If the media and the New York Times editorial page are any guide, nuclear power is the new green-energy option being embraced by environmentalists. This is not a new idea. The first mainstream statement of the "nuclear option" came from a 2003 report by MIT professors John Deutch and Ernest Moniz, "The Future of Nuclear Power."
As the duo's press release put it: "The nuclear option should be retained precisely because it is an important carbon-free source of power ... Taking nuclear power off the table as a viable alternative will prevent the global community from achieving long-term gains in the control of carbon dioxide emissions."
Image: clipart.com
While I share their alarm at our failure to address the problem of overabundant greenhouse-gas emissions, I am equally alarmed by their willingness to accept this dangerous, complicated, and politically controversial technology as a fix for our looming climate crisis.
Let's begin with dangerous, setting aside the obvious problems raised by Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. In the past few years, we have seen the horror that suicide bombers set loose in restaurants from Tel Aviv to Baghdad, and the danger of jets flying into skyscrapers. Do we really want to see what happens if a terrorist attacks a nuclear power plant? Are we so arrogant as to believe that these facilities are not already tempting, and vulnerable, targets?
Let's move on to complicated. The primary waste product of nuclear power, spent fuel rods, remains toxic for thousands of years. We do not yet know how to detoxify these waste products and, despite 20-some years of trying, we have not yet been able to establish a long-term repository anywhere in the United States.
Money is not the issue. We have the resources to build a nuclear-waste storage facility -- under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, customers of nuclear-generated electricity have been paying a $0.001 per kilowatt-hour fee on their electric bills since 1983. Utilities pass the money into an account that has generated $24 billion over the years. Despite assurances that the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada will last longer than the waste will be toxic, serious failings in storage technology and the risks of transportation have resulted in widespread opposition. Today, our nuclear waste goes into "spent fuel pools" at nuclear power plants like the one at Indian Point, just 35 miles north of New York City.
If the problem of detoxifying waste is beyond current technology -- which is why we need to store it for thousands of years -- what about the technology of power generation? The MIT study acknowledges that no power plant can be made risk-free. In reality, all technology carries risks. When we drive on an interstate highway, we face the risk of a crash. We accept the risk because it is relatively low, and because the effect of the risk is localized. A mistake in a nuclear power plant, however, can cause long-standing, widespread damage to people and ecosystems. Just ask the people who survived Chernobyl. The risk may be low, but the potential impact is high.
That leads to the politics. No one wants to host the nuclear-waste repository. No one wants a nuclear power plant next door. This is not an engineering or economic issue, but one of politics. In an increasingly crowded and interdependent world, people have grown more sensitive about questions of land-use development. Environmental justice has also reached the political stage, because the rich are better able to defend themselves against environmental insults than the poor. In the United States, local politics in many places has become the politics of land use and development. If we can't site Wal-Marts without a lengthy battle, why does anyone seriously think that we will be able to site the hundreds of new nuclear power plants that may be necessary to meet our energy needs without increasing greenhouse-gas emissions?
Moreover, why waste our time and effort on a so-called solution to climate change and high oil prices that has no real chance of gaining political traction? The largest impacts of global warming lie in the future, and are global in scope. But the problem of a nuclear accident would be comparatively local, and would potentially last for decades or centuries. The American political process is designed to respond to intense, local issues -- that is why constructing even one nuclear power plant is a non-starter.
I agree that the answer to reducing carbon-dioxide emissions and reducing energy costs is to develop new technology. I agree that the need for a technological fix is urgent. The problem of energy prices and global climate change is real, and reaching crisis proportions. The American government should start a major research and development effort to create new power sources that are small-scale, decentralized, environmentally safe, and feasible in the political climate of the U.S. in the first decade of the 21st century.
Despite the promises of a previous generation, nuclear power never became "too cheap to meter." Rather, it became a discredited, mid-20th century mistake. Raising this issue is a distraction from the real work we need to undertake. We need to put our brain power to work on a way of reducing energy prices and emissions that can actually be implemented here in the United States -- and very, very soon.
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Comments
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Matt Painter Posted 6:06 am
08 Aug 2006
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Jawfish Posted 6:46 am
08 Aug 2006
I have never seen a projection that we'll be able to supply enough electricity to support the current lifestyle of the first world, let alone the coming usage in China and India, without massive coal and nuclear build-up.
Even allowing for much greater conservation, and a very optimistic schedule for new technology, is there any way we can avoid coal and nukes for the next century? If not, then it's simply unrealistic to fight nukes, we should be regulating them carefully. If so, and there is a viable way to go straight to sustainable power, let's get the word out quickly.
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Howell Haus Posted 6:57 am
08 Aug 2006
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sunflower Posted 6:59 am
08 Aug 2006
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shannonbinns Posted 7:26 am
08 Aug 2006
As evidence, in 2004 I worked with WashPIRG on a campaign to prevent the Department of Energy (DOE) from dumping additional wastes at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State until cleaning up the existing waste, which is moving towards the Columbia River via groundwater. We did this by placing an initiative on the November ballot and raising awareness of it across the state. Essentially, the initiative stated that if passed, the DOE would be forced to clean up the mess before making it worse.
The initiative passed by the LARGEST MARGIN OF ANY IN STATE HISTORY -- nearly 70% voted for it.
To me, this clearly reinforces the American public's position on nuclear waste generation and storage of its unavoidable radioactive wastes: Not In My Back Yard - better known as NIMBY.
And as far as those who advocate nuclear energy, I wonder how many would continue to do so if the backyard chosen for a new plant was their own.
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disdaniel Posted 8:33 am
08 Aug 2006
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EnergyDude Posted 10:01 am
08 Aug 2006
From this standpoint I feel that I have an informed basis from which to argue derived from my interning experience.
The issue of NIMBY (Not In My BackYard) is quite ridiculous. Nuclear plants and fuel production facilities must meet strict coding requirements and have extensive buffer zones in order to even think about breaking ground. The Yucca Mt. project is even more remote. The mountain is in the middle of the desert. If you go out to the facility you will see that even standing from the highest reachable point on the mountain, you will see nothing even remotely resembling civilization. The spent fuel is to be stored deep underground, and the nearest water aquifer has been evaluated by geoligists to be completely isolated, and not drawn on from any domestic water source or otherwise. This plan has been approved by congress.
The only reason that there are spent fuel rods all over the US just sitting at nuclear plants is because Harry Reid will not allow the rods to go to Yucca Mt. regardless of the previous act passed.
Rolling Harry's filibuster on the Hill is quite a difficult proposition, but if the other senators would get on board it could happen and that spent fuel can finally go where it was meant to. Otherwise where have all of our tax dollars gone all these years (23 to be exact). They have gone into military spending, government subsidies to less appealing energy, and a multitude of other wasteful government expenditures.
Before going on an emotional and unbased rant on any topic of interest it is best to look the facts first, then bring your hopefully somewhat more intelligent argument to the table.
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PeterPage Posted 11:38 am
08 Aug 2006
New nukes are another matter. My bet is an honest carbon impact analysis would conclude a new will have to run as long as our old nukes have already just to offset the CO2 emissions needed to build, fuel and maintain the plant.
Not that we ought to be guessing.
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shannonbinns Posted 1:01 pm
08 Aug 2006
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amazingdrx Posted 2:53 pm
08 Aug 2006
That says it all so well. Excellent.
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spacerkev Posted 4:03 pm
08 Aug 2006
Whatever the true toll of the Chernobyl accident, even conceding a worst case scenario, what most characterises the contribution of civilian nuclear power to world energy production is its relative safety compared to all other means of energy production.
In terms of direct deaths per terawatt produced since 1972, Coal killed 342, Hydro 883 and natural gas 85, but only 8 fatalities were recorded per terawatt of nuclear power.(1) In fact, this statistic vastly underestimates the relative hazards of fossil fuels as the indirect deaths from pollution caused by Coal powered stations worldwide is estimated at over 5 million per year.
A 1000 MW(e) coal plant, depending on sulphur content, sends annually millions of tons of Carbon dioxide, 44 000 tonnes of sulphur oxides and 22 000 tonnes of nitrous oxides into the atmosphere causing acid rain and poor human health. Additionally, there are 320 000 tonnes of ash containing 400 tonnes of heavy metals for which abatement procedures themselves produce as much as 500 000 additional tonnes of solid waste that must be disposed of.
If the potential future climate change impact of the billions of tons of carbon emitted yearly from conventional power plants is taken into consideration, the death toll of say, heat waves in Europe or drought in Africa may, sooner or later, need to be added to the already massive indirect costs of conventional power.
Vattenfall, the Swedish energy company produces electricity from Nuclear, Hydro, Coal, Gas, Solar Cell, Peat and Wind energy and has produced accredited Environment Product Declarations for all these processes.
Vattenfall finds that averaged over the entire lifecycle of their Nuclear Plant including Uranium mining, milling, enrichment, plant construction, operating, decommissioning and waste disposal, the total amount CO2 emitted per KW-Hr of electricity produced is 3.3 grams per KW-Hr of produced power.
Vattenfall measures its CO2 output from Natural Gas to be 400 grams per KW-Hr and from coal to be 700 grams per KW-Hr.
Thus nuclear power generated by Vattenfall emits less than one hundredth the CO2 of Fossil-Fuel based generation. In fact Vattenfall finds its Nuclear Plants to emit less CO2 over the lifecycle than even green energy production mechanisms such as Hydro, Wind, Solar and Biomass.
Of course, all these methods emit much less carbon than fossil fuel electricity and they all have a respected place in our energy future. Until cheap and ultra efficient large energy storage systems become available only nuclear power can replace large coal burning plants.
Once PBMR's are in full production they may be able to generate energy at about 1.7 US cents per kWh, well below the costs of new coal, gas or wind plants, and far below the cost of other nuclear power.
In conclusion, I'll quote from James Lovelock, who's research ultimately saved the planet when he discovered CFCs in the atmosphere in 1973.
"Opposition to nuclear energy is based on irrational fear fed by Hollywood-style fiction, the Green lobbies and the media. These fears are unjustified, and nuclear energy from its start in 1952 has proved to be the safest of all energy sources. We must stop fretting over the minute statistical risks of cancer from chemicals or radiation... If we fail to concentrate our minds on the real danger, which is global warming, we may die even sooner, as did more than 20,000 unfortunates from overheating in Europe last summer."
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amazingdrx Posted 11:14 pm
08 Aug 2006
Nuclear power is simply too expensive.
Wind, wave, solar power, electric cars, and geothermal heat pumps will do the job at a price we can afford and reverse global climate change.
And at the same time revive the DOA US manufacturing sector and with it the tax base. Do you want every US child born to inherit the 500k debt that these neoconmen have saddled them with to pay for their oily military industrial nightmare? I don't.
It is physically impossible to build enough nukes to put a dent in global climate change in time to save spaceship earth. No one wants them anywhere near their homes, the lawsuits alone would bankrupt the effort.
And the disastrous performance of the nuclear contractor/government alliance, would need to be turned around first. With industry self (no) regulation that can never happen.
The largest provider of corporate jet joy rides for congress? The nuclear industry lobbyists.
Lovelock didn't save the planet yet and he won't do it with this nuclear powered self deception.
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GRLCowan Posted 2:53 am
09 Aug 2006
Nuclear is climate-friendly; the people who say "what about this carbon-emitting step, what about that one" are innumerate, but not so innumerate that they don't know their questions are dishonest.
Because of government's fossil fuel interest, those who question the future of nuclear waste and then cash government cheques are lobbying for carbon monoxide deaths. They know no analogous harm has ever come from nuclear waste, even though all of it is today only a few decades old, and vastly hotter than it will be in a century or so.
How much income would you stand to lose if you started repeating my nuclear-is-clean message, merely because you know it to be true? That's your price. Rather than continue to take that money, you would be better off eating a fuel rod.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Boron: internal combustion, nuclear cachet:
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/Paper_for_11th_CHC.html
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kmp Posted 3:52 am
09 Aug 2006
I find it hard to believe that a majority of people actually want a nuclear reactor in their backyard. Perhaps my circle of friends are simply NIMBY-bastards, but I don't know a single person who wants a reactor close by. In fact there is an active grassroots campaign to stop renewal of Indian Point's license (a reactor on the Hudson about 1 hour north of NYC).
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EnergyDude Posted 5:26 am
09 Aug 2006
How many people died in America alone last year from motor vehicles? 47,200!!! That cost Americans $245.2 billion dollars in just 2005 alone!!! Check my facts: http://www.atsip.org/index.php/news/.
Now...Is powering our homes, cars (in the future), factories, and nearly everything imaginable a necessity? We throw that away for a ONE isolated incident?
How many people died from a single, completely avoidable accident in unregulated EASTERN EUROPE? 112? Are you kidding me? That number isn't even a percentage of who we kill on our roadways in a single year....
Face the facts! Nuclear is SAFE! Nuclear is CLEAN! I can get you facts on these as well. Talk to an informed source before going to a fire-breathing, rumor spitting anti-nuclear activist.
Will people ever wake up from their fear driven false reality?
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sunflower Posted 6:26 am
09 Aug 2006
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_33/b39970...
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EnergyDude Posted 7:24 am
09 Aug 2006
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GRLCowan Posted 7:57 am
09 Aug 2006
So what, in my opinion, is really illuminating is to compare hypothetical nuclear deaths to routine real deaths that, without nuclear energy, obviously would occur that much more often: coal mine disasters, pipeline explosions, household gassings by furnaces where a nuclear-powered heat pump could have served.
This makes it easy for common sense to get a grip, and see that, while it would be very odd if real people were unaware that nuclear is a lifesaver, it's understandable that fossil fuel interests try to suggest this; they're trying to blame the victim.
So by asking, "Will people ever wake up from their fear driven false reality?", you're missing the point. It's not people who fear nuclear energy, it's fossil fuel interests. Unfortunately, because of fossil fuel taxation, that includes anyone whose financial mainstay is a government cheque.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Boron: maybe nuclear will save some drivers after all
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GRLCowan Posted 8:02 am
09 Aug 2006
You misspelled "gross-rats".
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Boron: internal combustion without exhaust gas:
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/Paper_for_11th_CHC.html
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sunflower Posted 8:10 am
09 Aug 2006
In January 1982, the WPPSS board stopped construction on Plants 4 and 5 when total cost for all the plants was projected to exceed $24 billion.
http://historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=5482
Northwest ratepayers were stuck with more than $7 billion in WPPSS debts.
http://www.bluefish.org/wilwppss.htm
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ffletcher Posted 9:07 am
09 Aug 2006
The default, meaning bonds that were unable to secure sufficient revenue to make its required posting to pay its coupons, was on the order of 2.4 billion.
These power plants were being planned when electricity growth was assummed to 7% per year or more. What happen between 1975 and 1982 is that this growth rate dropped to 2%. Suddenly there was no need for all these power plants.
Other projects also failed at the same time, but others continued on to opertion. Some were converted to natural gas or lead to the bankruptcy of the purchasing utility.
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SMLowry Posted 10:10 am
09 Aug 2006
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ffletcher Posted 1:38 pm
09 Aug 2006
In any case let's not get in a rush to build nuclear today when solar and wind are ready today and can only get better over time.
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Emily Cunningham Posted 5:49 am
10 Aug 2006
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amazingdrx Posted 9:58 am
10 Aug 2006
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northbranch Posted 2:18 am
15 Aug 2006
Steven Cohen writes that "When we drive on an interstate highway, we face the risk of a crash. We accept the risk because it is relatively low, and because the effect of the risk is localized. A mistake in a nuclear power plant, however, can cause long-standing, widespread damage to people and ecosystems."
Well, actually, in 60 years of the civilian nuclear industry, there has been one (1) accident that caused widespread damage. According to an intensive study by the World Health Organization, the Chernobyl accident might eventually result in as many as 4,000 premature deaths.
Four thousand deaths in 60 years -- is that a lot? Well, not compared to the everyday carnage on the world's roads - about 4,000 people die in traffic accidents, on average, every 30 hours, for a total of 1.2 million people around the world every year.
But if we really want to estimate the danger posed by cars and trucks, we need to add in the tens of thousands of premature deaths due to smog each year, in North America alone. About half of that smog comes from the smokestacks on our cars and trucks, while most of the rest comes from the smokestacks on non-nuclear power plants. Oh, and there's the inconvenient matter of global warming, which will have widespread and quite likely catastrophic impacts for many generations; in the US, 70 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels are due to transportation. Not to mention the fact that the oil consumed in the manufacture of a car generally equals the oil burned during the lifetime of the car. Not to mention that to make space for all these cars to drive and park, we've had to turn our cities and suburbs into concrete wastelands, which soak up heat while quickly flushing cooling rains down the sewers.
The dangers posed by the auto-industrial complex are orders of magnitude greater than the dangers posed by nuclear power. The overwhelming environmental priority should be to decommission the auto-industrial complex. Once we've done that, if we've survived global warming, and if we've built a new car-free way of life, and if we've got enough renewable sources for our new, energy-reduced civilization, then we might want to look at phasing out nuclear power.
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practically green Posted 2:18 am
15 Aug 2006
I also think it's important to point out, since people keep citing the incident at Chernobyl, that the reactor at Chernobyl is VASTLY DIFFERENT from those in the US. Thanks to the cold war, the US didn't share ideas about moderating materials for nuclear reactors. The Soviets used graphite, which is flammable & almost certainly contributed to that meltdown. US reactors use deuterium or "heavy water" as a moderator. Heavy water is not flammable, therefore a similar incident (reactor catching on fire) could not actually occur in the states.
Could there still be incidents? Sure, but more like 3-mile island (nobody died). This also means the figures cited above are more likely overestimates of the dangers of nuclear power plants, and the emotional arguments made on the basis of Chernobyl--already a cheap rhetorical ploy--are irrelevant to the issue.
Do I think any of this will overwhelm popular opinion and bring nuclear power (back?) into favor in the US? No. Does this affect the argument that these plants are military targets? No, but power plants and refineries are always major targets in war. I don't want a coal plant in my back yard either.
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sertsa Posted 3:25 am
15 Aug 2006
To jerk your knees at some twit pulling out Chernobyl and Three Mile Island and (hey it works on the conservatives too) the terrorist card is sad. Try to be at least slightly informed. I am not advocating yes or no to nuclear, but that people discuss the actual issue and not the standard fear/distraction that gets regurgitated again and again. Seriously, how many times has virtually this exact same article been published, with the exact same bullet points, getting the exact same reactions.
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GRLCowan Posted 4:09 am
15 Aug 2006
How Dr. Teller taught the US the lessons of Chernobyl in 1950. Graphite is fine, and so is water ...
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Boron: internal combustion, nuclear cachet
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Lapish Posted 5:28 am
15 Aug 2006
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sunflower Posted 5:47 am
15 Aug 2006
I respectfully disagree. The nuclear industry failed for internal reasons. It is not competitive, not profitable, not support by sources of capital.
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GRLCowan Posted 6:32 am
15 Aug 2006
Yes he does.
Nuclear replaces fossil fuels at pennies on the dollar. Government naturally is of two minds about that; its employees would prefer living near a nuclear power station to living near a gas pipeline, but some of their salary, that which would have been gained as tax on that dollar, depends on your having the opposite preference. They try to lead you into this by telling you that's how you feel.
Indeed, that may have been Lapish's errand.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Burn boron in pure oxygen for vehicle power
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amarct Posted 9:30 am
15 Aug 2006
I can't seem to find anything else on that...
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GRLCowan Posted 12:09 pm
15 Aug 2006
The German researchers are petrodollar pandering when they talk about nuclear waste as a toxic legacy to future generations. This lack of integrity would be very sad if their "findings" weren't on a par with it, i.e., crap. Fortunately they are; beta- and alpha-decay have never been hurried, nor need they be.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Burn boron in pure oxygen for vehicle power
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Lapish Posted 11:44 pm
15 Aug 2006
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sunflower Posted 12:31 am
16 Aug 2006
Even France, which gets more than three-quarters of its electricity from nuclear power, now has a moratorium on nuclear plant construction, and other European countries are debating how quickly to shut their plants down. The only countries still building nuclear power plants are nations such as China, Japan, and possibly Iran, where the electric power industry is still a government sanctioned monopoly that is protected from competition.
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1646
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Lapish Posted 4:45 am
18 Aug 2006
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Lazarus1232 Posted 12:22 am
13 Nov 2007
Nuclear waste disposal (as said by EnergyDude) would be ascertainable if environmentalist politicians would just loosen up a bit and let the facilities transport their wastes to Yucca.
And looking at accidents, the Chernobyl Plant was maintained by poorly trained engineers that had little idea as to what they were doing. They also made mistakes (human error present) such as running a test that they shouldn't have in the first place. Also the plant was a cryptic model which should never have been in place. (Soviet era power plants were made to produce weapons as well as generate power)
The reason why people distrust nuclear energy is because the hazard of fallout from a melt down. A melt down would most likely never happen if you didn't put ill-trained engineers into the reactors.
Some facts:
-Nuclear power plant core housings are built to withstand Jumbo Jet Airliners Crashing into them.
-Nuclear power plant security is in the top 3 most secured industry in the United States.
-Nuclear power plants CANNOT explode like bombs, the only explosion that may occur is the pressure built by the steam generated by the heat of the reactor.
-Three Mile Island reactor melted down, BUT NO ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES HAPPENED, RADIATION WAS CONTAINED.
Take off your blindfolds and look up some information about nuclear energy and open up your minds to other things. Stop being so narrow minded.
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Lazarus1232 Posted 12:42 am
13 Nov 2007
One type is a Integral Fast Reactor, which uses the spent fuel from the reactor to help fuel the reactor. Cutting down waste to a fraction of what it was and lessoning the usage of the primary fuel in the reactor.
Yet another is the Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor, which produces more fuel than it consumes. Thus providing a never ending supply of Uranium for it to use. Also providing a surplus of it. It can use lead as a liquid metal to cool it, providing protection and operational temps at a very high level.
Again, do the research before praising the words of a man who doesn't know anything about what he's talking about.
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Stolz25 Posted 3:51 am
19 Feb 2008
There is a good article to read that addresses your main problem with nuclear power. I noticed you qualified your statement with the word "could" because you actually have no idea if they would cancel out many of the greenhouse gas reductions. Don't worry, they don't. Of course I know your post wasn't so much seeking a real answer as trying to find any reason to be against nuclear power at whatever cost, so I doubt you'll care.
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