Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: GtoRA2 on January 06, 2003, 01:57:06 PM
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Why is it bad?
Is it not better then coal?
can we get some pros and cons on this?
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Nuclear fission is better than coal, or anything else... except for the fact that nuclear power plants can cause radioactive disasters if things go very wrong; and we have no sure way of keeping the spent fuel out of the environment for the thousands of years it takes to lose its dangerous radioactivity. Coal pollutes, but fission has the potential to pollute much worse.
Nuclear fusion would be great if it could be made to work.
ra
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GTO, ra - hope you don't mind my replying! I know I'm not exactly flavour of 2003 right now ;)
Nuclear power is great! AFAIK cities like Chicago have 50% of their electricity generated by nuclear power. The problem is the nuclear waste. It remains dangerous for thousands of years. Here in Britain, we do have substantial nuclear waste processing capacity, but... people don't like us receiving nuclear waste for processing. Besides, it's expensive to process. It's a case of Supergreen turning Supernimby. By refusing to accept nuclear waste for processing, we increase the likelihood of said waste being dumped on some third world country which does not have the means to process it properly or safely.
I feel about nuclear power as I do about things like a single European currency - great - if it can be made to work.
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What is involved in processing the waste?
How much waste gets made?
and why can't we keep it out of the environment?
Why do the Libs here hate it so much?.
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Originally posted by GtoRA2
What is involved in processing the waste?
How much waste gets made?
and why can't we keep it out of the environment?
Why do the Libs here hate it so much?.
This isn't a Lib-Con issue. Radioactive waste stays dangerous for up to 90,000 yrs IIRC in the case of Strontium. Where could you put something for that long and ensure that the seal will never be broken?
I'm not "anti-nuke", just want to ensure that they are as safe as humanly possible.
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Coal produces enourmous harm and risk which is spread - so it is less perceptible. Nuclear problems are highlighted and publicised.
Humans are ill equipped to evaluate certain risks. They tend to underestimate familiar risks and overestimate exotic ones. People underestimate risk of car travel and overestimate risks of air travel and lightning strike for example.
Politicians just use that fact to manipulate ignorant public opinion.
miko
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It's a case of Supergreen turning Supernimby
lol
-Sik
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midnight Target: Radioactive waste stays dangerous for up to 90,000 yrs IIRC in the case of Strontium. Where could you put something for that long and ensure that the seal will never be broken?
How does that help thousands of people who die/suffer now from harmfull effects of coal? If civilisation stays on course, the next hundred years will see a lot of change, let alone 90,000 years. Technological challenges faced by ancient egyptians are not that scary to us. If civilisation fails, who cares about some extra radiation?
The population that North America without civilisation could sustain is probably less than 10 million. They will find a lot of "clean" places outside the deserts where the waste is stored.
miko
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most of the time radioactive material is rated in terms of half-life..(you all know already I'm sure) but people tend to forget that the number (half-life) is how long it takes for it do reduce it's radioactivity to half it's current state.
then another X ammount of years (half-life) for it to decay another 50% and so on..
so yeah.. radioactive particles are way worse than pollution from something like coal
They will find a lot of "clean" places outside the deserts where the waste is stored.
this attitude ignores the fact that this stuff leaches into groundwater, food, etc etc..
nasty stuff, worse than bong-water
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Wlfgng: so yeah.. radioactive particles are way worse than pollution from something like coal
Coal contains a lot of radioactive scum which is spread around when it's burned/processed - in fact uranium contained in coal posesses more energy than the coal itself.
Pregnant women and children should not eat ocean fish like tuna becasue it now contains too mich mercury. Where do you think it comes from?
miko
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ya' learn something new everyday..
how do the 'radioactive' levels in coal compare to something like the fuel used in nuclear power plants ? Doesn't seem like it'd be that much comparatively speaking
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Could of very well come from the thousands of barrels of expended uranium rods (or is it plutonium?) that are burried about various countries that have nuclear power plants.
In Oregon (or maybe it was Nevada) they were storing LOTS and LOTS of radioactive material in barrels under ground... most of which were leaking. This was several years ago, but at any rate.. it more than likely eventually made it's way to the ocean...
Radioactive materials are simply not safe at all to store.. not yet anyway... and the waste, we haven't found a safe way to store it either... and there's will be lots of waste if all power plants are nuclear.
-SW
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Wlfgng: this attitude ignores the fact that this stuff leaches into groundwater, food, etc etc..
We are talking about hypothetical savages remaining after the fall of civilisation. Who cares what happens to them? It's not like any increase in mortality would affect their resulting tiny numbers - they will be limited by scarse food supplies rather than other causes.
Of course if civilisatuion continues to develop at the same pace for few hundred more years, who cares how bad ground water would be? A house would likely be a closed system only requiring energy from the external environment.
miko
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Wlfgng: ya' learn something new everyday..
how do the 'radioactive' levels in coal compare to something like the fuel used in nuclear power plants ? Doesn't seem like it'd be that much comparatively speaking
I am sorry that I do not have sources handy but you can find plenty of that stuff on the web. I am not really a great fan of nuclear - I'd prefer wind-farms personally - but the coal is just terrible.
You must remember also that a lot of nuclear waste that is currently a problem does not come from nuclear energy production but from manufacturing tens of thousands nuclear weapons during the cold war. The safety requirements for that (and any, for that matter) urgent military production were understandably more relaxed than for comercial business.
France has 80% of electricity produced by nukes. Do they have any problems with it?
miko
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Nuclear power plants don't really use nuclear power, not in the same sense that nuclear bombs do.
Nuclear power plants work more or less the same as a coal or gas power plant does except the radioactive material (uranium) heats the water instead. It's not really nuclear power, it's steam power.
J_A_B
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lol I think they should ship all that radioactive waste out into deep space!
leet the flame fest begin!
:D
Box
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J_A_B: Nuclear power plants don't really use nuclear power, not in the same sense that nuclear bombs do.
Nuclear power plants work more or less the same as a coal or gas power plant does except the radioactive material (uranium) heats the water instead. It's not really nuclear power, it's steam power.
Not true. Nuclear power plants use nuclear power exactly in the same sence that nuclear bombs do - they use the energy of natural radioactive decay of elements into other elements.
Unlike bombs, they do it more gradually at subcritical mass - which is still accelerated millions of times compared to natural radioactive decay and they use the resulting energy to heat water (or liquid sodium) rather than enemy civilians.
Also, the radiation component is minimised rather than amplified and there is no EMP.
Gunpowder used to be coal. Charcoal soaked with liquid oxygen used to be a very convenient and extremely powerfull explosive. The processes in those cases were burning of carbon in oxygen, just like in steam boilers but faster. But the principel is the same - chemical reaction.
Solar energy can also be concentrated with mirrors and used to heat water into steam and run the turbines. Here the principle would be different also - using radiated energy of Sun directly without any nuclear or chemical reactions involved.
miko
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I'll agree with what I know...
use wind and solar power.
I was glad to hear that at least our ski areas lifts are wind-powered....wish more things were.
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Miko - J_A_B said
Nuclear power plants don't really use nuclear power, not in the same sense that nuclear bombs do.
and I think he's right. For nuclear fuel to be used in a reactor, it (the plutonium) has to be only 3% pure. But in nuclear weapons, the purity needs to be much higher - 70% - for weapons grade plutonium. That enrichment can be achieved using nuclear centrifuges.
We caught Saddam buying nuclear centrifuges, and then claiming that it was for processing fuel for his reactors, and we know that's roadkill. He wanted enriched plutonium for his weapons programme.
But why not let him have his centrifuges? After all, nuclear weapons don't kill people - only people kill people. :rolleyes:
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(http://newspringfield.com/pictures/townsppl/blinky2.gif)
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beet1e: Miko - J_A_B said and I think he's right. For nuclear fuel to be used in a reactor, it (the plutonium) has to be only 3% pure. But in nuclear weapons, the purity needs to be much higher - 70% - for weapons grade plutonium.
I suspect you a pulling my leg but I do not see a smile or any possible clues. :)
Unless you confirm whether that was a troll or a valid statement, I'll assume former and keep my mouth shut rather than risk swallowing a hook... :)
miko
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What I was getting at is the useful energy in such a power plant is derived from the heating of water--it's basically a normal power plant except the fuel is different. You'd be surprised at the number of people on the street who think that the enengy from the nuclear reaction is being DIRECTLY harvested. Most of those same people also think that a nuclear plant will blow up just like a bomb will if something goes wrong (not true of course).
J_A_B
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Miko - no, no leg pulling. Years ago when we started having problems with Saddam, there was analysis about nuclear fuels - for reactors and for weapons.
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The nuclear bomb and the reactor essentially do use the same process, only one is controlled the other isn't and that leads to a chain reaction once critical mass is achieved. Carbon control rods control the number of neutrons bouncing around the reactor and hence control the fission rate. Remove the control rods and you develop a chain reaction.
At Chernobyl, they removed the rods for a laugh. Or an experiment, I can quite remember which, but the result was much the same.
Nuclear power is by no means clean. It's expensive to operate and start-up and decomissioning costs are prohibitively expensive. You'll find that very few coal fired power stations are built in the Western world anymore - natural gas is much more eco-friendly and is cheaper too. I think one day nuclear power will becomre more prevalent, but until fossil fuels become rarer that day is a good distance away.
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>>Why is it bad?
Is it not better then coal?
can we get some pros and cons on this?<<
The issue is not only pollution, but cost. This is why no one in their right mind is building new nuclear power stations.
You have on one hand the very real dangers posed by nuclear waste, not only in terms of simple pollution, but also use in dirty bombs or other 'contamination terrorism'.
On the other hand, to prevent this, you have the virtually infinite cost of storing, protecting and guarding the waste until it is safe. Not to mention the huge cost of building the damn place in the first instance.
The only reason to build nuclear power stations is so that you can make bombs to kill millions of people and destroy hundreds of square miles of territory. They told us it was cheap, because we were worried about oil prices. The told us it was clean because we were worried aboy the environment. As an energy producing policy, it's utterly uneconomic.
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beet1e: Miko - no, no leg pulling. Years ago when we started having problems with Saddam, there was analysis about nuclear fuels - for reactors and for weapons.
OK then, sorry for misunderstanding.
A nuclear weapon needs concentrated fuel because the considerations of size and total weight are crucial, whatever the cost.
It seems at first glance that a nuclear bomb core using 3% pure fuel would just have to be 23 times bigger than the one 70% using pure fuel to achieve the same power - bad enough where size and weight matters.
Not true - a concentration is impotrant to achieve critical mass and 3% bomb would need to be not 23 but probably 100 times more massive just to explode.
In reality, the yield of such bomb would be much, much less than of a 70% bomb 100 times smaller. The charge would not be heavier but also bigger in size/diameter. Since chain reaction starts at the center and only works for fractions of a millisecond before the mass is blown appart, less of the usefull mass of a 3% will have time to react.
A nuclear bomb's efficiency is very low - probably less then one percent of matter reacts under best circumstances, and the way to increase it is to have pure fuel and contain it together at critical mass as long as possible (against the force of a nuclear explosion pushing it apart!) which is much easier to do with smaller size core.
At the same time the power station is not being blown apart (God willing) and the 3% fuel has time to react more completely over time.
Yes, the fuel rods of 3% would have to be 23 times bigger that 70% rods, but:
1) Size is not important in a stationary reactor not intended for shooting out of a cannon
2) Cost of 70% rods would be thousands or millions of times higher than cost of 3% rods, not 23 times, Every schoolchild knows how to make a nuclear bomb. The purification is the biggest technological and financial challenge here and the goal of power station is to make money, not burn it.
3) 70% rods would be much more difficult to control to keep the reaction to a manageable sub-critical pace. If the safety system fails totally, the only reason you do not get full nuclear explosion (chain reaction with efficiency >1) is due to low-concentrated fuel.
If they ever reuse uranium from bombs for power stations, they will certainly dilute it to 3%, foregoing billions in purification expences.
4) 3% rods actually convert some of the 97% of "useless" uranium into plutonium and otehr stuff which can also be used for nuclear fuel. That is a principle of a breeder reactor - it produces more fuel than it consumes.
crowbaby: As an energy producing policy, it's utterly uneconomic.
That may be - but it does not seem so at a first glance. Politicians usually force businesses to waste money, not save it. Why would anyone want to build such a station if he could not turn profit?
There are many consideratins - that could be converted to money, for and against nuclear power. Once you add the cost of dealing with spent fuel, it becomes less attractive. On the other hand, if you quantify the risks of foreign oil supply or even massive domestic coal transportation being disrupted, the nuclear station will run for years on the fuel already present on premises.
We also have to remember that nuclear reactors used today are analogs of first steam engines - that used 1% of coal productively and covered whole countrysides black with soot. There is undoubtedly a lot of progress to be made that would make nukes smaller, safer and cheaper.
Of course the best would be developing technologies that produce stuff using less energy. Animal bodies produce a lot of sophisticated compounds never requiring high temperatures of pressures.
miko
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>>We also have to remember that nuclear reactors used today are analogs of first steam engines <<
This may be true, but steam engines were immediately useful and economic, financially if not environmentally. Also, steam engine technology continued to develop, where the building of nuclear power stations has already peaked.
I would say a better analogy would be with the Apollo moon landings. They too were an economically and socially useless jingoist parade which reaped huge rewards for the military and gave very lucrative contracts to the companies who had contributed to political campaign funds.
Again, I would say that we've been conned, but i may be a paranoid pessismist.
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The issue is not only pollution, but cost. This is why no one in their right mind is building new nuclear power stations.
The costs have little to do with technology, and a lot to do with environmental worries. It is very difficult for a power company to build a cost effective nuke plant in the US because it requires about a decade of enviromental analysis and lawsuits before ground can be broken on a new plant. That's how environmentalists want it, and they are succeeding in keeping nuke plants unviable in the US. In other countries, nuke plants are cost effective.
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>>The costs have little to do with technology, and a lot to do with environmental worries.<<
building a nuclear power station is not just about technology. Environmental costs are real and must be factored in. You cannot blame environmental lobbyists for wanting open and honest accounting from the start, seeing as we have been left with so many terrible hangovers from past reactors that we were lied to about.
>>In other countries, nuke plants are cost effective.<<
No they are not. They should still be costing millions to maintain and guard hundreds of years after they have stopped producing power. When terrorists detonate a dirty bomb in your neighbourhood, you'll be able to thank the nuclear plants which couldn't afford proper monitoring and safeguarding of their waste. You'll be able to find them in the U.S. too, where tens of kilos of radioactive material go unaccounted for every year.
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Spent fuel rods?
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This link (http://www.sierraclub.org/nuclearwaste/nucw.asp) details the most common hazardous nuclear waste products in the U.S. All over the world there are millions of tonnes of this stuff and no long term commitments whatsoever to dealing with the problem.
Just to prove i'm not the only loony out there who believes this here's a Greenpeace link on Nuclear waste (http://www.greenpeace.org/campaigns/intro?campaign_id=3940) .
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What was the best anti-nuclear movie ever made? Which anti-nuclear movie was the worst ever made?
For the first I nominate "Doctor Strangelove."
Fort the second I nominate "Superman IV: the Quest for Peace."
Shuckins
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I have little respect for Green peace, they are a roadkill machine like no other.
You can not believe the words of the extremists on either side.
You got any other link?
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Will the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1994/nd94/nd94Shrader-Frechette.html) do? That's about a s academically respectable as it gets.
Or the Union of Concerned Scientists (http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/nuclear_safety/index.cfm?pageID=25), they might sound a bit wet to you, but they're heavy hitters, check out the array of links down the right hand side of this page.
Or, not specific to nuclear waste but still the scariest thing you could ever read, the World scientists warning to humanity (http://deoxy.org/sciwarn.htm). Ten years old and still completely ignored. Yes, those are real Nobel laureates.
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"China Syndrome" was a very good movie.
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Is there any calculations how many windmills or square miles of solar-cells would it take to replace one nuclear reactor ?
btw somewhere were a story that British Petroleum made a study and their opinion was that there are oil for the next 40 years.
Some of us may be able to see what happens after that.
What are your kids using in their cars then: Electricity or alcohol?
btw Dr.Strangelove is a classic, Peter Sellers is amazing in all of his roles and no'one can't beat "Kong" as a pilot :D
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Staga- that 40 year estimate I believe was from a long time ago... they have recently (past 10-15 years) found more oil reserves and supposedly a couple of them are much bigger than the one's in the Mid-East.
I forget where they are tho..
-SW
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I guess we can forget it MT. Nobody's biting.
Shuckins