even without the current problems in Japan
no one can tell us how long a reactor has to run to save the energy it takes to build one
no one can tell us how long a reactor has to run to save the energy it takes to build one
toldailytopic: Nuclear power: have the events in Japan changed your opinion of it?
- Thread starter Nathon Detroit
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Not to worried about it. IF that happened, all we would need to do is change a few product tag lines:
Wonder Bread: Soft. Delicious. Nutritious. Eat our bread for the health glow!
Coors Beer: Our brew-masters Glow with Pride!
American Beef Council: Its whats for dinner. Now, it even cooks itself.
You get the idea
Oh, well, looks like we're all set then.
They should build reactors in ANWR. There is nothing up there anyway!
The Berean
Well-known member
Don't we need to pump out all the oil that is there first? :think:
Here;
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/13/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn
Is the most informative article I have yet found on the little problem Japan is having.
It has a number in it.
Those Navy guys went on an excursion in there and came back with a 1 month dose.
Where's the map of that at?
They are having a slow motion Cherynobl times three.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/13/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn
Is the most informative article I have yet found on the little problem Japan is having.
It has a number in it.
So they got almost a years dose on Monday.
Those Navy guys went on an excursion in there and came back with a 1 month dose.
Where's the map of that at?
They are having a slow motion Cherynobl times three.
It is really a question of what are you willing to go without. Solar and wind can provide some energy to the system during daylight and windy conditions but they do not operate under the same principles as a large thermal generator. In fact, current technology REQUIRES the presence of large thermal and/or hydro generation facilities to be on-line as a wind generator CANNOT produce power by itself. It must have the utility available. (There are small personal sized machines that can produce power for an isolated farm but these are not well suited for use in bulk generation wind farms.) The technology used to convert solar power would allow a solar farm to source power to the grid when no other generation is present but current regulatory requirements do not allow for this due to safety concerns.
So that brings us back to the question of what are we willing to go without. What are you willing to turn off so that we don't have to build nuke plants? Your computer? Your TV? All the little digital clocks in your house? Want to charge and electric car? Traffic lights? Traffic Signals? Stadium lighting? MRI Machines? The lights in your office? Cell phone towers? Refrigerators? A large part of the world gets along just fine without most of this stuff just fine. How much are willing to go without so that we don't need any new power plants?
Are you willing to do without your wife and children and grand children and a couple hundred thousand acres of crop land?
Who made you think that nuclear is the only way?
I don't think it's the only way, but I think that it will become a progressively more important way. The way I look at it is that worlds crust is a fixed volume. Within that volume we have coal and gas deposits. Coal is not renewable and gas may or may not be renewed through geologic process (I have never heard anything one way or the other regarding gas reserves.) Once the good clean coal is used up then we will have to decide if we want to burn the dirty coal and what we want to do about the associated pollution. And how much we are willing to pay for dealing with that pollution. Once the dirty coal is burned up, well, what do we burn next that is available in enough quantity to fuel a 500MW generator? Biomass? (Some do use this already but biomass tends to be high in pollutants and relatively low in available energy compared to coal and gas meaning you need to burn more to get the same amount of electrical power.)
Gas is used as a heating fuel as well as for generation. Getting gas from places like Alaska to the lower 48 where it can be burned is a rather significant challenge. Right now, most of the gas produced in Alaska is converted to fertilizer or liquidized and shipped to the orient. The cost of a pipeline currently prohibits the construction of said pipeline. It may become cost effective but until then... And it will only become cost effective when we as consumers agree to the rate hikes necessary to cover the cost of the investment.
Examining nuclear offers some advantages. Technology is available such that spent fuel rods can be reprocessed into fuel rods for another reactor so we can more fully utilize the energy available in the fuel. The French and Japanese have used a large amount of nuclear energy for much longer period of time and they have developed reliable and safe reactor designs. (The Japanese made the mistake of designing their reactors to survive a 5.0 earthquake. 8.9 was beyond the design limits of the reactors.)
There are risks associated with using nuclear energy but those risks are acceptable and fairly low. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl taught us that better controls and procedures will be needed to minimize human error. Japan taught us that we need to build reactors in areas that have little seismic activity and are away from the ocean. Easy for continents, much more difficult for islands. The power companies who build these plants do not want them melting down. They want and need to protect their investments and they do.
As to losing my wife and children to a nuclear accident, possible but not probable. The operating history of reactors world wide is actually pretty good. If we learn from past accidents, new reactors can be improved.
You can put it in my back yard. Been there, done that. Those little cap gun like explosions are nothing. TB should be familiar with this one.
| Henerson, Nevada | |
At work we have 2 people (one a PhD.) that have worked at both the nuclear power plants that are 50 miles from my home. One is a similar GE plant to those in Japan that are having problems. They explained what is happening in Japan.
The problems didn't arise from the design of the plants, but from politics. Both the US and Japan store their spent rods in a building on the nuclear site instead of recycling them as recommended by the engineers. The main reactor would have been able to stay contained and been shut down safely had the workers been able to deal with the main reactor instead of being run out of the plant by the ad hoc spent fuel storage facility.
I wonder when the gov't officials that banned nuclear fuel recycling will apologize?
Edit: I've done more reading and may be completely wrong about Japan's recycling program. I'll need to ask my co-workers about it.
The problems didn't arise from the design of the plants, but from politics. Both the US and Japan store their spent rods in a building on the nuclear site instead of recycling them as recommended by the engineers. The main reactor would have been able to stay contained and been shut down safely had the workers been able to deal with the main reactor instead of being run out of the plant by the ad hoc spent fuel storage facility.
I wonder when the gov't officials that banned nuclear fuel recycling will apologize?
Edit: I've done more reading and may be completely wrong about Japan's recycling program. I'll need to ask my co-workers about it.
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Thanks for the update. Looks like we have to rely on each other to get at the truth. The Japanese government seems paralyzed by this desperate situation. I pray they get mobilized. The 50 workers who are putting their lives in jeopardy deserve our prayers also.
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