Brief Debate about Nuclear Power

5 Responses to Brief Debate about Nuclear Power

1. 1

   James Aach says:

   June 19, 2010 at 10:55 am

   FYI: Stewart Brand has also endorsed my insider novel of nuclear power, Rad Decision, as an entertaining lay person’s guide to the topic. I’ve worked in US nuclear plants over twenty years and I’ve seen the good and the bad. The book is available free online, and also now in paperback at online retailers. (No adverts at the website and I get no royalties.)

   See the website homepage for reviews. http://RadDecision.blogspot.com

   There is no other book out there on nuclear power written by someone who actually works in the industry at the ground level.

   “I’d like to see Rad Decision widely read.” – Stewart Brand

   â??I got to about page four and I was hooked, I couldnâ??t put it down. . . It was very easy to read, the characters were well described, and they were vibrant.â?? – David Levy, noted science author, Parade magazine contributor, and comet hunter.
2. 2

   Hazel Stone says:

   June 19, 2010 at 12:22 pm

   Bottom line: who wants uranium mined from their backyard, living with radioactive mine wastes and water contamination? No one. Who wants radioactive waste stored for 250,000 years in your backyard? No one.

   The reason there is no US repository for nuclear waste, despite the feds looking for one and paying through the nose for one for decades is that EVERYONE who has a potential site has fought tooth and nail to stop it. Don’t make more of what you cannot safely store.
3. 3

   Steve Stiles says:

   June 23, 2010 at 1:14 am

   Who wants coal mining / windmills / solar panels in their backyard? Do you know anything about radiation? Exposure vs. distance? Probably not. And do you really think people will overlook the release of radioactive isotopes to the enviornment? Their livelihoods depend on not doing anything that dumb. Even worst case scenario, and some isotopes get out, I can guarantee that any exposure would be several/many orders of magnitude below what you get on an airplane, via X-rays, or even the normal exposure (~300 mrem/yr) from naturally occuring radon and cosmic rays. BTW, there is a radioactive storage site in Nevada called Yucca Mountain and I DO realize it’s not commissioned yet due to lack of education and irrational fear. Read about it, do any sort of research, please. It is ridiculously safe. Transportation of rad waste to Yucca? It’s funny, it’s almost like they’ve done studies and real life experiments or something. They’ve broadsided one of these rail cars with a jet-locomotive, going some 80-odd mph– no damage. They dipped the very same container into 2000-3000 deg. burning jet fuel– inside temperature, a couple hundred degrees, nowhere near enough to damage anything [reactors operate at several times those temps]. Come on, the ‘opposed’ guy in the video was practically making stuff up, pulling ‘projected’ numbers from a decade from now [does he have a time machine?] Also, nuclear plants put out zero carbon emissions, so whatever the heck he was talking about was smoke & mirrors or at the very least applicable to other renewables. Speaking of which, as Brand said, wind and solar aren’t constant, nor do they happen w/ equal intensity everywhere. Sure you can build the stuff where it IS intense [still not constant] and yet there’s that pesky problem of electrical transmission over long distances. The grid now can’t do it real well, that also is a problem that takes a whole bunch of time and money. P=IV, P=I^2R. So, what are solar/wind plants going to due when there’s high demand and little supply [and vice versa], build giant batteries? Great now’s there’s a whole whackton of chemical waste vice nuclear waste– it may not be radioactive, but it sure is corrosive, enough to eat away at many tough metals. Rad waste [the wet kind] is not any more corrosive than water, and properly stored, will never be a problem- turns out that tons of rock, steel, lead, and just plain distance are really good rad shields. TMI and Chernobyl? Looks at the numbers sheer magnitude of people killed in these tragedies vs. coal mining, black lung, and collapsed mines. How many marine creatures have been killed by petrol companies? TMI killed nobody, public exposure was minimal, and had no proven health effects. Chernobyl was indeed a horrible accident but it was a product of unsafe design and poor Soviet operational standards– things untrue of nuclear plants in the US today [all commericial plants in the US are PWR or BWR and have negative coefficients of reactivity, not to mention high operational standards upheld by the NRC]. New more sophisticated plants would only be even safer and could potentially be able to get more ‘mileage’ out of already ‘spent’ fuel [technology marches forward in 30+years, you know]. I’m probably missing some points that I planned to cover, but methinks I got most of them. I don’t intend to sound condescending, but I keep hearing these arguments pop up that have absolutely no basis in reality or that have already been soundly put to rest through research.
4. 4

   Hazel Stone says:

   June 23, 2010 at 10:21 am

   Actually, I’ve worked on energy issues in a professional capacity for an NGO for 13 years, but thanks for patronizing me.

   And yes, I do know people who want windmills and solar in their backyard–even natural gas burners if it means shutting down dirty coal plants. In fact farmers in the Midwest are clamoring for lucrative contracts to put windmills on their farmlands.

   You can keep mouthing the industry line (nice writing style there, BTW) about radiation doses and new plants being SO SAFE and on, and on. But seriously WHY should we spend so much damn money to build these plants, mine and process the fuel and then store the waste for eons if we don’t need to do so? Why rely on a finite fuel supply that is horribly environmentally destructive to mine? Wind and other renewables plus conservation gets us to the same place faster, cheaper and with fewer risks. Why take ANY risks with radiation if we don’t have to?

   Also, since when do lefties take a corporation or industry’s word on safety? I know I never will.
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   Jake Squid says:

   June 23, 2010 at 10:48 am

   Steve,

   Can I just mention Indian Point?