Poll - Nuclear plant in your town

[justing]

I work at a Nuclear plant and can vouch for our safe shutdown ability. We have several diesel generators with fuel tanks located on a hill above flood level. These are tested on a weekly basis. I feel that our facility is very safe and I would have no fear living next to the plant.

[user removed]

I probably live and travel around more nukes than anyone else here. What worries me most about that is the fact that it makes Tidewater Va one of the most prime targets for an attack.

regards
Mech

[AllenK]

Originally Posted by justing

I feel that our facility is very safe and I would have no fear living next to the plant.

Feelings are not enough. If you would have asked the workers of Tschernobyl, Fukushima and Three Mile Island you would have found enough of them who would have said the same. Safety is a very subjective thing. If you work on a daily base with something it soon feels safe. But the subjective feeling cant be enough if we are talking about worst case scenarios. And that is the reason why nobody gives an insurance for that worst case scenario. No insurance company in the world has beein so suicidal. Because they do not trust feelings but do calculate the relativ low risk against the unaffordable costs.

And even if we could guarantee that nuclear power plants would stop exploding in the future (as they did in the past). Can you guarantee for the next one million years that the nuclear waste will not leak into the environment and spoil the living conditions of the next 40.000 generations? Because that is the time frame for the toxicity of nuclear waste.

Since nobody ever can guarantee for the next one million of years and since we can not decide for the 40.000 generations which are not born yet we just can not go on with nuclear power.

And fortunately we dont need to. The alternative is there. 100% renewable energy is not a naiv dream but could be done within a timeframe of 30 years, which is short compared to the one million of years. And these energy go without bad conscious and are unlimitied. The concepts, the techniques, the money are there. We need the political will.

Wouldn't it have felt better when instead of a nuclear power plant the tsunami would have brought down 500 wind power plants?

[California98Civic]

Until there is a way to make the waste safe and major accidents impossible, I'm opposed. A refinery blows up and it is devastating to a neighborhood, maybe a town for a while. A huge swath of the Ukraine may never be populated by humans in safety again. Fukushima is permanently marked, and the real damage still untold, on land and off shore. I live in the red emergency zone for SONGS in Southern California: same design as Fukushima and only recently did they suddenly shut it down after a minor leak revealed unanticipated wear on recently service rods. $48 million and 8 months later and it is still off line. I support keeping it off line permanently. None of Southern California Edison's dire warnings about summer brown-out and blackouts have come true.

Let's have decentralized, distributed solar arrays on the homes and businesses across Southern California and the rest of the USA, tied into the grid, selling power to the companies at a fair rate. Millions of panels, replacing these plants.

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by California98Civic

Until there is a way to make the waste safe and major accidents impossible, I'm opposed. A refinery blows up and it is devastating to a neighborhood, maybe a town for a while.

Let's have decentralized, distributed solar arrays on the homes and businesses across Southern California and the rest of the USA, tied into the grid, selling power to the companies at a fair rate. Millions of panels, replacing these plants.

In other words you would support MSR thorium based tech, after a breach the reaction stops and the compounds are volitile for months or a couple years, not decades. That and if there is a breach none of the volitiles are under pressure so they don't tend to "blow" out, more like creep out.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Renewable energy can meet the demand of a grid. It takes a proper mix of sources, and some energy storage. Germany actually got ~27% of their energy from renewable in recent months. Solar and wind are the main sources, but wave and tidal and small hydro and biomass are also quite viable. Storage include pumped hydro and very soon grid-level batteries, and molten salt for solar heat, and biogas, too.

Audi (!) will be converting wind electricity to methane / natural gas, and introduce CNG cars.
So that's another way to store wind energy.


Belgium will be shutting down its nuclear plants between now and 2025.
A major step for a country that relies on nuclear power for around 3/4 of its electricity.

It's become painfully obvious that nuclear safety cannot and is not guaranteed.

A Fukushima-style accident in Antwerp / Doel would shut down the main economic centers of the country, crippling our economy.

[California98Civic]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

In other words you would support MSR thorium based tech, after a breach the reaction stops and the compounds are volitile for months or a couple years, not decades. That and if there is a breach none of the volitiles are under pressure so they don't tend to "blow" out, more like creep out.

Maybe. I don't know. But it sounds interesting.

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by California98Civic

Maybe. I don't know. But it sounds interesting.

There is a whole book, history, forum and even a movement on why the US went with difficult, dangerous and complex urianium to prop up the cold war over docile and cheap thorium that cannot make weapons and is more easily controlled and cannot "melt down". TH90 like coal isn't perfect but it is much safer, controllable, abundant, the waste is less long lasting and generally less nasty than its big brother.

[California98Civic]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

There is a whole book, history, forum and even a movement on why the US went with difficult, dangerous and complex urianium to prop up the cold war over docile and cheap thorium that cannot make weapons and is more easily controlled and cannot "melt down". TH90 like coal isn't perfect but it is much safer, controllable, abundant, the waste is less long lasting and generally less nasty than its big brother.

Do you have a favorite reading, or film, on this? Something of good reliable quality and readability?

[OldGuy]

A good place to start to learn about Thorium is Energy from Thorium
Take a look at the list of Thorium Videos on that site.
LFTR in 25 minutes would be a good one to start with.
Have fun.