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Should Japan Restart More Nuclear Power Plants? (thebulletin.org)
Lasrick writes: Seth Baum, executive director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, writes in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that Japan should restart more of its nuclear reactors (the Sendai nuclear plant was restarted in August). The reason is simple, writes Baum: "Japan is now building 45 new coal power plants, but if it turned its nuclear power plants back on... it could cut coal consumption in half. And coal poses more health and climate change dangers than nuclear power."
Samples collected from gutters around my office (Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo) already light up the Geiger counter, and the soles of shoes right after make nice images when placed on photographic film.
Oh, and before you give your opinion (e.g. "it was worth it")... I live there, and your opinion doesn't count.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania
Between direct deaths (ie people who die immediately in accidents) and indirect deaths (ie people who die of cancer or pollution) I think coal has more deaths than nuclear by quite a bit. Interestingly hydroelectric dominates for direct deaths as shown here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidents
Germany [..] replaced all their nuclear power plants
Except they didn't.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
What? A nuclear powerplant is not a potential teraton explosion waiting to happen...
Since there's nowhere near a teraton of water in the cooling system? No.
Nuclear plant explosions have more in common with a bursting water heater than they do with a nuclear bomb.
Now, don't get me wrong. A high pressure steam explosion is a nasty thing too. But it's NOT a nuclear explosion.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
You seem to forget that the US dropped NUCLEAR FUCKING BOMBS on two Japanese cities only 70 odd years ago, and both are thriving cities these days.
What goes on for so long is the bs paranoia that is so deeply ingrained that people refuse to look at the scientific facts that low levels of radiation are not lethal, and in fact are quite common naturally.
Or perhaps you suggest we should require people to block up all basements in bedrock due to the natural radon levels?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radon
Not to mention banning bananas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose
People living in Ramsir, Iran of course must be dead by now, but somehow they have been surviving for centuries
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsar,_Mazandaran
But dont let actual facts get in the way of your cold war radiation terror..
Nuclear and Coal are as bad as each other and Nuclear is worse in ways we still don't fully comprehend.
I'd argue that Coal is worse, and worse in ways that we still don't fully comprehend. We understand the problems with nuclear power pretty well, including that it kills fewer people per MWh than solar.
Remember, most of the dangerous byproducts from a coal plant don't break down, and aren't all that well contained. Nuclear power waste is at least contained.
I don't read AC A human right
every coal fire plant is a disaster that is occurring every single day and are continuing to affect the human race in ways we still don't fully comprehend long after everyone here is dead.
You are arguing that having two problems is the solution, instead of getting rid of both problems. Nuclear and Coal are as bad as each other and Nuclear is worse in ways we still don't fully comprehend.
No, I am arguing coal is a KNOWN far worse problem right here and now, we don't have to wait for an accident, it doesn't have some "chance" of being an issue. It has far reaching known issues and probably just as many unknown.
They are 100% importers of their coal. However they have very good coal supply contracts with Australia which provide them with a cheap and reliable supply.
The simple reason is that wind does not generate enough power. If they were to build out their entire wind potential they would have a max generating potential of 752gw. If we assumed favourable wind conditions you might get to 30% of that figure (that would make it one of the best performing in the world) so 225GW. Currently Japan has C250GW of installed generating capacity so there is basically no overhead if they went all wind and there would be a monumental capital cost to achieve it as 600GW is offshore.
As for tidal there isn't currently a working production level tech that I am aware of. Hydro sits at around 6.6% of their electricity generation but it has been expensive, hence they are not building any more. And they have 18 geothermal plants currently but their contribution to the power grid is almost noise level.
Actually, the Chernobyl power plant was built and operated by the closest match to regional private companies USSR had available at that time and not the usual Soviet nuclear industry supervisor (ministry of medium machine building).
In fact, Andropov (in the 1970ies the director of KGB, later the ruler of USSR for about two years) wrote a report to the Soviet government in 1979 describing safety deficiencies and cutting corners during the construction of the power plant and specifically warned about a possible disaster.
And you know why nothing was done about it? Because of all the nuclear wankers USSR had back then, very similar to many slashdotters here singing praises to nuclear power being absolutely safe.
But whatever it was, the second worst reactor disaster (also INES 7) was at a power plant designed, built and operated by private companies. Apparently it doesn't count.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Breeder reactors fix the amount of fuel waste, leaving a small amount of highly radioactive waste from fuel. It is why the French use them. We in the US are limited by treaties made in the past with the USSR. Some pesky point about they can be used as a step in making nuclear weapons. It is also why the MOX project is hobbled. The advanced designs are much safer then our current fleet, but we need to understand the current construction projects are the first of thier kind and be more costly then later projects. I do know about this, am in the industry.
I beg to differ, too: although the local wildlife population is devastatingly healthy thanks to less people around . This is thirty years after the catastrophe, nearly 40 even!
The first ten years after the incident you only had misscariages there and deformed birthes.
The animals living there now are not decendents of the survivors of the catastrophe, but animals that migrated over the last 20 years into that area.
Depending where they set up their "base of living" they survived the immigration or died quite soon on problems with the radiation, e.g. mushrooms are contaminated enough that you get cancer for sure if you eat more than one or two dishes with them.
Even in south Germany you still can not eat wild boar or mushrooms.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
This is pretty much it.
Coal? Greenhouse gases, soot, ash and lots of other fun things (Note: not fun at all. Very dangerous.). Also, said not-very-fun stuff is (in part) radioactive.
Natural gas? Greenhouse gases. It's better, I guess, but it still screws us over. Efficiency might be better, than coal, too.
Solar Thermal or PV? Sure, let's take advantage of it on structures and stuff. Using it on an industrial scale isn't quite practical, though, considering the massive areas required. Large scale thermal installations are also hazardous to birds. Doesn't work all the time, either.
Wind? Wind can be unpredictable, and it's supposedly a very big hazard for birds.
Nuclear? Complex, expensive designs that produce highly radioactive materials - however, they're confined and easily handled (compared to exhaust from a boiler or turbine) and just have to be stored away until they decay or new reactors can use them as fuel.
Hydro? Apparently, pretty bad for local ecosystems, otherwise a good solution. Probably going to be necessary for large-scale storage whatever happens.