Poll - Nuclear plant in your town

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by echomodder

Yes but there's a reason that it's an "exclusion zone". I wonder if you would move into that zone or feed your family with food grown or hunted there.

Yes, I would.

[ekhaze]

here in texas i think my biggest concern is a hydraulic fracturing sight popping up in my neighborhood. The Tx Railroad Commission (the agency that regulates natural gas companies in TX) is apparently paid off by natural gas firms to act like all the complaints from residence who have the sights right next to their homes have no basis for their complaints.

[darcane]

Originally Posted by Joenavy85

i would like to see more solar and wind power generation, but i'm not expecting to see more of it any time soon

Why not?

I work for a company that supplies components to wind turbine manufacturers. There is a lot of development in this area and a huge number of wind turbines are being installed every year. In 2010, the US wind power capacity grew by 5 Gigwatts (GW), to a total of about 40GW.

While that's not a big percentage of our overall usage, it's still huge and growing fast.

That said, I don't see how Germany's "100% renewable energy" is feasible at this point. Wind power starts having problems over about 20% of the overall energy production. The inherent variablilty of wind (and solar) means you need some way of picking up the slack in off-peak times, and this means either energy storage (hydroelectric, batteries, etc) or additional energy production from other means (fossil fuels, nuclear, etc).

[cfg83]

jamesqf -

Yes, I would.

You could probably volunteer to live in Pripyat in exchange for deeds to large chunks of land in the exclusion zone and giving up your right to medical liability claims. I am sure you could get great free health care in exchange for regular health checks and blood samples. You could be a human radiation-pioneer and beat the land rush by 600 years :

When will Chernobyl be safe to live permanently in again? - Yahoo! Answers

Radiation will stay in the Chernobyl area for the next 48,000 years, but humans may begin repopulating the area in about 600 years, give or take three centuries. The experts predict that, by then, the most dangerous elements will have disappeared or been sufficiently diluted into the rest of the world's air, soil and water.

CarloSW2

[echomodder]

thanks cfg83, I believe that when the full extent of the disaster is known it will be as bad, if not worse than Chernobyl. It seems that they are going to have to construct a tomb for at least 2 if not all 4 reactors. They are finding plutonium in the water and soil. That tells me that the containment structure has at best a crack at worst a breach in the bottom of it. The problem with the nuclear fuel is the once it melts if its not cooled it can reach temp's of 5000F We have nothing that can withstand temp's of that magnitude. It will just melt through everything it touches. Even at Chernobyl the “sarcophagus” that was built is failing, and there plans to build a new one. A great place for info. Frequently Asked Chernobyl Questions

[darcane]

Originally Posted by echomodder

thanks cfg83, I believe that when the full extent of the disaster is known it will be as bad, if not worse than Chernobyl. It seems that they are going to have to construct a tomb for at least 2 if not all 4 reactors. They are finding plutonium in the water and soil. That tells me that the containment structure has at best a crack at worst a breach in the bottom of it. The problem with the nuclear fuel is the once it melts if its not cooled it can reach temp's of 5000F We have nothing that can withstand temp's of that magnitude. It will just melt through everything it touches. Even at Chernobyl the “sarcophagus” that was built is failing, and there plans to build a new one. A great place for info. Frequently Asked Chernobyl Questions

I disagree, there are huge differences between Chernobyl and Fukushima

One of the major problems with Chernobyl is that there was no containment structure at all surrounding the reactor.

When the Chernobyl reactor exploded, the core was exposed and ignited sending a plume of radioactive material spread over large areas. This hasn't happened in Japan.

The Japanese reactors are being cooled with seawater. This is undoubtedly the reason for finding radiation nearby. There is still a reasonable likelyhood of cooling the reactors and no "tomb" will be neccessary. At that point, radiation outside the plants should return to low levels.

It's a disaster, but nowhere near a Chernobyl 2.0.

[Clev]

Originally Posted by darcane

I see your caveat 2 and 3 as being contradictory...

The NRC has a history of being obstructionist to nuclear energy production in general, particularly the chair Gregory Jaczko. In order to support nuclear energy in the short term, you have to have a secure place to store spent fuel. NRC has effectively killed the Yucca Mountain storage facility and redacted all their documents made public through FOIA related to it. If they are given more authority, it will likely eliminate nuclear energy in the US altogether.

Good point; the NRC fails on both counts: it is holding back the building of newer safer plants, while turning a blind eye to gross safety and health violations at existing plants.

As for Yucca Mountain, I oppose it too, but only because we shouldn't be throwing that stuff away. We should be reprocessing it and reusing it. By burying it in Yucca Mountain, essentially where we'll never be able to get at it again, we're throwing away perfectly good fuel.

[rmay635703]

With the many high tech nuclear setups that are possible but rarely used the waste and other issues could be marginalized. Because we have stood still with nuclear for over 30 years we have missed many possible opportunities, who knows, we may have solved all of the nuclear issues by now if we had stuck to it.

I believe the future lies in small scale "passive" nuclear plants, assuming of coarse we can get their efficiency up.

Just clean, cool, solid state radioactive power with no reaction.

In the future breeder reactors could likely be the best solution.

But as long as we produce waste we should also use the energy that waste makes to produce electricity.

Cheers
Ryan

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by cfg83

You could probably volunteer to live in Pripyat in exchange for deeds to large chunks of land in the exclusion zone and giving up your right to medical liability claims. I am sure you could get great free health care in exchange for regular health checks and blood samples. You could be a human radiation-pioneer and beat the land rush by 600 years...

Do a little more background reading. There are quite a few people (hundreds to a thousand or so) who've lived in the exclusion zone since the accident, because they refused to leave. There are also an unknown number of settlers who've moved in because - like the animals - they prefer the wilderness life.

There are also quite a number of places in the world with a higher level of natural radiation than you'd get in most of the exclusion zone. Ramsar, Iran tops the list: Ramsar, Mazandaran - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Odin]

cool link! i'd never heard of that place and reading this really surprised me, 200 times normal back ground radiation yet they say this-
"This high level of radiation does not seem to have caused ill effects on the residents of the area and even possibly has made them slightly more radioresistant, which is puzzling and has been called "radiation paradox"