[quote=Skybird]Lance,

Hardly. The amount of actual damage inflicted by nukes versus the amount of public fear and loathing says otherwise.
Chemical plants, dams and fossil fuel extraction have killed many more than nuclear power plants ever have, even if you only take into account deaths caused since the advent of nuclear power. In the U.S. (I can't speak for other countries) many people think that nukes can explode like an atomic bomb. Some even think that they "vent" radiation in normal operations. I suspect many people's fears are based on media sensationalism, and in the worst cases; "The Simpsons".

Ok, where are the consequences of these leaks? Are here any hard data on whom was affected and how seriously?
I would also like to know what happened in this incident in Sweden? What is 100% control? Does that mean they couldn't shut the reactor down?

And I tried to explain, at great length, how Chernobyl was not the disaster it is often believed to be. Then you said my source was lying. Forunately, I have more source, which I will post in response below.

You are correct in your definition of "meltdown" but this leaves unanswered the fact that most of the populace does not understand what it means. Also, there has never been a meltdown in any nuclear plant in the entire world, ever. Like I said, it is theoretically possible, but you would almost have to TRY to make one happen. All it takes to stop an uncontrolled reaction, and therefore a meltdown, is to drop the control rods into the reactor core.
I have no doubt the Russians battled high temperatures in the Chernobyl incident. But not "meltdown" temperatures, which would likely have vaporized them, and which were probably not helped by the fact that there was a normal, run-of-mill fire in there. Above, you doubt my references cited by the IAEA. To indulge you, here's one from the U.N.; "The UN report 'CHERNOBYL : THE TRUE SCALE OF THE ACCIDENT' published 2005 concluded that the death toll includes the 50 workers who died of acute radiation syndrome, nine children who died fromthyroid cancer, and an estimated 4000 excess cancer deaths in the future"- from a TIME magazine report on the U.N.'s report on Chernobyl.

Well, I posted the U.N. report and the IEAE report. They didn't say anything about health risks in those countries, although the reports themselves did cite concern over the possibility, but nothing has been proven.


As far as America is concerned in this, I should probably have pointed out that I can only argue for America. I don't know enough about other nations and do not have the proper perspective on their people to offer them a solution. But America is a big part of the world's energy consumption, so I still think it is important.

As far as my %100 idealistic solution is concerned, I know we may have nuclear accidents. I just don't think they would be frequent or serious enough to turn away from nukes.


Since I pointed out the U.N. and do not know at the time of this writing whether you would trust them or not all I can say is; Who would you like to see a study from?
Secondly, their are alternatives to using people to repair nuclear reactors. THe science of robotics has come a long ways. I also doubt the Soviets bothered to protect their workers effectively. The main issue here is how much harm neighbouring communities and countries felt.

Thirdly, people live in the "contaminated zone". Plants grow, animals live there. If that's not proof that Chernobyl is not a radioactive wasteland I don't know what is.

I can't argue that it didn't have a meltdown that was covered up or misrepresented in some conspiracy. I can't prove aliens aren't real or that JFK wasn't assasinated by the CIA either. All I can do is present the existing evidence as above.

1) Hence my ongoing support of more restricted government, which I must admit, would likely have to be adopted to make nuclear policies work. If there is no one to lobby but the consumers, only prices, effectiveness and safety matter.
2) You're right, another time for that perhaps. I would like to discuss that with you.:D
Surprise preview: I think western nations resembling the U.S.S.R. in any way is a bad thing.



To this, I can only provide an answer all too typical and Americanesque of me;
Combine privatization with not caring about the other side of the world. The result is private nuclear plants paying fees to dump their waste at a facility in Antartica. It could be publicly or privately run. But if it were privately run it would be best to encourage several other facilities of this type to establish themselves so competition and public opinion can provide some decent regulation. One of the few examples where I think the government might do a better job than the private sector.
Equally attractive are the recent advances made in space travel here by letting private industry in on the game. I will not repeat my extensive discourse on the virtues of privatized space travel here in the interest of preserving the sanity of readers, but basically Virgin Galactic gets you to space much more cheaply than NASA. If private industry can do so well in the initial pahses of space travel they could perhaps produce a cheap method of shooting nuclear waste into the Sun, Jupiter, or some other place that is already radioactive and inhospitable.
Hmmm.... somehow that seems to sound less like a serious suggestion than I inntended it to be. But it is serious.

[quote]


Holy crap.:o
First, I would like to say that is one of the finest arguments I have had the priveledge of seeing you produce, Sky. Bravo!

I almost need another post to address this, but I will try to bring up a few points of contention here. I'm sorry I do not have the time right now to break the whole thing up and multi-quote.

First paragraph. I doubt the nuclear waste material was only covered in a thin layer of dirt. If it was, France needs to re-think their nuclear policy or not use nukes. Surely, the spent rods must have been contained in concrete vessels?

Second paragraph. Uranium is not scarce and I don't care where it comes from as long as we have the money to buy it (in my dream world where America adopts more fiscally conservative and socially liberal policies shortly after it collapses under the current system)
Uranium is 3 times as common as silver and we get a lot more use out of it.
It has been said by U.S. government research comittees(sp? why can't I remember how to spell this?) , the IAEA, private researchers, and the World Nuclear Association that fast-breeder reactors have enough fuel in the form of U-238 to last our current society 5 billion years. Even if they are wildly exaggerating there is enough U-238 to last us well into the future of energy development.

The two little paragrpahs and the third one; This is an answer unfitting of your post but I'm really running short on time now and I think I have carpal tunnel syndrome. Please excuse any brusqueness as it is simply a side-effect of trying to compress my argument into such a small fascimile of itself.

1) 40% taxes is a big part of your costs. I know you mentioned the effects of taxes on prices but 40%? That's outrageous.

2) If your industry is monopolized something is wrong. I agree capitalism does tend towards monopoly, but monopoly can be a good thing if it is better than all services proffered before and all new ones. In my ideal society, which all my arguments are a part of, the educated populace in conjunction with the lack of any government protection of said agency can simply choose to boycott said entity or democratically force a vote to break it up and/or destroy it. A tad idealistic, yes?
In any case I'm sure lack of competition inflates your energy costs.

3) So what if nukes take a long time to build? Burn coal until they're ready. Better yet, let the market take control. Companies will build cheap, simple plants to fill the demand until the nukes are ready. Then the nukes will drive those plants out with cheaper (no matter by what margin) electricity. The best thing to do in any case is to not let the government handle it as they have been proven in nearly every incidence to be unable to reconcile supply with demand.

4) Yes nukes have a limited service life. Generally it has nothing to do with their actual service life here in the U.S.
The Feds strictly regulate the service life of a reactor regardless of its' condition or whether or not it can be refurbished. This policy is a knee-jerk reaction to the "irrational fear" i mentioned seemingly ages ago.

5) Another big part of costs is insurance. These costs are driven to insane heights by "irrational fear" and government-mandated liability thresholds.

6) And my favourite:D . Yes, nukes will lower the pressure to develop other renewable energy sources. Thank God!
My state (Texas) recently approved a 4.6 billion dollar package to create power lines and infrastructure for a new wind farm in the western part of the state. 4.6 billion dollars of taxpayer money. Utterly wasted on a project that will never recoup its' investment costs in its' operational lifespan. Given he need for wind turbines to be serviced very frequently because of their exposure to the environment and things like bugs getting splattered on the prop blades, the operational costs are going to be ridiculous! And as I said, they expect taxpayers to bear the burden!
Even more incredulous is that voters are championing this venture as a "major step forward" that will "boost Texas to a leading position in wind-power generation".
All politics, combined with stupidity. Mark my words, this project will be an irredeemable failure within two decades.
The pressure exerted by environmental advocates and politicians does nothing but distort and ruin the efficiency of the marketplace. I'm sure we can both agree that while market economics are not perfect unless perfect fairness and transperancy are maintained, it's still a damn sight better than messes like this.


Good discussion, but I wonder if we will ever find a happy medium:hmm:

Oh.......
After all the thought I put into my last post Platapus outdoes me:cry: .

Here is another nit I will pick until it bleeds and scabs over.

You are correct in that the definition of "meltdown" needs to be understood. The term meltdown has different meanings to nuclear engineers and the National Inquirer to give two extreme examples.

A meltdown occurs when there is a break in the containment vessel where the primary cause is high temps where the bottom (usually) of the containment vessel cracks, spalds, decays, melts or otherwise busts due to heat. Containment vessels can break due to other factors but they are not commonly referred to as meltdowns.

As much as I agree with your arguments, academic fairness requires me to to point out that your comment that there has never been a meltdown in the history of nuclear reactors is inaccurate.

Both Chernobyl and Three Mile Island are considered meltdown incidents. At Chernobyl the meltdown was one of the minor concerns of the overall accident. The Three Mile Island incident was a meltdown but it was controlled. If you have to have a nuclear accident you want a TMI.

Wikipedia has a list of other meltdown accidents (copied below)
NRX, Ontario, Canada, in 1952
EBR-I, Idaho, USA, in 1955
Windscale, Sellafield, England, in 1957 (see Windscale fire)
Santa Susana Field Laboratory, Simi Hills, California, in 1959
SL-1, Idaho, USA in 1961. (US military)
Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station, Michigan, USA, in 1966
Chapelcross, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, in 1967
A1 plant at Jaslovské Bohunice, Czechoslovakia in 1977.

However just because a nuclear reactor has a meltdown does not necessarily mean it will be a class 5 or higher event. Most of these meltdowns did not even rate a 4 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES).

The reason: Smart nuclear engineers design reactors to have secondary containment and dispersion capability. This is why in my previous argument I stress that risks can be mitigated by proper design, construction, and operations.

swedish critical incident:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/...430458,00.html

Dont put things in my mouth. I did not accuse you of lying. I said that a prominent number of workers that got sacrificed in the attempts to seal the roof are not mentioned in your numbers, they got heavily radiated (?), around two dozens died within days, while several hundreds got heavily toxicated, suffering for the rest of their lifes from radiation burns and nuclear intoxication.

Later I pointed out that organisations with a bias or an interest hardly should be seen as the ultimate authority regarding the issue at hand.

Regarding Chernobyl, the core produced so much heat when it got not cooled anymore, that the inner seals disappared and since the rood already was gone the nuclear material form the core was released into the atmosphere unhinderd, spreading over all europe. we could split hairs until christmas wether or not this qualifies as a meltdown or not. But maybe we can agree that it can't get much worse than this: heat melting the inner core seals and expose the nuclear material to the environment uncooled, which really is the worst case. Wether or not that was caused from problem in the core itself, or by failure of supporting subsystems like cooling, is of theoretical value only. the core cracked open, so to speak - that is the thing to focus on, not how to label it. the radiation is so heavy that the concrete seals they erected around the block, corrode and get weak again.

On Uranium, Australia and Canada hold one third of the global known reserves, around 1 million tons of Uranium in these countries would result - doing the maths - in around 3 million tons of known reserves. We speak of uranium of quality grade that can be of any use for further processing, but the best uranium is that from Canda and australia, the other ores are less pure and need more processing. However the total numbers are, it is calculated that what remains of these in usable industrial uranium translates into supplies for 60 years at current consumation level.

40% taxes is not unrealistic. Just look at gas prices: taxes also make up for very huge shares in them.

that I question your wisdom on letting market take care of powerplant construction and nevertheless rise nuclear energy instead of focussing on energy preservation and new energy technology, goes unsaid. I am also jot willing to leave control of storgae sites to market mechanism as well, since reducing costs and by that beat the rivals is one of the most dangeorus and destructive market mechanisms in security-sensitive fields.

Before I invest another 20-30 years before to-be-build nuclear powerplants with all the risks mentioned, from terror, over technology to politics, start to pay off, and before I waste hundreds of billions on that effort if going for those 1500 powerplants you would need to help climate, i prefer to let the existing ones run longer and focus on energy saving to buy us more time, and use that on energy revolution (new technologies). i have given many reasons why nuclear powerplants are not economic.

I must not point out that we could not be any more apart on the need of investing into new energy technology. However, I am in favour of the future option here, while you are defending to stick with the dinosaurs of the past, like Zachstar told subman as well who use to defend sticking with oil. that will be bad for the Us, and good for europe, because we will become dominant on the market for these new technologies of the future, while you are putting your money on dead bet, and loose attractiveness on global market for your energy solutions from the
18th (oil) and 20th (nuke) century. but the future is none of both. and it must be like that, becausue both lead us into even more dangerous sack-ends than we already managed to trap ourselves in.

In the end we cannot afford to carry on in the old ways that have directly lead us into the crisis we face, and the uncertain future changes. unfortunately, an attitude of thinking one can win the future by not adapting to the changes taking place and adressing appearing needs that to ignore could destroy us, make everybody with such attiotudes - persons and nations alike - a threat to survival and thus a problem for all other people on the globe. During an international climate conference some months ago the american delegation received so general and intense hostility by almost all other delegations and even was yelled down by other delegations in such a crude manner, that they sat silent and with stoned faces and in the end needed to make at leats minimal lip-confession after having been told bluntly - quoting one delegate - to "start acting responsibly or to step the hell out of the way." For diplomatic standards, the level of aggressiveness and yelling at the americans in public was outstanding. and unfortunately one has to say that due to the global blockading initiated by the US, often meaning to give India and China alibis to blockade themselves, honestly deserves that international hostility. If the EU's intentions for solutions are all that realistic and clever, can be argued abiut, and I have criticised the Eu over these in the past as well. but at least there is acceptance and understanding THAT we are undergoing massive changes that mean a critical risk for us, and THAT we miust adapt in difefrent ways than those of the past. Official national policy of the Us can't even recognise this and argues to freeze time itself. and that although some federal states and many citizens already have started to change and adapt, and are years and miles ahead of Washington'S mental attitude. That way, Washington gives americans a worse reputation on the international stage than many Americans by their own provate example-setting deserves. If I were american, I would take it personally if the govenrment gives an impression to the world of me being an idiot.

A nuclear explosion does not result from a nuclear meltdown because, by design, the geometry and composition of the reactor core do not permit the special conditions necessary for a nuclear explosion. However, the conditions that cause a meltdown may cause a non-nuclear explosion. For example, several power excursion accidents have caused coolant to rapidly overpressurize, resulting in a steam explosion.


You raise an interesting point. After some consideration, I have decided that I will agree with you on this one.

Originally, I was going to split hairs over the definition by positing things like the above quote. However, I see how I am being misleading by not classifying these incidents as meltdowns. Such is the danger of believing what what wants to believe, and why I appreciate good arguments like this.

So, thank you.

Yeah the whole nuclear explosion thing drives me nuts too.

It aint easy to get nuclear material to go supercritical although according to the tests done at the 1961 PL-1 accident, some supercriticality did occur. Which is pretty cool in itself. :up:

Firstly, thanks for the link. Good article.

Sorry for the misunderstanding but I said that you said my source was lying. Not intended as a jab at you or to put words in your mouth. You said IAEA was biased and therefore incredible. If they are distorting the truth, they are lying, right?

Semantics aside I posted the relevant aspects of the U.N. report and they sound remarkably similar. Are they a decent source or would you prefer another? If so, what kind of source? Government sources? Private investigations? Whatever you please.

Unfortunately I fail to see where you will get bias-free authorities.
If the government appoints one you can get corruption, collusion, inefficiency, and generally a bias towards or against the industry they regulate, all for one low astronomical price.
If a private agency does it you can get all the same things, except it is easier to fire one agency and hire another.
The only real regulation comes from an empowered and informed populace.

To forestall any argument that agencies need not neccessarily have the above vices I will promise you that I can easily find a wealth of information that would say otherwise. There may be regulatory agencies out there that have never been touched by scandal but there are a lot more that have been.

If you choose to debate that, I'm sure we will only arrive at a deadlock.



Well, as you can see now I have revamped my definition of meltdown for practical purposes because of Platapus. So, yes, Chernobyl had a steam explosion caused by heat from nuclear fission. Also, you are right that the damage is the core thing to focus on.

Hopefully, with the U.N. report provided and perhaps a few additional reports we can discern the extent of that damage, which thus far, considering the circumstances of the incident and the death tolls incurred by other power generating facilities as mentioned in the previous post, I believe to be insufficient to rule out nuclear energy.

Oh, I must add that Chernobyl was destroyed by technicians performing unauthorized tests on the reactor. Or at least that's what the consensus is, for the time being.

THis argument is a distortion of the available supply of fissile uranium when one considers the nature of breeder reactors.
Sure, let's go with 3 million tons of fissile uranium.
U-238, the most naturally abundant uranium isotope, is, like I said, 3 times as common as silver. It is not fissile, but breeder reactors make it so by bombarding it with neutrons.
Previously I posited that it has been claimed there is enough u-238 to supply power for 5 billion years. That, I have discovered, is only if we consume it at the rate we did in 2003.
If nuclear energy were the world's only energy source, and we take into account current trends in population growth and resultant energy consumption, we have 3,000 to 10,000 years supply. There are 5 million tons (known) of U-238 that is considered "economical" to exploit in the U.S. alone.

As such, I do not see shortages being a problem before things like fusion can be perfected. Of course, it may never be perfected, but at least we get an additional 3,000-10,000 years of nuclear power.



Oh believe me I know. When I say outrageous I don't mean unrealistic, I mean ridiculous. That's a whole different thread, though.

On your first point, governement hasn't given us much for the billions spent thus far in new energy research. They didn't develop solar or wind power, they have yet to produce fusion. Ironically, the only real energy source the government ever "developed" was nuclear energy, and that stemmed from trying to produce weapons-grade fissile materials.:hmm: Don't let it cross your mind that that is an argument for government energy research. Private nuclear research was underway before the U.S. government ever got involved and also produced the commercial reactor.
Private markets fund new energy research as well. Why not leave it to them where it costs us nothing. If they succeed, great! If they fail, too bad for their investors. Government research costs all of us (or all of us that actually pay taxes) whether they succeed or fail.

And I have given many reasons they could be. Given that "irrational fear" in the form of inflating insurance and construction costs, and things like taxation are two major parts, the answer seems simple. No taxes, because they just get passed along to the consumer as energy costs, and, well actually that's all we need. I was going to say consumer education but if the price is right, especially in the current energy situation, I don't think they will need much convincing. It's already starting to happen here.

Well, like I said, all our state research hasn't given us anything palpable thus far. We can argue that point forever but the fact remains that we have state-funded research and we have an energy crisis simultaneously.
Frankly, I don't think subman is wrong about oil either, but I will let him provide the arguments for that. I suspect they may include; "it works" and "show me something better that actually exists"
Perhaps your research, by which I take it you mean tax-funded research, will work. But it may not as well. If it doesn't, we're more broke and we have an energy crisis. That really is a dead-end. or sack-end, or cul-de-sac.

I totally agree with the first sentence. Ignoring nukes and letting government decide energy policy ruins stuff.:D

As far as the American delegates go, they are in their position because of our government. We have an energy crisis, to some degree. Our government has failed to fix it, for the second time in 3 1/2 decades.

If America could combine the economic freedom that led to our becoming a superpower and combine it with the personal freedom that we have sort of embraced at some points, at least for some people, and gave that to all people in our nation, I would be proud to sit amongst an audience of jeering delegates and say "We'll remember this when your country is being invaded or you want money."

Luckily for the rest of the world we trudge inexorably towards financial collapse as we maintain a "benign" and unsustainable amount of federal spending and inflation.

Energy policy is just a small symptom of the economy-destroying nature of big government. Perhaps in Germany, a country known for its' remarkable efficiency and ability to bounce back from crisis, this may not be a concern but in the U.S. it is. Social and education issues have been exacerbated by government policy on several occassion. The energy crisis in the U.S. is no exception.
Personally, I think the causes may stem from administrating such a large country from a central location and the fact that we are not Germans.
Perhaps the solutions for our different nations may be different, but for a large, diverse nation with the vast economic potential of the U.S., my answer is the meter-shattering power of nuclear energy.

Nice job keeping this argument based :D

Chernobyl was a steam explosion...right? Thats how I have come to understand it. It was not a nuclear chain reaction that blew the roof off....

Can anybody tell why they thought it would be a good idea to build the core from carbon....which can burn ?

I didn't know part of the core was made of carbon but at the temperatures created by a melt-down induced steam explosion I doubt it would matter much what was in there.

They choose graphite as a moderator because graphite is a pretty good moderator. Graphite also had the advantage of being cheap, inexpensive, and it did not cost too much. When you need many tons of the stuff cheap is good.

Back in the 1950's Graphite moderators were pretty much what you had to work with. The U.S first reactor was graphite moderated.

It is true that Graphite will burn but it won't burn if it is inside a nuclear containment vessel with no oxygen. All is swell until the vessel breaks and lets out the coolant (liquid or gas) and lets in 02.

With the proper design there is nothing wrong with graphite moderated reactors. About 20% of today's reactors are graphite moderated.


"U-238, the most naturally abundant uranium isotope, is, like I said, 3 times as common as silver. It is not fissile, but breeder reactors make it so by bombarding it with neutrons."

Technically correct but incomplete. 238U is non-fissile. There is nothing you can do to 238U to make it sustain a fission reaction. However.....

238U is considered a Fertile Material. Which means you can turn it into a fissile material by smacking it with neutrons. Smack 238U the right way with a neutron and it will turn in to 239Pu (after a short period cross-dressing as Neptunium-239)

239PU and the heavier Pu's (241, 243) are fissile and can be used in Plutonium reactors

God I love nuclear stuff. :up:

Here is a trivia question that will probably interest no one.

Wikipedia describes the Chicago Pile as "the world's first artificial nuclear reactor".

Why the careful wording? :know:

Can I use you as a reference material?

Been working nuclear issues for nigh on to 25 years now. It is a wonderful technology. As for nuclear risks and the evil of nuclear weapons, don't blame nature, blame man. :yep: For it is up to man to decide whether to use this technology for good or evil (however you care to define THOSE terms).

I remember the first time I ever saw Čerenkov radiation first hand in the 1970's. I was hooked from then on. It is a beauty that is indescribable.

I wish I could find a link to some of the things General Tao says in C&C Generals. I think you two would get along splendidly.

Actully after the steam explosion the core was on fire - it was the carbon burning.
They poured some kind of material into the core to stop the fire, but I cant remember what it was...howevere, I do remember that my highschool physics teacher commented on it as "strange" until it he found out the core was on fire.

They used helicopters to dump thousands of tons of sand, lead, boron, pretty much anything they could get their hands on to smother the fire.

Many firefighters and other rescue personnel died:down: Rumour has it that the initial team of firefighters were not even told that the fire involved nuclear materials. Knowing what I do about how the Soviet government worked, this rumour is probably true. :nope:

There is a film recording of one of the Helicopters malfunctioning and falling into the damaged reactor. Not a pleasant way for the crew to die.

Oh, oh!

*raises hand*

Underground natural reactors in West Africa!

That is true, and what I had on mind. Two numbers I still have on my mind, regarding workers and operations. The day the desaster took place, around 600 workers were present in the compound, on the first day alone 200 of them, and firefigthers, were shuttled onto the roof via helicopters to work for 30 seconds (!) and then were evacuated. All of them had their dosimeters burned through. All of them became radiation-sick in the following 2 months (most within just hours and days), and one third was dead after one quarter of a year (several after just days), the others died from the consequences in the following years. and next, evacuation and other operations in the affected zone saw 500.000 civilian and military personnel sent there to conduct them. I can only assume the number was so great because personnel was rotating to reduce the dose of radiation the individual was exposed to.

While I see reports by the IAEA as biased, and do not know why UN reports are being trusted as a source when they bolster somebody's opinion but gets bashed when they report something one does not agree with, I give the ideological opposite of Lance's source, and refer to Greenpeace in regard to this:

http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/conten...althreport.pdf


Lance,

I will add some remarks to your latest, but since I am not too well at the moment, I do not sit at the PC workdesk too long in a row currently, sorry for the delay.

This video shows the helicopter drop :(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvAJ_u3Q0Hw

Video of the graphite burning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HPdd...eature=related

The Discovery Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8smY5jv_L0