Naturally occurring uranium? Is it really dangerous? Maybe you should check out the enrichment process. How many tons of uranium ore does it take to make one hot reactor core? One more time - I lived on a freaking coal vein. We grew vegetables on top of it. The horses seemed to like it - the colts especially would take a lick of it now and then. Coal. As natural as granite. Uranium? Find me a vein of U238 that can be shoveled directly into a furnace/reactor.
"Uh... for someone quoting wikipedia, you need to actually read it. The "hundreds" you refer to is actually 60."
Sixty people didn't contain that disaster. A hell of a lot more than sixty people answered the call - some few were recognized. These sixty mentioned on Wikipedia's page are the "official" group of people who sacrificed themselves. The rest are to be swept under the rug, without so much as an honorable mention. Maybe their widows and children got a modest little pension as a "thank you".
Uh-huh. Not one child has become sick due to elevated levels of poisons associated with a nuclear generator? Right - I'm believing that. Try this article: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/op...
Now, I'm not one to attribute every "stress-related illness" to the nuclear plant, but I'm also aware that elevated levels of radiation and contaminants are probably killing people who may or may not have been the healthiest members of society to start with.
Centralia is a fire. Like any other fire, when the fire is extinguished, the land will be habitable again. You're not making any points here at all. Every year, we have fires that involve national park lands. Would you suggest that national parks are dangerous, and should be outlawed?
"Fun fact: not only is nuclear best in terms of death per kWh, it also renders the least land unusable per kWh generated. And yes that includes all the nuclear accidents."
Does that also count all the land from which the fissionables were mined? Several people here are pointing to coal mines, but they make no mention of mining operations that support the nuclear industries.
You claim that Chernobyl is "managed"? In the weeks after the accident, all the management that was possible was performed. Hundreds of workers sacrificed themselves to dump the concrete on top of the site. Wikipedia isn't the go-to place for information, but you've already used it. Wikipedia will suffice to make my own point.
Today, the only "management" being done, is to man the gates that block access to the exclusion zone.
About sixty dead, huh? I don't accept that, any more than I accept the inflated figures of a million dead. A lot of people whose deaths might be attributed to the accident are simply not mentioned. For instance, scroll down to this guy's mention: Ignatenko, Vasyli Ivanovych - note his unborn baby's fate.
Alarmists, on the one hand, want to attribute every unfortunate death in the region to the accident. People who might lose money, status, or political capital are going to down play the numbers. I suspect that the real numbers are probably in the thousands, making both the high and low estimates ludicrous.
Uhhhh, setting the coal on fire doesn't exactly render the region uninhabitable for generations to come. When the fire goes out, it's habitable again. Just like any forest fire, or grass fire, or house fire.
Which regions in the US have been rendered uninhabitable? Sounds to me like you've had to much Kool-Aid. I mentioned in an earlier post that I grew up in coal-cracker country. I am unaware of ANY regions in the US where man cannot live today because of coal contamination. I grew up drinking water from a well drilled into coal and limestone. I don't glow in the dark or anything. Come on, man, stop making things up. Coal is a naturally occurring compound, found all over the world. It's not THAT dangerous, unless you throw yourself into a furnace after the coal has been lit.
I stand corrected. I thought the exclusion zone was larger than that - at least the size of Delaware. So - roughly half the size of Rhode Island. Thank you, AC.
Uh-huh. Read my statement again. Is there a region of the world in which mankind can no longer live, due to some coal-related disaster? I am unaware of any such region.
Are people living in the Chernobyl area? No? THAT is my point.
Yes, the wildlife is stronger and healthier. That is a tangential subject for discussion, but one that I am interested in. There are no crazy mutations of wolf, fox, wolverine, deer, or anything else. I've watched several videos now regarding wildlife around Chernobyl, most recently about the wolverine. Pretty awesome, IMHO.
All the same, the entire area is basically off-limits to humans, and ground zero is still dangerous as all hell. No one knows what has happened, or might happen, at the center of things. Is it even remotely possible that the radioactive materials MIGHT collect into a pool, deep in the ground, and reach critical mass? Face it - mankind lost control, and anything might happen now. Is any of that crap leaking into the water system, and simply hasn't been discovered (or acknowledged) yet? Are distant cities pumping any of it into their water systems?
As I suggested above - I grew up in coal country. The concerns you bring up are serious, but they are manageable. Chernobyl - not so manageable, huh? Fukishima? That has polluted cubic miles of ocean already, much of it headed toward America's west coast.
Nuclear power may be a good thing - but I don't trust any corporation or any government to manage it safely.
Good observation - but the engineers should have been astute enough to realize that Japan has historically experienced tsunamis that have flooded those areas. The engineers should have put the brakes to any construction efforts taking place in those locations, based on that fact alone.
Can't blame that on the oil. Blame it on human greed. Anything of value can motivate greedy people to kill for it. People have been killed over water rights - does that make water dangerous?
Doesn't matter how much water they need. The nuclear plant produces more than enough power to pump water to any elevation on earth. You don't even NEED nuclear energy - some back-up generators will do that much.
You put the damned things above any projected flood level, with a margin of error to boot. If the river's highest recorded flood level was 20 feet, you put the frigging plant up at 50 feet, or more. If the highest recorded tsunami on the coastal plain was 15 feet, you make sure to build your plant well above that 15 foot elevation - say 30 feet, or better yet, 50 feet.
That means that you can't build in the Virginia Beach area? So what - just a few miles inland, you WILL find elevations that exceed 50 feet, very safe from any potential flooding.
Fukishima? You're telling me that they couldn't have pumped water a mile, or six miles, or even twenty miles inland, to some location where the reactors would have been safe from the tsunamis?
Imagine that. How do they get water in the Salton Sea for irrigation? Interesting read here - with the answer to my question in the very last paragraph.
Depends on how you measure "safety". I grew up under the shadow of a coal powered plant. Back in those days, women routinely did their laundry, and hung that wet laundry outside on clothes lines to dry. In the village of West Pittsburgh, Pa, the women DID NOT hang their laundry out, because it would turn black before it dried.
Despite all the evils of that soot and coal dust, gardens were grown, children attended school, dinners were eaten, babies grew into young men and women, and life went on.
Tell me about life in Chernobyl today. How "safe" is nuclear power, compared to a huge coal burning plant up the road?
Relatively speaking, a nuclear disaster is far more dangerous, and far longer lasting than the alternatives that we have adapted to over the past couple centuries.
Old tech, new tech - I specifically mentioned obvious flaws in engineering. Specifically, some people had their heads up their asses, and decided to locate those reactors close enough to the shore that a moderately sized tsunami could flood them. No matter the tech level, if the tech is left exposed to the elements, a catastrophe can render that technology useless, or worse.
Engineers are supposed to be intelligent people, right? WTF did they put those plants so close to the water? What would it have cost to build the very same plants only fifty feet higher, just a little further inland? Remember, the earthquakes didn't do the damage here - it was the flooding that caused almost all the problems!
So - how comfortable would you be, if on your next flight, the pilots were kicking back, and getting bombed? Maybe snorting a line of coke, while groping the stewardesses? (Hey, I'm not being sexist - that lesbian pilot is groping too!)
You got a self-driving car? Well, Buddy, you better pay attention while you're riding along. If you OWN that damned car, you are just as responsible for your safety as the man who either owns or operates the taxi you mentioned. You DO NOT get to sit back and get wasted while your vehicle is out menacing the country side!
I might forgive projects being over time - but being over time should never be rewarded with more money, thus making the project over budget as well.
Hey, I've worked construction for much of my life. If you normally have fifteen rain-days per year, and you budget twenty - that thirty fifth rain-out is REALLY fucking with your schedule!
Stuff happens, and I'll easily accept a highway opening a month late, or a high-rise opening three months late. Just don't PAY THE CONTRACTORS for being late!
Yeah, that's what they're saying over there in Fukishima. "Nuclear is cheap, but this uncertainty is killing us!"
When you begin counting the cost of nuclear, you've got to count ALL the costs. Including, as at Fukishima, basic engineering errors that ultimately cost astronomical amounts years after construction.
Yet again, some punk tells me how happy he is that I'm mortal.
It isn't government's job to regulate marriage. That is society's job. Society has repeatedly rejected homosexual marriages - time and time again. Remember Prop 8 in California?
But, the homos can't accept society's rule, so they get these activist judges to pretend that homo's rights are being violated. It's pretty sick. Which part of "democracy" do all the homos fail to understand? Societal norms are societal norms.
BTW - to into any chat room, anywhere. "Gay" is still a derogatory term, no matter how young the speakers.
Yes - and THAT is what is wrong with the cloud. Unless you are encrypting it independently before uploading, your stuff is going to be scanned for various purposes. All of those purposes are detrimental to your privacy. It's great that they took down a pedo ring - IF they really took down a pedo ring. But, they are going to use this as an excuse or reason to continue spying on all honest citizens.
Your first point is laughable. Yes - insurers raised rates, every year that they could get away with it. Various groups, including the government, fought them tooth and nail over those rates. Obamacare? Who, precisely, do you think put that whole package together? Obama GAVE THE INSURANCE COMPANIES everything they wanted, on a silver platter. Obama mandates that EVERYONE MUST BUY the insurance company's products. Obama mandates that everyone must purchase packages that meet certain criteria. The mandate penalizes you if you aren't doing business with the companies that have been preying on you.
And, you don't recognize that Obama acted the willing pawn of the insurance companies?
Health insurance. I'm paying considerably MORE for my health insurance than I did in years past. All the suckers who THINK that they are paying for their new health insurance are deluded - they can only get that insurance with the aid of SUBSIDIES. How long do you think the subsidies are going to last?
Read Pieroxy's comment below. France's version of Obolacare is bankrupt - and so are all the other versions of Obolacare around the world.
Queer people marry? Nope. It doesn't happen. You can have a legal fiction built in the image of marriage, but queers can't marry. And - you're going to give CREDIT TO OBAMA FOR THAT???? Utter nonsense. Activist judges around the nation deserve the blame for that. They have been moving forward with this agenda for the past twenty years.
Which party do I prefer? I PREFER conservatism. Neither party offers that though. I've become more and more libertarian over the years, largely because both major parties are utter failures, and both have betrayed the American people.
Yes, they are identical.
Oh - you believe that ages old tripe about Republicans being warmongers, while Dems avoid wars? That nonsense was laid to rest long ago. Remember Johnson? That rat bastard set up a false flag operation and got some Americans killed to make propaganda to get us into VietNam.
Lay aside your worn out stereotypes about the parties. Your democrats promote that nonsense, and laugh at you for believing it!
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Naturally occurring uranium? Is it really dangerous? Maybe you should check out the enrichment process. How many tons of uranium ore does it take to make one hot reactor core? One more time - I lived on a freaking coal vein. We grew vegetables on top of it. The horses seemed to like it - the colts especially would take a lick of it now and then. Coal. As natural as granite. Uranium? Find me a vein of U238 that can be shoveled directly into a furnace/reactor.
"Uh... for someone quoting wikipedia, you need to actually read it. The "hundreds" you refer to is actually 60."
Sixty people didn't contain that disaster. A hell of a lot more than sixty people answered the call - some few were recognized. These sixty mentioned on Wikipedia's page are the "official" group of people who sacrificed themselves. The rest are to be swept under the rug, without so much as an honorable mention. Maybe their widows and children got a modest little pension as a "thank you".
Uh-huh. Not one child has become sick due to elevated levels of poisons associated with a nuclear generator? Right - I'm believing that. Try this article: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/op...
Now, I'm not one to attribute every "stress-related illness" to the nuclear plant, but I'm also aware that elevated levels of radiation and contaminants are probably killing people who may or may not have been the healthiest members of society to start with.
Centralia is a fire. Like any other fire, when the fire is extinguished, the land will be habitable again. You're not making any points here at all. Every year, we have fires that involve national park lands. Would you suggest that national parks are dangerous, and should be outlawed?
"Fun fact: not only is nuclear best in terms of death per kWh, it also renders the least land unusable per kWh generated. And yes that includes all the nuclear accidents."
Does that also count all the land from which the fissionables were mined? Several people here are pointing to coal mines, but they make no mention of mining operations that support the nuclear industries.
You claim that Chernobyl is "managed"? In the weeks after the accident, all the management that was possible was performed. Hundreds of workers sacrificed themselves to dump the concrete on top of the site. Wikipedia isn't the go-to place for information, but you've already used it. Wikipedia will suffice to make my own point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
Today, the only "management" being done, is to man the gates that block access to the exclusion zone.
About sixty dead, huh? I don't accept that, any more than I accept the inflated figures of a million dead. A lot of people whose deaths might be attributed to the accident are simply not mentioned. For instance, scroll down to this guy's mention: Ignatenko, Vasyli Ivanovych - note his unborn baby's fate.
Alarmists, on the one hand, want to attribute every unfortunate death in the region to the accident. People who might lose money, status, or political capital are going to down play the numbers. I suspect that the real numbers are probably in the thousands, making both the high and low estimates ludicrous.
Uhhhh, setting the coal on fire doesn't exactly render the region uninhabitable for generations to come. When the fire goes out, it's habitable again. Just like any forest fire, or grass fire, or house fire.
Which regions in the US have been rendered uninhabitable? Sounds to me like you've had to much Kool-Aid. I mentioned in an earlier post that I grew up in coal-cracker country. I am unaware of ANY regions in the US where man cannot live today because of coal contamination. I grew up drinking water from a well drilled into coal and limestone. I don't glow in the dark or anything. Come on, man, stop making things up. Coal is a naturally occurring compound, found all over the world. It's not THAT dangerous, unless you throw yourself into a furnace after the coal has been lit.
I stand corrected. I thought the exclusion zone was larger than that - at least the size of Delaware. So - roughly half the size of Rhode Island. Thank you, AC.
Uh-huh. Read my statement again. Is there a region of the world in which mankind can no longer live, due to some coal-related disaster? I am unaware of any such region.
Are people living in the Chernobyl area? No? THAT is my point.
Yes, the wildlife is stronger and healthier. That is a tangential subject for discussion, but one that I am interested in. There are no crazy mutations of wolf, fox, wolverine, deer, or anything else. I've watched several videos now regarding wildlife around Chernobyl, most recently about the wolverine. Pretty awesome, IMHO.
All the same, the entire area is basically off-limits to humans, and ground zero is still dangerous as all hell. No one knows what has happened, or might happen, at the center of things. Is it even remotely possible that the radioactive materials MIGHT collect into a pool, deep in the ground, and reach critical mass? Face it - mankind lost control, and anything might happen now. Is any of that crap leaking into the water system, and simply hasn't been discovered (or acknowledged) yet? Are distant cities pumping any of it into their water systems?
As I suggested above - I grew up in coal country. The concerns you bring up are serious, but they are manageable. Chernobyl - not so manageable, huh? Fukishima? That has polluted cubic miles of ocean already, much of it headed toward America's west coast.
Nuclear power may be a good thing - but I don't trust any corporation or any government to manage it safely.
Good observation - but the engineers should have been astute enough to realize that Japan has historically experienced tsunamis that have flooded those areas. The engineers should have put the brakes to any construction efforts taking place in those locations, based on that fact alone.
Can't blame that on the oil. Blame it on human greed. Anything of value can motivate greedy people to kill for it. People have been killed over water rights - does that make water dangerous?
Doesn't matter how much water they need. The nuclear plant produces more than enough power to pump water to any elevation on earth. You don't even NEED nuclear energy - some back-up generators will do that much.
You put the damned things above any projected flood level, with a margin of error to boot. If the river's highest recorded flood level was 20 feet, you put the frigging plant up at 50 feet, or more. If the highest recorded tsunami on the coastal plain was 15 feet, you make sure to build your plant well above that 15 foot elevation - say 30 feet, or better yet, 50 feet.
That means that you can't build in the Virginia Beach area? So what - just a few miles inland, you WILL find elevations that exceed 50 feet, very safe from any potential flooding.
Fukishima? You're telling me that they couldn't have pumped water a mile, or six miles, or even twenty miles inland, to some location where the reactors would have been safe from the tsunamis?
Imagine that. How do they get water in the Salton Sea for irrigation? Interesting read here - with the answer to my question in the very last paragraph.
http://www.desertusa.com/citie...
I'm not aware of any coal disaster that has rendered an area the size of a state or province uninhabitable.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/...
Depends on how you measure "safety". I grew up under the shadow of a coal powered plant. Back in those days, women routinely did their laundry, and hung that wet laundry outside on clothes lines to dry. In the village of West Pittsburgh, Pa, the women DID NOT hang their laundry out, because it would turn black before it dried.
Despite all the evils of that soot and coal dust, gardens were grown, children attended school, dinners were eaten, babies grew into young men and women, and life went on.
Tell me about life in Chernobyl today. How "safe" is nuclear power, compared to a huge coal burning plant up the road?
Relatively speaking, a nuclear disaster is far more dangerous, and far longer lasting than the alternatives that we have adapted to over the past couple centuries.
Old tech, new tech - I specifically mentioned obvious flaws in engineering. Specifically, some people had their heads up their asses, and decided to locate those reactors close enough to the shore that a moderately sized tsunami could flood them. No matter the tech level, if the tech is left exposed to the elements, a catastrophe can render that technology useless, or worse.
Engineers are supposed to be intelligent people, right? WTF did they put those plants so close to the water? What would it have cost to build the very same plants only fifty feet higher, just a little further inland? Remember, the earthquakes didn't do the damage here - it was the flooding that caused almost all the problems!
"We have bad laws because politicians want to please lobbyists,"
I'm pleased to note that autonomous auto manufacturers won't stoop to employing lobbyists.
So - how comfortable would you be, if on your next flight, the pilots were kicking back, and getting bombed? Maybe snorting a line of coke, while groping the stewardesses? (Hey, I'm not being sexist - that lesbian pilot is groping too!)
You got a self-driving car? Well, Buddy, you better pay attention while you're riding along. If you OWN that damned car, you are just as responsible for your safety as the man who either owns or operates the taxi you mentioned. You DO NOT get to sit back and get wasted while your vehicle is out menacing the country side!
I might forgive projects being over time - but being over time should never be rewarded with more money, thus making the project over budget as well.
Hey, I've worked construction for much of my life. If you normally have fifteen rain-days per year, and you budget twenty - that thirty fifth rain-out is REALLY fucking with your schedule!
Stuff happens, and I'll easily accept a highway opening a month late, or a high-rise opening three months late. Just don't PAY THE CONTRACTORS for being late!
Yeah, that's what they're saying over there in Fukishima. "Nuclear is cheap, but this uncertainty is killing us!"
When you begin counting the cost of nuclear, you've got to count ALL the costs. Including, as at Fukishima, basic engineering errors that ultimately cost astronomical amounts years after construction.
Golem? You're the one who doesn't understand that I'm laughing at the crazy old woman. Oh well - try to keep up next time around.
Yet again, some punk tells me how happy he is that I'm mortal.
It isn't government's job to regulate marriage. That is society's job. Society has repeatedly rejected homosexual marriages - time and time again. Remember Prop 8 in California?
But, the homos can't accept society's rule, so they get these activist judges to pretend that homo's rights are being violated. It's pretty sick. Which part of "democracy" do all the homos fail to understand? Societal norms are societal norms.
BTW - to into any chat room, anywhere. "Gay" is still a derogatory term, no matter how young the speakers.
Yes - and THAT is what is wrong with the cloud. Unless you are encrypting it independently before uploading, your stuff is going to be scanned for various purposes. All of those purposes are detrimental to your privacy. It's great that they took down a pedo ring - IF they really took down a pedo ring. But, they are going to use this as an excuse or reason to continue spying on all honest citizens.
Your first point is laughable. Yes - insurers raised rates, every year that they could get away with it. Various groups, including the government, fought them tooth and nail over those rates. Obamacare? Who, precisely, do you think put that whole package together? Obama GAVE THE INSURANCE COMPANIES everything they wanted, on a silver platter. Obama mandates that EVERYONE MUST BUY the insurance company's products. Obama mandates that everyone must purchase packages that meet certain criteria. The mandate penalizes you if you aren't doing business with the companies that have been preying on you.
And, you don't recognize that Obama acted the willing pawn of the insurance companies?
Health insurance. I'm paying considerably MORE for my health insurance than I did in years past. All the suckers who THINK that they are paying for their new health insurance are deluded - they can only get that insurance with the aid of SUBSIDIES. How long do you think the subsidies are going to last?
Read Pieroxy's comment below. France's version of Obolacare is bankrupt - and so are all the other versions of Obolacare around the world.
Queer people marry? Nope. It doesn't happen. You can have a legal fiction built in the image of marriage, but queers can't marry. And - you're going to give CREDIT TO OBAMA FOR THAT???? Utter nonsense. Activist judges around the nation deserve the blame for that. They have been moving forward with this agenda for the past twenty years.
Which party do I prefer? I PREFER conservatism. Neither party offers that though. I've become more and more libertarian over the years, largely because both major parties are utter failures, and both have betrayed the American people.
Yes, they are identical.
Oh - you believe that ages old tripe about Republicans being warmongers, while Dems avoid wars? That nonsense was laid to rest long ago. Remember Johnson? That rat bastard set up a false flag operation and got some Americans killed to make propaganda to get us into VietNam.
Lay aside your worn out stereotypes about the parties. Your democrats promote that nonsense, and laugh at you for believing it!