Do you believe nuclear power generation could be designed to be completely safe?

Discussion in 'Environment & Conservation' started by kazenatsu, Feb 8, 2018.

  1. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Do you believe a nuclear power facility could be designed that is completely safe?
    With all those safety features could it still be cost-effective?

    Or, how about just locating it somewhere far away where it would do minimal damage if it exploded? (Like in a barren desert away from any bodies of water)Superconductive power lines could be used to move the electric energy to where it is needed, over vast distances with minimal loss.
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2018
  2. reallybigjohnson

    reallybigjohnson Banned

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    The Germans came up with a melt down proof design years ago. Of course that was after the last time a nuclear reactor was built in the US so we don't have any of them.

    I am a big nuclear proponent however I think that nuclear is going to explode in a fireball both symbolically and probably literally with China building so many new reactors. The Chinese will do what they ALWAYS do and that is cut corners and use cheap materials and poor construction methods etc. Which will lead to not one but many failures in their new shiny nuclear plants and then we will never get a new reactor built in this country ever again. Fukishima was a poorly built reactor that was built on a fault line and look how much damage that did to the nuclear industries image. China will be 100 times worse.
     
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  3. Josephwalker

    Josephwalker Banned

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    Two words answer.

    Murphy's law
     
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  4. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Nuclear power is absurd, outrageously expensive and exorbitantly environmentally and health destructive, plus no way to truly safely get rid of the waste. It also is not a renewable energy source. Given radiation alters dna, it literally could destroy the human race. Ocean waters increasingly have higher levels of permanent radiation due to nuclear power plants. Radiation causes cancer. The higher the level the higher the odds are you will get it and the sooner you will get it.

    Nuclear power plants HAVE to be near water - why they all are on coastlines - due to having enormous cooling requirements (but can not use only salt water) PLUS must have fresh ground or river water for a heat exchange system. Fresh water carried the heat to salt water for cooling (a double closed system). The salt water is returned to the ocean or gulf. The fresh water is no irradiated it can not be released yet also must be constantly replaced or it would become so radioactive it would then irradiate the saltwater. The waste disposal problem is what to do with the massive amounts of irradiated water.
     
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  5. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Last edited: Feb 8, 2018
  6. Pax Aeon

    Pax Aeon Well-Known Member

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    `
    Financially speaking, no one is really investing in nuclear power for the reasons outlined in JakeJ's post.
    `
     
  7. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    If it's so outrageously expensive, why did the Soviets use nuclear power heat to desalinize sea water?
     
  8. camp_steveo

    camp_steveo Well-Known Member

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  9. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    "Still"?? It's more expensive now than solar.

    Humans make mistakes and nuclear power requires zero mistakes.



    Nope. Contamination spreads. Fukushima comes to mine, and every other one.
     
  10. Baff

    Baff Well-Known Member

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    I don't think it will ever be completely safe and I don't think it will ever be as dangerous as it is commonly espoused to be either.
    Not a fan personally,l but not rabidly anti either.
     
  11. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm in favor of the cheaper option, if solar is indeed cheaper than nuclear, like you say.

    However, we still need at least a few nuclear power plants to generate our radioisotopes for medical research and treatment.
     
  12. reallybigjohnson

    reallybigjohnson Banned

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    Thats because Germany is run by complete morons. They shut down their nuclear reactors meanwhile they are STILL building new coal plants. Germany has by far the most expensive electricity in all of the EU and its because of their blind faith in wind and solar as somehow being magically delicious. Only Lucky Charms gets to make that claim. As they finally learned despite being told repeatedly before hand, renewables are far to erratic to be reliable. They are shutting down the nuclear reactors simply because of blind political "I hate nuclear because I am an idiot" syndrome that primarily comes from the left.

    https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601514/germany-runs-up-against-the-limits-of-renewables/

    China is planning on using the German designs but since its China they will probably make them out of plastic bottles and chewing gum paper.

    https://www.technologyreview.com/s/...e-a-meltdown-proof-nuclear-reactor-next-year/
     
  13. kazenatsu

    kazenatsu Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    China building nuclear power facilities is a recipe for disaster. Shoddy construction practices, disregard for standard safety practices, low quality improvised manufacturing techniques and cutting corners to reduce every possible little expense, all this has been pretty standard in the country.

    If a nuclear plant has a meltdown it will be like playing Who Killed Colonel Mustard trying to figure out which of the countless construction defects was responsible for the accident.

    China does have a vast barren desert in its Northwest though.
     
    Last edited: Feb 8, 2018
  14. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    In the past, small reactors designed for that were used. Power plants aren't required.
     
  15. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There is one of the first US nuclear power plants not many miles from here. It is turned off permanently due to a crack in the containment dome. The estimate just to repair it exceeded one billion dollars and otherwise was not economically viable. For many years, the water demands of that power plant drew so much well water it was increasingly dropping the water table, though this area is one of the largest aquafiers in the US.

    Initially a replacement was planned but the costs literally would have run into the billions and it cancelled, instead opting to add natural gas electrical generation while continuing the 4 coal burning plants. All original estimates on the costs of nuclear power trace back to the 1950s when uranium was extremely cheap, they were reckless with disposal of wastes if they considered it at all, nor understood the massively more costly safeguards that would be needed.

    While the old nuclear power plant is turned off permanently, it still requires a great deal of maintenance and can never be dismantled given all of it is radioactive. It also required a great deal of security even though turned off as the containment chamber must NEVER be breached and the radioactive material, even wastes, must be protected as it potentially could be used for a dirty bomb or to permanently contaminate any water supply. So while other power plants will have a security gate a person has to go thru, nuclear power plants are necessarily guarded by para-military squads with machine guns. That alone indicates just how dangerous such power plants, their fuel and its endless radioactive wastewater is.

    There used to be a joke around here about the warning system in case of a nuclear power plant accidental discharge of radiation. People were advised what the warning sirens would sound like and what to do. People were to go into their houses closing all doors and windows and stay inside.

    There was something missing in those instructions. They never would say what the "all clear, you can come out now" sounded like. There was no all clear alert. So it seems the purpose of the instruction was just so they would know where to find all the bodies.
     
    Last edited: Feb 9, 2018
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  16. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Even if fully contained perfectly with no meltdown or discharge risks and even if they could just "poof!" make all the radioactive wastes disappear, they still emit some level of radiation. The question of how much of that form of radiation is safe is like asking how many cigarettes a day can a person smoke without any health damage?
    Like cigarettes, that form of radiation is cumulative and magnifies thru the food chain particularly. It builds up in the soil around it, the water around it, and then climbs the food chain. As it gathers then in your body, the level will continue to grow as it becomes permanent in body fat.

    There is still little concern for radiation in general. No one is warned that CAT scan bombards the body with massive amounts of radiation, as do X-rays. A friend of mine asked an X-ray technician how safe is the chest X-ray that was going to be done. The technician replied "you could get a chest x-ray every year and live to 100." My friend then asked: "what if I have 2 chest x-rays a year, do I live up to age 50?"

    The form of radiation of nuclear power plants causes cancer. Just a fact. Two years is the maximum they will allow any person here to work at the nuclear power plant even with it closed down - claiming that if no more than 2 years the person only absorbs an "acceptable" level of radiation - when there is no "safe" level. Rather, there are only "odds" levels. What are the odds you will get cancer and how soon? That, of course, assumes there are no other factors - radiation or otherwise - to add to the chances of getting cancer.
     
    Last edited: Feb 9, 2018
  17. reallybigjohnson

    reallybigjohnson Banned

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    So you think that building coal powered plants is a better idea than nuclear? <Mod Edit> By the way you never addressed ANY of my points or sources.
     
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  18. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    All the waters of the ocean and any seafood we eat will have a higher level of radiation due to Fukushima.

    An anthropologist said even 10,000 years for now they will be able to determine for any bone of any animal found whether it predates 1945 or not merely by the radiation level of the bone. Essentially zero radiation? Pre 1945. A level of radiation beyond surrounding ground? Post 1945. With each year since 1945 the level within every person and living creature on earth is increasing from the atom/nuclear bombs set off and nuclear power - whether power plants for electricity of for powering ships and submarines, plus medical and other usages.

    Dig up THE most deadly of all elements on earth. Refine it to as concentrated as possible. Figure how to make even more deadly forms of it - and the spread it over the entire world and in all the water. I believe that qualifies as meaning the definition of the word "insane."
     
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  19. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Any source other than nuclear power is a better idea.
     
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  20. reallybigjohnson

    reallybigjohnson Banned

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    You receive less radiation annually from a nuclear power plant than you do from a cross country flight. The latest studies which looked at 5 million worker hours across 15 countries over decades found no significant difference between the general population and nuclear workers. And this nonsense about only being able to work at a plant for two years is just patently false. I know someone who worked at Point Beach for at least four years and he only left because he got a better paying job.

    The British Journal of Cancer reevaluated the flawed data from the 2005 study that most anti-science/nuclear advocates keep throwing out. They found no significant difference between the general population and nuclear workers.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/bjc2013592
     
  21. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    <Reply to Deleted>

    I'm opposed to nuclear AND coal power. I advocate renewables including hydro, wind, solar, biomass, and I'll even temporarily agree to gas-fired plants until we have enough alternative energy capacity online to eliminate gas, too. Is that clearer?
     
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  22. reallybigjohnson

    reallybigjohnson Banned

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    You can't just use renewables. It won't work. The Germans spent hundreds of billions of dollars to find out what anyone with half a brain already knew and that was that renewables CANNOT and NEVER WILL be able to provide reliable 24 hours baseline power. Even if they get around to solving the storage and transmission issues all you need a a couple of calm days or rainy days and then you are back to not having any power at all. You absolutely must have something that is on reliably for 24 hours a day 7 days a week. No matter how many engineers, physicists and scientists tell zealots like you you just keep ignoring them.

    The only places renewables work are places like Nevada or Hawaii where it is sunny for most of the year. Europe is not sunny most of the year, China is not sunny most of the year and and to top it off China and Europe are at higher latitudes which means they receive far less exposure than at the equator. In my state you receive one quarter the solar radiance that you get at the equator.
     
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  23. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

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    So the engineers in Germany are morons you say. Do you really think I should believe that? There's one huge issue that you seem to which to avoid, and that is that the more renewables we have online, the less fossil fuels we need to use. THAT, in itself, is a worthy purpose and goal.

    Secondly, storage technology is advancing. One approach is to use excess power to electrolyze water to produce hydrogen which can be used in a fuel cell at night and on cloudy days. Then there is wind power and every other alternative to fossil fuels. Every little bit counts.


    [​IMG]

    Note that the green area gets half the sunshine of the yellow area. Not so bad. I live in the blue area of Oregon, and there are cases of people generating all their power needs from solar here.

    https://modernsurvivalblog.com/alte...a-of-solar-panels-to-power-the-united-states/

    http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/solarenergy.aspx
     
  24. Otern

    Otern Active Member

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    It's impossible to achieve 100% safety. In anything.

    But it's possible to design nuclear power facilities to be safe enough. But that costs money. The real question should be; "Is it possible to design a nuclear facility to be both adequately safe, and cost effective?"

    And yes, I believe it's possible. Hell, all nuclear facilities produced today are safe enough. And there's always opportunities to make them both safer and cheaper. All while the demand for electric energy increases.
     
  25. camp_steveo

    camp_steveo Well-Known Member

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    I don't know if coal is better or worse, but in TN the TVA has built scrubber stacks at all the fossil plants. They are just water vapor I believe.
     

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