Lachean

What is wrong with reducing our hydrocarbon consumption by using more fissionable materials for our power source?

What is wrong with Yukka Mountain as a waste storage location?

I would like someone to please explain to me the purpose of legislation banning the creation (or replacement) of newer, safer and more efficient Nuclear power plants in our country?

Would any nuclear power prohibitionists please explain to me why Nuclear power cannot be considered as an alternative energy?

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"Men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality. " - Ayn Rand

tecoyah

As someone slightly opposed to Nuke Power, I will explain my own reasoning:

Any new plant will take on the order of 10 yrs to build...by which point it will (hopefully) be unneeded as other energy sources take the forefront.

I fear the Idea of creating a waste product that will take thousands of years to degrade enough for anything to even consider getting near it.

Each plant would cost far too much to develop, operate, and clean up after.

Though the chances are extremely slim, contamination from a failure would be catastrophic.

Funding for R&D is better spent (in my opinion) on energy sources that do not require the use of another limited and non-renewable resource.



I see the use of this technology as a stopgap measure at best, and if it were capable of expedient and cost effective implementation...I would not be against it, as it would certainly be better than Oil.

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Self-Banned

rathi

I'm not against nuclear power, I simply think that emerging solar technology is better. Nuclear is expensive and requires complicated safety systems and extra security. Its a better alternative than oil or coal by a wide margin, but they take a while to build and better alternatives could be implemented in the same period.

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obvious Child

The thing is, cheap pebble bed reactors can be built quickly and without a large amount of expertise. Of course the yields on those are pretty small around 300 MW (not much) but they are cheap and much safer then the kind that normally come to mind.

Then you'll be happy to know that in theory, thorium quick reactors should be capable of 'eating' waste and turning into fuel and non-radioactive materials. India happened upon this during their research as a failed way of breeding uranium for their illegal weapons program.

Depends what kind of plant we're talking about.

Again, depends on what kind of reactor we're talking about. In theory pebble beds cannot melt down.

John1234

I am not opposed to creating more nuclear power plants.
In fact I favor it.

But... they still scare me.
I always wonder how many mistakes have occurred that we do not know about.

A few months ago we had a nuclear power plant "incident" here in Florida.
Millions were without power all afternoon.
They never gave us a real description of the problem.
They only said something along the lines that "there was never a problem because safety mechanisms kicked in as intended".

Sort of makes me want to know "why" the "safety system" was needed.

independent_thinker2002

I'm not against nuclear power. But they did sell it originally are "virtually free". Living in Illinois, I can tell you that isn't true.

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mikhail

Nuclear power seems one of the more promising forms of alternative energy.

When you read about what actually took place in chernobyl the mistakes made where quite unbelievable i cant see it happening again in a well developed country and proper regulations.

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obvious Child

Plus the design of the chernobyl reactor has serious, serious flaws, couple that with the idiocy of the experiment going on, it's hard to see that actually happening again.

Mach

As tecoyah points out:

- It's got a bad marketing appeal - radiation = bad
- It does have waste/catastrophe considerations (even if they are technically smaller issues on average when compared to current technologies)
- It seems like a compromise solution when we dream of more natural/renewable alternatives (which may or may not be practical.

Accepting nuclear full-throttle may reduce the drive for the more ideal solution. It's very hard and costly for a society to displace a firmy entrenched energy infrastrcture, building them up should proceed with great care.

I have nothing really against nuclear power, I'm just noting what I think answers your question.

-Mach

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Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is an illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and I am content.- Conan

Platanium

Nuclear waste creates mutants = The X-Men comics come true.

I mean is there a more obvious answer here?

But, seriously, there are other power sources that don't involve all of the problems that Nuclear power does, why not invest in them?