Poll - Nuclear plant in your town
 

Pretty simple poll. Given whats going on with japan, I was wondering if people's opinion on nuclear power has changed. So if the government came to your town and wanted to put in a nuclear plant in your town would you support it, oppose it, or don't care.

No way. And I had the same opinion before the failure in Japan.

As the crow flies, I work 2.09 miles from a nuclear power plant with 4 reactors.
It hasn't really bothered me before, and it doesn't bother me now.

That doesn't mean I particularly like nuclear energy, but it'll have to do until we get something better and safer.
At the moment, we're a long shot away from that goal.

I live in a town with a reactor. I don't work there.

I feel that of all electric generation types, nuclear has the least impact on the environment.

I am concerned about operating the plant correctly, and dealing with spent fuel correctly, which I don't think is happening now.

I live a mile from a reactor and I have no problem, we have had some maitenence issues come up the last few years but it defenatly supports our community and has been a general positive.

Compared to my town's current option, one of the dirtiest coal plants in the country, nuclear sounds like a great thing to me.

I see nuclear power as a very viable option over coal burning plants.
granted, there are even better alternatives, but they arent very viable an option yet, so until they are, nuclear is fine for me.

I used to produce software used inside a power station (not as part of the station itself but as part of long term monitoring). Used to visit a number of them quite often and have no problem at all.

When it comes to the Japan incident we have to remember the plant involved is in an earthquake zone, has been around for nearly 40 years (and has therefore survived quite a few quakes in the past) and in that time has no doubt contributed far more than it cost to the Japanese economy during the 70s-2000s.

I think there should be more, small, community sized nuclear plants built. Something along the lines of those installed aboard submarines. Put the reactor housing below ground, and the only visible part would be the cooling tower and electrical grid.

I answered "support" with the following caveats:

1. It needs to be a safer design than the old 50 year old designs we have now. Something self-regulating, like pebble bed.

2. We need to get the political clout together to actually create reprocessing plants. We have the technology to reprocess spent fuel over and over again until there's pretty much nothing left but a tiny bit of low-grade material that's much easier to dispose of (and much less of it!)

3. The NRC needs teeth to actually enforce safety, and Congress needs to leave them the hell alone.

Oh, and I want an RTG for my basement.

I don't want any of that filth anywhere near me.

The other annoying component of all these cries for new power generation is that household electricity use has skyrocketed in the last few decades. Nobody is seriously promoting conservation; the whole emphasis is to let the consumption keep skyrocketing and simply build new generating and grid capacities for it all. That's where the money is for them but geez. :mad:

i have no problem with nuclear power as long as it is properly regulated and maintained, but frank has made the best point so far. instead of figuring out how to provide more and more power, how about we (as a whole, not this site since obviously we're working on it) figure out how to limit usage per person. instead of limiting our carbon foot print we're just making it okay to have a larger one. Again when i say "we" or "us" i'm referring to the human race, not members of ecomodder

What about the waste? Isn't it piling up? I hear about "reprocessing" but are we doing it? The poll says do you want a plant in your town... would you want a waste storage facility there too?

P.S. I KNOW how to "limit" usage!!! It's called progressive tiered pricing wherein the more you use, the higher the price/kwh goes... instead of the bass-ackwards system virtually the entire U.S. except for the West Coast has, where the more you use the more price breaks/kwh you get! :mad:

hence the regulated aspect. when done properly there is little danger involved with waste storage. yeah, there should be tiered pricing, the more kwh you use the more each one costs makes sense, unstead of the apparent "valued customer approach" (as my uncle calls it)

Im game for pricing system like cellular service providers use, wherein the user pays a set rate for what they presume they will use, based on calculations for their family size, other considerations.. overages cause the price at the bill cycle to sky rocket!

Give them 3-6 months for new homes to determine Requirements, where there are no overcharges.

Alternatively, select and purchase a plan ridiculously higher than you think you need, and get a credit if you only make it to the next lower tier, etc.

For instance, you purchase a plan for 1000kw/h per month, and only use 650, well within the limit of the 800 plan just below yours. For this month, we put you on the 800 plan, instead of the 1000 plan, and credit the difference to your acct.

After 3 monthsof this happening, you are either forced to switch plans (so you don't use the program to avoid overages), or you lose the rebate program and stay at the higher package price, regardless of use.

NYSEG actually charges more for the use of "green energy"... Something like another 0.008 cents per. Kinda ridiculous to charge more for cheaper energy....

I don't trust "regulations" and that things will be "done properly" for the next 500,000 years as much as many of you.

Frank -

Yeah, I don't even look that far in advance. The operative assumption is that there will be a stable and responsible government/civilization in place for 1000 years. Even if your science is good, I don't think that a 1000+ year assumption is valid.

CarloSW2

I live near one. It's one of the ONLY decent employers in my area. I support it.

And yes, they store their fuel on-site. No, it does NOT bother me. I'd rather live close enough to be obliterated than I would far enough away to worry about fallout sickness.

Lets see, two reactors for electric power generation (Surry). Then you have the Navy storage depot, then the Newport news Shipyard which built most of the nuclear ships in the Navy. Then the Norfolk Navy yard at Little Creek, where a large number of those ships are parked when they are in port.

Do I mind if a reactor is close to me. I would dare say there are more vessels containing fissionable material within 50 miles of me than most if not all of the members of this forum.

Jump over some of the fences around here and you could be shot, legally.

regards
Mech

Okay, so let's go back to primary heating with coal or wood and lighting our homes with candles. While we're at it, let's also go back to travel primarily by horses - and experience candle soot, grime from primitive heating, the inherent high risk of household fire from both, and horse manure everywhere in the streets.

"Filth"? I don't think anyone here has ever experienced the genuine "filth" of living in the past.

Maybe you what you meant to say is that you don't want any potential danger anywhere near you. That's called NIMBY, ("Not In My Back Yard") which is actually the topic of this thread.

It seems you are calling for austerity, or actually deprivation, but calling it "conservation". This is akin to calling for imposing a starvation diet and having the hubris to suggest it is a cure for famine... :rolleyes:

you're probably right, but had i been on here 2 years ago i would have you beat (barely), since i was stationed there in Norfolk onboard one of the Ships there

There's a couple of assumptions in the question that makes it hard to give a simple, honest answer. Would I want one in my town? Hey, I don't live in a town. Would I want one built near me? Honestly I'd have to say no, because I don't want ANYTHING built near me. But if it has to be, I'd rather have nuclear than coal, or even one of those ecosystem-destroying multiple-acre solar plants. (Solar belongs in my back yard or on my roof (or on stores, schools, & covered parking lots), not in the desert.

I do wish people would keep their minds on one important point regarding this disaster: those 22,000 people (or whatever the final toll is) died from the earthquake & tsunami. NO ONE has died from what happened to the nuclear plant.

Yet.
The show's not over in Fukushima.

I totally expected something like this from you. :rolleyes:

I don't even need to say anything. Letting your statement hang there should be enough.

got one under 5 miles away, shut down in the early 90s. miss that ol girl.

local economy went down hill ever since.

like to see it come back bigger and better.


0.01C

I'd much rather live next to a nuclear plant than a coal plant, but at the same time, I don't really support building new reactors and instead favour heavy investment in alternative solutions (solar, wind, etc), so I voted "don't care."

However, I think the poll question is pretty clearly flawed, as it's not really asking anything. It's really just saying, would a nuclear plant v. no change be a good thing, which I think is a pretty silly question since that's not ever going to be the case. It's going to be a nuclear plant v some other source, some type of industry or manufacturing, etc.

At the same time, how many workers are confirmed as dead in accidents in coal mines, oil extraction, open cast mining, oil refining etc. ?

Worth comparing.

A lot of coal plants actually output more radioactive material than nuclear power stations do, because burning coal can create/release particulate matter as an emission; nuclear isn't allowed to let ANYTHING out (except maybe steam that has NO RADATION to it whatsoever).

Fair enough with the reasoning. i don't see them ditching nuclear reactors due to the fact that there is little research to be done as far as developement, we know it works, we know it's safe (using modern designs, not the 40+ year old Fukushima Plant), we know what it's power generating capabilities are, i see it staying around for a long time, the big companies found a viable replacement for coal, and therefore they are less inclined to work towards something cleaner. i would like to see more solar and wind power generation, but i'm not expecting to see more of it any time soon

I agree that as far as expectations are concerned it's a pretty safe bet, but I think Japan has an opportunity to take the billions that would go into starting a new program and putting it into major consumer incentives to purchase solar, which would not only generate a good flow of revenue here, but also encourage some of Japan's companies to expand their considerable solar investments.

Plus, and this is not something that most people outside of Japan really understand too well, Japanese people really don't like nuclear power to begin with. The public was basically dragged kicking and screaming into accepting nuclear power, and this incident, which is going to drag on and dominate the news for months, isn't going to liken the new generation of Japanese to nuclear at all.

Anyway, when all is settled down I think we could see the Japanese government taking advantage of what seems like a big opportunity at the right time.

As things stand right now, this is the alternative to nuclear. Renewables aren't ready for the scale needed... yet. I'm eager for that day to come, but it's not here yet.

And then there's this. Coal affects millions of people every day. Nuclear has a few dramatic events, but those are dwarfed by coal's daily operations.
http://i.imgur.com/GZqVC.jpg
chart from this source data: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/dea...gy-source.html

Germany is already getting ~15%+ from renewables, and they are planning to get 100% of their electricity from renewables by ~2050:

[youtube]aNZgjEDPe24[/youtube]

Germany is not all that sunny -- if they can do it, then the USA certainly can, too. There are several other renewable energy sources that could be used as well.

Uranium Mining - Reaching Critical Will Factsheet
As with coal and its emissions, nuclear radiation can be a slow killer, which means that many deaths do not show up in statistics.

IMO, humanity should pay more attention to wasting less and improving the efficiency of existing power plants (all types), instead of building more and more. As Pale mentioned, RE isn't ready to jump in and take over starting today, but it can, and should, be prioritized. I know that suddenly closing all power plants is not possible, but they can be upgraded, then phased out over 50-100 years, while renewables gradually take over.

On a good day, Spain can get up to 75% of its power from RE, while its average for 2010 was 35%:
Spain Supplied With 75% Clean Energy On A Great Day In January

The German model is based on artificially high tarrifs for renewable subsidies and a desire to remove Nuclear from their network. As an outsider I wonder how much the US public would accept such market manipulation to finance such things.

The government in Germany has been making noises about extending the life of nuclear plants by 8-10 years to maintain capacity and cost competiveness of power to industry. If that happens the renewables market will decline and the growth may stop, solar investment is declining already.

+1

The key here is reducing what we use domestically - there is a hell of a lot of waste there which costs us all cash, which is what Frank said about 2 pages ago :D

I just don't see nuclear as a desirable or evil demon, just something we have to live with maybe for now maybe for longer.

Nice - thanks for the updates / corrections on renewables.

Totally agree about efficiency, though. It's the low hanging fruit.

The poll is valid even though it's not the question you might have preferred.

The question asked is a simple one: would you want to live near a nuclear plant? The poll topic is actually that of NIMBY. Often people are in favor of something as long as they don't have to live near it. There seems to be an element of hypocrisy in the NIMBY position, and that's the topic as it was framed.

Not really, if you think about it. I don't want to live near anything (other than trees, mountains, etc), so there's no hypocrisy in my not wanting anything in my back yard, other than the aforementioned solar on my roof, personal wind turbine, etc. However, a lot of people obviously do want to live in or near urban areas, or at least choose to do so, and I'd rather have nuclear plants there than the current coal-fired plants.

And I really don't want to live downstream from a large hydroelectric dam, either.

It sounds like your motivation is more that of being reclusive than NIMBY-ish. :)

Since it is relevant to the thread, some may find this link interesting: click here

After all, one can not be merely not only NIMBY now, but also be NIABY, NAMBI and BANANA. :D