Nuclear Power: Yay or Nay?

[Konovalov]

Originally Posted by 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"

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

[STEED]

Drop the crap on Iran.

Yes I am being sarcastic with that remark.

[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.

Originally Posted by Ducimus

I wonder how cost effecitve it would be to just shoot the s**t into space. 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, 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.

[tycho102]

Originally Posted by 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?

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, 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]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

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.

Originally Posted by Ducimus

I wonder how cost effecitve it would be to just shoot the s**t into space.

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.

Originally Posted by ASWnut101

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.

Originally Posted by Ducimus

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]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

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

SSK? Respect++

You got that right! Two words Waste Disposal

[AJ!]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

I wonder how cost effecitve it would be to just shoot the s**t into space. 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

[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 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/tri...les/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.