Nuclear Power (spun off from Japan earthquake discussion)

[MistressStevie]

Originally Posted by smc

[Y]our examples are patently false equivalencies -- although I must give you credit for the cleverness of referencing planes dropping on people on the ground rather than mentioning the risk to actual passengers on airplanes.

Hey, it was early and the coffee had not worked. My examples are not all the way patently false as they do involve other people doing things for a profit that impacts somebody else in their normal course of daily activities. I was not intending that they be on the same order of magnitude. So far the greatest damage from a western (including Japanese) nuclear accident has been minimal releases of radioactivity--AND NO (zero) deaths. Japan may change that death total by a number slightly and we will have learned how to build safer power plants everywhere as a result. All deaths bug me. But keep perspective here--Bhopal and the Union Carbide accident there were responsible for around 5,000 deaths, tremendous suffering, and so forth.

I am pro-nuclear power if that is not already evident. But more than anything I am totally against not learning how to do things better next time. And if we want to have power for our computers, it has to come from somewhere. I want that somewhere to be clean safe and cheap. If nuclear cannot compete on that it should go away. Coal is the only thing cheaper that we know of right now and it is fraught with dangers also.

-mS

[Tread]

Originally Posted by MistressStevie

So far the greatest damage from a western (including Japanese) nuclear accident has been minimal releases of radioactivity--AND NO (zero) deaths.

That is not true. I don?t have looked deep into the matter so there is more.

3 deaths, January 3, 1961, Idaho Falls, Idaho, US, SL-1, National Reactor Testing Station
2 deaths, September 30, 1999, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, Tokaimura uranium processing facility
5 deaths, August 9, 2004, Fukui Prefecture, Japan, Mihama Nuclear Power Plant

March 28, 1979, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, US, Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station - 2
It released radioactive steam in the environment. 6 years later, cancer rates went at peak 150% up on the contaminated side (where the wind blew) compared to the not contaminated side.

Cancer rates are higher and life expectations are lower near nuclear plants. It looks that there are many deaths caused by it, but direct causal connection is difficult to prove.

It doesn?t have to be a western plant or accident. The Chernobyl disaster caused radioactive fallout over most of Europe. And in some areas mushrooms, plants and animals are still harmfully contaminated.

Plutonium 239 and Uranium 238/235 have huge half-life times. It must be stored, buried or protected at minimum 1 million years. Mankind exists about 160,000 years. It can't be estimated what happens in this time, and how many will get harmfully radiated over that time.
How to tell understandable warnings and instructions over a period much longer than humans exists?
Who will notice if radioactivity, out of deep geological repository or a buried nuclear plant, reaches ground water? Test storage showed leaks (not to ground water yet) in less then 50 years.
Radioactive resources are already or will be taken away (legal or illegal) from closed nuclear plans, nuclear submarines, radioactive waste and contaminated areas. No one checks if your car is build with steel from nuclear submarine with a meltdown.

[ila]

Originally Posted by MistressStevie

....I am pro-nuclear power if that is not already evident. But more than anything I am totally against not learning how to do things better next time. And if we want to have power for our computers, it has to come from somewhere. I want that somewhere to be clean safe and cheap. If nuclear cannot compete on that it should go away. Coal is the only thing cheaper that we know of right now and it is fraught with dangers also.

-mS

Acutally hydro electric power is cheaper and cleaner than coal.

[MistressStevie]

Originally Posted by ila

Acutally hydro electric power is cheaper and cleaner than coal.

You are 100% correct in that Ila. There are limited number of opportunities to build additional hydro-electric plants with existing environmental regulations in the US. There was a turbine blow out in Russia a couple years back that had some major damage. -mS