Today, there is concern about contamination of the soil with cesium-137, which has a half-life of about 30 years.
It is true that the reactors themself are based on old analogue technologies, but the powergrid, auxialiary control units and power backup units aren't.

The POWERGRID and NOT the reactor itself perse, is THE main Y2K concern, according to the CIA.
If the powergrid fails or miscommunication etc, the 5 powerplants Ukrainia has, have to be taken off-line. The ironony is, that reactors need power from the grid to be able be be shutdown, as the Chernobyl test disaster prooved. It is feared, that the current power backup system takes to long to get online, altough it has been improved (providing it is not hit by a y2k problem).

America has offered to send batteries and power generators and also offered to improve current reactors.. But is hindered by politics.. I'm in general anti-America, but it seems like America is the only one who cares.. The G7 still hasn't payed.

How precare is the situation of #4 at the moment?
* In 1991, the Chornobyl plant suffered from an earthquake.
* There is leaking rain water into the "sarcophagus" of unit 4, causing massive corrosion and major damage of the structural integerity as robot surveying showed. There's imminent need of $700,000 todo some very short term repairs to #4, but money lacks...
* #4 contains still 70% of it's original fuel in dust form.. The roof of the 'sargophagus' is imminent to collapse. Does the term 'fall out' ring a bell to anyone? If it would collapse, the disaster would be much much bigger than in 1986.. Providing it won't ignite the nuclear fuel in #3, causing a real global disaster, which is a real fear.
And don't forget the 1991 fire..

Russia and Lithuania still also are using 14 RBMK light water graphite reactors such as at Chornobyl. The RMBK 1000 model VVER 440-230 in Novovoronezh NPP (Russia), the same as used in Chornobyl, has already failed 17 times, during it's life...
Some article on Sovjet reactors.
Some other articles: Russia today , more info this and this

"The odds of a meltdown are one in 10,000 years. The plants have safe and reliable controls that are protected from any breakdown with three safety systems." Vitaly Sklyarov, Minister of Power for the Ukrainian SSR., February 1986