Nuclear plants might be safer/cleaner than coal and all, but when they fail (and they always seem to, due to people attempting to cut costs and corners) it leaves areas of land unusable to us humans. Not just a little unusable either. It does it for such a long time that it might as well be considered permanent. Solar, Water, Wind are all completely renewable sources of energy that upon failure...don't destroy the ecosystem around it.
This is insightful, not funny - please moderate appropriately - Thanks!
I disagree with your assertion that it is an insightful post. It is not. "Wrong", "blinkered" or "Koolaid-stained" would be more accurate.
Then let's examine your assertion of the OP with the facts.
Nuclear plants might be safer/cleaner than coal and all, but when they fail (and they always seem to, due to people attempting to cut costs and corners) it leaves areas of land unusable to us humans.
Chernobyl fall-out area 2640 Square kilometres of farmland, 1900 sqkm of forest and an uninhabitable city. So the OP's first point, check.
(and they always seem to, due to people attempting to cut costs and corners)
To save money on construction costs the AP-1000 cuts back on concrete and steel. The result is a ratio of containment volume to thermal power below that of today’s PWRs, thereby increasing the risk of containment over-pressurization and failure in event of a severe accident. Fukushima happened because TEPCO resisted changes to put improvements inplace (according to the official report). Second point, check.
Not just a little unusable either. It does it for such a long time that it might as well be considered permanent.
pu-239, half life 25,000 years, sr-90 half life 600 years. Third point, check.
Solar, Water, Wind are all completely renewable sources of energy that upon failure...don't destroy the ecosystem around it.
So Wind power, gear boxes catch fire and has infrasound issues. Solar cells use the same nasty chemicals that ICs use when created. Your assertion is that if solar and wind generation fail they destroy the ecosystem. Although if the sun fails and goes super nova, yeah, that will wipe out everything.
It seems that your assertion that the OP is "Wrong", "blinkered" or "Koolaid-stained" is "uninformed", "prejudiced" and "without basis". I welcome you to present any facts to back up your prejudices, however from what I see the OP's post reflects the facts accurately.
Nuclear plants might be safer/cleaner than coal and all, but when they fail (and they always seem to, due to people attempting to cut costs and corners) it leaves areas of land unusable to us humans. Not just a little unusable either. It does it for such a long time that it might as well be considered permanent. Solar, Water, Wind are all completely renewable sources of energy that upon failure...don't destroy the ecosystem around it.
This is insightful, not funny - please moderate appropriately - Thanks!
The editors note in the Scientific American article is qualifies itself by referring to reactors in normal operation and not the entire Nuclear industry, it's accidents or production byproducts from enrichment. Furthermore radioactive isotopes in coal ash are not enriched like those used in Nuclear reactors.
The actual state of affairs with Nuclear waste is much more serious than the S.A article would lead you to believe and this sobering article from National Geographic reveals the current state of Nuclear waste, at least in America.
Well, nobody gives a fuck that you don't give a fuck.
It was a question, iFanboi.
So you not only cared enough to post to a discussion you said nobody cared about,
Of course I cared enough to ask, how the hell else would I get an answer. Nowhere in "Does anyone, really, give a fuck?" does it say what you accuse me of.
you even cared enough to reply to somebody pointing that out.
Yes, I'm interested in just how rabid this consumerism is. All they pointed out was that their comprehension was colored by those opinions, as did you.
What a sorry little iHateboy.
Wow, I knew that the science compared the brain scans of iFanbois quite simarly to religious fanatics but actually encountering the effect Apples marketing has on iCustomers is really interesting. I'm equally ambivalent about Microsoft product sales and, Android sales however, I was curious if any iFanbois would react with iZealotry to the point of it being a iReligion, and you have.
Because I dared to ask the question, iOffended you, like the other iFanboi enough for you to label me with your iStereotypes from the standard iCreativity of an iClone.
Just one more thing: "If you don't like the way iInsult you, you prove you also lack humor, you iMoron." +5 iInsightful
Well, nobody gives a fuck that you don't give a fuck.
It was a question, iFanboi.
Ooooh, MrKaos doesn't give a fuck... quick, stop the world, he wants to get off.
Obviously I'm so concerned with Apples iSales that iLobby the UN to purchase them by their millions to supply to starving third world iChildren, who really need them. I'm off to buy 10 that iWill give to my iFriends to support all of the needy Apple iEmployees.
Seriously, who gives a fuck about the fact that you're a fucking whiny bitch?
Obviously, you do enough to reply. Did iOffended you?
"Hacker" can't have two meanings and the efforts to muddy the definition is a transparent attempt to lessen the stigma attached to breaking into computer systems and stealing other people's shit.
I think your comment is the epitome of the evolving idiocracy that ignorance and anonymity allows. What's it like to be on the cutting edge of stupid?
Long before you even heard the word "Hacker" the saying went You hack to learn, you don't learn to hack. Repeat this over and over.
I'll probably be modded down for this but the most effective way is to pwn the users to show them that they are merely bitches that any moderately skilled geek can defraud completely. Since they only learn from being fucked over, being fucked over is the only way they learn - otherwise you are just considered to be paranoid.
Repeat this for every user you meet and add the strange looks you get from them when you do things a secure way.
And I've worked with sealed generators designed to be submerged. It's cheaper to run an exhaust pipe and intake pipe 30 feet in the air, than mount a generator 3 stories up.
Certainly, if its designed to work that way I agree you are right. In comparison to the impact, it's just seem like it's the one time where you say "this really has to work and we should spare no expense to make sure that it does". What is particularly guiling about this one is that the design issues and consequences were known and understood.
It would seem they didn't spent enough to make sure it wouldn't fail. It's heard with such repetition in industrial accidents.
And it wouldn't have mattered much for fukushima, as the fuel was contaminated by the seawater. Though the responders would have had more options if they had a fuel-less working generator.
I don't know the specifics surrounding the failures of the generators at Fukushima. Are you saying the generators were damaged as well?
There were a lot of simple almost-free things that could have been done differently with the generators to prevent the problems caused by loss of power (then we'd know if the problems were caused by the earthquake, as the people responsible for the generators assert).
The Japanese parliment commissioned
a report (warning:pdf) which found it was "wholely man made" systemic failures that led to the generator and sea wall not functioning.
However, what is it you mean about what could have been done differently?
I suppose ass-cheek-cancer *is* probably less horrible. For what it's worth though I've still yet to see any study conclusively linking cell phones to cancer, suggesting that the link is tenuous at best. The strongest link I recall reading of was a link to benign cancers along the auditory nerve, and the correlation was insufficient to make a confident statement that a link existed.
Well until then I think I will err on the side of caution and use speaker phone and a wired earpeice for phone calls. I'd rather limit my exposure and take personal responsibility for my health, than to go through anything like brain cancer. After all an absence of evidence doesn't mean a link isn't there, all it means is no one has funded any science to find *if* a link exists.
Consider this - your phone doesn't stop connecting to cellular/wifi networks just because the screen is off. How many hours per day do you suppose you microwave your nuts by having your phone in your pants pocket?
None. I specifically turn all the radios off untill I am using them. Cellular I accept as a cost of carrying the phone and usually hands free when talking, on the table when sitting and in my pocket next to my ass whilst walking.
I saw my Aunt use cells phones almost constantly for hours a day, no handset. She died of brain cancer and it was quite terrible to experience.
And there is a good solution for storage, but the allies of the fossil fuel industry have combined with the anti nuclear folks to block Yucca mountain from opening.
The DOE's own 1982 Nuclear Waste policy Act reported that the Yucca Mountain's geology is inappropriate to contain nuclear waste.
Specifically the Yucca mountain failed to meet the criteria for the DOE's original policy using the 'Defense in Depth' approach to the specification for building a spent fuel containment facility. The reason to choose that specific geology (in addition to being stable) was also to have the geologic chemistry of the rock able to mitigate the effect of ground water traveling through the facility and carrying radioactive isotopes into the water table. The half lives of the actinides would be dependent on the reactor and I've heard of figures around 600 years but it would also have to contain the daughter products before they were inert. So they would be shorter lived but also much more radioactive placing an even greater emphasis on having the geology mitigate the ground water migration to contain the isotopes.
The CSIRO found that this geology should be granite, Yucca mountian is pumice. There is also the fact that the area is geologically unstable, where the original specificaion is looking for somewhere that would be stable for 500,000 years, IIRC.
I haven't heard about any evidence about the lobby groups you are refering to, however if you can refer me to something specific I will gladly check it out.
Bury the nuclear waste deep in the earth, because that is where it came from in the first place.
Absolutely, specifically in a granite mountain would be good. The Swiss have a world leading project
but it hasn't caused any deaths.
I get it that a lot of people don't understand how bio-accumulation occurs in the environment and how long it takes for cancer to gestate. You only have to look to Chernobyl to understand that the consequences of a Nuclear accident is very long, slow and permanent.
What we have learned is that it took about 6-8 years for the consequences to begin manifesting in children as Thyroid cancer. The funding was cut on this vital research work so not data is being collected anymore to understand what the impact is.
It's more reasonable to say "there is no data being collected to establish how many deaths have been caused at Chernobyl". We can only hope that the science is being done this time around.
As for "Such a fire will render the U.S "virtually" uninhabitable.".... a hundred nuclear weapons were detonated on the US mainland as part of above ground nuclear weapons tests. While I think that was incredibly stupid and irresponsible and there have certainly been health effects and increased cancer deaths in the decades afterwards, the radiation leaks at nuclear power plants pale in comparison to the radiation released by those above ground tests and as far as I can tell the US is still inhabitable.
First of all, I'm talking about radioactive isotopes, not about the radiation that they emit.
Second, a nuclear weapon may contain 1 kilo of pu-239. I think there was about 50 tests, but lets double that and call it an even 100kilos of pu-239, which was also converted to a lot of energy all at once and spread over the country.
A single core of a GE Mk1 reactor is roughly 150 tons. 4 reactors x 50 tons every 10 years for 40 years makes about 800 tons of transuranic material, but let's be conservative and say half that, is about 40 times the amount of raw material of all all the testing over the entire country country, just not converted into energy all at once like the tests.
A micro gram of pu-239 is a fatal dose [oppenhiemer] causing leukemia and lung cancer and whilst not all of them will be ingested the sheer volume of ma
I'm not so sure I like all that wifi power that close to my head. It's not contacting the head however it is within one wave length for 2.4Ghz and a game is a lot longer than most phone calls.
Again, you CANNOT (and I will repeat for emphasis) CANNOT use solar OR wind power as your baseline power source. They aren't dependable sources.
Do you mean "baseload" that refers to the availibility of electricty at any time?
You know that when you turn on a light the electricity comes from different sources? Because "baseload" electricy is a function of the grid, not a single generating source.
Besides, why wouldn't you want a variety of supply sources as we move into the future. Obviously coal is a poor choice for its carbon legacy and nuclear could be better if it was done properly however it's design flaws leave a serious radionuclide legacy.
I think what you mean is that Nuclear power "better matches the baseload requirements" of the grid, which is sort of true. Solar thermal has made some phenomenal improvements which allows it to match baseload requirements and wind scales much better than Nuclear due to it's modularity.
Anyone telling you they are is selling natural gas or some sort of petroleum product.
Actually the 2005 Energy Policy act repealed the 1935 Public Utilities Holding Companies Act that was put in place to prevent a re-occurance of the great depression.
Now procuring companies (i.e oil companies) have half a billion dollars worth of subsidies for proposing "pre-approved" reactor designs, even if they don't build it, and a 1.8 cent per kilowatt hour tax credit if they do. So it's actually the other way around, at least if you look at who benefits financially according to the law.
Still it is a good way for the oil companies to deplete the economic base of the U.S at the expense of Nuclear power, so you maybe misdirecting your anger a bit.
Nuclear IS a dependable, steady source that infrastructure engineers can PLAN for.
Except that the availabilty and utilization of the reactor is not dependable.
And the only reason nuclear has any sort of price comparison to solar or wind to begin with is the fact that, under the guidance of enviro-nuts, they've basically tarriffed the entire process, from proposition through decomission into the stratosphere
The breakdown of U.S energy research and development budget reported by the US DOE is roughly 60% for nuclear, 25% to fossil fuels and 15% to SUSTAINABLE energy sources. Four times the financial support than sustainable sources and over double the support of coal and oil.
Require the kinds of multi-billion dollar investments (see bribes) for wind or solar plants that are now required for nuclear and watch the price of those options skyrocket too.
Wall Street doesn't like nuclear because its a risky investment, investors don't like that sort of risk, solar and wind are way ahead simply because the return on investment is much better than nuclear, i.e. Solar and wind satisfies the criteria that makes an investment "economically viable" nuclear power is only "economically viable" with the substantial regulatory support of the Price Anderson Act.
Right, it hasn't been done because a bunch of environmentalist morons have forestalled any reasonable measures of fuel reprocessing by invoking the "proliferation" boogeyman.
It's actually because it doesn't attract investors like wind and solar do. Wall street thinks its a bad investment as nuclear power needs regulatory constructs such as the Price-Aderson act because its insurance impacts are so high.
Yeah. Disposal is a non-starter. And should never have been pursued the way it was. Why? Because NOBODY wants that stuff in their back yard. They don't care HOW safe it is.
Except that the law (IIRC the 2005 Energy Policy Act) specifically *excludes* ratepayers from having a say in where a Nuclear facility is built.
But, again, the dueling environmental agendas have basically left the fuel with no place to go. So it basically sits in containment casks out in back parking lots and the like.
How so? What evidence do you have for such a statement? Yucca mountain is geologically unstable and fails the DOE's original specification for a spent fuel containment facility. So how are environmentalists responsible for this?
As for "a plutonium economy". Why would it have to be solely plutonium? IFRs will burn plutonium, Uranium, Thorium and other fuels equally well.
Because materials technology do not exist to produce an IFR that avoids the inevitable cost of decommisioning. Don't get me wrong IFR is a great concept, but it has a long way to go before becoming a reality.
By the way, the Thorium fuel cycle's waste product is Thallium 238 which is also a very nasty material.
So you're burning stuff down until it's only going to be "hot" for a couple hundred years, rather than tens of thousands. And more, fully "spent" wastes burned in earlier generations of reactor can actually be used as fuel in later generations.
So we get rid of weapons-grade materials, and burn it down into something far far safer. And we get a buttload of power out of it at the same time.
That is incorrect. You don't burn it into something safe, you burn it into something far more deadly but shorter lived. So instead of 25,000 years for pu-239 it would be more like sr-90 for 600 years.
Not much difference in terms of a human lifespan.
How the hell isn't that a Win-Win-Win scenario?
It is, it's also SyFy.
Oh yeah, because no matter what, some idiot bridgae is going to equate nuclear power with "it's a bomb".
Last time I checked Nuclear reactors wern't powered with alfalfa sprouts and hamsters, so it's only idiotic if you are attempting to delude yourself.
And it is still a non-issue. When it is 30 years later and you can still store it on-site then it is not a lot of waste. Compare that to any other energy source, the amount of toxic waste, even solar panel manufacturing and you have your answer.
Fukushima highlights the consequences of on-site storage and the difficulty faced in securing the fuel rods when an accident has occured. It's only a non-issue if you don't understand the impact. The main issue faced is a plutonium fire starting in Unit 4 storage pool, holding 1500 fuel rods, spreading to the nearby containment facility that holds another 6000 fuel rods.
Such a fire will render the U.S "virtually" uninhabitable.
How about we build nuclear reactors underground? The thing may get buried, but even that should help to contain rather than spread the contamination.
Just spitballing here. Feel free to flame away and tell me all the reasons why this can't ever be made to work. IANANE.
This was one of the main recommendations (amongst 30 or so) from a Nuclear industry panel (Westinghouse, General Electric, Bechtel, Sargent & Lundy, Northern States Power and Commonwealth Edison) commissioned by the NRC. These should have been included in standardised Nuclear power station designs like the AP-1000, however they made the plants more expensive.
No, the AC is wrong. Yucca mountain has ground water issues that affect the storage of the material. CSIRO research showed that groundwater issues are mitigated by granite storage which can capture the isotope in its structure. DOE itself called for 'defence in depth' and it's own report judged Yucca to be unsuitable as groundwater penetrated the facility in as little as 50 years.
"Spent" nuclear fuel can be reused many, many MANY times if it is reprocessed properly.
At that point, spent fuel "waste" becomes a non-issue.
Except that it's not been done. When Dixie Lee Ray was the head of the Atomic Energy Commission he proclaimed that the disposal of nuclear fuel would be “the greatest non-problem in history” and would be accomplished by 1985, yet here we are almost thirty years past that date and still there is no High level waste disposal site anywhere. The closest anyone has come is the Swiss and even there project is a multi-decade test project and extremely expensive.
As for burner reactor technology, such as IFR, there are no materials technologies to support a plutonium economy.
Until the general population is prepared to lobby their congress critters in government they will never exert any real power.
I think many peoples ideas about democracy now don't extend beyond which party to vote for, if they even vote. Perhaps if more people actually cared enough to lobby about bills that are being introduced, to be put into law, then the situation may be different. Those who do, are running things and cementing their interests. They certainly don't miss the opportunity to lobby.
Even Franklin spoke to the flaws in the American Constitution that would not save America from despotism when it was being passed. The only question now is whether the American people are too afraid of their own government to actually effect change in the country anymore, and Franklins fears have manifested.
Corruption is the cancer that eats away at the body of democracy, it's institutions like failing organs, until the host dies.
Some people don't enjoy work and paying them more might get them to work on time or to work the whole day. Or you could just fire them and hire someone who has an understanding that they have agreed to do a job for a rate of pay.
Oh really? Alright I can play your game: those people have agreed to do a job that involved standard office hours. Travel means being asked to sit in a cramped aeroplane for many hours and give up their evenings and potentially weekends to do their job. By your own measure, work travel spreads outside normal work hours, so making it comfortable is hardly an unreasonable request. Just because an employee asks for something doesn't mean they should be fired over it.
Precisely. Will I be paid for the weekends and evening I don't have with my family, friends or activites and will they. What about when they fly employees over weekends and expect them to be fresh and shiney Monday morning after being stuck in aircraft and airports over the weekend.
It's a fucking tax deduction anyway, fly me business class and I may have a hope of being productive on Monday and the rest of the week. It's false economy to spend the money to send someone around the world just to have them to exhausted to do anything when they get there.
Slashdot Mirror
It's amazing how bad you can make anything look if you're willing to stretch the truth.
What are you suggesting?
Nuclear plants might be safer/cleaner than coal and all, but when they fail (and they always seem to, due to people attempting to cut costs and corners) it leaves areas of land unusable to us humans. Not just a little unusable either. It does it for such a long time that it might as well be considered permanent. Solar, Water, Wind are all completely renewable sources of energy that upon failure...don't destroy the ecosystem around it.
This is insightful, not funny - please moderate appropriately - Thanks!
I disagree with your assertion that it is an insightful post. It is not. "Wrong", "blinkered" or "Koolaid-stained" would be more accurate.
Then let's examine your assertion of the OP with the facts.
Chernobyl fall-out area 2640 Square kilometres of farmland, 1900 sqkm of forest and an uninhabitable city. So the OP's first point, check.
To save money on construction costs the AP-1000 cuts back on concrete and steel. The result is a ratio of containment volume to thermal power below that of today’s PWRs, thereby increasing the risk of containment over-pressurization and failure in event of a severe accident. Fukushima happened because TEPCO resisted changes to put improvements inplace (according to the official report). Second point, check.
pu-239, half life 25,000 years, sr-90 half life 600 years. Third point, check.
So Wind power, gear boxes catch fire and has infrasound issues. Solar cells use the same nasty chemicals that ICs use when created. Your assertion is that if solar and wind generation fail they destroy the ecosystem. Although if the sun fails and goes super nova, yeah, that will wipe out everything.
It seems that your assertion that the OP is "Wrong", "blinkered" or "Koolaid-stained" is "uninformed", "prejudiced" and "without basis". I welcome you to present any facts to back up your prejudices, however from what I see the OP's post reflects the facts accurately.
Nuclear plants might be safer/cleaner than coal and all, but when they fail (and they always seem to, due to people attempting to cut costs and corners) it leaves areas of land unusable to us humans. Not just a little unusable either. It does it for such a long time that it might as well be considered permanent. Solar, Water, Wind are all completely renewable sources of energy that upon failure...don't destroy the ecosystem around it.
This is insightful, not funny - please moderate appropriately - Thanks!
Actually seems that waste from coal plants is even more radioactive than the ones from nuclear plants, and that waste goes to the environment instead of being restricted in small areas.
The editors note in the Scientific American article is qualifies itself by referring to reactors in normal operation and not the entire Nuclear industry, it's accidents or production byproducts from enrichment. Furthermore radioactive isotopes in coal ash are not enriched like those used in Nuclear reactors.
The actual state of affairs with Nuclear waste is much more serious than the S.A article would lead you to believe and this sobering article from National Geographic reveals the current state of Nuclear waste, at least in America.
Of course I cared enough to ask, how the hell else would I get an answer. Nowhere in "Does anyone, really, give a fuck?" does it say what you accuse me of.
Yes, I'm interested in just how rabid this consumerism is. All they pointed out was that their comprehension was colored by those opinions, as did you.
Wow, I knew that the science compared the brain scans of iFanbois quite simarly to religious fanatics but actually encountering the effect Apples marketing has on iCustomers is really interesting. I'm equally ambivalent about Microsoft product sales and, Android sales however, I was curious if any iFanbois would react with iZealotry to the point of it being a iReligion, and you have.
Because I dared to ask the question, iOffended you, like the other iFanboi enough for you to label me with your iStereotypes from the standard iCreativity of an iClone.
Just one more thing: "If you don't like the way iInsult you, you prove you also lack humor, you iMoron." +5 iInsightful
iFixed your sig for ya!
Oh, she'll take it.
Well, nobody gives a fuck that you don't give a fuck.
It was a question, iFanboi.
Ooooh, MrKaos doesn't give a fuck ... quick, stop the world, he wants to get off.
Obviously I'm so concerned with Apples iSales that iLobby the UN to purchase them by their millions to supply to starving third world iChildren, who really need them. I'm off to buy 10 that iWill give to my iFriends to support all of the needy Apple iEmployees.
Seriously, who gives a fuck about the fact that you're a fucking whiny bitch?
Obviously, you do enough to reply. Did iOffended you?
Does anyone, really, give a fuck?
I think your comment is the epitome of the evolving idiocracy that ignorance and anonymity allows. What's it like to be on the cutting edge of stupid?
Long before you even heard the word "Hacker" the saying went You hack to learn, you don't learn to hack. Repeat this over and over.
I'll probably be modded down for this but the most effective way is to pwn the users to show them that they are merely bitches that any moderately skilled geek can defraud completely. Since they only learn from being fucked over, being fucked over is the only way they learn - otherwise you are just considered to be paranoid.
Repeat this for every user you meet and add the strange looks you get from them when you do things a secure way.
Certainly, if its designed to work that way I agree you are right. In comparison to the impact, it's just seem like it's the one time where you say "this really has to work and we should spare no expense to make sure that it does". What is particularly guiling about this one is that the design issues and consequences were known and understood.
It would seem they didn't spent enough to make sure it wouldn't fail. It's heard with such repetition in industrial accidents.
I don't know the specifics surrounding the failures of the generators at Fukushima. Are you saying the generators were damaged as well?
The Japanese parliment commissioned a report (warning:pdf) which found it was "wholely man made" systemic failures that led to the generator and sea wall not functioning.
However, what is it you mean about what could have been done differently?
If only they did that at Fukushima.
I suppose ass-cheek-cancer *is* probably less horrible. For what it's worth though I've still yet to see any study conclusively linking cell phones to cancer, suggesting that the link is tenuous at best. The strongest link I recall reading of was a link to benign cancers along the auditory nerve, and the correlation was insufficient to make a confident statement that a link existed.
Well until then I think I will err on the side of caution and use speaker phone and a wired earpeice for phone calls. I'd rather limit my exposure and take personal responsibility for my health, than to go through anything like brain cancer. After all an absence of evidence doesn't mean a link isn't there, all it means is no one has funded any science to find *if* a link exists.
Consider this - your phone doesn't stop connecting to cellular/wifi networks just because the screen is off. How many hours per day do you suppose you microwave your nuts by having your phone in your pants pocket?
None. I specifically turn all the radios off untill I am using them. Cellular I accept as a cost of carrying the phone and usually hands free when talking, on the table when sitting and in my pocket next to my ass whilst walking.
I saw my Aunt use cells phones almost constantly for hours a day, no handset. She died of brain cancer and it was quite terrible to experience.
just saying...
The DOE's own 1982 Nuclear Waste policy Act reported that the Yucca Mountain's geology is inappropriate to contain nuclear waste.
Specifically the Yucca mountain failed to meet the criteria for the DOE's original policy using the 'Defense in Depth' approach to the specification for building a spent fuel containment facility. The reason to choose that specific geology (in addition to being stable) was also to have the geologic chemistry of the rock able to mitigate the effect of ground water traveling through the facility and carrying radioactive isotopes into the water table. The half lives of the actinides would be dependent on the reactor and I've heard of figures around 600 years but it would also have to contain the daughter products before they were inert. So they would be shorter lived but also much more radioactive placing an even greater emphasis on having the geology mitigate the ground water migration to contain the isotopes.
The CSIRO found that this geology should be granite, Yucca mountian is pumice. There is also the fact that the area is geologically unstable, where the original specificaion is looking for somewhere that would be stable for 500,000 years, IIRC.
I haven't heard about any evidence about the lobby groups you are refering to, however if you can refer me to something specific I will gladly check it out.
Absolutely, specifically in a granite mountain would be good. The Swiss have a world leading project
I get it that a lot of people don't understand how bio-accumulation occurs in the environment and how long it takes for cancer to gestate. You only have to look to Chernobyl to understand that the consequences of a Nuclear accident is very long, slow and permanent.
What we have learned is that it took about 6-8 years for the consequences to begin manifesting in children as Thyroid cancer. The funding was cut on this vital research work so not data is being collected anymore to understand what the impact is.
It's more reasonable to say "there is no data being collected to establish how many deaths have been caused at Chernobyl". We can only hope that the science is being done this time around.
First of all, I'm talking about radioactive isotopes, not about the radiation that they emit.
Second, a nuclear weapon may contain 1 kilo of pu-239. I think there was about 50 tests, but lets double that and call it an even 100kilos of pu-239, which was also converted to a lot of energy all at once and spread over the country.
A single core of a GE Mk1 reactor is roughly 150 tons. 4 reactors x 50 tons every 10 years for 40 years makes about 800 tons of transuranic material, but let's be conservative and say half that, is about 40 times the amount of raw material of all all the testing over the entire country country, just not converted into energy all at once like the tests.
A micro gram of pu-239 is a fatal dose [oppenhiemer] causing leukemia and lung cancer and whilst not all of them will be ingested the sheer volume of ma
I'm not so sure I like all that wifi power that close to my head. It's not contacting the head however it is within one wave length for 2.4Ghz and a game is a lot longer than most phone calls.
Do you mean "baseload" that refers to the availibility of electricty at any time?
You know that when you turn on a light the electricity comes from different sources? Because "baseload" electricy is a function of the grid, not a single generating source.
Besides, why wouldn't you want a variety of supply sources as we move into the future. Obviously coal is a poor choice for its carbon legacy and nuclear could be better if it was done properly however it's design flaws leave a serious radionuclide legacy.
I think what you mean is that Nuclear power "better matches the baseload requirements" of the grid, which is sort of true. Solar thermal has made some phenomenal improvements which allows it to match baseload requirements and wind scales much better than Nuclear due to it's modularity.
Actually the 2005 Energy Policy act repealed the 1935 Public Utilities Holding Companies Act that was put in place to prevent a re-occurance of the great depression.
Now procuring companies (i.e oil companies) have half a billion dollars worth of subsidies for proposing "pre-approved" reactor designs, even if they don't build it, and a 1.8 cent per kilowatt hour tax credit if they do. So it's actually the other way around, at least if you look at who benefits financially according to the law.
Still it is a good way for the oil companies to deplete the economic base of the U.S at the expense of Nuclear power, so you maybe misdirecting your anger a bit.
Except that the availabilty and utilization of the reactor is not dependable.
The breakdown of U.S energy research and development budget reported by the US DOE is roughly 60% for nuclear, 25% to fossil fuels and 15% to SUSTAINABLE energy sources. Four times the financial support than sustainable sources and over double the support of coal and oil.
Wall Street doesn't like nuclear because its a risky investment, investors don't like that sort of risk, solar and wind are way ahead simply because the return on investment is much better than nuclear, i.e. Solar and wind satisfies the criteria that makes an investment "economically viable" nuclear power is only "economically viable" with the substantial regulatory support of the Price Anderson Act.
It's actually because it doesn't attract investors like wind and solar do. Wall street thinks its a bad investment as nuclear power needs regulatory constructs such as the Price-Aderson act because its insurance impacts are so high.
Except that the law (IIRC the 2005 Energy Policy Act) specifically *excludes* ratepayers from having a say in where a Nuclear facility is built.
How so? What evidence do you have for such a statement? Yucca mountain is geologically unstable and fails the DOE's original specification for a spent fuel containment facility. So how are environmentalists responsible for this?
Because materials technology do not exist to produce an IFR that avoids the inevitable cost of decommisioning. Don't get me wrong IFR is a great concept, but it has a long way to go before becoming a reality.
By the way, the Thorium fuel cycle's waste product is Thallium 238 which is also a very nasty material.
That is incorrect. You don't burn it into something safe, you burn it into something far more deadly but shorter lived. So instead of 25,000 years for pu-239 it would be more like sr-90 for 600 years.
Not much difference in terms of a human lifespan.
It is, it's also SyFy.
Last time I checked Nuclear reactors wern't powered with alfalfa sprouts and hamsters, so it's only idiotic if you are attempting to delude yourself.
And it is still a non-issue. When it is 30 years later and you can still store it on-site then it is not a lot of waste. Compare that to any other energy source, the amount of toxic waste, even solar panel manufacturing and you have your answer.
Fukushima highlights the consequences of on-site storage and the difficulty faced in securing the fuel rods when an accident has occured. It's only a non-issue if you don't understand the impact. The main issue faced is a plutonium fire starting in Unit 4 storage pool, holding 1500 fuel rods, spreading to the nearby containment facility that holds another 6000 fuel rods.
Such a fire will render the U.S "virtually" uninhabitable.
How about we build nuclear reactors underground? The thing may get buried, but even that should help to contain rather than spread the contamination.
Just spitballing here. Feel free to flame away and tell me all the reasons why this can't ever be made to work. IANANE.
This was one of the main recommendations (amongst 30 or so) from a Nuclear industry panel (Westinghouse, General Electric, Bechtel, Sargent & Lundy, Northern States Power and Commonwealth Edison) commissioned by the NRC. These should have been included in standardised Nuclear power station designs like the AP-1000, however they made the plants more expensive.
Damnit, you're right. Oh well.
No, the AC is wrong. Yucca mountain has ground water issues that affect the storage of the material. CSIRO research showed that groundwater issues are mitigated by granite storage which can capture the isotope in its structure. DOE itself called for 'defence in depth' and it's own report judged Yucca to be unsuitable as groundwater penetrated the facility in as little as 50 years.
It's called "reprocessing".
"Spent" nuclear fuel can be reused many, many MANY times if it is reprocessed properly.
At that point, spent fuel "waste" becomes a non-issue.
Except that it's not been done. When Dixie Lee Ray was the head of the Atomic Energy Commission he proclaimed that the disposal of nuclear fuel would be “the greatest non-problem in history” and would be accomplished by 1985, yet here we are almost thirty years past that date and still there is no High level waste disposal site anywhere. The closest anyone has come is the Swiss and even there project is a multi-decade test project and extremely expensive.
As for burner reactor technology, such as IFR, there are no materials technologies to support a plutonium economy.
It was said that it's impossible for land based Nuclear reactors to melt down, so "virtually impossible" can't be impossible enough.
Until the general population is prepared to lobby their congress critters in government they will never exert any real power.
I think many peoples ideas about democracy now don't extend beyond which party to vote for, if they even vote. Perhaps if more people actually cared enough to lobby about bills that are being introduced, to be put into law, then the situation may be different. Those who do, are running things and cementing their interests. They certainly don't miss the opportunity to lobby.
Even Franklin spoke to the flaws in the American Constitution that would not save America from despotism when it was being passed. The only question now is whether the American people are too afraid of their own government to actually effect change in the country anymore, and Franklins fears have manifested.
Corruption is the cancer that eats away at the body of democracy, it's institutions like failing organs, until the host dies.
Some people don't enjoy work and paying them more might get them to work on time or to work the whole day. Or you could just fire them and hire someone who has an understanding that they have agreed to do a job for a rate of pay.
Oh really? Alright I can play your game: those people have agreed to do a job that involved standard office hours. Travel means being asked to sit in a cramped aeroplane for many hours and give up their evenings and potentially weekends to do their job. By your own measure, work travel spreads outside normal work hours, so making it comfortable is hardly an unreasonable request. Just because an employee asks for something doesn't mean they should be fired over it.
Precisely. Will I be paid for the weekends and evening I don't have with my family, friends or activites and will they. What about when they fly employees over weekends and expect them to be fresh and shiney Monday morning after being stuck in aircraft and airports over the weekend.
It's a fucking tax deduction anyway, fly me business class and I may have a hope of being productive on Monday and the rest of the week. It's false economy to spend the money to send someone around the world just to have them to exhausted to do anything when they get there.