Poll - Nuclear plant in your town

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by AllenK

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.

Right back at you with that. Since this has popped up again, I'll point out - a year or so after the first time - that no one has died from the effects of radiation at Fukushima. The "studies" predicting X number of future deaths all use the unproven (many would say discredited) linear no-threshold model of radiation effects. There were, however, a sizeable number of deaths directly or indirectly attributable to the hurried & arguably unnecessary evacuation. See e.g. Loss of life after evacuation: lessons learned from the Fukushima accident : The Lancet or Fukushima Cancer Fears Are Absurd - Forbes

As for the claim that parts of the Ukraine may never be habitable due to Chernobyl, note that the so-called Dead Zone is now a nature reserve, and by many accounts one of the environmentally-healthiest places in Europe.

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Right back at you with that. Since this has popped up again, I'll point out - a year or so after the first time - that no one has died from the effects of radiation at Fukushima. The "studies" predicting X number of future deaths all use the unproven (many would say discredited) linear no-threshold model of radiation effects.

As for the claim that parts of the Ukraine may never be habitable due to Chernobyl, note that the so-called Dead Zone is now a nature reserve, and by many accounts one of the environmentally-healthiest places in Europe.

Radiation is an odd beast we still do not fully understand, in Iran there is one VERY radiative section where the people live a very long time. There have been arguements that high natural background does not destroy the body as manmade violent bursts of radiation seem to.

This means (if true) that once an area is irradiated or if it is irradiated gradually, that a human can survive there if there are not peaks, surges and specific types of radiative gases and materials present.

Thorium would be an excellent substitute and the book Super Fuel describes it in a neutral less hyped up fashion while still showing its major advantages of normal nuclear systems.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

There have been arguements that high natural background does not destroy the body as manmade violent bursts of radiation seem to.

The more common argument is that the body has evolved to tolerate fairly low (but higher than typical background exposure, and has defenses which can repair any damage, up to a point at which the defenses are overwhelmed.

This is, in fact, the normal mechanism for most things. Most poisons have a lethal dose; a small fraction of that dose doesn't kill. Indeed, many things are beneficial in small doses, but harmful or fatal in large amounts.

Maybe the best analogy is to sunlight, since it's a form of radiation. Low to moderate doses are good for you: they help produce the body's requirement of Vitamin D, help ward off depression (Seasonal Affective Disorder), and more. Large doses cause serious burns, and can even kill.

[AllenK]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Right back at you with that. Since this has popped up again, I'll point out - a year or so after the first time - that no one has died from the effects of radiation at Fukushima.

As for the claim that parts of the Ukraine may never be habitable due to Chernobyl, note that the so-called Dead Zone is now a nature reserve, and by many accounts one of the environmentally-healthiest places in Europe.

Sure one can pick up the good parts. Like with the sinking of the titanic. We got nice movies about it. Ships became more save after that. But no one would deny the losses of the sinking. And not of the nuclear disasters. We dont need the no-treshold theory for that. Because tresholds were many times exceeded. See here for the death toll of Chernobyl: Chernobyl disaster effects - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So we agree that there is a danger of nuclear energy. We agree that the extend of danger is not certain yet. We agree that there are fears that might prove exaggerated in the future or are exaggerated even now.
The point is that we just dont need nuclear energy because we got renewable energy alternatives. Nuclear energy is not economic and heavily subsided, it is of danger and that we dont understand its danger fully does it make worse, it is not insured properly against the worst case scenario as any other industry or private person has to do and nuclear waste should be locked away for one million of years because of its toxicity, which is impossible to guarantee and therewith not justifiable towards the generation to come.

In the last maybe 80 years we just took the freedom to burn the fossil ressources of some hundred of millions of years and in the same 80 years leave radiating waste for the next million of years. Exploiting the past, poisoning the future! What would we feel about people who lets say lived 4000 years ago who did burn anything they could find (wood, turf, coal, oil, gas, uran) within a couple of years or so and left waste which will still radiate for about one million years? And our archeologists tell us that they did that not because of an emergency. No they did hand over earth to the next generations in a state like that because they wanted to drive their cars, to buy this and that, eating a bit more than is good for health. What would we think about them? Do we want to be such people? We got the choice.

[California98Civic]

Everyone who hasn't, might watch this film from "Nature" on the wolves of the Chernobyl "dead" zone. It is worth the time, if you are interested in some of the after effects of such disasters. As a composition, it's narrative and editing become a little convoluted (IMO) but it is so striking and unique as a phenomenon that you can't really go wrong:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0wuc8SsMMI

I think you can stream it from Nature as well.

[MGB=MPG]

i like those atomic plants as long as they are NIMBY [not in my back yard] or at least im upwind [ i say the same about the coal plants]

i was in FRG when Chernobyl blew no problem they said , except be sure and keep the kids inside and don't let the pets drink from rain puddles. as thing goes it turns out those no-go exclusion zones are very good for the wild life, keeps all the people out and the people do more damage than the rads ..

[Varn]

It is pretty easy to argue about the risks of different types of power when the lights are on, the Internet is working and you open your refrigerator to select another drink.

In the USA the population is growing about a quarter million people a month.More power is the expectation. All citizens anymore have lots of power, no expectations of a shortage.

I am not sure how that translates but the power grid has to grow to keep pace. If one power station goes off line there had better be a new bigger one to take it's place.

Maybe there will be a new form of cold fusion or something to develop but maybe their won't be. Solar energy won't cut it. We don't have enough land mass, it gets dark at night. Wind is totally unreliable, the wind may blow or it might not.

Start looking at what is out there. The two biggies are Coal and Nuclear fission. This isn't utopia. You have to pick one of the two.

Next time that you hear that there 100,000 new jobs last month remember that the population grew a lot faster.

[Frank Lee]

Start looking at what is out there.

Contraceptives and conservation, I hope.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by AllenK

See here for the death toll of Chernobyl: Chernobyl disaster effects - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So when you exclude the usual mass-hysteria suspects, you get a death toll of 56 from a major industrial disaster. Now I'm not saying this is good, but it is orders of magnitude less than coal & oil.

So we agree that there is a danger of nuclear energy.

Yes, because there's a danger from everything. But we can quantify those dangers, and when we do, we find that nuclear is safer than almost everything else.

The point is that we just dont need nuclear energy because we got renewable energy alternatives.

Yes, we do need nuclear because we don't have renewable alternatives that can replace the entire energy supply (even after extreme conservation reduces energy needs). That's not saying that we shouldn't use renewables where they're practical, and can be developed without seriously harming the environment.

Nuclear energy is not economic and heavily subsided...

Crap. In fact, it is anti-subsidized. New construction must meet nearly-impossible regulatory standards, much higher than are imposed on other kinds of power plants. Existing plants must pay special taxes (see Price-Anderson Act) on their generation. No other form of power generation has to pay these kinds of extra taxes, even though historically their risk is much higher. In many cases (e.g. fossil fuel plants) they're allowed to dump much of their harmful waste into the atmosphere without cost.

...nuclear waste should be locked away for one million of years because of its toxicity..

More crap. It's not waste, it's a valuable resource which can be processed and used in other reactors. It's not dangerous for anything close to a million years - and again, fossil fuel plants get to dump their far more dangerous waste, which arguably IS dangerous for at least tens of thousands of years.

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Pro nuclear jargon.

Originally Posted by AllenK

Anti nuclear fear tactics

Truth be told if we would use thorium as our primary nuclear system most of the waste and containment issues would be gone and these arguements would be moot.