[pickles]

An oild friend of mine (since passed away) was a nuclear physicist with AECL dueing his working career. He was of the opinion that Nukes were safe if they were kept safe (private industry likes to cut corners, he wasn't in favour of reactors in private hands), and that oil was too valuable to burn.
Working for the AECL, I suppose he had a vested interest, but then, he was a nuclear physicist.

Hello again.
I can't really believe this, but we have some common ground here...my brother in law actually IS a Nuclear Physicist!
He doesn't have any problems with Nuclear Power either. He explained to me all about why the Japanese thing happened....bad design basically.....too complicated for me...but something about the electric power generators being mounted too low, so that when the tsunami hit, they were put out of action.....which created the problem.....no cooling water.....can't really remember....but basically, bad design.
Cheers, Pickles.

[lesmore49]

An oild friend of mine (since passed away) was a nuclear physicist with AECL dueing his working career. He was of the opinion that Nukes were safe if they were kept safe (private industry likes to cut corners, he wasn't in favour of reactors in private hands), and that oil was too valuable to burn.
Working for the AECL, I suppose he had a vested interest, but then, he was a nuclear physicist.

I'm not a nuclear physicist, but what he says sounds sensible. I also agree that nukes shouldn't be in private industry for the reasons mentioned in your post.

[dankoBanana]

Just some info

There have been ZERO nuke deaths in the western world from 1945 to the present. The last Gulf oil rig disaster killed 11 I believe. I will leave it to the anti folks to tally all the western world deaths since 1945 mining coal and supplying petro.

Regarding nuke waste and storage: The US has been blocked from reprocessing nuke fuel by anti-nuke politics. France does this all day long. It is true we have nuke waste stored all over. The multi billion dollar under mountain facility in Nevada that has been built has been blocked from use by the anti nuke people who would prefer it be scattered all over the country. It would appear that if the waste was tidied up they would lose a talking point.

Nuke waste covers a huge range of risk from none at all to very dangerous. Not all waste is that hazardous.

The US Navy has a very good safety record with nuke power plants and people in close proximity for those folks that are irrational about nuke power. Look into it and inform yourself.

France generates about 85% of it's electricity from nukes and they do export some to Germany at this time, so Germany is still using someone else's nukes.

Wind, sun, tidal, thermal, Obama's algae, unicorn bio-gas and such are all nice but just won't get the job done by themselves.

Last I checked there is only one country, India, pursuing a thorium reactor design.

I do believe an up to date 2012 designed nuke plant would be far safer and better than most of the plants in operation today that are starting to age.

San Onofre Calif) has been shut down due to some unexpected internal erosion of pipes discovered on regular scheduled inspections. That is what inspections are for. No leaks etc.

No coal, no nat gas, no petro will mean some damn cold winters for some. Be careful what you wish for.

I agree with everything you said, and I'm an engineer The USA model of waste storage in just bonkers. France does it right, about 17% of France's electricity is from recycled nuclear fuel.

[Medium FormatPro]

Kneejerk reaction if I ever saw one. Nuclear power, even with some of the problems has killed far fewer people than coal mining does each year

One hundred percent agreed; and even proven. Yet a majority of americans actually ignore the facts


Take a small state such as West Virginia; less than some two million people. Yet the state of West Virginia is second in the western world for amount of air polution produced. What's worse - the water polution. A majority of the (recently) pristine waters of the state are now to the tipping point of being unfit for human consumption. The entire state of West Virginia is almost a current day version of Love Canal.

But it goes further... The states second largest water tributary would be the Kanawha River; eventually going into the Ohio River, then the Mississippi River, eventually even the Gulf of Mexico and so on. The mercury (and other toxic) materials then polute millions all throughout over ten states in america.

[Phil1]

Quote: "Photo of railroad cars carrying some 123 tons of nuclear waste glow red-hot in an infrared picture taken in Valognes, France."

This post has to be pretty dumb. A few of the standing people unexposed heads also seem to be "glowing red-hot" too if you look closely. The temp scale on the picture gives red at C32.8 or F91.039 degrees. I have no idea why they don't evacuate all of France over this and parade for a UN meeting. Just a perfect example of flying BS on the subject. Just my opinion.

[Phil1]

Here is a blog on thorium development that might be of interest to a few:
India and Thorium reactors progress...

[philbaum]

Just some info

There have been ZERO nuke deaths in the western world from 1945 to the present. The last Gulf oil rig disaster killed 11 I believe. I will leave it to the anti folks to tally all the western world deaths since 1945 mining coal and supplying petro.

Wrong - like so much of the information in this thread. Someone's brother is a nuclear physicist and therefore it must be OK. Here's the death rate discussion from Chernobyl:

Chernobyl disaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An UNSCEAR report places the total confirmed deaths
from radiation at 64 as of 2008. The Chernobyl Forum estimates that the eventual death
toll could reach 4,000 among those exposed to the highest levels of radiation
(200,000 emergency workers, 116,000 evacuees and 270,000 residents of the most
contaminated areas); this figure includes some 50 emergency workers who died of
acute radiation syndrome, nine children who died of thyroid cancer and an
estimated total of 3940 deaths from radiation-induced cancer and leukemia.[11]

The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that, among
the hundreds of millions of people living in broader geographical areas, there
will be 50,000 excess cancer cases resulting in 25,000 excess cancer
deaths.[12] For this
broader group, the 2006 TORCH report predicts 30,000 to 60,000 excess cancer
deaths,[13] and a Greenpeace
report puts the figure at 200,000 or more. The Russian publication Chernobyl, which has received criticism for its
methodology and sourcing, concludes that among the billions of people worldwide
who were exposed to radioactive contamination from the disaster, nearly a
million premature cancer deaths occurred between 1986 and 2004.[14]

So the deaths attributable to Chernobyl are somewhere between 64 confirmed deaths, 3940 predicted from radiation induced cancers, up to Greenpeace who predicts 200,000 or more.

Here's another link from HuffingtonPost: John Rosenthal: Level 7 Major Nuclear Accidents: Chernobyl Death Toll and Fukushima

A book published in 2009 by the New York Academy of Sciences,
entitled
Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the
Environment, puts the Chernobyl death toll at 985,000 people between 1986
and 2004. Authored by three noted Russian scientists including the former
director of the Institute of Nuclear Energy of the National Academy of Sciences
of Belarus, the book is based on health data, radiological surveys and over
5,000 scientific reports detailing the spread of radioactive poisons following
the explosion of the Unit 4 reactor at Chernobyl on April 26, 1986. It reports
that Chernobyl emitted "hundreds of millions of curies of radiation, a quantity
hundreds of times larger than the fallout from the atomic bombs dropped on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki".





The most extensive radioactive contamination from Chernobyl was in the
Ukraine. Like Fukushima, Chernobyl released radioactive poisons including
Iodine 131, Cesium 137, Strontium 90 and Plutonium (a millionth of a gram
causes cancer in laboratory animals), with half lives ranging from 8 days to
thousands of years, which were dispersed into the air and water throughout the
globe. The book states, like Fukushima, "areas of North America were
contaminated from the first, most powerful explosion, which lifted a cloud of
radionuclides to a height of more than 10km. Some 1% of all Chernobyl radiation
fell on North America." It goes on to claim that there have been as many as
170,000 cancer deaths in North America alone, from the Chernobyl nuclear
accident.

The Nuclear industry doesn't even consider nuclear power "safe". How do i know that? They got a law passed by the American Congress that makes power companies immune from any liability costs associated with nuclear accidents. I'm not sure how this works in other countries, i.e. whether power companies will bear any of the costs of a nuclear accident.

So Phil1, i'd say your statement that there have been no deaths due to nuclear power is laughable, if it wasn't so sad. I agree with previous statements that nuclear power safety should not be left to private companies. They often cut safety procedures; if they're not liable for accident costs, why should they worry about accidents if the taxpayer assumes all cost liability.

Yeah, in theory, nuclear power can be done safely, but for many pragmatic human reasons, like terrorism, corruption, etc., why would we want to risk a nuclear accident if alternative forms of energy are around?

[boriscleto]

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

Vultures' Picnic

[riff]

you forgot to mention that all the fuels used in nuclear power plants was not imported from space or some other dimension... we dug it out of the ground.. it's been on or in the natural environment longer than us...

You forgot to mention what we dug out of the ground and the waste from a nuclear reactor are as different as a kitten and a titan rocket. Regardless many highly lethal things exist in nature, "natural" doesn't equal safe.

[riff]

why the Japanese thing happened....bad design basically

Well DOH. You convince me of nothing by stating the obvious.

We are incapable of designing and building a safe reactor, we have no plan or apparently even a good idea of what do do with mountains of waste that will be lethal for thousands of years.

[D0n]

You forgot to mention what we dug out of the ground and the waste from a nuclear reactor are as different as a kitten and a titan rocket. Regardless many highly lethal things exist in nature, "natural" doesn't equal safe.

well yeah.. after all we would not be having this debate if the reactor had not survived the earthquake, then tsunami... relatively intact...
funny how that works... there was a chain reaction of events, most of which boil down to human error which led to the reactor meltdown... from location to the power supply to the reactor, to the back up generators to the response...

The tsunami broke the reactors' connection to the power grid and also resulted in flooding of the rooms containing the emergency generators. Consequently those generators ceased working and the pumps that circulate coolant water in the reactor ceased to work, causing the reactors to begin to overheat. The flooding and earthquake damage hindered external assistance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster


there is a strong argument to be made that the real failure was the back up generator location... that the reactor itself survived an earthquake and a tsunami....

don't hear many people calling for safer back up generators.... people are kinda funny on what they focus on, if you ask me...
And I'm against 2/3 of the planet having nukes.....
they should be looking at solar and oil in the middle east, and all of California should get the F off the coast including ALL nuke facilities.

one broken water pump away from hailing F U as proof reactors can stand up to tremendous destructive forces of nature..
Fuk U almost went down in the history books as the poster child for Nuclear safety! lol!

You Tube

You Tube

[riff]

the state of West Virginia is second in the western world for amount of air polution produced. What's worse - the water polution.

Are you suggesting nuclear power will magically clean up West Virginia? The fact that WV basically shits when it eats doesn't convince me they are in anyway responsible enough to have even more dangerous toys.

[riff]

there is a strong argument to be made that the real failure was the back up generator location... that the reactor itself survived an earthquake and a tsunami....

There is a strong argument to be made that it doesn't matter what failed. IT FAILED and it's not suppose to ever for any reason.
There is a strong argument to be made that a sixteen year old would recognize this a very poor dangerous location for a nuke.

The back up generator location is part of the engineering of the plant, the engineering was a colossal failure.
The reactor did not survive the earthquake and tsunami, its a wide open steaming pile of poo that is beyond cleanup at this time. It survived much like a trail park survives a hurricane.

These arguments that is was bad design and or human error are exactly why many are against nuclear power.

people are kinda funny on what they focus on, if you ask me...

This we agree on.

[D0n]

(1)There is a strong argument to be made that it doesn't matter what failed. IT FAILED and it's not suppose to ever for any reason.
There is a strong argument to be made that a sixteen year old would recognize this a very poor dangerous location for a nuke.

The back up generator location is part of the engineering of the plant, the engineering was a colossal failure.
(2)The reactor did not survive the earthquake and tsunami, its a wide open steaming pile of poo that is beyond cleanup at this time. It survived much like a trail park survives a hurricane.

(3)These arguments that is was bad design and or human error are exactly why many are against nuclear power.


This we agree on.

1) doesn't matter to to some, others can learn from mistakes... if everybody took the all or nothing approach, we'd still be living in caves.... without fire... we didn't give up on fire after the first forrest fire thank goodness... lol!
2) reactor DID survive the quake and tsunami... meltdown occurred after the fact due to generators causing a pump failure... trailer parks should fare so well.... Elvis and aliens like trailer park people just as much as tornadoes do... be nice to them, they might be gullible enough to support your position.
3) the design exceeded it's goals, the location and set up of the generators and the human response is easy enough to correct... as for the location.. I agree get the nukes off geo active locations.

Japan giving up nukes is a political decision made to appease broad public fears not sound scientific reasoning...

scientific reasoning might lead to one or two facilities in a safer locale in operation, while others are dismantled and replaced with other resources like geothermal...

[Phil1]

Just some info

There have been ZERO nuke deaths in the western world from 1945 to the present. The last Gulf oil rig disaster killed 11 I believe. I will leave it to the anti folks to tally all the western world deaths since 1945 mining coal and supplying petro.
Wrong - like so much of the information in this thread.


philbaum "Someone's brother is a nuclear physicist and therefore it must be OK. Here's the death rate discussion from Chernobyl:"

From PentaxForums.com: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/political-religious-discussion/184863-can...#ixzz1u8DL3ajc

Maybe a little clarification is needed for philbaum : The Chenoblyl (Eastern Bloc) USSR designed reactor was declared an unsafe design before it was built. That is why no one else built them. That design only existed in the wonderful Socialist world. If my memory isn't gone most all of this type have been deactivated or will be shortly. Yes there were deaths and residual effects from it that blew over the wall unfortunately. There remains ZERO deaths from a western designed reactors including French, US, Brit and whoever else has them to date. That would be 67 years including the Japan disaster. The reactor there held well, as designed in a larger earthquake than the design criteria. As stated elsewhere the failure was the tidal water knocking out the cooling generators. No doubt a design flaw for that geography. In another location this old General Electric design would have been fine. The Japanese shut down of all nuke plants is due to maintenance and may remain down if the alternate sources can keep up with the demand. Rational thinking would lean towards newer designed plants at some future point will be built. The consequence's of 90-100% dependance on coal, oil and LNG would just be nuts.

The bigger design flaw would be building a whole city or numerous cities where tsunami waves can hit them if you want to carry the death issue further. It ain't western nuke plants that kill people.