Relative dangers of nuclear power

[Belial]

I live about 30 miles from a nuclear plant and about 2 from a coal plant...neither one worry me.

The coal one had a accident this past Tuesday and they are still down..all I know is I saw fire, fire trucks, the cooling towers stop running, and a jet fly over.

And I'm still not worried

[Yossarian]

I live about 30 miles from a nuclear plant and about 2 from a coal plant...neither one worry me.

The coal one had a accident this past Tuesday and they are still down..all I know is I saw fire, fire trucks, the cooling towers stop running, and a jet fly over.

And I'm still not worried

That's subjective, to say the least

[gyrene81]

I have a better idea - why don't you tell ME where all that burnt fossil fuels is disposed of.

In exchange, I'll tell you what happens to nuclear fuel rods: someone will dig a very long tunnel.  It will be lined with a lot of concrete, and buried under a lot of rock.  Nuclear fuel (which has been carefully sealed in glass and stuck into bomb-proof containers) will then be placed at the end of that tunnel.  When said tunnel has been filled beyond a certain point, it will then be sealed repeatedly, and signposted with many languages to the effect of 'if you can read this, GTFO'.

Now since my first line was a rhetorical question, let's look at what happens with the by-products of fossil fuels: they get dumped into the atmosphere.  Yes, that's right - all that toxic and/or not-very-good-for-you stuff you really shouldn't be breathing gets dumped into the very stuff you do breath.

So let's compare the two.  With nuclear waste, the stuff gets buried underground in very secure containers that aren't going anywhere anytime soon.  With the products of fossil-fuels, the stuff gets dumped in the atmosphere for everyone to inhale.  Now you tell me which one you think is safer.

ya know...many years ago some government agencies spun the same yarn about old chemical/biological waste that was disposed of in some deep underground tunnels at one point...some years later it was found that, it wasn't exactly the truth...ironically, it was the same government agencies that many years earlier failed to tell american citizens truthfully how dangerous the radioactive fallout was that traveled across the country while nuclear bomb testing was being conducted in nevada and utah...

i lived 2 blocks from a coal fired plant for 5 years in a state where the same agencies that say nuke power is safe have a tight fist on anything that spews anything into the air...i've seen more hazardous waste at an exxon refinery in louisiana...i've seen first hand how waste and emmissions from harzardous chemicals get treated in a vinyl manufacturing plant...i've seen how the waste from metal coatings plants gets treated and disposed of...i felt safer by the coal power plant.

if you are willing to put your family within a few blocks of a nuclear power plant...then you can talk about how much safer it is...if you're argument was reliability, i wouldn't argue...but you're arguing safety based on government controlled data from a government that has a very long history of endangering it's citizens while using scientific data to downplay the dangers.

[Gh0stFT]

So let's compare the two.  With nuclear waste, the stuff gets buried underground in very secure containers that aren't going anywhere anytime soon. 

thats exsactly what i was talking with moot,
its just not secure. In germany 126,000 barrels of radioactive waste, some of which are leaking where found at
the Asse II waste storage facility. Now ask the people what live around/near Asse.
Securely store hot radioactive waste for hundreds of thousands of years, sure! lol

[Yossarian]

ya know...many years ago some government agencies spun the same yarn about old chemical/biological waste that was disposed of in some deep underground tunnels at one point...some years later it was found that, it wasn't exactly the truth...ironically, it was the same government agencies that many years earlier failed to tell american citizens truthfully how dangerous the radioactive fallout was that traveled across the country while nuclear bomb testing was being conducted in nevada and utah...

i lived 2 blocks from a coal fired plant for 5 years in a state where the same agencies that say nuke power is safe have a tight fist on anything that spews anything into the air...i've seen more hazardous waste at an exxon refinery in louisiana...i've seen first hand how waste and emmissions from harzardous chemicals get treated in a vinyl manufacturing plant...i've seen how the waste from metal coatings plants gets treated and disposed of...i felt safer by the coal power plant.

if you are willing to put your family within a few blocks of a nuclear power plant...then you can talk about how much safer it is...if you're argument was reliability, i wouldn't argue...but you're arguing safety based on government controlled data from a government that has a very long history of endangering it's citizens while using scientific data to downplay the dangers.

No, I'm arguing safety based on my own logic - I really don't give a flying f*** about what the government has to say on the matter.  I'm saying that nuclear waste poses little threat when stored and handled correctly.  Even if it is not always handled correctly now, in about 20 years from now I suspect it will be.  Time moves on, technology matures and people learn more about how to do certain things.  I'd be willing to bet that when the first fossil-fueled power plants started up, they weren't very environmentally friendly - but that was a long time ago now, and since then we've learnt that pollution is bad, and that it's better if you don't pollute - and as a result, modern fossil fuel plants are probably a lot cleaner than such plants a few decades ago.  I see no reason to believe that nuclear power won't take a similar path.

[TOMCAT21]

Belial, you by Limerick ?

[Yossarian]

thats exsactly what i was talking with moot,
its just not secure. In germany 126,000 barrels of radioactive waste, some of which are leaking where found at
the Asse II waste storage facility. Now ask the people what live around/near Asse.
Securely store hot radioactive waste for hundreds of thousands of years, sure! lol

Can you please actually post some logical reasons as to why you think nuclear power is unsafe?

And that thing in Germany sounds like an epic failure on a grand scale.  Storing nuclear waste in a former salt mine?  Everything I've heard in the past would make me think that's the last place you should be sticking nuclear waste.  So you'd be better off blaming the people who had that bright idea rather than the nuclear waste itself.

And this is how it's meant to be stored.

[Stoney]

if you are willing to put your family within a few blocks of a nuclear power plant...then you can talk about how much safer it is...

Gyrene,

I live in a town with a nuclear plant north of it, and one to the south.  The one to the south is 10 miles as the crow flies.  I have no problem living this close or even closer if I had to.  My grandfather built it, and I know how it was constructed.  My mother helped write some of the NRC codes that are in place to govern nuclear facility construction and operation.  I have zero worry about that plant.  We also have a coal-fired plant about 5 miles away.  I'd much rather live 5 miles from a nuclear plant than a coal-fired plant.  

I still think it will be interesting to see what happens with this latest incident.  The combination of one the largest earthquakes ever recorded plus what's probably going to be the most destructive tsunami in history puts this incident in a special category that you really shouldn't judge nuclear power by.  Besides, we don't know yet exactly what's caused the problem, just that there is one.

[Strip]

Can you please actually post some logical reasons as to why you think nuclear power is unsafe?

And that thing in Germany sounds like an epic failure on a grand scale.  Storing nuclear waste in a former salt mine?  Everything I've heard in the past would make me think that's the last place you should be sticking nuclear waste.  So you'd be better off blaming the people who had that bright idea rather than the nuclear waste itself.

And this is how it's meant to be stored.

Yossarian,

Geographically speaking salt deposits (consequently salt mines) are one of the best places to store nuclear waste. Furthermore, your link has problems of its own, the biggest being increase ground water flow through the fractured rock.

You need to find a new source of your info...

Strip

[Yossarian]

Yossarian,

Geographically speaking salt deposits (consequently salt mines) are one of the best places to store nuclear waste. Furthermore, your link has problems of its own, the biggest being increase ground water flow through the fractured rock.

You need to find a new source of your info...

Strip

Ok - I was going on my memories of reading about various salt mines which had caved in - my bad.

But about that Finnish waste site: based on this, what I've read makes it look like even if there were increased water flow, it wouldn't matter much.  The waste will be encased in copper, which doesn't react with water.

Edit: this is an page on the Finnish repository: http://www.packagingtoday.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=2&storycode=45467.  It does seem to imply that the Finns are being quite careful about this.

[gyrene81]

I'm saying that nuclear waste poses little threat when stored and handled correctly.  Even if it is not always handled correctly now, in about 20 years from now I suspect it will be.

see, there's the kick in the pants..."stored and handled correctly"...does not happen with government agencies or the employees and i know that as fact...and 20 years from now, the stuff that was stored 20 years ago will still have been handled and stored incorrectly according to what is known now...exactly like the crap that was stored 50 years ago and still poses a serious danger...it's more expensive and dangerous to dig it up and fix the problem than it is to deal with the consequences...do some research into superfund sites...and take note as to how many have been abandoned due to lack of funds.

when they run out of safe places to bury the waste what then? you want to let them bury it in your back yard?


keep in mind the best efforts of intelligent men have more often than not had unforseen consequences...

[jamdive]

I've got a ton of documents saved up over the years on this topic.  I never took the time to read deep into it, but it's always been clear to me that nuclear is nowhere near as dangerous as it's made out in general public.  Just one pic and a link..
(Image removed from quote.)
http://manhaz.cyf.gov.pl/manhaz/strona_konferencja_EAE-2001/15%20-%20Polenp~1.pdf

This is in Europe Ghost, right around your family's area.

Statistics? Give me a break. You are comparing thousands of coal plants and their casualties to a handfull of nuclear plants. I bet if there where more nuclear power stations than coal you would see a reversal of your data. "Coal kills more than nuclear power" No kidding. There are more coal plants. Sad thing about nuclear power is that the deaths attributed to its accidents are generally unaccounted for. People involved in radioactive accidents rarely stay at the same location and are not monitored thereafter. Take chernobyl for instance. The cancers created by that catastrophy are still plaguing those people. Does your out of date data refresh itself each year to account for these people? How about the thousands of other poor johnnys that die of thyroid cancers that are un-justly attributed to natural causes.

Served in the submarine force, I have a good idea how this power is used, so I'm not oblivios to the topic. The effects of the use of radioactive material have yet to be calculated. You cannot say its use is "SAFE" because there is not one person on the planet that has the answer to that yet. 500 years from now re-enter new data into your excel graph and tell us what you come up with.

[moot]

"My" data. Uh huh.

"Coal kills more than nuclear power" No kidding.

The data is on a power basis. Deaths and casualties per watt hours.

Take chernobyl for instance. The cancers created by that catastrophy are still plaguing those people.

Never said otherwise.

You cannot say its use is "SAFE"

Never did.  So you're not reading what I said, when you counter argue "what I said".  Sounds to me like you've got an agenda, or at least are too prone to knee jerk arguments for proper debate.

[Yossarian]

Take chernobyl for instance. The cancers created by that catastrophy are still plaguing those people.

The only thing Chernobyl seems to illustrate is what you can get if you do the wrong thing to a poor design.  It does not fairly represent the risks posed by more modern, better maintained and designed reactors that you would find in the USA or the EU.

[moot]

And really.  Taking extreme scenarios for nuke but regular coal operation as basis for comparison, that's not what you'd call objective.  The Japanese plant failed due to the worst earthquake in records, and correct me if I'm wrong - not because of the earthquake itself but flooding from the tsunami.  And the plant design itself had much lower limits than this earthquake, yet it apparently took the quake in stride and only failed due to supporting hardware (ie not the reactor itself) failures from flooding, and this design is 40 years old as well.  So how about we compare apples and apples, say an extreme coal related scenario from decades ago... E.G. Buffalo Creek.  Or the sludge dam failure in Martin county KY in 2000. 

Paranoia about government hiding or denying nuclear damage.. How about coal industry hiding its damages?  You seldom get anywhere with conspiracy theories.  What you get is FUD and instigation of more public paranoia.