Nuclear Power: Yay or Nay?

[ASWnut101]

Well, I want to hear your opinions on Nuclear Power (Land Based). Is it a good idea because of it cleanliness and safety? Or does the waste disposal issue outweigh the benifits?

[baggygreen]

Im all for it.

We got a big debate going on here with the opposition saying they'll never go to nuclear power, n the govt lookin at the feasibility. Im all for it, i think that it is only a matter of time before fossil fuels are almost gone. I dont have any figures, but am of the opinion that it'll be within my kids' lifetime.

[Ducimus]

Im all for nuclear power because it gets us away from fossil fuels. But we must have the most strict regulations, management, and supervision of waste disposal. Not to mention powerplant operations. We don't want anymore long islands.

Theres only one problem with nuclear power. That problem being the banner that every American waves no matter where they live in the country, for this and many other issues or proposals:


"NIMBY"

[baggygreen]

nimby??

[baggygreen]

oh of course, not in my back yard.

sorry, not up with internet slang. or is it down?:hmm:

[Mush Martin]

of all the options that we have the chance to grossly mismanage

Nuclear power is the best option

assuming we are able to learn how not to mismanage whatever option
we choose.

MM

[Ducimus]

oh of course, not in my back yard.

sorry, not up with internet slang. or is it down?:hmm:

Nah, thats not internet slang. Real life term. Probably an old one though.

[The Noob]

Yes, the civilisation demands more power, this is the only realistic way to produce it. The problem is, if a meltdown occurs, the results are fatal, as chernobyl has shown. Also, the waste disposal method is retarded. Do they really think barrieing the waste below the earth so you cant see it wont cause long term problems?

If it would be like, shot into space, that would rule.

[fatty]

I think that acronym actually predates the internet as we know it :know:

Of course, regarding waste disposal, we can always take a page from the Russians and fight fire with fire!

According to a report in Izvestiya on 6 May 1997, Minister of Atomic Energy Viktor Mikhailov, Minister of Defense General Pavel Grachev, and Chief Military Inspector General Konstantin Kobets wrote in a 4 July 1994 confidential letter to Russian President Boris Yeltsin that the accumulation of spent nuclear fuel from nuclear-powered submarines and naval surface vessels poses the main radioactive waste handling threat to Russia. As a solution, the Central Physical-Technical Institute of the Ministry of Defense and the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics (VNIIEF) in Sarov (Arzamas-16) proposed using an underground nuclear explosion technique to vitrify and bury the radioactive waste in tunnels at the Central Atomic Test Site at Novaya Zemlya.

I thought they actually did this in practice but I can't find any other mention of it.

[Ducimus]

I wonder how cost effecitve it would be to just shoot the s**t into space. :lol: Not like we'll ever set aside our differences and explore it anyway.

[ASWnut101]

very good idea, Noob and Ducimus, but there ARE drawbacks.

1. If the Rocket you use to launch it fails and crashes, you have a VERY bad problem.

2. That would require one heavy lifting rocket to launch the stuff, which is also pretty expensive.

[Ducimus]

Hey , you know.... dream a little dream ;)

Reality is we'll probably never switch to using more nuclear power, we wont be shooting any waste into space (let alone explore it), and we'll continue using fossil fuels tell the wells dry up. Resistance to change is human nature. Im a gross offender of that myself.

[CptSimFreak]

Fission is the only power until tokamak can do fusion properly.....and that's not going to be for sometime.

[LoBlo]

From what I understand, scientist are making steady progress in fusion (the topomak etc) and its predicted that by 2060 it will be effecient enough to compete with fossil fuel electric plants.

Those new generator IV reactors being researched sure look cool though. Seems like the one of the designs might one day be applicable to subs one day:hmm:

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

[Kapitan_Phillips]

Waste disposal by firing into space, huh?


Where's my Howitzer :hmm:

[Konovalov]

Im all for nuclear power because it gets us away from fossil fuels. But we must have the most strict regulations, management, and supervision of waste disposal. Not to mention powerplant operations. We don't want anymore long islands.

Theres only one problem with nuclear power. That problem being the banner that every American waves no matter where they live in the country, for this and many other issues or proposals:


"NIMBY"

Spot on the mark. :yep: Couldn't have said it better.

[STEED]

Drop the crap on Iran. :smug:

Yes I am being sarcastic with that remark. :smug: :smug:

[Torpedo Fodder]

I'm all for it, because modern reactors are clean, safe, and efficient, and honestly it's the only real alternative to fossil fuels for wide-scale power generation (fun fact: coal power plants actually realease more radiation into the environment than nuclear plants, due to the uranium in the coal deposits), and the fears of meltdown are greatly overblown for modern reactor designs. What the greens who constantly lobby against nuclear power don't seem to realize is that all their efforts result in is the construction of more fossil-fuel plants. I'm all for the use of alternate sources like wind, solar, tidal etc, where they're applicable, but the output from thes is limited and unpredictable, so I have no illusions that they can replace fossil fuels for widescale generation. As for nuclear waste disposal, that can be greatly reduced if spent reactor fuel is reprocessed into more fuel, which would also help conserve uranium supplies.

[Tchocky]

Probably not going to get too much opposition on a nuclear submarine forum....

SSK? Respect++

[Sailor Steve]

I'm all for it. We already have gobs of it in our backyard. Not too long ago one of our local Indian tribes said "You'll pay us HOW much to take some? Sure!" and then state officials started in with "We'll close roads! We'll make it impossible to get it there!" And so on.:roll:

I wonder how cost effecitve it would be to just shoot the s**t into space. :lol: Not like we'll ever set aside our differences and explore it anyway.
Shoot it into the sun. It's already a huge nuclear reactor.

Of course if I'm wrong...

[Oberon]

Either into the sun or a black hole....of course, if a black hole then turns out to be a way to another place then we've just shifted the problem to them, but hopefully they'll have a way of dealing with it that we don't currently have.
Throwing it into the sun is a good idea...but if it then decides to throw out a large flare or something, then it's gonna really screw things up if it hits Earth.
I live just down the road from two nuke plants, I've been in both, one of them has just been decomissioned (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/suffolk/6221459.stm), so eventually it's all going to get pulled down, but the reactor area itself is still going to be hot for another century, and since it'll probably be entombed in a concrete/lead shell ala Chernobyl that's no real concern.
Nuke stations, or at least Sizewell, has thousands of backups, readouts, procedures and everything else, so it's all pretty much safe....it still leaks every couple of months or so, but so far it's behaved itself.

However, nuke power is not the permenant future for earth power...powering engines for space vehicles? Great idea! (although Fusion reactors would be so much better) but for our daily needs, we need to find something just that little bit less catastrophic when it all goes wrong.

[STEED]

It's about time we looked in to methane us humans and the animals all break wind. and it's free of charge. :shifty:

[tycho102]

Well, I want to hear your opinions on Nuclear Power (Land Based). Is it a good idea because of it cleanliness and safety? Or does the waste disposal issue outweigh the benifits?
Even more important than just a yes or no, I want to reduce transmission losses. This stuff where Oregon pumps 20GW to California at the cost of 2GW needs to stop. Aside from a superconductive transmission grid, I want local nuclear power production. State by state. My state would be completely served by a 3GW plant, including spare capacity. It would pay for itself at $.12/kWh, since our current (from natural gas) is about $.085/kWh. California would have to get off their socialized arses with closer to 250GW, with straight up about 15GW going to desalination for LA alone.

Electrical Consumption 2002 (http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:6GuI48iPVIAJ:www.ipsr.ku.edu/ksdata/ksah/energy/18ener7.pdf+electrical+consumption+by+state&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us), including resistive losses as far as I can tell. New York and California are so high because they have to buy it from 200+ miles away, which is why their rates are $0.18/kWh or more. Resistive losses are crazy. We probably use close to 3TW (that's terawatts, or 10^12) now, and the last time I saw numbers for losses, average transmission losses were around 8% -- some places it runs up to 15%, others down to 5%. Close to 250GW of loss. production.

I want local power production. City-by-city where indicated, state-by-state for the rest.


edit-- By comparison, Chernobyl had a total of nine reactors in three groups, each with a 3GW thermal capacity, 1GW electrical

[The Noob]

Shoot it into the sun. It's already a huge nuclear reactor.

Of course if I'm wrong...
I wanted to say that... anyway, there are nuclear explosions on the sun every day, so one or 2 more from us will not make a difference. :cool:

I wonder how cost effecitve it would be to just shoot the s**t into space. :lol:
Cost effective? In my way to think, we dont have another choice. Either run out of energy (the oil wells will be dry sooner than you think) or die on nuclear waste.

1. If the Rocket you use to launch it fails and crashes, you have a VERY bad problem.
If you burrie it and corrosion occours, you have a VERY bad problem. The difference is, you have it in 50 years, not now.

Reality is we'll probably never switch to using more nuclear power, we wont be shooting any waste into space (let alone explore it), and we'll continue using fossil fuels tell the wells dry up.
In 1810, people said "reality is we'll porbably never fly in the sky, we wont be shooting man on moon, let alone on other stars." ;)

Never say never!

[moose1am]

Probably not going to get too much opposition on a nuclear submarine forum....

SSK? Respect++


You got that right! Two words Waste Disposal

[AJ!]

I wonder how cost effecitve it would be to just shoot the s**t into space. :lol: Not like we'll ever set aside our differences and explore it anyway.

Bingo. We wont settle down and commit to space travel for a awful long time.... if ever.
If space is infinate we wont be seeing that waste ever again anyway.

The only problems with nuclear is the potential disaster that can be caused. I think if a whole new reactor design was used then maybe it would be a great solution but i dont think i need to remind anyone about the chernobyl incident :nope:

[Abraham]

As long as the waste problem of nuclear energy is not fully solved, it can't be considered a permanent solution of our energy problem.
It is essential as a temporary source of energy, but I hope fission techniques will in the future solve the energy problem, together with better use of solar, wind and aqua energy.

On aspect that was not yet given attention to in this thread is the dependence upon suppliers of uranium. Who wants an UPEC (Uranium Producing and Exporting Countries) with nations like Russia and Congo, to mention a few...

[kiwi_2005]

Yes. Man will never stop wanting, sooner or later the earth will have nothing to give. Nuclear means - crafts- space - planets - mining.

On another note i just view something funny on the news, Some bright spark gave the all clear to send 1.8billion dollars - in cash! Loaded in pellets and was suppose to be shipped of to iraq - yet it went missing:D they have no idea what has happened to the money! Somebody out their is now looking at some islands to buy for retirement.

Ignore the above not meant to hijack but hey thats out of it!

[Shaffer4]

Pro Nuclear, My father has worked in the Nuclear Industry for over 30 years, The last 20+ years as a Technical Writer (Operating Procedures, etc), among other tasks (Quality Assurance, etc.) at various plants across the country. So, the Pro Nuclear message has been ingrained in me from the get-go you could say.

I live less than 100 miles from where the plutonium for the first atomic bombs was processed (B Reactor). The Hanford Nuclear Reservation starts about 70 miles from my door. A few years back we took a road tour of the sites, which was pretty interesting; seeing all that history up close. My dad had plenty of intertesting tales. (Bluing glass in the heavy water of the spent rod tanks was particularly interesting

Comparing Chernobyl's Reactor(s) and Containment systems to Any of the modern US Reactor(s) and Containment is a very apples to oranges comparison, in terms of construction, safety, and operation.

Interesting link(s) here.
http://www.niof.org/campaigns/chernobyl.htm

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/trinity/articles/part3.html


The Bottom line is the biggest risk is human error.

[Seth8530]

I say we shoot it into space with a ?Rail Gun? or a rocket. if it fails we will be wearing sunscreen in alaska and glow in the dark. maybe some day we will figure out fusion.

[Tchocky]

Sending that much weight into orbit (and beyond, it seems) would be a disaster for the already-****ed atmosphere. Space launches dump huge amounts of gases into the upper atmosphere, fortunately we don't launch that often.

But consider the increas involved in sending up all of our nuclear waste. i say bury the stuff in the most secure way you can. Turn it to glass, pack into drums, then backfill the whiole vault with concrete. 24-hour guards, too, to ward off nutterism.

Until fusion works effeiciently, if it will

[tycho102]

I wasn't thinking clearly. Ok. That link I have up above is in gigawatts. Million kilowatt hours. So, that comes out to about 400GW. America requires about 400GW of electrical power production, and consumes 3.8 Petawatt hours (10^15).

Texas pays for itself, even though it is the largest user (37GW) -- 1/4 of that is probably walmart. California would need 30GW plus desalination so they could stop drawing water from the Colorado. Far as I can tell, Los Angeles uses 6.6 million gallons per day, which would take maybe 100MW to generate and another 5MW to pump around the hellhole (tricounty). New York would need 16.5GW for electrical. My state would take almost 6GW.

We have something like 102 total production reactors right now, in the United States. Some of these are operating at 102% capacity because during the turn-arounds they have been able to install more efficient turbines and pumps and run the reactor a bit hotter. However, all these plants are 35 years old with life expectancies of 40-50 years. We have another 35 plants that are in various states decommissioning, and the north east power grid is currently the one strained.

[Oberon]

That's an idea Seth, some kind of accelator....hell, it sounds very Jules Verne/HG Wells-ish but, kinda like a giant gun, launching 'bullets' of nuclear waste space-craft into space.

Didn't the US play around with the idea of using nuclear explosions to propell things into orbit back in the 1970s? Project Thunder-something I think, or Project Anvil...I can't remember off hand. Either that or some kind of accelator device...punch it out of Earth, since it'll be unmanned, it doesn't matter about G-forces.

Of course, it'll have to be fairly well secured, just incase the 'gun' misfires and it lands up falling on someone :oops:

[Tchocky]

Project Orion it was called.

I've posted my environmental objections to shooting waste into space via conventional rocket, let's not get started on a couple of hundred fission weapons...

[SUBMAN1]

Nuke power is the answer to global warming by the way. Even with the Waste Disposal problem, it is the cleanest energy that you can possibly imagine. No coal firing CO2 emission producing old gen power plant to pollute our atmosphere. Battelle has nearly perfected the waste disposal method of containing the waste in glass rods, so this won't even be an issue in the future.

Nukes also have tremendous power output, so much so that there is only one dam in existence that can outproduce a nuke plant - Grand Coullee dam. One simple nuke generating plant can outproduce some of the largest power generating structures ever devised.

Its a no brainer - nukes are a must for the future - especially in an era of global warming. After that, we will move to Fusion. After that, maybe some sort of anti-matter reactor.

-S

[SUBMAN1]

Here is Battelles patent on glass rod waste disposal:

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4362659.html

[Ishmael]

That's an idea Seth, some kind of accelator....hell, it sounds very Jules Verne/HG Wells-ish but, kinda like a giant gun, launching 'bullets' of nuclear waste space-craft into space.

Didn't the US play around with the idea of using nuclear explosions to propell things into orbit back in the 1970s? Project Thunder-something I think, or Project Anvil...I can't remember off hand. Either that or some kind of accelator device...punch it out of Earth, since it'll be unmanned, it doesn't matter about G-forces.

Of course, it'll have to be fairly well secured, just incase the 'gun' misfires and it lands up falling on someone :oops:

Actually, Prof. Gerard O'Neill and his grad students put together something called a Linear Mass Driver using superconductive magnets to move a steel bucket along a rail back in the 70's. The model they built accelerated the bucket from 0-80 mph in 15 feet. It was part of an idea for building giant photovoltaic satellites in earth orbit and mining the construction materials on the moon. the LMD was workable enough on a large scale to boost the material out of the moon's gravity well to the L5 & L3 libration points between the earth & the moon. O'Neill's team figured that orbital solar power satellites would produce 5 times the electricity as a similar terrestrial array. They planned on beaming the energy to earth as microwave beams, then convert back to electricity using rectifier antennas. So even with microwave losses, the total usable electricity produced would be 3-4 times as much as terrestrial arrays.

Regarding nuclear power, I have no problem with it as long as the families of the management teams and the major stockholders of the plant owners agreed to store and safeguard the wastes on their own property until it was no longer a danger to the general populace. Of course, that would mean condemning their descendants to safeguarding the material for at least 100,000 years, but you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs.

[Spudwiser]

Nuclear power is the way of the future. We have come a long way since the Three Mile Island incident and the unfortunate events of Chernobyl.

Chernobyl was as much a fault in the reactor as it was the people useing it. What I have been taught in school about the incident and what I KNOW know are totally diffrent. The only real issue with nuclear reactors is what to do with the spent nuclear fuel.