Nuclear Reactors - Satan or Saviour?

[fraggle42]

Nuclear Reactors.

 

 

 

Do you think they are just misunderstood and actually are a viable energy source that we're going to have to use if we don't want to go back to the dark ages.

 

Or are we stockpiling an unsolvable and dangerous problem for our children to try to solve?

 

 

Coal and oil are getting more and more expensive to aquire, whether the cost is directly related to extraction, or indirectly related to problems with poisoning water tables, ruining natural beauty areas, or wrecking innocent peoples lives who live near the extraction locations. The never ending rise in fuel prices shows us that. Fracking may be a stopgap of a few decades, but it's finite.

 

Nuclear is a viable alternative. Safety records are good, but the risks of a huge disaster stemming from what would otherwise be a small accident are there. Some reports gather the figures for deaths and mutations from disaster areas that may possibly be related, some reports deal with hard figures and simply refuse to include deaths from cancer that may have been caused by the radiation, it's impossible to prove it one way or the other.

 

Some EU countries have now completely stopped nuclear development programmes, some have shut down their nuclear reactors. Supposedly the net effect of all of that has set back the "green" energy generation agenda by decades, and none of the green alternatives seem to be making a significant difference.

 

Is this all just a knee jerk reaction to what some see as a minor incident (compared to the total number of deaths caused by the tsunami), with relatively few deaths?

 

We can fire a satellite into space that provides us with 100s of channels of TV and send robots to Mars, I'm sure we can fire a few rockets full of nuclear waste into the sun where it'll be swallowed without a trace.

 

 

What do you think?

 

[Ronin]

Viable.

 

Problem is our old Cold War era technology being used.  

 

READ THIS:  http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/

and:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

 

Thorium is the safe alternative.

[Nanuq]

Geothermal, baby.  Here in Alaska we're surrounded by active volcanoes and there's unlimited thermal energy straight down.  It's simple, cheap, and an earthquake (that goes hand in hand with being on the Ring of Fire) is not devastating. 

[Ronin]

Geothermal, baby.  Here in Alaska we're surrounded by active volcanoes and there's unlimited thermal energy straight down.  It's simple, cheap, and an earthquake (that goes hand in hand with being on the Ring of Fire) is not devastating. 

 

+1

 

Just got back from Iceland!  The hole country runs on Geothermal.  Despite the arctic temperatures, heating buildings was a non-issue.  Most shops kept their doors wide open despite 0' C temperatures.

[fraggle42]

Very interesting about Thorium, and good that its been rejuvenated and may hopefully get somewhere. If a reactor has already been built it shouldn't take that long either. Geothermal power is great if you're local to it. I don't really know the viability of making geothermal power plants big enough and enough of them to power the world? I think that's the main problem, scaling things up to be a viable alternative to coal and oil fired power stations we use now. I've got solar panels on my house and they cut my fuel bills by a third, I'm looking into adding battery storage so I can use the generated power during the evening and night, should see my self use go up from a third to two thirds, problem is batteries cost an absolute fortune!! Deep cycle lead acid or li-ion. I have found batteries at less than half the usual cost but they come from China, on AliBaba and you've no idea if you're getting new or recycled old crap, and spending £2k and finding out they're crap would make me a little mad

[Mike on a bike]

Geothermal works on a local level and that is fine just do it in that manor. Solar batteries / panels - when I do cost analysis the break even point is to far in the future and that is the break point. Even for a young man the cash outlay against investment precludes this route, the tech needs to improve to be valable.Thorium great but big oil will pay off the powers that be to kill it.

[Cromag]

It's only a matter of time (not long) before we have another meltdown in the US. It is totally unsafe. The problems are more than most people realize.

 

When a reactor melts down and/or releases nuclear pollutants into the surrounding environment (air, water, soil), it can travel vast miles and lasts thousands of years. Animals ingest the toxic particles and we eat them. The contaminants get into our bodies and do not go away. These radioactive contaminants kill the cells around them and then cells try to fight the disease but cannot because the cells are mutated. We end up producing mutated cells to fight the cancer and we die. The problem is that it takes a long time for this to manifest so it's hard to connect the dots of responsibility.

 

The other issue is the nuclear energy sector is very powerful and has effectively lobbied the government to turn the NRC regulatory body into a toothless tiger. Try to picture that. I big toothless old tiger gumming at their ankles while they laugh big belly laughs cashing in on their monopoly businesses. The NRC exists to fain legitimacy in the policing of the technology. These powerful monied interests are run my a very small group of people who will not shut down a reactor for safety reasons unless forced. The greed keeps them tethered to their money faucets. You know a government is captured when they face catastrophic nuclear fallout from Fukishima and instead of monitoring and publishing the data to the public they raise the acceptable levels of toxicity so as not to set off even more alarms. A lot of people don't realize that.

 

Reactors do leak, especially now as they get older. They are past their working lifespan but they keep renewing their licenses. They leak contaminating the water we drink and fish we eat. I would never own property with 100 miles of one. I was glad to hear they closed San Onfre this year, here in California, between LA/Orange County and Sand Diego. It's surrounded by millions of people and they closed it because of serious problems. I was surprised to see that ruling. We have another one in California by Santa Barbara that needs to get closed. There are also scientific laboratories, like nuclear linear accelerators that contaminate their environment but they keep out of the toxicity spotlight.

 

Nuclear reactors were not designed to store the reactor waste materials, but nobody wants this waste (we can't even sell it to other countries) so all the reactors in the US store their dangerous radioactive waste right there! Santa Barbara and San Onfre, both on earthquake fault-lines, are another Fukshima waiting to happen. Can you imagine that happening?! It's very possible. We have spent billions of dollars to build a storage facility deep within the bowels of the remotest Nevada desert but their State Governor Harry Reid argued against opening it. Once Obama took office, they shut it down. Billions of Federal dollars wasted, until the republicans take over and restart that project. Imagine if that huge storage facility has some type of chain reaction. Goodbye Vegas.

 

The Atomic State of America is a decent new documentary on Netflix that goes over most of these basics but shows you how the people who live nearby are affected and dying.

 

What Is The ACTUAL Risk for Pacific Coast Residents from Fukushima Radiation? http://ow.ly/rGW01 

Controversial stuff here but worth reading and contains some good peer reviewed exposure studies
 

The principle threat to democracy in the US today arises from irresponsible elites seeking relative advantage at expense of shared social values. The nuclear special monied interests are no exception and possibly the most irreversibly dangerous of the bunch.

 

[Nanuq]

How about tapping the Yellowstone caldera? It's 55 by 22 miles of magma, just beneath the surface. If a nuclear reactor can superheat steam to make electricity, so can 185 billion cubic miles of magma. Although I dispute that number.

[Nanuq]

http://nypost.com/2013/12/12/beneath-yellowstone-a-volcano-that-could-wipe-out-u-s/

[krpster]

I am with you Cromag. There are so many aspects to nuclear energy generation that have no good solution. Instead there are short term, stop gap solutions to help perpetuate the industry. Also, the fact that once one of these reactors gets out of control (which can be triggered by many uncontrollable circumstances) there is no going back. Fukushima is a prime example of this. There is no solution to the now festering cores burning away in the bedrock of the area. This will go on for the foreseeable future with no means to correct that our current technology can provide, all the while it will continue to pollute the environment and atmosphere on an ever growing scale.

 

Very scary technology. When it works it seems to work well (ignoring the byproducts of course) but it operates on a knifes edge...

[Cromag]

Yep... More news coming out every week. I haven't eaten pacific fish since. Fukushima Coverup: “Biggest Industrial Catastrophe In History” http://ow.ly/28XlJd "The Fukushima cover-up is about more than mendacious and criminal behaviour on the part of corporate and government officials. It shines a spotlight on the power and clout of the trans-national nuclear industry, and how they co-opt not only media, but whole sectors of economic and military endeavour." Made me wonder if the get rid of the stored waste by making military weapons from it. Like armor piercing depleted uranium rounds shot from A10 planes.

[Cromag]

Fukushima Didn’t Just Suffer 3 Nuclear Meltdowns. It Also Suffered Melt-THROUGHS and Melt-OUTS ow.ly/3jFxeO

[fraggle42]

Well, there is a simple choice to be made here.

 

1/ Carry on as we are, with a mix of power generation stations, all approaching end of life (or past it). This will increase the CO2 pollution, causing more global warming, more atrocious weather, plus we'll start having blackouts by 2017 (IIRC) as the fossil fuels start running out and the older power stations have to be taken offline)

 

or

 

2/ Build new power stations.

2a/ Renewable ones? The technology isn't mature enough yet for these to be viable. The sources are not constant and we need huge energy storage, which isn't possible yet.

2b/ Fossil ones? CO2 problem increased, worse storms, higher sea levels, all coastal cities flooded by 2100 (or earlier)

2c/ Nuclear? They have produced reliable plant designs but they haven't been built as the governments kowtow to the public fear and don't want to lose votes. The problem of what to do, and how to store the waste still exists.

 

As far as I see it, unless we actually want a world completely screwed by global warming, is 2c with new, safe designs, as a temporary stopgap until 2a (or fusion, or anything else they come up with thats safe) can take over.

 

1 will kill billions, 2a we can't do yet, 2b is the same outcome as 1.

 

In a lot of ways I'm glad I don't have children, they won't have to suffer the screwed up mess we're going to leave them and their children.

[tomhorn]

Solar roads ...

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/05/20/forget-roofs-are-solar-roads-the-next-big-thing/

[Mike on a bike]

Just keep in mind guys the present nuclear reactors AKA Fukushima are old designs. more study on cold fusion and pebble reactors are needed. Although I think Nanuq's slant on harnessing the heat from the earth itself is the way to go, as solar is not cost effective yet.

Funny Tom was just discussing solar roads w/ my son yesterday.

[Mike on a bike]

Although this looks promising http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor

[fraggle42]

Yes, there is a lot of very interesting research going on, and some of it is close to being implemented for real. But these old stations and the problems they have have loads of people scared of everything with the word 'nuclear' associated with it.

Above, particle accelerators were mentioned, they use magnetic fields to speed up electrons (electricity) and other particles and bash them together.

They were used in research about nuclear power decades ago, now they're concerned with particle physics which gives off less radiation than a 1950 watch produces from the tritium!

They use an awful lot of power (to shove the particles and to cool the equipment) but they is no 'nuclear' reactor inside them. (I assume they may be based close to a power station simply because the power they need requires a bit more than a 13A extension cable, and it's a lot cheaper to connect them to the grid if they're next door to a power station)

It just saddens me when countries like Germany decide to close down all nuclear stations and go and build more coal stations just because people are scared and don't research properly, they're just expressing their gut reaction.

[Cromag]

Japan Begins Purposely Dumping 100s Of Tons Of Radioactive Water From Fukushima Into The Pacific http://ow.ly/3kOPVI

[KB]

I like all renewable energy sources I think fossil fuels were an important part of our history but they now do far more harm than good.

 

I would have said Nuclear was viable but you can't just gloss over Fukushima or Chernobyl or Three Mile Island etc

 

Maybe it can be argued that in cases we got it wrong but Fukushima was not an accident, a force of nature that can easily happen again gave us that problem.

 

Geothermal sound cool (I don't know much on that) but I would also gladly have wind turbines scattered around the country and still think they look a damn site better and dirty coal burning oil pumping set ups.

 

Of course the real number one should be solar, they can already generate all the power we need using panels but there would be very many other clever ways (ie roads) to install solar cells if we would only explore the option more.

 

Ken

[Cromag]

Fukushima: Bad and Getting Worse » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names http://ow.ly/3ns63t

[GenTLe]

One of my friend has been the youngest responsible of a reactor in Italy (he's 75 now). One of the things he used to make me think has been: do you know that a carbon plant produce MUCH more radioactive pollution than a nuclear plant? It's due to the Carbon Isotopes that will finish (in the form of a radioactive CO2) in the atmosphere.

Here in Italy they did a referendum right after the Chernobyl disaster, and (obviously) people voted to ban the nuclear. It was 1987 and I was 12.

So ok, we went for oil and gas, so we're fully dependent from those messy countries in north of Africa and from mr. Putin. Ah, well, and we have nuclear plants in France, Switzerland, Slovenia which are less than 100km from our borders.

And still our old reactors and their wasted material need to be safely treated and dismantled.

Crazy...

[fraggle42]

Yep, I just can't see a good solution, or even a viable one that hasn't got a whole load of I solved problems.

The ideas that are good are in the lab and decades away from being made real.

I read a couple of days ago about the big problems they are having in places that have a lot of solar power. There isn't really any power station that can quickly turn up and down its power output, which is what's needed to work alongside solar micro generation being fed back into the grid, so they are running coal or oil stations all the time at Rickover and wasting the energy they produce, so making more pollution.

On a positive note I also read a new form of power storage that can be scaled up to huge sizes which is starting to be used to store the excess solar and wind power so it can be fed back at peak times / when there is no light / wind, which sounds a good way to go.

[GenTLe]

It will be sorted out when (if ever) the nuclear fusion with Deuterium-Helium3 will be made stable.

But we are much behind this: we're still not able to have a stable and energetically valild fusion with Tritium-Deuterium, which needs "only" 50keV, I can't imagine when we'll arrive to the D-He reaction, that needs 2x more energy (around 100keV).

The difference is that the T-D emits neutrons (not the D-He3), so it activates the materials making them radioactive and theoretically usable to produce material for nuclear weapons (other than the activated materials are not anything easy to handle...).

 

Anyway I was at a scientific - educational conference few years ago, on this topic, and they were talking about the NIF in USA and the Tokamak in EU, last one seems more promising, but let's see...

 

An interesting topic was related to the renewed interest about moon expeditions: He3 is very rare on the Earth and the scientists were explaining that on the Moon, due to the solar wind, there is a huge amount of He3 and that just one (1) He3 load of the Space Shuttle hold could run the whole USA for 1 year!!!!

They then showed us the correlation between the fact that China was running fast into their space projects for "Chinese man on the Moon", the nice diorama from Chinese Space Agency, showing a "Helium extraction station" on the Moon, and the sudden George W Bush renewed interest in the Moon programs when he said this -> http://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/bush_vision.html ...

[Cromag]

Interesting info @Gentle

Thanks for sharing

[Cromag]

We’ve Opened the Gates of Hell http://ow.ly/3olnXk