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Merged nuclear power safe?

BenBurch said:
New designs such as we will be building in the next couple decades would be safe even in a tsunami zone.
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You're quite the optimist Ben. Unless by "we" you mean "everyone but the US".
 
BenBurch said:
We're going to do it if we want to keep the lights on.
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I think the lights have to go off before our current crop of legislators (and POTUS) decide to finally do something about it. I'm cynical. ;)
 
Java Man said:
I think you've nailed it. Nuclear power isn't safe or unsafe by itself. It's when you bring the CEOs and businessmen on the table that it becomes inherently unsafe.
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False.

The worst nuclear accidents in history occurred in countries that did not have capitalist economies.

Three Mile Island, the site of the worst nuclear accident in the west, has had its liscense extended to 2034.

We'll keep the CEOs and businessmen since they have the best and safest track record.

Even if this were not the case, it would have nothing to do with nuclear energy. CEOs and businessmen build everything from reactors to stoves, shower heads and food processors.

Java Man said:
If we can build reactor cores who's cycle doesn't produce positive feedback and cause a core meltdown in case of cooling failure. Why haven't we replaced the old designs with the new? Because it costs money.
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No.

We don't do that because the powerplant is rated for 40+ years. You don't knock over a perfectly safe and functional nuclear reactor five years after construction because someone has just designed a better one.

You don't throw out a brand new car when you find that next years model has a better safety rating, do you?

Java Man said:
So we are basically gambling here. Betting that the old design will hold true until the end of life of the plant. Guess what, seems like the Japanese are losing the gamble this time.
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No, they didn't. A 9.0 earthquake came along and destroyed everything. The Fukushima reactors have performed spectacularly in the midst of this disaster. Of all the buildings and industrial facilities that have been severely damaged in this disaster, the Fukushima plant is one of the few tht hasn't killed anybody. The Japanese people haven't lost any gambles with reactors designs that they didn't lose a thousand times worse on almost any other major structure. Fixating on a nuclear plant in the midst of everything else that's happened is absurd.
 
BenBurch said:
They are the ones proposing we build new plants. The previous administration approved like three total plants.
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Call us when shovels hit dirt.

For BOTH political parties. They both have been dragging their asses too much on this.
 
bikerdruid said:
nuclear power safe?

apparently not.:(
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STUPID thing to say.

Nothing is safe.

A coal burning power plant murders several people every year on average from mining accidents, transportation accidents, toxic mine tailings, broken sludge dams, pollution in the form of Mercury and RADIOACTIVE emissions of Uranium, Radium and Thorium that people downwind breathe.

The worst we COULD have happen here will never rise to that level.
 
Total number of civilians killed by this nuclear incident: 0

And I'm reading that the elevated radiation levels went down after the explosion indicating they may have just been picking up elevated levels from other industries put into the air by the earthquake/tsunami.
 
Travis said:
Total number of civilians killed by this nuclear incident: 0

And I'm reading that the elevated radiation levels went down after the explosion indicating they may have just been picking up elevated levels from other industries put into the air by the earthquake/tsunami.
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Yes, somebody told me there was a plant not too far away that processed Thorium for catalysts. I'll try to find that information.
 
Thunder said:
nuclear power is very safe....until there is a massive earthquake and/or massive power failure that even kills its fail-safe systems.

then...nuclear power is the most dangerous kind.
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Hum.

No.

Firstly:
The spillage and leakage of all those hydrocarbure in the enviornment, will be more damaging than what happens at those 2 reactors. *EVEN* if they have a meltdown. (and nobody is calling for gasoline to be banned).

Secondly :
In the case of the 2 japanese plant we are not even going as far as catastrophic meltdown. To give you an idea, Chernobyl (which is by the way NOT even a likely scenario here, and was a recipe book for egregerious error) had an estimated 4000 death all calculated (adn that is estimated , there was if I recll correctly less than 100 due to direct exposure, and mostly firefighter) , with increase of cancer etc... And they had a bloody stupid design with graphite and water moderator. The two japanese plant are not that bad in engineering, and now 30 years later the engineering is even better.

Compare that to the number of coal death (in the US, or even world wide), and comapre that to the number of people killed in the Tsunami.

Nuclear power is not the most dangerous in day to day. It can with a bad design be unhealthy, but it stil beat down all freaking fuel-based energy generation method in number of death per year in average.

The problem is that nuclear power is a boo-man, people quake in their hose when they hear "nuclear" fears take over and rationality out of the window.

rationaly nuclear power is safer than the rest.

Your attitude is best reflect by a psot I saw on slashdot. Paraphrased :
Some roman guy in antiquity make up a wood bridge by falling a tree over a river. Not very good as a bridge, round, people fall down. Then he makes improvement, cut the top half to make it flat, had a cord left and right as a railguard. But people seeing the GEN 1 bridge , call for banning of that "newflangled and devilish" bridge technolgy as it is dangerous. Worst the gen 1 round bridge start rotting and become dangerous so people point finger at them and say they are inherently unsafe. By the time the engineer come up with the stone arched bridge, despite being very very safe in comparison to a simple tree felled opver a river, it is too late, when people hear the word "bridge" they are running in circle like chicken little and screaming on top of their lung "the end is neigh". And at the same time since people STILL need to cross river, they swimm across and drown in mass. But hey, at least they are not dying falling off a bridge.

Nuclear is much safer than many other industry. Especially modern plants.

I live not far away from the Biblis plants in germany, and I am sick and tired of chicken-little and their fear of bridge nuclear. Make new plant, replace the old one, and stop calling for a betetr energy "politic" when there is no repalcement WHATSOEVER for baseload for nuclear except Gas, Oil and coal.
 
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bikerdruid said:
nuclear power safe? 50 year old nuclear power stations that don't have the most recent safety features in a seismically active country that was also hit by an enormous tsunami safe?

apparently not.:(Apparently, it kind of is.
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I made your quote significantly more accurate BD.
 
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