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replacing coal power plants with nuclear power plants

i'm hoping that thorium tech is something that can be developed.

that being said, i'm for significantly increasing our electrical grid publicly.
 
Helix said:
i'm hoping that thorium tech is something that can be developed.

that being said, i'm for significantly increasing our electrical grid publicly.
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down the road, it might be.....but you don't get abandon a known good reliable source of energy without good reason.
Besides, we don't have much of an electricity problem in the USA, our primary energy problem is having to buy oil from people who hate us....
Fuel for transportation is our major problem....
 
UtahBill said:
down the road, it might be.....but you don't get abandon a known good reliable source of energy without good reason.
Besides, we don't have much of an electricity problem in the USA, our primary energy problem is having to buy oil from people who hate us....
Fuel for transportation is our major problem....
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i agree. that's part of the reason i am for expanding our electrical grid. electricity is the one of the transitional technologies in our arsenal. unfortunately, our grid cannot support it because we have not constructed enough new electrical infrastructure.
 
UtahBill said:
nothing is free, nothing....
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I know it is not free. Either way I think making all technology required to be more and more energy efficient (a progressing standard) would be a good idea and making the Compact fluorescent light bulbs and LED's cheaper.
 
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sawyerloggingon said:
Changing from fossil fuel to nuke in a C02 panic is jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, just my opinion.
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it isn't just co2, the millions of tons of waste products coal causes is pretty much ignored by everyone...
 
UtahBill said:
it isn't just co2, the millions of tons of waste products coal causes is pretty much ignored by everyone...
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What should we do about the volcano that erupt hundreds of times every year? For example:

United States Geological Survey said:
For example, the large explosive eruption of Mount Pinatubo on 15 June 1991 expelled 3-5 km3 of dacite magma and injected about 20 million metric tons of SO2 into the stratosphere. The sulfur aerosols resulted in a 0.5-0.6°C cooling of the Earth's surface in the Northern Hemisphere. The sulfate aerosols also accelerated chemical reactions that, together with the increased stratospheric chlorine levels from human-made chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) pollution, destroyed ozone and led to some of the lowest ozone levels ever observed in the atmosphere.
Volcanic Gases and Their Effects
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Here are some amazing 2011 eruptions that spewed millions if not billions of tons of Sulfur dioxide, Co2, harmful particulates etc... through our entire atmosphere.
The Year in Volcanic Activity - Alan Taylor - In Focus - The Atlantic

Point: It's ignored by everyone because the earth has been spewing waste products into the atmosphere since day 1 and survived. Huh. Amazing....
 
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Ockham said:
What should we do about the volcano that erupt hundreds of times every year? For example:



Point: It's ignored by everyone because the earth has been spewing waste products into the atmosphere since day 1 and survived. Huh. Amazing....
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we don't have the ability to control volcanoes, or stop them from existing/polluting, but we CAN switch from coal to nuclear...we can conserve, use our existing fuels more efficiently, and sparingly....
 
There's only enough coal to last a few hundred years. Might as well burn it up, by that time we'll have those solar jet-packs and we won't need it anyway.
 
UtahBill said:
we don't have the ability to control volcanoes, or stop them from existing/polluting, but we CAN switch from coal to nuclear...we can conserve, use our existing fuels more efficiently, and sparingly....
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I agree we can conserve. My previous post was simply addressing why coal waste products are ignored.
 
Ockham said:
I agree we can conserve. My previous post was simply addressing why coal waste products are ignored.
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they shouldn't be ignored, but the media knows that fear of the unknown sells better...
 
ecofarm said:
There's only enough coal to last a few hundred years. Might as well burn it up, by that time we'll have those solar jet-packs and we won't need it anyway.
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solar jet packs? what you been growing over there? stop smoking it, whatever it is...:shock:
 
Ockham said:
What should we do about the volcano that erupt hundreds of times every year? For example:



Here are some amazing 2011 eruptions that spewed millions if not billions of tons of Sulfur dioxide, Co2, harmful particulates etc... through our entire atmosphere.
The Year in Volcanic Activity - Alan Taylor - In Focus - The Atlantic

Point: It's ignored by everyone because the earth has been spewing waste products into the atmosphere since day 1 and survived. Huh. Amazing....
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theoretically you could use geoengineering to deal with volcanoes and genetically engineered algae.
 
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In the three or four years previous to Obama permits for construction for nuke plants were on the rise. They have slowed to a crawl since Obama took over. We really don't have a solid energy policy. We need to commit and let investors know in what they should invest their money. I vote for a more agressive nuke policy. I see no reason why we cannot produce at least at a third of our power through nuclear energy. We need to be realistic. We are a big and still growing country. We need large scale energy production. We can still invest in alternative energy too.
 
jambalaya said:
In the three or four years previous to Obama permits for construction for nuke plants were on the rise. They have slowed to a crawl since Obama took over. We really don't have a solid energy policy. We need to commit and let investors know in what they should invest their money. I vote for a more agressive nuke policy. I see no reason why we cannot produce at least at a third of our power through nuclear energy. We need to be realistic. We are a big and still growing country. We need large scale energy production. We can still invest in alternative energy too.
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Obama had nothing to do with it....if you want to bash Obama, start a thread in the appropriate place...
we haven't had an energy policy since the Carter days. He tried, but Ronald Raygun killed it.
We do not have a shortage of electrical energy, and if we made reasonable attempts to use what we have more efficiently we could shut down the worst of the dirt burners, instead of building more of them, or nukes for that matter.
 
matsuiny2004 said:
Why are there no politicians attempting to replace coal with nuclear power. Coal miners and workers can be retrained and coal plant owners can just become nuclear plant owners. I think this should be done with tax breaks. This would cut a good amount of carbon.
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Whatever source of energy is the most cost effective and the least dependent on foreign markets is the only logical option.

If Big Brother will get off the back of the profit motivated private sector, they will invest their own money in this endeavor, which will also create jobs and affordable energy.

Carbon schmarbon!__If you people continue this fanatical devotion to a fictitious carbon scam, millions of people will soon be unable to afford to heat their homes or drive their cars.
 
matsuiny2004 said:
Why are there no politicians attempting to replace coal with nuclear power. Coal miners and workers can be retrained and coal plant owners can just become nuclear plant owners. I think this should be done with tax breaks. This would cut a good amount of carbon.
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What are the long term effects of a worst case scenario of a coal power plant verses a worst case scenario of a nuclear power plant? I never heard of a coal power plant explosion causing a city to be uninhabitable for 180-320 years
 
jamesrage said:
What are the long term effects of a worst case scenario of a coal power plant verses a worst case scenario of a nuclear power plant? I never heard of a coal power plant explosion causing a city to be uninhabitable for 180-320 years
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hasn't happened at a nuke plant here in the USA either....can't count Chernobyl, no containment was an invitation to disaster....
so we have the Japanese fiasco, and they KNEW it was possible....
However, your worst case scenario for a nuke is for an unlikely incidence, while the worst case for coal is that operates normally, without incidence, and poisons our air every day for its lifespan, killing us slowly....and on occasion, many of us quickly.. Inversion layer, coal stack gases, death....
 
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UtahBill said:
hasn't happened at a nuke plant here in the USA either....can't count Chernobyl, no containment was an invitation to disaster....
so we have the Japanese fiasco, and they KNEW it was possible....
However, your worst case scenario for a nuke is for an unlikely incidence, while the worst case for coal is that operates normally, without incidence, and poisons our air every day for its lifespan, killing us slowly....and on occasion, many of us quickly.. Inversion layer, coal stack gases, death....
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How many deaths are directly contributed to coal plants exactly? Let's just say in the last year... 2010?
 
Ockham said:
How many deaths are directly contributed to coal plants exactly? Let's just say in the last year... 2010?
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This site says 30,000 per year. That's probably only the US.
STUDY SAYS COAL PLANT POLLUTION KILLS 30,000 A YEAR

This site says 170,000 per worldwide
POLLUTION DEATHS FROM FOSSIL FUEL-BASED POWER PLANTS - Yarra Valley Climate Action Group

This site says for every one death by nuclear, 4,000 die by coal
Death Rate From Nuclear Power Vs Coal? This May Surprise You
Seth Godin recently posted this simplified chart, from an altogether more complicated one. He maintains that this is a simple yet non-exaggerated version of the complicated one. The point is that for each person killed by nuclear power generation, 4,000 die from coal. This is adjusted for how much power is produced by each method of power generation.
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EagleAye said:
This site says 30,000 per year. That's probably only the US.
STUDY SAYS COAL PLANT POLLUTION KILLS 30,000 A YEAR

This site says 170,000 per worldwide
POLLUTION DEATHS FROM FOSSIL FUEL-BASED POWER PLANTS - Yarra Valley Climate Action Group

This site says for every one death by nuclear, 4,000 die by coal
Death Rate From Nuclear Power Vs Coal? This May Surprise You
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a while back, maybe 12 years or so, there was a steam pipe rupture at the 4 corners COAL plant, killed some operators....
the Phoenix paper reported it as deaths at a Nuclear facility....guess since Arizona Public Service was operator and part owner of that plant and the Palo Verde Nuclear Generation Statin west of Phoenix, the writer assumed that all the plants are nuclear...

Form coal mining to disposal of ash, from uranium mining to storage of spent fuel, the cycles are in no way similar when it comes to loss of human life.
Coal kills thousands, Nuclear kills few...
 
UtahBill said:
a while back, maybe 12 years or so, there was a steam pipe rupture at the 4 corners COAL plant, killed some operators....
the Phoenix paper reported it as deaths at a Nuclear facility....guess since Arizona Public Service was operator and part owner of that plant and the Palo Verde Nuclear Generation Statin west of Phoenix, the writer assumed that all the plants are nuclear...

Form coal mining to disposal of ash, from uranium mining to storage of spent fuel, the cycles are in no way similar when it comes to loss of human life.
Coal kills thousands, Nuclear kills few...
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Yup. Also, people arguing against nuclear always mention disposing of waste. The process of just getting coal is orders of magnitude more damaging to the environment than nuclear waste disposal (although I don't recommend dumping it anywhere in the ocean).
 
EagleAye said:
This site says 30,000 per year. That's probably only the US.
STUDY SAYS COAL PLANT POLLUTION KILLS 30,000 A YEAR

This site says 170,000 per worldwide
POLLUTION DEATHS FROM FOSSIL FUEL-BASED POWER PLANTS - Yarra Valley Climate Action Group

This site says for every one death by nuclear, 4,000 die by coal
Death Rate From Nuclear Power Vs Coal? This May Surprise You
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Ya know - I certainly know people who have died in car accidents. In fact, last year about 32,000 people died in car accidents. I don't know anyone who's died from coal. So the 30,000 number while wildly entertaining, is probably made up of all sorts of assumptions that have no place in reality. And really --- eco-mail, greenshopping? I sorta figure the numbers might be a bit inflated. Worldwide, I have no clue... that may or may not be correct However, clean coal and the particulate washing didn't seem to enter into the study posted. Here's something 11 years more recent -

Switching from coal to natural gas would do little for global climate, study indicates


Give me a little while and I'm sure I'll find a study that shows conclusively, posting on political forums contributes to cancer which kills more than 30,000 a year... :lamo
 
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