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Would You Tolerate Nuclear Power For Energy Independence?

Are You Interested In More Nuclear Power?

  • Total voters
    101
There are other environmental factors people never mention.

Nukes need HUGE amounts of FRESH water. Massive amounts. There is a row of HUGE wells just for the one Nuke that sucks off massive amounts of ground water. This is bleeding off water from the aquafer, which then affects water for cities - that then use ground water. The amount of water being pulled - despite how wet this area is - is that the salinity of fresh water is increasingly becoming brackish - radically harming the estuaries.
 
joko104 said:
There are other environmental factors people never mention.

Nukes need HUGE amounts of FRESH water. Massive amounts. There is a row of HUGE wells just for the one Nuke that sucks off massive amounts of ground water. This is bleeding off water from the aquafer, which then affects water for cities - that then use ground water. The amount of water being pulled - despite how wet this area is - is that the salinity of fresh water is increasingly becoming brackish - radically harming the estuaries.
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A big river is enough to cool the plant. Or, plants can be build close to big cities, so they can utilize that energy instead of wasting it. Then they can provide hot water for a whole city, annually. I don't say central heating because it only last for half of the time. Domestic hot water is used at all times.
 
Canell said:
I stand for cold fusion. Otherwise, no. :)
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we haven't managed hot fusion yet, and it exists in nature, in the sun...
where does cold fusion exist?
 
joko104 said:
There are other environmental factors people never mention.

Nukes need HUGE amounts of FRESH water. Massive amounts. There is a row of HUGE wells just for the one Nuke that sucks off massive amounts of ground water. This is bleeding off water from the aquafer, which then affects water for cities - that then use ground water. The amount of water being pulled - despite how wet this area is - is that the salinity of fresh water is increasingly becoming brackish - radically harming the estuaries.
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Almost all nukes are built near rivers, oceans, big lakes....the one that does not uses very little well water, it gets its cooling water from the cities in and around Phoenix, in the form of partially treated sewer effluent. It is piped to the plant (3 units) where it is further treated to make it cleaner and viable for use in cooling towers. The treatment plant is situated near the nuke plant, but downwind if winds are in the normal direction. When the wind shifts, you know immediately...
 
roguenuke said:
Basically "incentives as encouragement". There could be some effort to change new building regulations to include energy efficiency, but most should be encouraged, not regulated.
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Google Architecture 2030 and Better Buildings Initiative, these plans have all kinds of incentives that are NOT from government, the best one is to give preferred interest rates based on how green you build. Edward Mazria is the man behind this, he wrote the best book I have found on the topic of passive solar design and construction. My retirement home has a lot of glass on the south side, the sunlight comes in and warms a lot of tile and granite in the kitchen/dining area. I like to stand in the window on a sunny winter day and feel the warmth while I watch my working neighbors shovel snow.

There was a time that air pollution was due mostly to tailpipe emission, but congress mandated cleaner engines and the auto industry stepped up and in less than a decade we had the computer controlled fuel injected engines that now are putting out more power/torque and better fuel efficiency, and of course, a mere fraction of the air pollution. One thing, tho, that should be an embarrassment to the auto makers, is that MOST of the initial fuel efficiency gains were gained by OLD TECH, the overdrive transmission.
Now, thanks to most of our electricity coming from coal, it is our buildings that are the biggest source of air pollution.

I am in favor of more nukes. If I was in better health, I could get a nice high paying job as a contractor during construction phase, as an Instrument Tech and Metrology Tech. But the Parkinson's has vetoed that. If you saw my unedited typing, you would know what I mean.
 
Canell said:
A big river is enough to cool the plant. Or, plants can be build close to big cities, so they can utilize that energy instead of wasting it. Then they can provide hot water for a whole city, annually. I don't say central heating because it only last for half of the time. Domestic hot water is used at all times.
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DHW can be done far better on site with a solar water heater system. But there are some commercial/industrial uses of that wasted heat, in Europe IIRC. Domestic home heating needs could be further reduced by using passive solar building techniques. IOW, build green to start with, so that you need less gas and electricity.
 
joko104 said:
There are other environmental factors people never mention.

Nukes need HUGE amounts of FRESH water. Massive amounts. There is a row of HUGE wells just for the one Nuke that sucks off massive amounts of ground water. This is bleeding off water from the aquafer, which then affects water for cities - that then use ground water. The amount of water being pulled - despite how wet this area is - is that the salinity of fresh water is increasingly becoming brackish - radically harming the estuaries.
Click to expand...
Coal plants have the same issue, the massive amounts of water needed is for the cooling towers, so any plant that uses steam turbines will need cooling water. Even combined cycle gas turbines have cooling towers.
 
Pinkie said:
We humans cracked the atom sometime in the early 1940's; built the first nuclear power plant anywhere on the planet in 1954 in the USSR. The US currently has 104 nuclear power plants.

Nuclear Energy Institute - U.S. Nuclear Power Plants

I can't believe I'm asking this, but I am. I'd rather have another one in my county than to have fraking for natural gas going on, or coal mining, or that benighted Keystone Pipeline.

What say you? Could we achieve energy independence via building more nuclear power plants, and if so, would you be willing to do so?
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When we think of energy independence, most think of middle east oil as our only import, but we get natural gas and oil from Canada and Mexico.
Almost all of our imported natural gas is from Canada. We also get uranium from Canada.
And, we get a lot of electricity from Canada, our grids are interconnected.

Canada–U.S. energy relations
 
UtahBill said:
we haven't managed hot fusion yet, and it exists in nature, in the sun...
where does cold fusion exist?
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It exists in Wikipedia. :)

UtahBill said:
DHW can be done far better on site with a solar water heater system.
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Yeah, but you can't supply a skyscraper with a solar heater, you need something more powerful.

UtahBill said:
IOW, build green to start with, so that you need less gas and electricity.
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That's good but we can't just throw our existing infrastructure away, that wouldn't be so green.
 
I grew up in the shadow of a nuclear plant. My father worked security at the plant for a number of years when I was young. I now work in the electric utility industry, though on the Distribution side, not Generation or Transmission. I have absolutely no problem with nuclear energy.
 
I'm all for nuke energy, use it for the next 50 years as renewable energy tech progresses, then when it's at the stage it out does nuclear, switch to it.
 
Goshin said:
They are building another nuke plant within 20 miles of where I sit, along with the existing three-within-100-miles I already have.


I'm fine with that. Bring it on.
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Get hold of a KiCKs study conducted by Germany

The incidence of cancer in children living near nuclear power plants is higher than the normal levels

Nuclear power plants routinely release tritium, zenon and krypton etc into the environment

The French also conducted similar studies and found the same effects

In Fukushima post meltdown about 57,000 children were tested and about 42% had abnormal Thyroid glands (the normal Thyroid abnormality rate in children is less than 1%(

Fukushima still melting down and releasing radionuclide

Nuclear power and its waste is the most insane human activity in history

And lets not mention nuclear weapons which is the main reason nuclear power plants are built (ie to get Plutonium which is a by product of nuclear fissioning of Uranium)
 
spud_meister said:
I'm all for nuke energy, use it for the next 50 years as renewable energy tech progresses, then when it's at the stage it out does nuclear, switch to it.
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What are you talign about?

Nuclear power is the most expensive, dangerous and dirtiest method of producing electricity

As of 2010, solar THERMAL power is cheaper than nuclear, and is a base load 24/7 method of eletricity production (they store heat in molten salts which is then released at night to keep the turbines running)

And about all, there is no safe method to dispose and store the nuclear waste.

Germany is currently 20% renewable and expects to be 50% renewable by 2020. They are abandoning their nuclear power plants.

US reactors are old - and exposed to all sorts of threats

Fukushima and Chernobyl are grave site reminders - pay attention
 
Klown said:
What are you talign about?

Nuclear power is the most expensive, dangerous and dirtiest method of producing electricity
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The largest nuclear power plant in the world cost 7.8 billion dollars to build, and has an output of 7,200 MW, the largest wind farm cost 17.5 billion, and has an output of 5,100 MW, the largest solar plant cost 280 million, and produces 214 MW. Hundreds of thousands of people have died in coal mining accidents, and coal mining, and the burning of coal produced far more pollutants than uranium mining.
Fukushima and Chernobyl are grave site reminders - pay attention
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One was 70's Soviet technology, with the accident caused by under-trained communists, the other was a 30 year old plant hit by one of the largest recorded earthquakes and a huge tsunami.
 
spud_meister said:
The largest nuclear power plant in the world cost 7.8 billion dollars to build, and has an output of 7,200 MW, the largest wind farm cost 17.5 billion, and has an output of 5,100 MW, the largest solar plant cost 280 million, and produces 214 MW. Hundreds of thousands of people have died in coal mining accidents, and coal mining, and the burning of coal produced far more pollutants than uranium mining.


One was 70's Soviet technology, with the accident caused by under-trained communists, the other was a 30 year old plant hit by one of the largest recorded earthquakes and a huge tsunami.
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You can't insure nuclear power plants for public liability do you understand why?

If you carry out a full life cycle analysis of uranium ore to waste disposal, nuclear energy is extremely carbon polluting

Have you worked why the private sector has not built a single nuclear power plant anywhere in the world.

Fukushima Daichi in Japan is expected to incur a cost of half a trillion dollars to clean up in the next 40 years

Not that the costs will end at that time. Waste disposal responsibility is expected to be in the time scale of hundreds of thousands of years. Wonder what the costs will mount to by then?

TEPCO was the largest energy corporation in Asia and among the top few in the world but is now national send by the Japan government and technically insolvent and bankrupt.

Looks like your costs to build and run a nuclear power are a little conservative don't you think?
 
When I think of a Nuke plant, I immediately fear it will be a terrorist target, especially if it is near a city.

I personally would not want to live near a Nuke plant, only for that reason; I believe our safety measures are more than satisfactory presently.

I do not believe we should be spending the time or energy building Nuclear plants. I would rather continue on the path we are on now, using natural resources (I live in Frack-country, I'm a nature lover and I fully understand the costs to this suggestion, but the risk/reward ratio deems it the best option IMO) until technology let's us take advantage of renewable energy - we're well on our way there, I believe. It should be within a decade that the technology is here, then it's a matter of implementation.

I do not want to increase our risk for a short-term solution that will be outdated before my kids go to college.
 
Klown said:
You can't insure nuclear power plants for public liability do you understand why?

If you carry out a full life cycle analysis of uranium ore to waste disposal, nuclear energy is extremely carbon polluting

Have you worked why the private sector has not built a single nuclear power plant anywhere in the world.

Fukushima Daichi in Japan is expected to incur a cost of half a trillion dollars to clean up in the next 40 years

Not that the costs will end at that time. Waste disposal responsibility is expected to be in the time scale of hundreds of thousands of years. Wonder what the costs will mount to by then?

TEPCO was the largest energy corporation in Asia and among the top few in the world but is now national send by the Japan government and technically insolvent and bankrupt.

Looks like your costs to build and run a nuclear power are a little conservative don't you think?
Click to expand...

Because people start to panic at the mere mention of nuclear without even thoroughly understanding the facts. People look at the Fukushima disaster which involved extraordinary circumstances that NOBODY ever imagined possible, and worry as though such things would happen every day. One hundred thousand or more die as a result of coal plant use every year, and yet people look at nuclear power where maybe 20 have died in it's entire history (I'm going off the top of my head and not checking this). If people insist on panicking about something, panic about coal. Coal has a proven and verifiable record as killer and environmental destroyer, yet insurance for it isn't so hard at all. So insurance companies look at what people panic over in regards to their rates, not hard realities. They are not an accurate measure of what's safe and what is not.
 
As for the OP, the Keystone pipeline is not just related to electricity and we should have it. As for the nuclear reactors, I'm fine with it, though I would rather they be smaller and more plentiful so the failures will not be as catastrophic if they do happen. The Navy has been using them to power their floating cities of 5,000 safely with people living literally on top of the reactor. I do not see why we couldn't have the same.
 
Tigger said:
I grew up in the shadow of a nuclear plant. My father worked security at the plant for a number of years when I was young. I now work in the electric utility industry, though on the Distribution side, not Generation or Transmission. I have absolutely no problem with nuclear energy.
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Is your father still alive?
 
Nuclear power is NOT a renewable and is outrageously expensive. If asked what is THE most expensive facility to built, what takes THE longest to build, what is THE most expensive to operate, and which one can potentially render an entire region uninhabitable for 10,000 years - and the answer to all is nuclear power.
 
joko104 said:
Nuclear power is NOT a renewable and is outrageously expensive. If asked what is THE most expensive facility to built, what takes THE longest to build, what is THE most expensive to operate, and which one can potentially render an entire region uninhabitable for 10,000 years - and the answer to all is nuclear power.
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There is still life around Chernobyl :) the expense and time has to do with safety regulations from 40 years ago. I imagine we could build them cheaper and faster and safely today. If not, we could just hire the French to do it for us.
 
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