Practically all nuclear reactors in EU arisk

[Skybird]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19804817

This was in the news already two days ago in German media.

Greenpeace pointed out in German TV that the stress test did not even consider multi-factorial failures of security systems - that means more than one security system failing simultaneously or in sequence.

Technical improvements necessary on basis of just the EU report now would range in the range of up to 25 billions.

[Oberon]

Urk.

I can believe this, although I think it unlikely that such circumstances mirroring that of Fukushima would take place, but I can believe that there are certain safeguards not in place.
As sea levels rise there's also the risk to the reactor sites near the sea, which account for most of the NPPs here in the UK, and there has still not been an adequate answer to what would be done in the circumstances of another powerful North Sea swell culminating with a seasonal tide and weather patterns, like 1953.

How are things going in Germany after all nuclear plants were shut down? How much oil do you import for energy reasons now? How much coal is burnt? What's the emissions levels like?
I hate nuclear power, primarily for its messiness, but I also recognise that as the current level of technology stands, plus the current society, we cannot generate enough power to supply our nation and cut back on CO2 emissions at the same time without nuclear power, even with all the wind farms that have been built and are being built along our shoreline.

[soopaman2]

I would worry more about internal sabotage blowing one of these up before the sea levels.

I am all for nuclear, but safe, stiffly and neutrally regulated nuclear.

Hybrid reactors are the future, they can burn Uranium, and also the waste products we normally bury and have to guard for 100k years.

But you know Greenpeace, hippies, oil company lobbying...

We could never fully research it without beaurocracy, and red tape, due to how "dangerous" it is .

Until We can get that plasma reactor working in Europe nuclear is our best hope, I am a peak oil believer, and the videos from Wyoming and other places, of people lighting thier drinking water on fire is more than enough proof to me, that the oil companies are running short on profits. Fracking is a job creator though! Too bad tens of thousands need to drink bottled water because of it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_European_Torus

The future. Once we make it viable.

Remember, until that first graphite pile, nuclear was a pipe dream too...

We just need scientists to decide funding, than politicians who would rather buy a tank, or Joint Strike Fighter. (or outright pocket it)

[JU_88]

You should be more worried that the terrorists just give all their money to Marlbourgh and Volvo. Cancer and car accidents kill Europeans every day.

[Stealhead]

You should be more worried that the terrorists just give all their money to Marlbourgh and Volvo. Cancer and car accidents kill Europeans every day.


But Volvos are the safest cars if you sit inside one and lock all the doors it is the only way to live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldyx3KHOFXw

[TLAM Strike]

I can believe this, although I think it unlikely that such circumstances mirroring that of Fukushima would take place, but I can believe that there are certain safeguards not in place.
...
How are things going in Germany after all nuclear plants were shut down? How much oil do you import for energy reasons now? How much coal is burnt? What's the emissions levels like?
Speaking of Fukushima, I did some back of the envelope calculations on what if Fukushima produced oil rather than neutrons, based on the capacity of Fukushima and the daily spillage from the Deepwater Horizon the resulting spill would have been something like 60 times worse than the Macondo blowout (assuming that plutonium is as dangerous to the environment as crude oil, which it is not).

I found this (http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter13.html)to be interesting bedtime reading.

http://imageshack.us/a/img109/482/atomfriend.jpg

[soopaman2]

Speaking of Fukushima, I did some back of the envelope calculations on what if Fukushima produced oil rather than neutrons, based on the capacity of Fukushima and the daily spillage from the Deepwater Horizon the resulting spill would have been something like 60 times worse than the Macondo blowout (assuming that plutonium is as dangerous to the environment as crude oil, which it is not).

I found this (http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter13.html)to be interesting bedtime reading.

http://imageshack.us/a/img109/482/atomfriend.jpg

Don't be silly TLAM!

In the 50's all you had to do was cower under a table, and you were safe!

Bert the turtle says so!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cJ4GjE9yzI

I believe Bert. I even walk around with a lead turtle shell, just in case.

Damned Ruskies gonna get me...

[Oberon]

Speaking of Fukushima, I did some back of the envelope calculations on what if Fukushima produced oil rather than neutrons, based on the capacity of Fukushima and the daily spillage from the Deepwater Horizon the resulting spill would have been something like 60 times worse than the Macondo blowout (assuming that plutonium is as dangerous to the environment as crude oil, which it is not).

I found this (http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter13.html)to be interesting bedtime reading.

http://imageshack.us/a/img109/482/atomfriend.jpg

You're preaching to the choir, TLAM ;) I view nuclear power as a necessary evil, if and when we manage to create another forum of power which generates enough energy to replace nuclear power, I will be very happy to see the back of nuclear power stations. Not because of the possibility of radiation leakage, but the problem of dealing with the waste and the length of time it takes to fully decomission an NPP. When you build a nuclear power plant, you're making a decision that will affect your children, their children and their childrens children, depending on how long it takes for the site to break down its radiation. Until that day, well, which is worse, a high CO2 producing coal plant that can screw the whole planet in enough numbers, or an NPP that can only generally screw a small portion of the planet.

In regards to Fukushima, well, it and Chernobyl share a lot in the fact that in order for it to happen, every single thing that could go wrong, went wrong. There was also the question of incompetent management, particularly in TEPCO, who brought in western experts to get ideas from them about how to increase the reactors safety...and then ignored most of what the experts said. Thus the whole distribution point for the reactor systems was routed through a point which was if not on sea level then damn near it. Once the sea walls were breached, well, that was that.

Not that I think that our designs in Europe are perfect, certainly there are a lot of things that could go wrong with our reactors, but like Chernobyl, they'd ALL have to go wrong at the same time for any major release of radiation. Smaller releases of radiation...yeah...they happen a lot, too often IMHO, but they've got monitoring stations on their monitoring stations so aside from standard laziness and incompetence most of these leaks are picked up on quickly and dealt with. Most of the time:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/11/nuclear-waste-nuclearpower

Still, you can't spend all of your time worrying about it, particularly when you see it nearly every day. I once did spend all my time worrying about it...didn't do me any good. :haha:

[Oberon]

Don't be silly TLAM!

In the 50's all you had to do was cower under a table, and you were safe!

Bert the turtle says so!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cJ4GjE9yzI

I believe Bert. I even walk around with a lead turtle shell, just in case.

Damned Ruskies gonna get me...


Over here, you had to take the door off its hinges, fill up pillowcases with sand, fill up your bath-tub with water and cover it, put the door against the wall and put the pillow case sand-bags against it so you have enough room to crawl underneath it, get necessary food supplies, paint your windows white, take down your curtains, and get a bucket for waste...all in four minutes.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/de/ProtectAndSurvive.jpg/220px-ProtectAndSurvive.jpg

I think most people would have just got as drunk as they could in four minutes... :haha:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG3Kb12s16A

[soopaman2]

Over here, you had to take the door off its hinges, fill up pillowcases with sand, fill up your bath-tub with water and cover it, put the door against the wall and put the pillow case sand-bags against it so you have enough room to crawl underneath it, get necessary food supplies, paint your windows white, take down your curtains, and get a bucket for waste...all in four minutes.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/de/ProtectAndSurvive.jpg/220px-ProtectAndSurvive.jpg

I think most people would have just got as drunk as they could in four minutes... :haha:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG3Kb12s16A

(long obnoxious laughter)

Sounds like you guys had more of a chance.:D


I hope one day we can look back at how we act today in response to percieved threats, and laugh at it like we laugh at the cold war percieved threats.

All jokes aside, nuclear is the future, as long as corners are not cut.

Which requires energy being nationalized. So it is driven by the needs of the country, and not the shareholder, who seek profits at all costs, despite safe operation, and paying for maintainance. Most of these places (3 mile Island) would rather pay to make it (regulators) go away, than actually fix things. Then you get shutdowns, and leaks.

I am within nuking distance of Oyster Creek Nuclear plant, and they run that place like a Bodega.

I advocate nuclear, but not ran by private industry, I am sorry, profits and stock prices have always been over safety

It is no wonder the treehuggers hate it.

Or we can make it so energy companies are banned from stock exchanges. That would make them serve the customer, and not the select few shareholders.

My ideas may suck, but I am at least offering solutions.

[Oberon]

(long obnoxious laughter)

Sounds like you guys had more of a chance.:D


I hope one day we can look back at how we act today in response to percieved threats, and laugh at it like we laugh at the cold war percieved threats.

All jokes aside, nuclear is the future, as long as corners are not cut.

Which requires energy being nationalized. So it is driven by the needs of the country, and not the shareholder, who seek profits at all costs, despite safe operation, and paying for maintainance. Most of these places (3 mile Island) would rather pay to make it (regulators) go away, than actually fix things. Then you get shutdowns, and leaks.

I am within nuking distance of Oyster Creek Nuclear plant, and they run that place like a Bodega.

I advocate nuclear, but not ran by private industry, I am sorry, profits and stock prices have always been over safety

It is no wonder the treehuggers hate it.

Or we can make it so energy companies are banned from stock exchanges. That would make them serve the customer, and not the select few shareholders.

My ideas may suck, but I am at least offering solutions.

In all seriousness I think most of the stuff would have been done at the outbreak of hostilities with the Pact...and before the nukes flew...but judging by the Pacts original plans, the nukes would fly on day one, which wouldn't give you much time to redecorate the house before it turned into a pile of rubble! :haha: Furthermore, there's bugger all in the P&S leaflets about dealing with chemical and biological weapons which would have fallen on us before the nukes did in a traditional escalatory war.

Still, at the end of the day it'd all be immaterial, just like the question of 'who fired first' ;)

I hope one day we can look back and laugh too, but there's so much hatred around these days...one wonders.

Anyway, getting back to nuclear power, I'm fully in agreement with you, NPPs should not be run for profit, nor should they be made to operate on a shoestring budget, but alas...try getting any government to leave the funding of something alone...they'll always try to cut things back here and there, just like the private sector, only they're not quite as obvious about it as they do it in smaller amounts. It's just the society we're in, to live we need money, we need to live to get money, it's a vicious circle we're all trapped in. :yep: Of course, a lot of it depends on what you define as living, but that's a discussion for Skybirds other thread about the American dream I think. :yep:

[TLAM Strike]

Over here, you had to take the door off its hinges, fill up pillowcases with sand, fill up your bath-tub with water and cover it, put the door against the wall and put the pillow case sand-bags against it so you have enough room to crawl underneath it, get necessary food supplies, paint your windows white, take down your curtains, and get a bucket for waste...all in four minutes.

Pfft. I've lived within sight of an 8000 foot long runway for half of my life (half-life get it? :O: ). In the event of war that baby was going to be hit by repeated ground bursts. I didn't have to worry about stuff like that! :haha:

[Oberon]

Pfft. I've lived within sight of an 8000 foot long runway for half of my life (half-life get it? :O: ). In the event of war that baby was going to be hit by repeated ground bursts. I didn't have to worry about stuff like that! :haha:

At least you'd have had enough time to get the deck chair out, grab a beer and put your feet up before you got to work on your tan.

Unless you were near the coast in which case you'd probably only have enough time to get outside and wonder why there are five suns.

[soopaman2]

At least you'd have had enough time to get the deck chair out, grab a beer and put your feet up before you got to work on your tan.

Unless you were near the coast in which case you'd probably only have enough time to get outside and wonder why there are five suns.

Most likely not, if it was a strategic airstrip.

He most likely had enough time to wonder what the flash was before he was vaporized.

He might have seen his beer blow off the table from the initial shockwave. But not see much after that.:D

[TLAM Strike]

Unless you were near the coast in which case you'd probably only have enough time to get outside and wonder why there are five suns.

Only 250 miles from the atlantic coast. :D

Unless Ivan managed to penetrate Lake Ontario. :hmmm:
If Iraq could pull that off the Russians must have too...

http://imageshack.us/a/img189/7058/iraqisub.jpg

[CCIP]

:har:

wow!

[soopaman2]

Just wondering if Elvis Presley was the sonar operator?

[Oberon]

:har:

Damn those Iraqi SSGNs!

Well, looking at Square Legs map, yeah...I think my bedroom would have been redecorated effectively where I used to live in the 1980s...can't figure out why the devil the Russkies would nuke that part of Kent though...but that being said this is the Exercise that had the Soviets nuke Eastbourne for no apparent reason except that it's Eastbourne.
Obviously some Soviet general had a bad holiday there...

[Stealhead]

Shoot if you live close enough to be killed instantly or nearly instantly by a nuclear blast (0~15) miles depending on yield and detonation your lucky.It the ones that live where all of the fallout is going to drift that are going to truly suffer.

The epicenter must be very fast I have seen pictures from Hiroshima of a persons foot prints but no falling so they just walked into nothingness.They also found really creepy "shadows" of persons where they where near a wall and you could see their last second.

Here is a link to some pictures they are not really gory per say and there is actually no person there but still possibly disturbing.It is the shadow burned onto the surface that is there and some are still there to this day creepy.

Of course all warfare is pretty lousy to the human body and the B-29 raid on Tokyo a few weeks before actually killed 120,000 people in a matter of hours it does not matter if it is a nuclear bomb or a broad sword crushing your skull or bullet tearing your organs apart its lousy either way.


foot prints I think that the person got blown away by the blast hence no shadow of the body so we all at some point have breathed this person in and out
or they are part of the soil someplace.
http://www.ww2incolor.com/d/414610-4/img001_002

Japanese solider sitting near a ladder:
http://www.southbayriders.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=311844&d=1273103706

someone sitting on steps this person was very close from the shadow maybe just below the bomb which was an air burst
http://worldwar2database.com/gallery3/var/albums/wwii1439.jpg?m=1310180856

[soopaman2]

I am a corpse if it happens.

Not instantly, I am far enough from NYC to escape the blast, but all the bad driving refugees from our state to the north will surely butcher this state, with bad driving, and the leaning on the horn crap at a red light, like all the summer shore tourists from there do every summer. Using right hand turn lanes to shoot in front of you, greasy haired guineas (I can say that, I am a guinea), who drunk drive. etc...

I'm not worried about a nuke, but Long Island yuppie douchbags with drivers licenses scare me.

[Stealhead]

Well they would first do several EMP burst in order to wipe out as much electronics as possible keep you form staring your car at all then hit you with an air burst.

They would target our missile silos and major strategic targets first in order to wipe out as much counter attack as possible hopefully hitting enough of our secondary weapons (ones targeted at industry) from even launching or most of them anyway.

The Soviets started to feel as though the US was so ahead in warhead numbers that we actually where comfortable with a limited nuclear exchange so they started making missiles with a large MIRV capacity to try and make up for the gap which in turn made some in the US fear a gap.

Look up the MX program and the documentary called "First Strike" it is very interesting as the first acted section is real meaning real SAC and Navy people
the procedures shown are very accurate but what the experts talk about next is fairly interesting.

Next look up "Dead Hand" and also 1983 Able Archer.1983 was an extremely tense time period to say the least we came very very close mostly all tanks to paranoia in the KGB
or in its analyzation of gathered intel they misinterrupted our raising of military facility threat con increase due to the Marine Barracks bombing as a preparation for war and that is just a samll bit of it.

Then the Soviet early warning system which was a little wonky saw a sun glare and triggered a minuteman launch alert luckily the man in charge did not trust the system and personally felt that the US would send a massive strike not the handful that his system was warning him off his was right of course good thing he decided and did not send it up further until the last possible minute where it was clear something was amiss with the system where they did not have doubts as to the EW system and would have had minutes to decide launch or not.The guy got fired from his post even though he was right and later had two nervous break downs not overly surprising talk about making a very serious decision.Funny thing was it was not his normal shift he was standing in for someone who fell ill.

[soopaman2]

Able archer could even be seen as a Cuban Missle crisis part 2.

Except we scared them, instead of the other way around.

I am so glad competent minds were in charge during these years on both sides.

No one wins when a nuke weapon is used.

I posted this maybe 9 months ago, kinda long, and slow at first, but it gives you a clue of how bad we poisoned this planet with that stuff, just to wave our dongs about to each other.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY

It's worth the 15 minutes, it is staggering how messed up humans are. (size of the dot is the mega tonnage, you can tell when the Soviets let off Tsar Bomba nearly instantly.)

[JU_88]

Only 250 miles from the atlantic coast. :D

Unless Ivan managed to penetrate Lake Ontario. :hmmm:
If Iraq could pull that off the Russians must have too...

http://imageshack.us/a/img189/7058/iraqisub.jpg

:har:
We know they are down there - the Ducks told us.

[Skybird]

Recently a scientist has calculated on basis of EU statistics that the energy-saving light bulbs have zero effect regarding reducing energy consumption and lowering according emissions. In general, over all households, there also is no monetarian saving effect. That is because a psychological factor interfering. People burn more such light bulbs now, and care less for switching lights off, because they think that now it is cheaper and that they must not care. This attitude has eaten up completely the savings in energy consumption from energy-saving light bulbs.

Energy demand in general is rising. Industries and households eat more and more. Just think of computers, and server farms. And of course everybody says: Energy Saving? Nice! But not in my backyard. This constant increase will and does eat up all plans for a green energy revolution. Green projections always imply there will be at least a freeze in energy demand, most times they assume that energy will be saved. At the same time, electric cars do not get off the ground. Just some thousand drive on German roads, not tens of thousands, but single thousands. They are too expensive, and have no legs, and the supply network is too thin. The government now has internally said good-by to push the number of new cars per year being electric to 1 million in 2020 - that is totally unrealistic.

What does this lead to? You need conventional energy production. Germany has left nuclear power production - for the time being, I say, I am not certain that this will stand forever. As a result several dozen new coal powerplants are in planning. Industry complains that over this year the total number of micro-blackouts - lasting less than 3-5 seconds - has multiplied by several factors, which is a warning signal that powergrid and energy production are becoming instabile due to too high demand. Germany imports energy reserve from France, where these get produced by - nuclear powerplants. Well, there you are, Germany. More coal and oil powerplants, more emissions, climate goals not to be met anymore, non-stabile powergrid, loss of engineering competence in the long run.

On the other side: the risk from nuclear power, and the problem of toxic waste. The Germans here know what i mean when I just mention the Asse. They wanted to store nuclear waste their, but water is flooding it slowly, and the barrels with the waste corrode, experts say that they cannot be retrieved anymore, they are too unstable. I say Three Mile Island. Sellafield. Chernobyl. Forsmark. Fukushima. Saint Laurent. Cattenom. Dampierre. And so many incidents more. As a matter of fact there are several dozen incidents recorded where nuclear cores partially have molten, contaminated material was released into the environment, and people got exposed to it. There is no "residual risk". There is only risk as routine.

Solution? Less people + reducing energy demand. That is the principle formula. A formula being managable in reality - I do not have.

Frankly, I think we sit in a runaway train, and a big, thick, high and wide wall is waiting ahead. Who of us is thinking about reducing energy consummation as much as possible when he is buying a new gaming PC...?

[Stealhead]

Recently a scientist has calculated on basis of EU statistics that the energy-saving light bulbs have zero effect regarding reducing energy consumption and lowering according emissions. In general, over all households, there also is no monetarian saving effect. That is because a psychological factor interfering. People burn more such light bulbs now, and care less for switching lights off, because they think that now it is cheaper and that they must not care. This attitude has eaten up completely the savings in energy consumption from energy-saving light bulbs.

Energy demand in general is rising. Industries and households eat more and more. Just think of computers, and server farms. And of course everybody says: Energy Saving? Nice! But not in my backyard. This constant increase will and does eat up all plans for a green energy revolution. Green projections always imply there will be at least a freeze in energy demand, most times they assume that energy will be saved. At the same time, electric cars do not get off the ground. Just some thousand drive on German roads, not tens of thousands, but single thousands. They are too expensive, and have no legs, and the supply network is too thin. The government now has internally said good-by to push the number of new cars per year being electric to 1 million in 2020 - that is totally unrealistic.

What does this lead to? You need conventional energy production. Germany has left nuclear power production - for the time being, I say, I am not certain that this will stand forever. As a result several dozen new coal powerplants are in planning. Industry complains that over this year the total number of micro-blackouts - lasting less than 3-5 seconds - has multiplied by several factors, which is a warning signal that powergrid and energy production are becoming instabile due to too high demand. Germany imports energy reserve from France, where these get produced by - nuclear powerplants. Well, there you are, Germany. More coal and oil powerplants, more emissions, climate goals not to be met anymore, non-stabile powergrid, loss of engineering competence in the long run.

On the other side: the risk from nuclear power, and the problem of toxic waste. The Germans here know what i mean when I just mention the Asse. They wanted to store nuclear waste their, but water is flooding it slowly, and the barrels with the waste corrode, experts say that they cannot be retrieved anymore, they are too unstable. I say Three Mile Island. Sellafield. Chernobyl. Forsmark. Fukushima. Saint Laurent. Cattenom. Dampierre. And so many incidents more. As a matter of fact there are several dozen incidents recorded where nuclear cores partially have molten, contaminated material was released into the environment, and people got exposed to it. There is no "residual risk". There is only risk as routine.

Solution? Less people + reducing energy demand. That is the principle formula. A formula being managable in reality - I do not have.

Frankly, I think we sit in a runaway train, and a big, thick, high and wide wall is waiting ahead. Who of us is thinking about reducing energy consummation as much as possible when he is buying a new gaming PC...?


Well according to analyses of the human DNA genome they where able to determine that twice in our history the population suddenly went from a steady amount to a very small number perhaps as few as 10,000 so we have had natural events that reduced the population by a substantial margin before.

People dont really worry about such things though and even two worlds a pandemic that killed 1% of the world population and all the other conflicts did not make a dent in our population growth.Only nature herself can have a real effect sooner or later one of the super volcanoes around the globe will erupt and do the work of nature.I suppose a nuclear war could have a similar effect.Other forms of population control would just fail I think.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=early-human-population-size-genetic-diversity

@ soopaman some of the locations are way off in that video after October 10, 1963 at least they where underground blasts except for the Chinese tests they never signed the above ground ban treaty. you should look up missile tests which do not have a live warhead the last test for the minuteman was in 2012 long time ago.They plan to test one in November missile only of course.The last one was in February.They test launch them to make sure they still function but it also gives those watching an idea that we maintain as well.

Warhead maintenance was one of the jobs I qualified for but I like a roll of the dice so I went open field instead of picking a specific job and the number cruncher picked a different job for me you don't learn learn your fate until a the later weeks of basic.But I did have the marks for it and the basic level background check for it as well a Missiles guy(he had the ICBM pin) at MEPS actually pulled me aside and asked me all these questions about it and had fill out the FBI forms.I'm sure it was a basic physiological evaluation judging from the questions he was asking trying to save the shirks the time by weeding out a certain no go.Funny thing was he never specifically asked a question about nuclear warfare or how I felt about it my guess is if you talked about it with fascination they say that you where a no go.The guy really tried to convince me to sign a contract though thing is the contract says in the fine print the needs of the (insert branch here) have priority in other words they put you where they need you most no matter what.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=245187815567966

[Skybird]

Well according to analyses of the human DNA genome they where able to determine that twice in our history the population suddenly went from a steady amount to a very small number perhaps as few as 10,000 so we have had natural events that reduced the population by a substantial margin before.

People dont really worry about such things though and even two worlds a pandemic that killed 1% of the world population and all the other conflicts did not make a dent in our population growth.Only nature herself can have a real effect sooner or later one of the super volcanoes around the globe will erupt and do the work of nature.I suppose a nuclear war could have a similar effect.Other forms of population control would just fail I think.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=early-human-population-size-genetic-diversity


I garee in that nature has no human sentimentality and will clear certain issues in its own unsentimental ways if these issues do not get solved by the species involved in it. And that will easily be solutions that said species may see as brutal, tragic, cataclysmic. As I tend to think: protection of the environment is protection of humans. Saving resources is saving mankind. Strict population control is human survival. We need to find a way to bring global population to much power levels and there establishing a dynamically fluctuating stability, preventing a slow growth of population, but also preventing over-aging. that necessarily will mean a limitation of individual rights of deciding on personal family planning. I see no way around that. But before that, there is the question of population reduction. And maybe we must leave that to nature indeed, for if we take care of that ourselves, we would necessarily become accomplices in the biggest massmurdering in known human history.

What an uninterested, unsentimental, imperfect world we live in.

[Stealhead]

Maybe the problem is that we evolve too slowly we are at point B while from an evolutionary standpoint our bodies are still stuck at point A.We are too successful but are not yet willing to face a serious problem.

[Seth8530]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19804817

This was in the news already two days ago in German media.

Greenpeace pointed out in German TV that the stress test did not even consider multi-factorial failures of security systems - that means more than one security system failing simultaneously or in sequence.

Technical improvements necessary on basis of just the EU report now would range in the range of up to 25 billions.

I would of liked the article much better if it would of mentioned specifics. Nuclear reactors are for the most part extremely safe. They don't explode, belch carbon into the air, or kill people on a daily basis.
I would be willing to say that they are inherently safer than a coal or natural gas plant. Mainly due to the fact that hot rocks tend to be safer than highly combustible burning rocks.

I am presently studying nuclear engineering on the university level, and I am a believer in keeping all of our plants up to code.. But the level of media attention on nuclear energy is just plain unfair.. Someone got burned by steam at a nuclear power plant.. OMG it must make headline news.. But someone could get combusted at say a coal plant or crushed at a paper mill and it is business as usual.

BTW
Check this link out..

This is how a Pressurized water reactors works. ( Most plants in use today are PWRs)

http://www.areva.com/EN/operations-1587/heavy-components-to-boost-performance.html#tab=tab4 (https://sn2prd0202.outlook.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=gLwnpaXF-E-d6qbVqCEgnvWw33zGdc8InA_JnyMZHu7zv85Iva4C3u8mn6yGC pNhc1eW973JdUw.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.areva.com%2fEN%2foperations-1587%2fheavy-components-to-boost-performance.html%23tab%3dtab4)

Their is a nice video at the bottom of the page BTW.