Nuclear Power - your thoughts? (survey)

Great post sunfighter. When I was in 6th grade (1966), The class was given an assignment to come up with a symbol or sign that would inform distant future generations, regardless of language or culture, the location and danger of a nuclear waste repository.
We couldn't, of course, but the point was impressed into all our young minds.

Another thing to consider about our government dealing with dirty jobs like toxic waste is their habit of hiring the lowest bidder...

ZW

 

This is very true, in fact from waste to nuclear accidents it's always been the human factor that has caused a problem, our technology almost is fail safe except for when humans hands begin to touch it.

The problem is at least with nuclear waste you have a physical thing you can move and figure out where to put it. The thing is the nuclear waste isn't going away, it's all just sitting next to the reactor buildings where its produced. And as it is we're producing more. We're going to have to find a solution eventually. There's no such thing as a totally fail safe one when it comes to nuclear waste, but we do have ideas and solutions that are pretty good. Not doing so I see as a bigger threat to the planet. Everything about nuclear waste and power comes down to the worst possible scenario, where we work under the assumption that all things will fail and the worst possible thing that can happen will happen. Well with carbon fuels we already have the worst possible thing happening. The Earth can not take the onslaught of carbon we are throwing into the atmosphere, and we need a drastic change, right now.

We also need more electricity, right now. Our system is over strained as it is and many old power plants need to be taken off line. My problem is without nuclear we're just going to build more coal and gas. Think about if, say you were dictator of the US, and you sent out an executive order,
"All power production in the United States must be near carbon free within 25 years. Don't care how you do it, if you can do it with solar knock yourselves out, dam up all the rivers you want, build nukes in people's backyard, put windmills on top of mount McKinley, put tidal generators all along the coast, don't care how, just do it"

I'm willing to bet even with 20 years more advancement of the technology and the 5 years to build, it'd still come down to it most power would have to be supplied through nuclear and hydro.

The rate at which we use electricity combined with the current technological process of renewable energy just currently is adding up. I don't think the Earth's atmosphere can take much more waiting.

*edit*
Huh, I used the phrase "worst possible thing" three times in one paragraph yet at least on my monitor they all line up exactly under each other, now that's odd.

Also in terms of symbols and signs for warning people I saw a new one that I think gets the message across better:

 

True, but the fastest way to add capacity to our system is with conservation and renewables, not large power stations. The last nuclear plant built in the U. S. took 15 years to complete, didn't it? Perhaps they are saying it's quicker now, but that's wishful thinking. NIMBY and environmental protests will still occur.

Now, if your timeline is 25 years, then yes, beginning now to build large facilities might achieve your goal, but this isn't quick.

The fastest and cheapest and least risky way to add capacity is with conservation and renewables.

 

Conservation requires getting a lot of people who don't care to actually care though, which doesn't work when they stop caring but the people who do care still face brownouts because of them. But our population is growing, 10 million in the past 8 years I think, even conserving we need to take plants offline. Nuclear ones that are past their life span, along with numerous coal, oil and gas ones that just aren't meeting any sane regulations anymore.

The problem is renewables aren't cheap. Wind is until the amount of wind turbines needed to power anything large scale is taken into account. Solar in the large scale is a bit of a joke right now, the things going into solar panels are terrible in an environmental sense and solar panels take a ridiculous amount of energy to produce which near negate their point. Even on home use, there stimulus provided a tax break relief to encourage it, but that aside even for a small home it takes between 5-10 years for them to break even on their investment of solar panels.

The only renewable that's practical right now is hydro, especially since hydro doesn't necessarily mean dams on the scale of Hoover or Grand Coulee, or even dam at all.

or geothermal, granted it's limited in where it can be applied but to my knowledge it generally works best and is most practical around fault lines. Now considering California is the largest energy market in the US, along with having a giant and famous fault line, why are we not investing in this out there.

Problem is it's not just us, we produce 70-75% of energy through carbon fuels and we're a first world country, in fact one of the top first world countries. As other countries begin to industrialize and grow they're only going to be able to afford to produce electricity in carbon fueled plants which just adds to a growing problem.

 

Some of our nuclear plants are well beyond their design lifetime.

 

....and you lost me, not more greenhouse effect speeches :coffee:

 

The short design lifetime is another serious problem. Did no one calculate how many abandoned nuke plants we would end up with after 1000 years of relying on this technology? None of these plant sites has ever been restored to a condition where the buildings could be removed and the land could be used for another purpose, nor am I aware of a plan for ever doing so.

 

I would assume the plan wouldn't be to rely on fission power for 1000 years. It's purpose now is to get the large quantities of power quick. Nuclear power is very reliable and not so greatly affected by oil prices as other forms of power production. So although wind, solar etc are cleaner ways of producing energy, building new fission reactors is just the most reliable way to get the power out now. I should definatly hope we have 'perfected' efficient fusion reactors alot sooner than 1000 years.

 

Simply not true. It takes a very long time to build a nuclear power plant in the U. S.

It is much, much quicker and cheaper to meet demand through conservation, micropower (fuel cells, etc.), and wind power and other renewables.

Check this out: http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E05-04_MicropowerDatabase

 

I've been reading a lot of the back-and-forth in this thread and decided to weigh-in. I used to work at two Department of Energy facilities (Savannah River Lab/Plant in Aiken, SC and the Rocky Flats site south of Boulder, CO (now decommissioned and all buildings have been removed)). SRL/SRP was a Plutonium production and purification facility; RFP was largely a machining operation. During my time at SRL/SRP there was production occurring. At Rocky Flats the site was in a clean-up/compliance mode.

While I'm supportive of nuclear energy, one cannot minimize the concerns about waste disposal. There are planned disposal sites, but few are operational; most of the waste is stored in repositories awaiting decisions on how best to deal with them. Yucca Mountain in Nevada is non-operational http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ . The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico http://www.wipp.energy.gov/ was designed as a test facility and never intended to be the final resting place for the large volumes of nuclear waste generated. Even so, its intent was for highly radioactive, transuranic (TRU) wastes, not commercial wastes. There's Envirocare in Utah, but that's designated for Low-level (non-fissile) materials. In any event, the disposal technologies are largely "best guesses" based on short-term testing and our current knowledge of physical phenomena. SRL/SRP has a vitrification unit that glassifies the waste. Polymer encapsulation may be an option for low level wastes, but is subject to radioactive decomposition with the accompanied release of hydrogen gas. Cementation is a consideration but cement can/will decay over time. For those reasons facilities such as WIPP are attractive because the materials can be buried in dry salt deposits that will naturally collapse and entomb the materials. Nonetheless, the safety of such disposal is dependent on other factors such as existing/moving groundwater and seismic activity. Short-term studies may indicate a disposal location is safe, but what's really required is a credible forecast into the future. Fissile Uranium (U-235) has a half-life of ~700-million years. That's not to say that all will be safe in 700-million years, rather that's the time required for half of the U-235 to decay; the remainder would still be in its fissile state. Weapons-grade Plutonium (Pu-239) has a half-life of ~24,000 years. Besides these two examples, there are other fissile isotopes, but these are perhaps the most prevalent.

I believe there's tremendous potential with nuclear energy, but it's important not to minimize the disposal issues and risks. Nuclear power generation is more common in Europe than the U.S. which isn't to say that they've got the disposal issues resolved either. Rather the Europeans have deemed that nuclear power is an economically attractive, long-term energy option. In the U.S. there's considerable opposition because of the disposal issues and also the misconception that a power plant is an atomic bomb waiting to detonate. There's also a misconception that electricity from nuclear power plants is radioactive and will contaminate any home using it. That's completely untrue - electrons (the particles carried through power lines whether it's from a coal-fired plant, nuclear plant, natural gas plant, or a flashlight battery)) are electrons and there's no such thing as a "fissile radioactive electron." In my opinion safe nuclear power plants can be built, but they require proper construction, not cost-saving shortcuts. One example was the mismanagement of the construction of the Marble Hill nuclear power plant in Kentucky in the 1970's. One of the big factors leading to its demise was the discovery of holes (voids) in the concrete used in the construction. The use of low-cost, accelerated construction techniques lead to real operational safety concerns.

 

Thanks for the excellent summary of the current state of affairs from someone who really knows.

 

Nuclear power is too dangerous for use on our planet, as an accident will involve many life forms for a long period of time. I could see NP plants being built on the moon, and the energy being transferred back to earth via lasers.
I think NP in the Western world is more about corporate profits rather than providing a safe source of energy. They become the major contractor of the site, and reap huge monetary rewards. Where as in alternate forms of energy such as wind, solar, hydrothermal, and ethanol - many contractors share the profits.

 

And if their aim is off by half a degree one day, I'm sure nobody will mind if they vaporize a city and everyone in it.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France

 

Exactly. This is basically the same reason that orbiting photovoltaic stations were rejected long ago.

 

wow i live less than 25 miles away from a nuclear power plant. I am all for getting rid of this technology,but the bottom line always is ok we get rid of nuclear fired power plants
how do we make up for the power this technology? last time i checked in on french technology they used nuclear for close to 90% of their power needs. Maybe prof Hawkins
can get us out of this jam??

 

Or we could just run a 250,000 mile high voltage power line to the moon, LOL :rofl:

Seriously, it comes down to a risk/benefit analysis. Contrary to popular opinion, nuclear power plants are not bombs waiting to detonate. Three Mile Island did its thing and the rest of the country is still intact; hopefully we learned something about technology and safeguards as a result. Fossil fuels will eventually be depleted. Wind power and solar power are good supplemental options but aren't yet at the point they can supply the huge energy demands of the world. It may be a long time if ever before we reach that point. That leaves nuclear energy as the power source capable of producing the quantities of energy we demand. While many people are outspoken against nuclear power, many still want all the conveniences of modern technology. God forbid we wake up tomorrow and out electric toothbrushes don't work. For that matter, without power the Hip Forums would grind to a halt and this one repository of all great wisdom would be lost - gone the way of the Ancient Library of Alexandria!

 

...without producing greenhouse gasses.

 

I disagree that this comes down to a cost-benefit analysis. The trouble with that is that costs that occur far in the future are greatly discounted and do not much affect the decision for today. In other words, let's say the U. S. Government somehow manages to keep radioactive wastes out of the biosphere for, say, 400 years, but then there is a catastrophic accidental release that greatly increases cancer rates for hundreds of thousands of people. A cost-benefit analysis will discount this terrible tragedy by applying the time-value-of-money formula, so that it will hardly affect the decision.

There is a moral issue here involving our responsibility for the Earth and future generations that a cost-benefit analysis does not properly consider.

 

I agree with your point, but we also need to look at what technology is currently available to produce energy. If all the fossil fuels went away in five years, we have no other alternatives but nuclear power. There are disposal issues as you point out. Personally, I believe those can be addressed, but we're not there yet. We need to keep hammering on the disposal issue until it's resolved. For now I believe nuclear power is the only option.