# Nuclear Energy: what is your position?



## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

It's known that some european countries are abandoning nuclear energy, apparently after the situation in Fukushima (which is a big extrapolation I think). I would be interested in the opinion of the european members of this forum. Small and overpopulated countries like France or Germany, with little natural resources, how they plan to replace nuclear energy? (If I remember right, almost the 80 per cent of the energy in France is nuclear). For countries like mine, with huge natural resources and territory, nuclear energy seems a little unnecessary, since other types of energy are viable here, in a realist sense (said that, we have nuclear power plants; I don't have a problem with that, I think it's good to have diversity in the energy sources). The main advantages of nuclear energy are the small space of their instalations and the small impact that those instalations have in the medium where they are constructed. Don't require special geographical characteristics (like wind power, geothermal, hydro, etc). Also they don't require enormous quantities of fuel. These properties seem ideal for the countries that I have mentioned. On the other hand, the low point are the residues. They are particularly toxic. But I think that the current processes for treating them are sufficiently good, and you never will make contact with those substances. What about the possibility of accidents, like the one in Japan?. Well, the incident in Fukushima cannot be isolated from the fact that it was produced by one of the most terrible earthquakes, and tsunami, ever seen. I think it's a big error to extrapolate those situations to Germany for example. So, under strict control, I see more advantages than disadvantages about nuclear energy.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

Personally (speaking as a UK resident), I'm in favour of nuclear power (I think its advantages outweigh its drawbacks), and opposed to dependence on fossil fuels (I think its drawbacks outweigh its advantages). What we mainly run on in this country is a mixture of the two.


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## Praeludium (Oct 9, 2011)

About the earthquake problem, you might want to look at the nuclear plant of Fessenheim...

I'm not knowledgeable about this but I'm very skeptical about the fact that nuclear plant are in the hands of private companies, and how they're built (cf.Fukushima, Fessenheim, etc.). I also think the residues they leave shouldn't be underestimated - there's this scandal about radioactive residues leaking into a river because they were badly stored, in France. This is just an example...

To put it in a nutshell, I think nuclear power could be viable if it wasn't in the hands of humans.


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## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

Praeludium said:


> About the earthquake problem, you might want to look at the nuclear plant of Fessenheim...
> 
> I'm not knowledgeable about this but I'm very skeptical about the fact that nuclear plant are in the hands of private companies, and how they're built (cf.Fukushima, Fessenheim, etc.). I also think the residues they leave shouldn't be underestimated - there's this scandal about radioactive residues leaking into a river because they were badly stored, in France. This is just an example...
> 
> To put it in a nutshell, I think nuclear power could be viable if it wasn't in the hands of humans.



Or, at the very least, not in the hands of those humans who are only interested in the bottom line, the public be damned!


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Praeludium said:


> About the earthquake problem, you might want to look at the nuclear plant of Fessenheim...
> 
> I'm not knowledgeable about this but I'm very skeptical about the fact that nuclear plant are in the hands of private companies, and how they're built (cf.Fukushima, Fessenheim, etc.). I also think the residues they leave shouldn't be underestimated - there's this scandal about radioactive residues leaking into a river because they were badly stored, in France. This is just an example...
> 
> To put it in a nutshell, I think nuclear power could be viable if it wasn't in the hands of humans.


I have been reading about Fessenheim, well, if the plant does not fulfill the security requirements, it should be closed and that's all the history about that.
About the private companies, I don't know the problematic. In my country, all the nuclear power plants and the companies ligated to the fuel cycle are owned 100 percent by the national state. So all the nuclear industry here is public. And so far, despite all the troubles in the economy and the political problems, that have been working pretty well (of course this is only a merit of the people working in the industry and not of the politicians). So I would recommend more intervention from the part of the state. With respect with the design, I'm amused how the people can take the incident of the Fukushima plant as something as big as Chernobyl. The few deads were because of the explosions and not because of the "radiation". We are talking of a great natural disaster and, although the plant was damaged severely, the contention designed in the reactor has prevented the melted nucleus from make contact with the environment, thus preventing a big, big catastrophe, similar to Chernobyl. I'm surprised that nobody take note of this.


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## jttoft (Apr 23, 2012)

I'm all for fusion nuclear energy whenever it becomes viable!
As for fission, I'm not as repulsed by it as many Europeans (especially in my country, Denmark, where a lot of people consider it the most evil thing in the world), but I'm not entirely comfortable with it, either.

For the record, Denmark does not utilise nor has it ever utilised nuclear reactors as part of its main energy infrastructure. There have been various experiments and investigations over the years, though. In 1985, the Danish Parliament decided that nuclear power was not to be a part of the public energy infrastructure.


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

the positive aspects far outway the negative aspects.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

jttoft said:


> I'm all for fusion nuclear energy whenever it becomes viable!
> As for fission, I'm not as repulsed by it as many Europeans (especially in my country, Denmark, where a lot of people consider it the most evil thing in the world), but I'm not entirely comfortable with it, either.
> 
> For the record, Denmark does not utilise nor has it ever utilised nuclear reactors as part of its main energy infrastructure. There have been various experiments and investigations over the years, though. In 1985, the Danish Parliament decided that nuclear power was not to be a part of the public energy infrastructure.


but why is that??, that is what I cannot understand  How many people has killed nuclear energy in western europe as to have that attitude??


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## Praeludium (Oct 9, 2011)

They just don't want to play with fire and are afraid of the nuclear wastes (last forever, amazingly toxic if I'm right ?). Plus the human error factor which is heightened by the mentality of some of the companies who own the nuclear plants might have.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

While I do have a Masters in Nuclear Engineering, I primarily studied plasma physics (more relevant to fusion than fission). I think the fear of nuclear power is similar to the fear of airplanes. Accidents in nuclear power plants are large and rare (as are plane accidents). Deaths due to hydrocarbon power plants are more common and significant (primarily from emissions known as criteria pollutants), but there are no major disasters. Car deaths are higher per year than planes and happen much more frequently, but there are no major disasters. Of course, most people are not even aware of deaths from hydrocarbon plants since they present as cancer or cardio-respitory deaths.

If one adds to criteria pollutants the dangers of CO2 emissions, hydrocarbon plants have quite serious potential negative effects. Personally I fear increases in coal power plants more than increases in operating nuclear plants. Properly designed, built, and operated nuclear plants _ought_ to be relatively safe, BUT companies push to make plants cheaper and skimp on safety components and operations. I'm not sure I trust that nuclear plants are or will be properly built to safety specifications.

For me the bottom line is that I would prefer energy technology to move toward renewable distributed power and energy efficiency gains and away from hydrocarbon usage. If politicians cannot or will not place enough regulatory pressure on energy companies to ensure that transition in a timely way (like starting now and increasing significantly soon), I would rather have increased nuclear power generation than increased coal power generation.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Praeludium said:


> They just don't want to play with fire and are afraid of the nuclear wastes (last forever, amazingly toxic if I'm right ?). Plus the human error factor which is heightened by the mentality of some of the companies who own the nuclear plants might have.


it's not playing with fire because we know how to control it. That's another misinformation. The materials are dangerous, ok, but we know, very well, how to control them, it's not a "game" of luck, when by chance we don't get radiated... The human factor is present in every human activity. When you fly in an airplane, your life depends in the air controller. I ask again, where are the hundreds of victims of the radiation in western europe, that might justify this irrational fear?. On the other hand, hundreds of people die in air crashes and nobody says anything... And when the things go bad, like in the Fukushima plant, the contention designed in the reactor has prevented a major catastrophe (we have controlled the fire pretty well there, again, nobody takes note of this). So, again, the evidence shows that all this "fear" towards nuclear energy is, in a major part, completely irrational, and I presume this is a consequence of the poor knowledge that people have about the subject. And yes, as I said, the residues are the low point. But there are a lot of processes to re-use them as fuel. But anyway, the final disposal of these residues is not a closed subject, so indeed is a low point.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> While I do have a Masters in Nuclear Engineering, I primarily studied plasma physics (more relevant to fusion than fission). I think the fear of nuclear power is similar to the fear of airplanes. Accidents in nuclear power plants are large and rare (as are plane accidents). Deaths due to hydrocarbon power plants are more common and significant (primarily from emissions known as criteria pollutants), but there are no major disasters. Car deaths are higher per year than planes and happen much more frequently, but there are no major disasters. Of course, most people are not even aware of deaths from hydrocarbon plants since they present as cancer or cardio-respitory deaths.
> 
> If one adds to criteria pollutants the dangers of CO2 emissions, hydrocarbon plants have quite serious potential negative effects. Personally I fear increases in coal power plants more than increases in operating nuclear plants. Properly designed, built, and operated nuclear plants _ought_ to be relatively safe, BUT companies push to make plants cheaper and skimp on safety components and operations. I'm not sure I trust that nuclear plants are or will be properly built to safety specifications.
> 
> For me the bottom line is that I would prefer energy technology to move toward renewable distributed power and energy efficiency gains and away from hydrocarbon usage. If politicians cannot or will not place enough regulatory pressure on energy companies to ensure that transition in a timely way (like starting now and increasing significantly soon), I would rather have increased nuclear power generation than increased coal power generation.


(haha, yes, I have appealed to the airplane analogy too) Of course, who does not?, but that proposal is realizable in the following years?, I think not. Until those renewable sources can be applied in the macroscale, I think the nuclear is the only way to get rid of the hydrocarbon usage. I don't see how a country like France could replace his 80 percent of dependence on nuclear energy by aeolic farms in the medium term. Those kind of sources require very special geographical conditions and a large amount of land.


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## Stargazer (Nov 9, 2011)

Wow, excellent post mmsbls! I was about to reply but after that post, there's not much left for me to say lol.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Praeludium said:


> They just don't want to play with fire and are afraid of the nuclear wastes (last forever, amazingly toxic if I'm right ?)...


Yeah, and Europe dumps its toxic **** down here in the Pacific...we are the world's nuclear waste dump, it seems. Probably part of the reason why France held onto it's colonies down this way. They even did nuclear testing at Muroroa atoll.

Great technology, if the toxic waste is not in my backyard. Just send the crAp to the other side of the world to those_ inferior _colonies. The old colonialism with a new veneer. Loverly...not.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Sid James said:


> Yeah, and Europe dumps its toxic **** down here in the Pacific...we are the world's nuclear waste dump, it seems. Probably part of the reason why France held onto it's colonies down this way. They even did nuclear testing at Muroroa atoll.
> 
> Great technology, if the toxic waste is not in my backyard. Just send the crAp to the other side of the world to those_ inferior _colonies. The old colonialism with a new veneer. Loverly...not.


haha, funny, a couple of years ago there was a controversy here in Argentina because Australia was going to send his nuclear residues here for the reprocess (eventually the residues would come back to Australia). But anyway, the people was so alarmed by the words "nuclear residues" that they started this huge controversy... over a routine transportation of residues (since Australia has an argentinean reactor and I think that part of the contract includes the reprocess of the residues here)


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

aleazk said:


> haha, funny, a couple of years ago there was a controversy here in Argentina because Australia was going to send his nuclear residues here for the reprocess (eventually the residues would come back to Australia). But anyway, the people was so alarmed by the words "nuclear residues" that they started this huge controversy... over a routine transportation of residues (since Australia has an argentinean reactor and I think that part of the contract includes the reprocess of the residues here)


Yeah well the world is trading nuclear waste. I didn't know about that story re Argentina, interesting. But yes nuclear does have negative connotations, and no wonder. Going back to Hiroshima, then Chernobyl, then various more recent things like Fukushima.

The Americans wanted to build a nuclear waste storage site - eg. dump - here in South Australia recently, but it was luckily defeated here by similar public outcry. I think it's good that people are vigilant about this. & South Australia was the site of the UK's nuclear tests at Maralinga in the 1950's, where they are still cleaning up the pollution from fallout, Aboriginal communities lost their land and were moved away forcibly, and many army servicemen involved in the tests developed incurable cancers. The memory of that is not gone, people don't forget.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

My fundamental position is that the natural world must be protected and that anything which further damages are natural support framework must be avoided.
Nuclear energy is one of those things.
Anthropogenic climate changes is another.

If we continue burning fossil fuels the damage is a certainty, but if we use nuclear power the damage is a chance. Im willing therefore to accept nuclear energy as an alternative.
However, there are better options - solar, wind and water. Numerous studies have concluded that we can power our world with entirely clean and renewable sources.

The human mind naturally underestimates the impact of strong but low-probability events. There may not be thousands of victims throughout europe, and there may never be, but were such an event to occur its impact would be terrible and long-lasting.

Coal<Nuclear<CLEAN


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

why are we not investing in geo-thermal energy?


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## jttoft (Apr 23, 2012)

aleazk said:


> but why is that??, that is what I cannot understand  How many people has killed nuclear energy in western europe as to have that attitude??


None as far as I know. But it doesn't really matter where the accidents happen. The events in Chernobyl and Fukushima frighten people in Western Europe and all over the world.
The Chernobyl disaster was very serious, and I can definitely see why it frightens people and makes them hostile towards nuclear energy.



Wikipedia on Chernobyl said:


> Thirty one deaths are directly attributed to the accident, all among the reactor staff and emergency workers.[10] An UNSCEAR report places the total confirmed deaths from radiation at 64 as of 2008. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the death toll could reach 4,000 civilian deaths, a figure which does not include military clean-up worker casualties.[11] The Union of Concerned Scientists estimate that for the broader population there will be 50,000 excess cancer cases resulting in 25,000 excess cancer deaths.[12] The 2006 TORCH report predicted 30,000 to 60,000 cancer deaths as a result of Chernobyl fallout.[13] A Greenpeace report puts this figure at 200,000 or more. A Russian publication, Chernobyl, concludes that 985,000 premature cancer deaths occurred worldwide between 1986 and 2004 as a result of radioactive contamination from Chernobyl.[14]


Compared to Chernobyl, the Fukushima "disaster" (quite overblown in the media, I think) pales:



Wikipedia on Fukushima said:


> There were no immediate deaths due to direct radiation exposures, but at least six workers have exceeded lifetime legal limits for radiation and more than 300 have received significant radiation doses. Predicted future cancer deaths due to accumulated radiation exposures in the population living near Fukushima have ranged from none[23] to 100[24] to a non-peer-reviewed "guesstimate"[25] of 1,000.


One of my close family members was actually in Tokyo at the time, so we got a little worried from reading all the newspaper headlines. But as more and more information was made available, it became clear that, for Tokyo at least, the impact of the disaster was negligible.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

I won't be around when all this sh_t starts really unravelling, so have at it...nothing to fear but fear itself.

View attachment 4854


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

jttoft said:


> None as far as I know. But it doesn't really matter where the accidents happen. The events in Chernobyl and Fukushima frighten people in Western Europe and all over the world.
> The Chernobyl disaster was very serious, and I can definitely see why it frightens people and makes them hostile towards nuclear energy.
> 
> Compared to Chernobyl, the Fukushima "disaster" (quite overblown in the media, I think) pales:
> ...


The Chernobyl disaster was caused by the corruption in the soviet union. The reactor there did not have a contention device for the nucleus, so when the gas explosions started, the nucleus was exposed to the environment. That reactor, with that design, would have never been approved in the Western side. The reactor in Fukushima did have a contention, and that's the reason why the impact, compared to Chernobyl, is negligible. It's very irresponsable to compare both events. It's for that reason that I say that this "fear" is irrational: the evidence is showing that under a major disaster (caused by external factors), the security devices have worked as expected... I would feel relieved, since in the case that something similar may occur in my country, I know that the security devices have worked previously. I would have fear if the Fukushima accident would have resulted in a disaster like Chernobyl. But this was not the case. So I ask again, why the fear?. On the other hand, the security devices designed for preventing air crashes have failed several times, resulting in a lot of dead people, but nobody says "stop the airplanes". The reaction of western europe towards the Fukushima accident is completely contradictory.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Vaneyes said:


> I won't be around when all this sh_t starts really unravelling, so have at it...nothing to fear but fear itself.
> 
> View attachment 4854


I would not be worried because those containers in the picture are used only for very low activity material. The dangerous residues are stored in these kind of containers...:






And if you are worried about terrorist attacks against a nuclear plant...:


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

Historically, coal mining accidents have killed tens of thousands of miners. Safety procedures are greatly improved these days, but still, roughly 30 coal miners are killed in the USA each year alone. This death toll would (quite rightly) be considered an outrage if it occurred in the nuclear power industry.

And that's before (setting aside the various deleterious environmental effects of mining and burning coal) we even begin talking about the annual death toll caused by coal mining in China and other developing countries. Personally, I'd choose nuclear over coal every single time. Its safety record is very much better.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

aleazk said:


> The Chernobyl disaster ...The reactor there did not have a contention device for the nucleus, so when the gas explosions started, the nucleus was exposed to the environment. That reactor, with that design, would have never been approved in the Western side. ...


That's true, & technology must be better today than back then. But with regards to this -



Vaneyes said:


> I won't be around when all this sh_t starts really unravelling, so have at it...nothing to fear but fear itself.
> ...


It's the nuclear waste that's a worry. Prior to 1993 when it was banned by international treaty, ocean dumping in barrels of nuclear waste was very common. The table at the bottom of this wikipedia article shows who did it (& USSR was the biggest culprit there, & things like grossly deformed babies born in North Russia, on the coast of where these barrels where dumped, where the horrible result).

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

So what I'm saying is the technology or way of doing things might look good at the time, but decades or more later the downsides can be revealed, and can be far worse than we'd imagine such _safe_ and virtually _foolproof _things to be.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

I'm well aware of the positive aspects of nuclear energy, but I think that the negative aspects outweigh them, so I'm against it. I'm certainly not pro-fossil fuels either... I support the lowering of the general Western standards of living.


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## Stargazer (Nov 9, 2011)

I personally think we should just ship all that waste off to space somewhere. We've got the technology so the only hurdle would be the big costs. Of course, there might be some drawbacks if we did that also...I mean, the ninja turtles never would have existed without radioactive goo.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

Stargazer said:


> I personally think we should just ship all that waste off to space somewhere. We've got the technology so the only hurdle would be the big costs. Of course, there might be some drawbacks if we did that also...I mean, the ninja turtles never would have existed without radioactive goo.


I suppose the ultimate way to dispose of radioactive waste would be to launch it into the sun.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Fsharpmajor said:


> I suppose the ultimate way to dispose of radioactive waste would be to launch it into the sun.


It's been thought of, we've had that debate decades ago, I think. Still unsafe, eg. if the rocket has an accident and falls back to earth. But I think main thing is that it's very costly. Nope, the best & most politically expedient solution still is for you to send it to another country who nobody gives a damn about. Just send all your rubbish elsewhere, as long as the politicians can cover it up, it's fine.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Good servant bad master like almost anything in life...Im pro ''green'' resources of energy in general meaning wind sun even water...


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

As far as I can tell nuclear is the only viable option at the moment (apart from greenhouse-gas producers). So nuclear it is then.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Well dunno...Too much energy goes to waste or into space and could be ''recycled'' like any other matter...Some improved type of Tesla energy collector might be usefull...


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

I am all for nuclear energy. As for the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters, I guess the first one was due to a bad choice of place, and the second to a bad choice of people. Nuclear energy should not be trusted to people who start their day with vodka and then go to operate the nuclear plant. In the hands of civilized and disciplined people it should do just fine.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Xaltotun said:


> I support the lowering of the general Western standards of living.


I would challenge you to give away all your classical CDs, smash your computer and move to Africa.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

SiegendesLicht said:


> I would challenge you to give away all your classical CDs, smash your computer and move to Africa.


How does smashing your computer and moving to Africa lower the general Western standard of living?


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Crudblud said:


> How does smashing your computer and moving to Africa lower the general Western standard of living?


Well, if someone wishes to lower the general standards of living, it's only fair that he should start with himself.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

But if millions do that???


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Well, if someone wishes to lower the general standards of living, it's only fair that he should start with himself.


Okay, so how does smashing your computer and moving to Africa lower the general Western standard of living?


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Like I said, anyone who wishes to lower the general standard of living should better start with his own standard of living, not that of the rest of the population (which most likely does not want its living standard lowered). Now, if other people think it's a good idea and follow him of their own accord, that's a different matter. 

Besides, after living in Africa or another part of the third world for a while he may reconsider this idea.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Thats fair...''Practice what you preach''


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Like I said, anyone who wishes to lower the general standard of living should better start with his own standard of living, not that of the rest of the population (which most likely does not want its living standard lowered). Now, if other people think it's a good idea and follow him of their own accord, that's a different matter.
> 
> Besides, after living in Africa or another part of the third world for a while he may reconsider this idea.


How about moving to Canada - does that count- you know could live off maple syrup.....

Maybe could turn it into some sort of cold fusion reaction with the syrup - maybe smoke it too....


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> How about moving to Canada - does that count- you know could live off maple syrup.....
> 
> Maybe could turn it into some sort of cold fusion reaction with the syrup - maybe smoke it too....


But you see, moving to Canada does not really constitute a lowering of the living standard, unless you really go off to live in the woods by yourself.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Are you sure about that - i'm only going by what I see on TV









there would be alot of cold for the cold fusion of syrup.....


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## Ralfy (Jul 19, 2010)

It will be critical given peak oil but won't make up for petrochemicals. Also, expect more problems similar to Fukushima.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

I hope to maintain a position outside the immediate vicinity of nuclear energy. Upwind would be good, but difficult to maintain.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Fsharpmajor said:


> Personally (speaking as a UK resident), I'm in favour of nuclear power (I think its advantages outweigh its drawbacks), and opposed to dependence on fossil fuels (I think its drawbacks outweigh its advantages). What we mainly run on in this country is a mixture of the two.


I agree,especially as we are buying our gas from Russia for goodness sake !!


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Hilltroll72 said:


> I hope to maintain a position outside the immediate vicinity of nuclear energy. Upwind would be good, but difficult to maintain.


Where you live there is no energy,just a donkey walking in circles I thought.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Sid James said:


> Yeah well the world is trading nuclear waste. I didn't know about that story re Argentina, interesting. But yes nuclear does have negative connotations, and no wonder. Going back to Hiroshima, then Chernobyl, then various more recent things like Fukushima.
> 
> The Americans wanted to build a nuclear waste storage site - eg. dump - here in South Australia recently, but it was luckily defeated here by similar public outcry. I think it's good that people are vigilant about this. & South Australia was the site of the UK's nuclear tests at Maralinga in the 1950's, where they are still cleaning up the pollution from fallout, Aboriginal communities lost their land and were moved away forcibly, and many army servicemen involved in the tests developed incurable cancers. The memory of that is not gone, people don't forget.


With the greatest respect Andre those disgraceful military tests really have nothing to do with running modern nucleur power---and it WILL come!


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

emiellucifuge said:


> My fundamental position is that the natural world must be protected and that anything which further damages are natural support framework must be avoided.
> Nuclear energy is one of those things.
> Anthropogenic climate changes is another.
> 
> ...


Your better options are not very effective and expensive,what are your feelings about the monstrous windmills and the landscape and nature ?


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Sid James said:


> Yeah, and Europe dumps its toxic ***** down here in the Pacific...we are the world's nuclear waste dump, it seems. Probably part of the reason why France held onto it's colonies down this way. They even did nuclear testing at Muroroa atoll.
> 
> Great technology, if the toxic waste is not in my backyard. Just send the crAp to the other side of the world to those_ inferior _colonies. The old colonialism with a new veneer. Loverly...not.


Oh,Oh, I sense a rant coming on !!


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

I heard that we (the uk) export our nuclear waste to Japan where it is processed and made use of somehow. I think very few countries do this, probably because people tend to hear the words 'nuclear waste' and go slightly mad, which is fair enough. Nuclear waste is definitely a NIMBY kind of topic.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

moody said:


> Your better options are not very effective and expensive,what are your feelings about the monstrous windmills and the landscape and nature ?


Agreed, clean options are all very well, but have their downsides too. They are probably best on a small scale. It would be great if every house had solar panels, for example. But nuclear remains the best way of producing most power.

Of course, lots of scientists are working on alternative power sources all the time. For example. But I guess some of you scientists must be more up on this stuff than I am


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## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

In general I favor development of nuclear power. It is obvious that all the safety procedures need to be in place, yadda yadda. It is not a perfect sollution. There is none. But, it offers the cheapest power to the greatest number of people with the smallest pollution. The big drawback is the nuclear waste. Since no body wants it, maybe we should launch it into space and head it to the sun. That would be a permanent sollution. However, there is so much energy even in the spent fuel rods that there shoulds be some use for them. Not being trained in such thing I do not know but. surely, there is some smart guy out there, some Sheldon Cooper who could think of something.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

moody said:


> Where you live there is no energy,just a donkey walking in circles I thought.


Most of our generating plants use oxen. Donkeys get bored too quickly.


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## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

Have you tried hampsters in cages?


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

drpraetorus said:


> Have you tried hampsters in cages?


The law requires that they be retired on half-pay after a year's work. Food and shelter for the retirees is a drain on the economy. Don't even get me started on their medical bills.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I recall watching a Washington State documentary in 8th grade, which discussed the major environmental concerns caused by something that happened at "The Hanford Site," which is connected to the Columbia River. They said that acute radiation poisoning is possible from a potential leak at that site, all along the Columbia, which goes by Portland and its Washingtonian suburb, and other towns before there. I think there was an issue with storing Plutonium or Uranium, that the warehouse was not up to code and that in the event of a major Earthquake, we get really screwed... The amount of responsibility this demands of people in proper planning and foresight is pretty mind boggling, but maybe learning to handle dangerous things like this better in the future will help us move forward? Probably a very naive sentiment, but whatever.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

drpraetorus said:


> Have you tried hampsters in cages?


They did but the good ol'boys ate them !


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

SiegendesLicht said:


> I am all for nuclear energy. As for the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters, I guess the first one was due to a bad choice of place, and the second to a bad choice of people. Nuclear energy should not be trusted to people who start their day with vodka and then go to operate the nuclear plant. In the hands of civilized and disciplined people it should do just fine.


Russkies...?


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Ramako said:


> Of course, lots of scientists are working on alternative power sources all the time. For example. But I guess some of you scientists must be more up on this stuff than I am


The ITER website states that the ITER aims to demonstrate that fusion is an energy source of the future. Even back when I was working on fusion the joke was, "Fusion is the energy source of the future, and always will be."

I didn't work in magnetic confinement (considered the best option) but rather laser fusion. One fun fact was that the laser we used delivered 1 Terawatt of power. That is roughly what the entire US uses today. The difference is that the US uses that power throughout the whole year while our laser produced the power for one millionth of one millionth of a sec (1 picosecond). The actual energy delivered to the target (tritium pellet) was one joule, which is rather small. We fired the laser once an hour and then looked at all our diagnostics to determine if we had actually created fusion reactions in the lab (in fact, we did).

I'm not too high on fusion as a reasonable energy source in my lifetime. Since I work in an energy related field, I've heard pretty much every argument for the future of energy (next 40 years or so) that there is. It's interesting that there is so little consensus on how to proceed. Every option has benefits but significant problems as well. If I were in charge of the world's energy future, the only thing I'm certain of for now is that I would significantly increase funding for a range of potential options so we can wean ourselves off carbon based fuel.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> I recall watching a Washington State documentary in 8th grade, which discussed the major environmental concerns caused by something that happened at "The Hanford Site," which is connected to the Columbia River. They said that acute radiation poisoning is possible from a potential leak at that site, all along the Columbia, which goes by Portland and its Washingtonian suburb, and other towns before there. I think there was an issue with storing Plutonium or Uranium, that the warehouse was not up to code and that in the event of a major Earthquake, we get really screwed... The amount of responsibility this demands of people in proper planning and foresight is pretty mind boggling, but maybe learning to handle dangerous things like this better in the future will help us move forward? Probably a very naive sentiment, but whatever.


The Hanford facilities were initially built, on a very large scale, to extract plutonium for nuclear weapons as part of the Manhattan Project. They ultimately suplied plutonium for about 60,000 weapons, but the facilities are largely decommissioned now. Overall, a dangerous mess. Per Wiki:

"...the decades of manufacturing left behind 53 million US gallons (200,000 m3) of high-level radioactive waste, an additional 25 million cubic feet (710,000 m3) of solid radioactive waste, 200 square miles (520 km2) of contaminated groundwater beneath the site, and occasional discoveries of undocumented contaminations that slow the pace and raise the cost of cleanup." Yes, it's all right on the Columbia River.

BTW the City Fathers of Vancouver WA have dispatched a hit squad because of that "Portland and its Washingtonian suburb" crack... :lol:


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I've been through Vancouver WA numerous times...never that impressed.

I think the video was complaining about how difficult it was to actually get funding for working on this thing that had a chance of wreaking havoc.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Our government is planning to build a nuclear plant in the next few years, because they are not satisfied with Russian imports either. I think it's one of the few wise ideas they have ever turned out (except that the building will be done by Russian and Iranian  contractors).


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Our government is planning to build a nuclear plant in the next few years, because they are not satisfied with Russian imports either. I think it's one of the few wise ideas they have ever turned out (except that the building will be done by Russian and Iranian  contractors).


"Russian and Iranian  contractors" - what will they drink to toast the opening of the plant- Vodka !! green tea !! Halal juice, you gotta think about these things, important when planning such as thing.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

SiegendesLicht said:


> *Our government* is planning to build a nuclear plant in the next few years, because they are not satisfied with Russian imports either. I think it's one of the few wise ideas they have ever turned out (except that the building will be done by Russian and Iranian  contractors).


Where its at?


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Flamme said:


> Where its at?


Belarus. I think there is someone from Lithuania on this forum, it would be interesting to hear his opinion, since the nuclear plant will be right next to his country.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Ha really?Who would thunk?Lukashenko?


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## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Belarus. I think there is someone from Lithuania on this forum, it would be interesting to hear his opinion, since the nuclear plant will be right next to his country.


Could be worse. They could be thinking of restarting Chernoble. There is a plan to build a plant in Green River, Utah. About 150 miles south east of me. I have no problem with it.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

drpraetorus said:


> Could be worse. They could be thinking of restarting Chernoble. There is a plan to build a plant in Green River, Utah. About 150 miles south east of me. I have no problem with it.


Oh no, nobody is _that_ dumb, even in our government. And besides, Chernobyl is in Ukraine. I have no problem with a nuclear plant in this country either, it's just the fact that our government is planning to team up with a "political outcast" like Iran that bothers me. Our relations with the West are not in the best shape even without it.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Under Miloshevic Sheshelj regime Serbia planned to become a balkan fist of future Russia Belarus federation against the West imperialism lol


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## georgedelorean (Aug 18, 2017)

I'm heavily in favor of it. If I remember right, a new nuclear plant was supposed to open in or very near Green River, Utah back in 2010. It would've provided a large number of jobs. Never came to fruition though.


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