Thread: Nuclear is better than coal, natural gas. 'Green' energies not so green.

There is an awful lot of fissile material sitting around in "spent" fuel rod assemblies.

Originally Posted by Jiggs Casey

....There's a reason nuclear hasn't expanded very much in decades. And it has nothing to do with the dangers it poses (though it should)..

All energy sources have dangers. Nuclear/atomic power is not so dangerous as some think it is & the press tends to sensationalizes such as Fukushima. With Chernobyl, PBS did a show which found that wildlife & plants are growing there with little to no problems. Wolves, foxes, birds, moose, bisons, etc. have been done well in health condions. Almost all the nuclear waste is contained while coal & natural gas waste ends up in the lungs. Here's an article on the dangers of solar panels.

China villagers protest solar plant pollution - China - Zimbio
BEIJING ( Reuters ) - Protesters have camped outside an east China-based solar panel manufacturer accusing it of dumping toxic waste into a river, China's official ...
www.zimbio.com/China/articles/8g5TdBJDquQ/China... - Cached

Originally Posted by Jiggs Casey

Supply-demand gap

Current global uranium production meets only 58 per cent of demand, with the shortfall made up largely from rapidly shrinking stockpiles. The shortfall is expected to run at 51 million pounds a year on average from next year[when?] to 2020.[95] During the last 15 years, the shortfall between production and requirements was made up by excess commercial inventories, uranium released from military use and other secondary sources. These are now in decline, and the shortfall will increasingly need to be made up by primary production.[96]

This does not mean that there is not enough Uranium. There surely is, and there is a VERY large price buffer present. It just means that demand was covered from uranium stockpiles instead of mining. So no shortage of Uranium can be inferred from your source.

Originally Posted by Jiggs Casey

There's a reason nuclear hasn't expanded very much in decades. And it has nothing to do with the dangers it poses (though it should).

There are two reasons.

1. cheap fossil fuels

2. anti-nuclear sentiment present among people

Polls have found that Fukushima in 2011 did not have the same impact on people's views of nuclear/atomic power as Chernobyl did in 1986. Movies such as 1979 China Syndrome are mainly entertainment. There is no proof that Karen Silkwood was murdered. People are more educated about nuclear/atomic energy which is why support for nuclear/atomic power has gone up incl. among some environmentalists. Wildlife Habitat Council is a group which has environmentalists working with the nuclear industry & others to help the environment & animals jointly.

For some environmentalists being against nuclear is a part of the religion of being an environmentalist which has been surpassed by global warming. Stephen Tindale formerly of Greenpeace U.K. used to be anti-nuclear for many years & in 2001 he took part in an anti-nuclear protest where he scrawled evil. Stephen Tindale has said that when he was anti-nuclear, he did so mainly because of the view that if you wanted to be an environmentalist, you had to be anti-nuclear. Stephen Tindale has since changed his view to now supporting nuclear/atomic energy & has formed the group Climate Answers. I praise Stephen Tindale for admitting his earlier view was wrong & changing it to support nuclear energy.

Other environmentalists who support nuclear energy are the late actor environmentalist Paul Newman who defended the Indian Point Nuclear Powerplant in New York. An accusation anti-nuclear groups sometimes make is to say that if you support nuclear, you must be a shill or you must use the nuclear industry-. While Patrick Moore former Greenpeace founder & now 'eco-Judas' works for the nuclear industry with the group Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, there's nothing wrong with that. Also there are many people who support nuclear/atomic energy & who don't work for the nuclear industry. The American Lung Assoc. supports nuclear/atomic energy & they don't work for the nuclear/atomic industry.

Originally Posted by Blasphemer

This does not mean that there is not enough Uranium. There surely is, and there is a VERY large price buffer present. It just means that demand was covered from uranium stockpiles instead of mining. So no shortage of Uranium can be inferred from your source.

So, you ask for a link. One is presented that says why. And then you dispute it without presenting your own link. Cool.

Where is the uranium? Source your claim. Hopefully, you're not resting your argument on the deconstruction of missiles, and the like.

Originally Posted by Patradomous

There are two reasons.

1. cheap fossil fuels

2. anti-nuclear sentiment present among people

and 3, not enough uranium.

Well, at least you admit fossil fuels drive modern civilization by loosely agreeing they've been vastly underpriced for decades.

Originally Posted by Jiggs Casey

Great. So where is the uranium going to come from for a world that currently only meets about 60% of demand?

M. King Hubbert estimated the uranium energy value of the Gassaway member of the Chattanooga shale as enough to replace the energy value of all crude oil used on this planet, in one year, in a SINGLE SQUARE MILE.

This particular shale covers 25,000 square miles or so.

Hubbert in 1956 referred to it as a "trifling" amount.

Stick with oil hysteria Jiggsy, your silly ideas don't work at all when such resource estimates can only lead to the word abundance. Look it up.

Originally Posted by Jiggs Casey

Where is the uranium? Source your claim.

Childs play. Why don't I use a famous peak oiler for it?

http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/...amDistribution

2X10^10 tons of uranium in black shales enough to fill in those pipsqueak supply gaps you seem so concerned over Jiggsy? And from a peak oiler to boot!

Originally Posted by PeakProphet

M. King Hubbert estimated the uranium energy value of the Gassaway member of the Chattanooga shale as enough to replace the energy value of all crude oil used on this planet, in one year, in a SINGLE SQUARE MILE.

This particular shale covers 25,000 square miles or so.

Hubbert in 1956 referred to it as a "trifling" amount.

Stick with oil hysteria Jiggsy, your silly ideas don't work at all when such resource estimates can only lead to the word abundance. Look it up.

It's hardly surprising you'd not have any idea of the differences in ore grade, considering you have ZERO clue the differences in oil viscosity.

You're clearly learning as you go along, working backwards from your conclusions, scrambling to "teh Googles" and spewing whatever you think you can find from blogs.

Yeah, ummm... under 100 ppm is very low grade for a uranium mine. If the grade were 5-10x better, you might have something. Or at least get people to look at it seriously for an In Situ Leach (ISL) operation. Unfortunately, Chattanooga Shale is estimated to contain an average grade of 54 ppm. I crushed your argument on this already on USMB, and you bailed from the thread. Yet here you are back at it, with a new audience to try and fool.

Here's more evidence that underlines my point: If Tenn. were at all a significant play for uranium ore all these decades later, it would have been developed in ever-greater quantities already. It's not. Do you think they prefer to just leave it in the ground and buy from Australia and China instead? lol...

So in addition to oil, we can add nuclear to your realm of subject matter for which you obviously have no idea what you're ever talking about.

Originally Posted by snowisfun

I am a supporter of nuclear/atomic energy.

Almost all the people killed in the 2011 Japanese earthquake & tsunami were killed by debris, disease, pneumonia, etc. The same risks are found with hydroelectric dams. If a hydroelectric dam is destroyed in an earthquake, massive flooding can happen- people can drown, be killed by electrocutions, epidemics can spread from dirty H2O. Also people can be killed by the floods coming into contact with dangerous chemicals. There's 100* more radiation from coal & natural gas emissions which cause more deaths & diseases such as asthma, lung cancer, heart attacks, etc. So many get killed in coal mining accidents. Yet many give little thought to this.

Windmills and solar panels, are sold as ‘green’, but they are not so. They need more land, use more materials, generate less energy-both the wind and sun are intermittent. Windmills have killed endangered birds and bats. People who live near windmills have higher incidence of hearing loss, migraines, nausea, etc. Solar panels have dangerous chemicals some of which are carcinogenic. Yes, we must also use windmills and solar panels when possible, but let’s end the idea that windmills and solar panels are ‘green’ & there must be more environmental impact statements on this before approval. The views of the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, etc. against nuclear energy only uses some science & is more on politics. The Sierra Club's views against nuclear energy rerun the same 1970s arguments-more on politics & little on science. The Sierra Clubs views on this is poop because they go with the religion that in order to be an environmentalist that they must oppose nuclear/atomic energy.

We must use geothermal when possible. With nuclear, the newer nuclear power plants run on less uranium which lasts longer and generates less waste. Eventually they’ll perfect a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor. Thorium is better than uranium. They will also come up with better reactors in the future, underwater reactors such as Flexblue along with underground reactors will be there. There are also small nuclear reactors which can be underground & you'll see more of this + ships which run on nuclear-Russia uses nuclear powered icebreakers.

What happened in Japan in 2011 got the nuclear industry hostility– most of it unjustified. The earthquake forced nations to reevaluate their nuclear powerplants & some nations policies with Germany & Switzerland passing phaseouts & Italy refusing to reintroduce nuclear. Germany in the meantime has built or building more coal, buying more Russian gas, so their energy policy is a joke. But the nuclear topic is not going away. India, China, U.K., Poland, etc. are building new nuclear powerplants. Whether people like it or not, nuclear energy toipic is not going away, just as BP did not go away after the 2010 spill. BP was negligent. It was condemned, got congressional hearings. BP’s business was hurt for a time, but BP is still in business. Finally it must be said that the nuclear topic since the 2000s is being debated even by environmentalists which would've been unheard of in the 1980s. Anyhow, please share views as again, the nuclear/atomic energy topic whether you like it or not is not going away.

Considering the price to build and mantaine a Nuke fire plant, I'll go with coal. We now have scrubbers that makes them viable. And so far as "GREEN" goes, that's a bad joke.

Originally Posted by snowisfun

All energy sources have dangers. Nuclear/atomic power is not so dangerous as some think it is & the press tends to sensationalizes such as Fukushima. With Chernobyl, PBS did a show which found that wildlife & plants are growing there with little to no problems. Wolves, foxes, birds, moose, bisons, etc. have been done well in health condions. Almost all the nuclear waste is contained while coal & natural gas waste ends up in the lungs. Here's an article on the dangers of solar panels.

China villagers protest solar plant pollution - China - Zimbio
BEIJING ( Reuters ) - Protesters have camped outside an east China-based solar panel manufacturer accusing it of dumping toxic waste into a river, China's official ...
www.zimbio.com/China/articles/8g5TdBJDquQ/China... - Cached

This is viable because it was in my state. The cost of the thing and the price they charged for power was outrageous;

The only nuclear power plant in Oregon shut down twenty years early, after a cracked steam tube released radioactive gas into the plant in 1992. It cost $450 million to build the plant, and it is expected to cost the same amount, at least, to make it go away. In 2001, the 1,000-ton 1,130-megawatt reactor was encased in concrete foam, and coated in blue shrink-wrapped plastic, then shipped up the Columbia River on a barge to the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington, where it was placed in a 45 foot deep pit, and covered with six inches of gravel, making it the first commercial reactor to be moved and buried whole. The plant went on line in 1976, and was said to have been built on an Indian burial ground. When it shut down 16 years later, it was the largest commercial reactor to be decommissioned. The 500-foot-tall cooling tower was imploded in May 2006. The spent fuel rods, however, are still stored on site, as they are at all the other 108 or so commercial reactors in the country. Almost 800 rods are in a pool, next to the Columbia River, awaiting the possible opening of the Yucca Mountain radioactive storage facility in Nevada.

Location: 50 miles E of Astoria, 5 miles S of Longview, WA




The coal fire Centralia Power Plant has ran far longer, and at a much ceaper cost and without the problems;

"The existing coal-fired plant consists of two generating units with a total capacity of 1,340MW"

Now, go fight the math