Hey, everyone has one. Mine's nukes.

I love nukes. They're the ONLY power solution at the moment we have that can supplant the horribly dirty coal power plants that us Americans use to generate most of our power that is emissions-free, can be run completely off of domestic fuel, is a long-term solution, and has enough energy potential to power the entire nation.

Therefore, I believe that the U.S. should switch at least 80% of its production to nuclear power, with the rest made up of more traditional hippie-style zero emission sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, and hydroelectric power sources.

My reasons for this:

Solar power takes up far too much space. It is prohibitively expensive when compared to even running a gasoline plant nowadays and is impractical for widespread distribution - the cost per megawatt is through the roof.

Wind power also takes up far too much space, but it IS very cheap and is a resource that I feel we should utilize, especially in areas that are not being used anyways, such as the windswept plains of North Dakota. However, it is too unreliable and too low density for us to use it as a replacement for our current energy needs.

Hydroelectric power is a clean and cheap source of power, but our rivers are already dammed. Geothermal power is out the window for a similar reason.

Biofuels are impractical due to the fact that we do not have enough food to feed everyone, let alone squander the surplus on energy.



I'd love to hear an alternative, but as of right now I just can't think of one. We only have two options, and those are coal power and nuclear power.



Here's some myths that I hear when people debate with me over nukes:

1) Nukes are unsafe.

Whenever you say "nuke" to someone, they immediately think of a huge explosion wiping out Japanese cities during a certain world war and the thought of the Soviets bombing the Americans and vice versa. It's a bit of paranoia that may indeed be justified in the nuclear arms situation, but nuclear reactors are an entirely different animal.

For one, nuclear reactors used by the Western world, are the safest type of plant we have. The only significant nuclear disaster in history happened at a flawed Soviet plant in which horribly unsafe reactor designs caused an explosion from build up of steam, spewing radioactive material everywhere. The reactors in the United States, France, Britain, Canada, and the rest of the world are much too safe to do anything like that. The only nuclear accident in the United States resulted in no deaths or injuries and released a minute amount of radiation equivalent to giving everyone within a few miles a chest x-ray. Hardly a disaster.

2) Nukes are dirty, they produce, like, waste and stuff!

Each nuclear power plant produces, give or take, 40 tons of nuclear waste per year. Nuclear waste is very, very dense stuff, denser than lead, and so when you take that into account you realize that this amount of waste would fit under a standard sized office desk. Hardly an unmanageable problem, especially when you consider that using reprocessing, we could re-use 95% of that waste and put it back into the reactor.

3) Nukes are dangerous to live by

Nuclear power plants use huge amounts of radiation shielding - lead and concrete block nearly all of the radiation that is released by the reactor. If I recall correctly, you get more radiation from watching TV for an hour than you would by living near a nuke plant for a year. I could be wrong on that, though, I haven't looked up those stats in a while.

4) Nuclear power plants are prohibitively expensive.

This is true.....


..... in our current system. Each nuclear plant that we have is individually designed and must wade through miles of red tape before being granted clearance for construction. Nuclear plants could be extremely cost effective if we used a modern, standardized reactor plan that is modular and scalable for larger and smaller plants, so that we wouldn't have to retrain technicians for each site.

Also keep in mind that the newest nuke plants in the US were constructed in the 1970's. They hardly represent the cutting edge of nuclear power and cost-efficiency.




Well, tell me what you guys think! I'm hoping to get someone to think seriously about this issue, it's something that I feel we need to address, because pipe dreams like renewable energy will never come about quick enough to get us off of fossil fuels.

I happen to agree , I have worked in Nuclear power for over 22 years, most of the waste generated is low level or no levels , everything metalic is now metal melted and folded into "clean" metals to make the shielding , I have read that all the spent fuels rods ever used in nuclear power wouldn't fill a standard size Jr High School gym, it is cheap , clean and safe

__________________
Aint but three things in this world thats worth a solitary dime,
But old dogs and children and watermelon wine.
Tom T. Hall
http://www.politicalforum.com/group.php?groupid=43

Couldn't say it better myself. Former Bubblehead Nuke Submariner that I am.

Simplifying the design like France,GB and Japan have done will drive construction cost down and simplify the operator training.

you just have to get past ignorance and the thinking that if someone says the word radiation they will die of cancer immediately.

On TMI the amount of radiation read was less than the exposure level of someone living in Denver Colorado. Then I feel safer sleeping next to a reactor than the gas power plant down the road from me.

I have read a study from an unnamed Naval yard that said you get more natural radiation from radon and granite than from an average reactor

__________________
Aint but three things in this world thats worth a solitary dime,
But old dogs and children and watermelon wine.
Tom T. Hall
http://www.politicalforum.com/group.php?groupid=43

Did you know the Capitol Building that houses Congress is so radioactive it wouldn't pass testing as a online reactor?

duke energy is now ramped up, working on standardized plans for nuclear generation facilities
this is a great time to move forward with nuclear while the populace recognizes access to energy is a huge national and personal issue
it is the disposal of nuclear wastes and the extremely long half lives that gets in the way, in my opinion. also, it is not so much what remains of the spent fuel rods after reprocessing but what becomes of the obsolete nuclear facilities once they have served their design life
any thoughts on that?

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Quote:

"I like to watch the news, because I don't like people very much and when you watch the news ... if you ever had an idea that people were really terrible, you could watch the news and know that you're right."

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You know, I once did the calculations for a rough estimate of how much waste has been produced since we started using nukes, and what I came up with suggested that it wouldn't fill a 2,000 square foot house.

the one in Maine was in Wiscasset they are considering several options but the fuel rods are still there because of troubles (politically) at the disposal site in Yucca I think.

__________________
Aint but three things in this world thats worth a solitary dime,
But old dogs and children and watermelon wine.
Tom T. Hall
http://www.politicalforum.com/group.php?groupid=43

Just like we do with all the other decommissioned reactors.

high or low levels?

__________________
Aint but three things in this world thats worth a solitary dime,
But old dogs and children and watermelon wine.
Tom T. Hall
http://www.politicalforum.com/group.php?groupid=43