Re: Our (environmental) president's miscalculations continue..... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! As the political problems continue and the scarcity of oil increases and that oil which is currently being pumped and shipped to America is bankrupting us. (projected at $50/$75 barrel by 2020), along comes prez DIM BULB and turns to the nuclear industry to make up the energy deficit. Problem is that George W. Bush couldn't give a care for the safety of the American people in the hands of the nuclear industry as long as there are profits to be made by corporate America.... Read & Learn: http://inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=678_0_2_0_C Whirlwind.... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Real environmentalists love nuclear energy. Also, that editorial is a festering shitpile of yellow journalism.
Real environmentalists love nuclear energy. But do they love the thousands of fuel rods left over, and with no where to go?
That's right, Stokes, those who embrace the fusion from our sun are clear-headed viable and valid environmentalists. Now there are those who claim we do not yet know how to get energy from fusion and must turn to fission reactors, those are the befuddled incompetents who are not environmentalists nor scientists though they will state otherwise from their subjective view and even be employed by major companies that wallow in the delusion. The emperor may claim to have some clothes on and really believe it but even a child can see the fallacy.
chips are you claiming that we can create a controlled fusion reaction on a large enough scale to power the world?
He thinks we can use the one in the sun. It would probably take a fission reactor to jumpstart a fusion reactor.
As opposed to the thousands of tons of soot, ash, and nitrogen compounds ejected by fossil fuel plants, absolutely.
We share that distaste for fossil fuel plants, Stokes. Solar energy is fusion energy though many would have us ignore it. Solar energy has been actively suppressed by concerns that would have us burn every last drop of oil, build nuclear plants that require a police state to secure and whatever to assure that profits flow into few hands despite risks and environmental costs. It can be quite discomfiting when you realize the breadth and width of the misinformation promulgated to preserve an elite of experts and their ivory tower colleagues. We have been able to use fusion energy, we can use fusion energy, and we can develop its use to magnanimous ends quickly but not if we must be tied to the non-science of the powers that be. Did you see that recent statement by a Navy officer saying that cold fusion could become a safe and major power source and that it is time for the governments to fund its development? For more on that subject see http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=30315
cold fusion isnt real. economically photovoltaics arent at an efficiency level yet where the switch would be viable. i was at a photovoltaics talk last week where it was mentioned that if we dedicated north dakota to wind energy would could have enough power for the whole country
That's nice, but how much would it cost? North Dakota is not a small place to fill with top-dollar facilities and equipment, not to mention, employees.
Arguable, at least they disappear in the atmosphere after a short period of time. Radioactive waste? What? Thousands if not millions of years, and chances are that those facilities will not survive that amount of time, thus indefinitely irradiating the land? Then the answer is a no imo at least. Now since you consider nuclear power much better then traditional energy sources I would assume you agree that Iran is more then justified in her pursuit for nuclear power. Don't you agree it's much better? Oh can’t imagine about that North Korea, now what will they do with all those “peace rods”? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
If anybody reading this thread is interested, there is a good thread about nuclear power in general located in the Science & Society forum. I suggest checking it out. No, not really. The ejecta from coal and oil burning plants is rapidly disseminated by prevailing winds the moment it reaches altitude. While incident detritus from a single plant will be very low, the aggregate pollutant levels are quite high simply because we use a lot of them. Try hundreds. It really depends on what sort of isotope you're dealing with, but your everyday power reactor byproducts are 99.9% decayed within the first 300 years of fuel consumption. After that all you've got are a few daughter isotopes with emissivity profiles nary a hair above background count, which is simply academic. You are entitled to your opinion. However, the both the NRC and USGS respectfully disagree with your assessment of repository longevity. Indeed they are, with one caveat - they are not pursuing nuclear power. I know where you're trying to go with this, but that's a poor argument to make - neither Iran nor North Korea have reactors designed for power production. Both Yongbyon's GCFBR and Tehran's/Arak's HWMBRs are fast-breeders for Plutonium production, which coincidentally produce a small amount of electricity on the side. In short, they're not pursuing nuclear utility power; they're pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Whether this is good or bad is another issue entirely, but let's call a spade a spade.
neither Iran nor North Korea have reactors designed for power production. You know as well as I do that's a lie, yes a lie. What do you call Bushrer? What do you call Taechon? Those are not research reactors those are/were normal nuclear reactors. You also know about KEDO correct? Stokes you should know these things before you blurt things out. In short, they're not pursuing nuclear utility power; they're pursuing a nuclear weapons program. In both cases both can be said, they are building nuke reactors for energy (which they are/were) but we believe they are building them for nukes (NK does). That's the inherent problem with nuclear power. You yourself said nukes are better then oil/coal fired power plants, why shouldn't these nations pursue this obviously beneficial power source? In the late 70’s when the Shah started to build the power plant in Bushrer there wasn’t that much of hoopla. In the 70’s there were telling Iran to build nukes because they needed them to satisfy the power demands of Iran. I am not an anti-nuke person; I realize the benefits of nuclear power. The thing I have a problem with is where are all those rods going to go? No body wants them, not all are going to Yucca, and we are stuck with highly radioactive material. If we could reprocess them in some way to make them inept. Then nuclear power all the way, but so far nuclear power doesn't seem much better. Also although it may seem to be a distant reality, the chances of another Chernobyl (rightly or wrongly) scare the public. Nothing is perfect, and for that reason is nuclear power all that much better? But that's for that other thread, and I don't care for the answer.
I call Bushehr a two-stage PWR that's not yet done being constructed. When finished it will be the first non-breeder plant that Iran has, which is a good thing. As I said, this is something they should be lauded for. The completion of the plant at Bushehr will be a good thing. The facilities I was referring to as a veiled weapons program are, specifically, Anarak, Tehran, and Esfahan. Many of the processes occurring therein are directly diagnostic of a clandestine nuclear weapons program, and I'm prepared to explain why in further detail if necessary. Taechon, on the other hand, is a gas cooled graphite moderated pile similar in design to the RBMK at Chernobyl - positive void coefficient and all. Graphite moderated reactors are inherently unstable and prone to dangerous power spikes, principally because of the aforementioned PVC as well as the nasty tendency of Plutonium to undergo enough spontaneous fissions to catalyze a reaction lasting several hundreds of fission generations. This makes them poorly suited for power generation, where long-term stability at high core power levels are paramount. Nobody in their right mind would use a graphite moderated reactor for power production, because that is tantamount to brushing your teeth with a toiler plunger. In short, Taechon is a breeder for a weapons program, and not a power reactor. So, instead of getting all pissy and defensive, you could just ask me to clarify what you're confused about and I'll happily oblige. I agree that they should. But as I said above, there is no power objective involved in any of the aforementioned facilities. Incidentally, the NRC report on Yucca Mountain can be found here.
Taechon, on the other hand, is a gas cooled graphite moderated pile similar in design to the RBMK at Chernobyl - positive void coefficient and all. But it does generate electricity; you have to understand that NK did not have options as to what type of reactor it could get. NK has a major energy crisis and it was the USSR wiling to give her that nuclear reactor. This makes them poorly suited for power generation, where long-term stability at high core power levels are paramount. Nobody in their right mind would use a graphite moderated reactor for power production, because that is tantamount to brushing your teeth with a toiler plunger. That's probably true, I wouldn't really know. But from I do know is that NK didn't have a choice, she had to build this reactor in order to avert the crisis she has today with energy. Sure it may be madness from our perspective that NK was going to build such an unsafe reactor but it does make sense when you have literally no other option. In short, Taechon is a breeder for a weapons program, and not a power reactor. This is partially true, granted the Taechon reactor could have produced large quantities of nuclear material, this doesn’t mean that it didn't produce electricity. It could have generated 200-MW(e) of power if I am not mistaken. See that's the problem, these countries have no option and have an added benefit with nukes. I think its pretty ballzy for the NK's to have abandoned Taechon in lieu of the fact that 45 extra nukes could have been created with the reactor. I think this is where the US fucked up royally with NK. If the US had actually done its part on the agreed framework, this current crisis could have been avoided. NK wants electricity they are using nukes as their last gasp of air. This NK crisis was totally and completely avoidable...but that's another thread. Does this pacify our fears?
