SciAm: Coming Clean About Nuclear Power

[wtmusic]

"Ever since Japan’s battered Fukushima Daiichi reactor complex began emitting radiation in March, calls to abandon nuclear power have risen in the U.S. and Germany, among other countries. If only it were so simple. Nuclear contributes 20 percent of the U.S. power supply and a significant share in other developed countries. If we gave it up, what would replace it? Pollution from fossil-fueled power plants shortens the life span of as many as 30,000 Americans a year. Coal companies lop off mountaintops, hydraulic fracturing for natural gas threatens water supplies, and oil dependence undermines the nation’s energy security. Then there is the small matter of greenhouse gas emissions. Clean renewable technologies will take years to reach the scale needed to replace the power we get from splitting atoms."

And from Comments - the real reason why the public is being kept in fear over nuclear:

"Because uranium and thorium both contain at least 2 million times as much potential energy as oil, the most energy-dense hydrocarbon, and because they release energy in the same form (heat) while producing a tiny quantity of waste material that can be readily and safely stored, they pose a massive competitive threat. Uranium and thorium cannot completely replace fossil fuels, but allowing their use with fewer artificial constraints can increase the world's energy supply enough to drive fossil fuel consumption and prices WAY down.

Demanding 'perfect' transparency is a red herring. There are legitimate security needs AND there are fanciful security threats that can be posed to tie nuclear facility operators and system designers up in logical knots. Companies are damned if they release information and damned if they work to keep it secure. Security provisions add substantial cost. Binding up the competition is EXACTLY what the hydrocarbon hawkers want - that lets them keep earning TRILLIONS of dollars every year selling fuels to 'their' markets."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coming-clean-about-nuclear-power&page=1

[Fumesucker]

1. If this tiny amount of nuclear fuel is so easily and safely permanently stored..

Then why are tons and tons and tons of it still sitting around in temporary facilities for decades?

[madokie]

5. Its bullshit

the smelly kind too.

I just went for another cat scan of my lungs last week and talking to my doctor he said if I was younger he could or wouldn't be scanning my lungs as much as he has because it will cause cancer. He told me that most times it (cancer) won't show up for 20 to 30 years later and since I'm already 63 years old and that there is not much of a chance of my living 20 or 30 more years, due to my other health issues, he feels its prudent to keep an eye on this lung condition I have to allow me to live as long as I can. He told me to my face that any radiation from a cat scan, xrays or any of the other scans using radiation will more than likely cause cancer sometime down the road if the person lives long enough.

Its total bullshit that exposure to radiation will not or does not lead to cancer deaths. The thing is the death comes so many years later most times that its easy for the nuclear industry to say the shit they do. As far as I'm concerned its only fools and idiots that encourage the use of splitting atoms for our electrical needs. Its stupid and its unhealthy.

[txlibdem]

17. I hope everything works out well with your health issues

And your doctor is right that some medical procedures expose you to radiation. Did he also mention that flying also exposes you to radiation. So does being near a granite wall or counter. So does living in a stone, adobe, brick or concrete building.

Here is an interactive radiation exposure calculator (from those evil "NOOK-yoo-LUR" people)
http://www.new.ans.org/pi/resources/dosechart/

PS, did your doctor also mention that living within 50 miles of a coal power plant gives you 3x the exposure than living within 50 miles of a nuclear plant.

[wtmusic]

8. Tiny compared to waste from coal, oil, and natural gas

by many thousands of times. A pellet of uranium fuel the size of a thimble holds the energy of a hopper car full of coal.

Spent nuclear fuel is sitting in storage, but at this very moment airborne coal waste is increasing your risk of lung cancer - also by thousands of times more than radiation from Fukushima.

Proportion matters.

[Fumesucker]

9. You misunderstand my point..

If this stuff is so easy to permanently store then why has it been sitting around in temporary storage for sometimes forty or more years?

To the best of my knowledge the USA does not have a permanent, long term storage facility for nuclear waste.

According to you this is an easy problem and yet it's been over sixty years and no permanent facility yet exists and there seem to be no such storage facility in the foreseeable future.

[wtmusic]

10. Yucca Mountain is a perfectly viable solution

that was temporarily put on hold by Obama as a favor to Harry Reid to get elected.

Temporarily.

[Fumesucker]

11. Why would the election of Harry Reid require putting Yucca Mt on hold?

:shrug:

[madokie]

12. rubber boots required on this thread

the implications is as I see it that in order for obama to get elected he gave in to harry to close down yucca mountain. it never was a safe nor viable place to store shit let along nuclear waste. Actually its too stupid to comment on further.

[bananas]

13. There's a lot wrong with Yucca mountain - bad science, the "Screw Nevada" bill, etc

When you ask "what's wrong with Yucca mountain", you have to understand why none of the other states wanted it.

Here's some history:
There were supposed to be 3 waste sites by now - one in the east, one in the west, and one in the middle.
The idea was that waste from the east coast would go to the eastern site, waste from the west coast would go to the western site, and waste from the middle states would go to the middle site.
IIRC, about 7 sites were proposed.
Nobody wanted them in their state, so the congressman and senators in each state fought hard to get their site excluded,
and instead of 3 sites, they decided they would only build one site.
Nevada was politically weak, and the other states wrote legislation forcing it on Nevada - it was called the "Screw Nevada" bill.

Now - why didn't the other states want it?
Why did they work so hard to get excluded?
Most nuclear power sites are in the eastern part of the country - if they are so "pro-nuclear", why did they work so hard to get excluded from being a permanent waste site? Why ship the waste across the country when they could build a permanent waste site much closer? They want the benefits of nuclear power, but they don't want the waste. Why not?

So to understand what's wrong with Yucca mountain, you have to understand what's wrong with all the other waste sites.

One example: some of the scientific reports on Yucca mountain were completely faked - they just made up the numbers. It was a big scandal.

Another example: new fault lines were discovered running through the site.

Another example: it was only supposed to last 10,000 years, but the National Academy of Science said it should last 1,000,000 years - and the EPA was ordered by a judge to follow the science.

So one problem is that the science supporting Yucca mountain was bad science.
Another problem is fairness - the states that want nuclear power don't want the waste, and they aren't willing to negotiate a fair deal which would make people more receptive to a waste site.
There are more problems - for example, transportation - they were going to ship it on highways - but there was a lot of objection to that - so they were going to build a new nation-wide railway system just to carry the waste.
We've seen failing infrastructure problems with the I-35 bridge collapsing, the levees in New Orleans failing, etc - why should the people of Nevada trust that the infracture for shipping and storing the waste will be properly maintained for the next hundred years, let alone the next million years?

[bananas]

14. Nevada has a website with lots of information

The main webpage is here: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/index.htm
From there, you'll find links to technical issues, etc.
They have great "what's new" page which is updated daily with news stories: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/whatsnew.htm

[kristopher]

2. "Otherwise, the public might make the ultimate call: “no more nukes.”"

Otherwise?

The call is already going out. The question is who will the politicians listen to, the entrenched coal/nuclear lobby, or a populace that overwhelmingly wants renewable energy?

[mountainlion55]

3. No Nukes !!!

Einstein said nuclear power is a hell of a way to boil water. Thats all it does. The trade offs in terms of deadly and toxic by products make it a terrible choice for energy.There was a good article recently on DU about building water reservoirs above solar and wind projects and using the water reservoirs as batteries to store the power. Its a much better idea than nukes. :smoke:

[txlibdem]

4. Scientific Truth vs Fear Mongering + Fossil Fuel Industry = Truth Wins!

Thanks for posting this.

BTW, Thorium provides 200 times the energy per pound than Uranium, a quantity the size of a marble will be able to supply your energy needs for life.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Kolesar]

7. Fanciful claims about pebble bed and thorium reactors

"China is building them"
When will they be done?
This is an opinion piece, not an article.

[txlibdem]

15. These two brothers who own a bicycle shop think they can build a machine to fly!!

Ha ha ha ha ha. Those two idiots. Their names? Orville and Wilbur Wright.

[Kolesar]

16. They are dead now, so I don't think you are going to get back the money you gave them.

[txlibdem]

18. Fanciful claims about controllable flying machines - it'll never happen

:dunce: