/sci/ - Science & Math

>>5563176
Yeah, its not like the mining process produces waste that has long-term cancerous effects not only on humans but on the entire countryside where it was mined from.

Clearly Chernobyl, Fukushima, etc. are exceptions and should not be paid any attention to.

Yes I wrote a similar topic essay for US History I years ago...

Yes, acording to most definitions of "not bad" nuclear i not bad.

What hippies don't realise is that the choice is not between nuclear and solar. It's between nuclear, hydro and coal. Not all countries have adequate hydro reserves, and those that do may or may not find the damage wrought to their waterways worth it. And nuclear is a hell of a way better than coal.

>>5563199
Entire wars are fought over coal and oil killing millions of people. nuclear waste can be contained quite safely but when nuclear waste storage facilities are planed to be built people who probably believe in perpetual motion protest.

No.

>>5563176
Alright... the argument...

Nuclear energy can be considered the best option if all mined areas were pushed into the mantle
Nuclear waste is used for medical shindigs
And No OP, it's should only ever be used on rocket ships and even then only to make the astronauts think twice about the fool hardiness of what they're doing on the current technology

>>5565414
>You didn't just bump this thread
>mfw if you are not OP

>>5563232
>What hippies don't realise is that the choice is not between nuclear and solar. It's between nuclear, hydro and coal. Not all countries have adequate hydro reserves, and those that do may or may not find the damage wrought to their waterways worth it. And nuclear is a hell of a way better than coal.

But you seem to be suggesting that there must only be one choice, and it has to apply to all countries and locations.
That's ridiculous.

It is also never sensible to leave out the cheapest, simplest one -- solar.

>>5563274
Wars are fought over nuclear, too.
Like two of the recent ones, and the next one with Iran, and possibly NKorea.

>>5565450
>nuclear power vs nuclear weapons

Also

>Wars are fought over nuclear, too.
>Like two of the recent ones, and the next one with Iran, and possibly NKorea.

Cool story bro

>feeding a troll
>i know it
>why i do this
>i don't know.

>>5565462
Perhaps you do not know how those are connected.

It is because of the fuel manufacturing for either one.

>>5565447
You seem to be suggesting that solar is cheap and easy. Maybe on an individual home by home basis it is, but on the level of powering a first-world infrastructure... yeah... see we're gonna have to have a talk about that.

>

But we don't even need the energy. Building more power plants to satisfy the growing needs of industry and ourselves is just digging our grave deeper and deeper.

>>5565599
>You seem to be suggesting that solar is cheap and easy. Maybe on an individual home by home basis it is,
EXACTLY! (That is a HUGE amount of application, isn't it?)

>but on the level of powering a first-world infrastructure... yeah... see we're gonna have to have a talk about that.
Whoever said any choice had to be able to supply that alone?
Or, let me ask this:
Can a dense, modern city be powered by (locally) petroleum-fueled generators, biomass-fueled generators, wind and solar, and (regionally) by nuclear, coal-fuel gens, wind and solar?

The answer is, of course, that it can.
The biggest efficiency problem in the modern world is the huge reach presumed necessary for a plant -- it fulfills maniacally controlling plans of big business, but isn't efficient or necessary by any practical or useful criteria.

>>5565626
Agreed; people already waste energy ridiculously without ever considering how stupidly they do it.

I have a neighbor who might never have turned off his air cooling unit, which is set to about the mid-60s.
Outside is 74-84, temperate, breezy, pleasant even when it rains. Most of the world would think it perfect, and think mid-60s cool.

That is a consequence of people not thinking about what they actually need to use power for -- constantly running a horribly expensive unit that heats the outside air.
(And they always seem to be complaining about the temp, even when it's only a couple of degrees different from norm!)

>>5563176

Well, if you want to make that argument, make sure you explain why we aren't getting nuclear electricity "too cheap to meter", as people believed 50 years ago.

>>5565869

I'll say it, in a way I think both sides can get behind:

It was applied only to large-scale, multi-city, interstate grid systems.
That means fees and oversight by city, county, state, interstate and federal management and fees.
That means regulation expenses and inspections, legislation expenses, middlemen corporations, distributors, and service corporations.
That also means the most expensive kind of large-scale distribution networks, over vast areas that need nothing at all, with maintenance operations and services, using huge machinery and adding a lot to the bottom line expenses. That large scale has also proven to be a political arena, a terror target, and a lesson in complex systems management that has reportedly cost several states billions after problems.

The alternative?
Smaller plants, applied to much smaller scales (like each city), without the vast distribution.

Can you all see how the effectiveness, efficiency, maintenance, costs and impacts go way down? Distribution becomes almost simple, costs and fees after the fact are only local and state, politicians get left out, middlemen expenses are dropped entirely.

>>5565930
>That means regulation expenses and inspections, legislation expenses, middlemen corporations, distributors, and service corporations.

But that applies to any large-scale industry.

>Smaller plants, applied to much smaller scales (like each city), without the vast distribution.

So why hasn't this been done yet?

>>5565699

You know, power plants used to be small units located around cities.

Then we shifted to big ones because it is a lot more efficient (including in countries where the power plants operators did not really care about making money).

The one very nice quality of electricity is that it is very easy to transport.

>>5563199
Yeah, poor canadian economy which are #1 exporter
Nuclear is clean, safe, produce lots of power
Retards have been brainwashed to think its bad, they rather use coal...

>>5565699
so... The US gooberment should stop by fucking huge solar panels and let consumers invest accordingly, right?

It's like treating solar energy how Obama treated NASA.
> stupid nigger.

>>5565952
>>That means regulation expenses and inspections, legislation expenses, middlemen corporations, distributors, and service corporations.
>But that applies to any large-scale industry.
YES! And any analyst will tell you that large-scale industry has many more expenses and costs than smaller ones.
The HOPE is that it can be recovered by large-scale production, but that is not a rule, just a hope.

>>Smaller plants, applied to much smaller scales (like each city), without the vast distribution.
>So why hasn't this been done yet?
It has, when people get to choose their own methods. Or if the city is independent enough. Or if it's industry, and they just provide their own.

When it doesn't happen is when regulators, lawyers, and lobbyists get government to require other things. Ancillary requirements that reduce the choices down to just what they provide.

>>5565982
>The one very nice quality of electricity is that it is very easy to transport.

Yes, but the means of transport (the thing that makes it possible) is not particularly cheap.
And the fact that it can be connected to neighboring towns is a fake benefit; it means fewer giant plants need to be built.

>>5566060
>Yeah, poor canadian economy which are #1 exporter
>Nuclear is clean, safe, produce lots of power
>Retards have been brainwashed to think its bad, they rather use coal...

You're not adding anything to the discussion; you're just repeating the nuclear propaganda side and pretending it is knowledge.

The discussion isn't saying nuclear power isn't fairly safe, and certainly no one is saying it produces too little power.

And, before you spout off about something being #1, you need to recognize that it might be a very tiny contribution, or a meaningless effort, and still be #1.

>>5563199 >Yeah, its not like the mining process produces waste that has long-term cancerous effects not only on humans but on the entire countryside where it was mined from.

[citation needed]

>>5566463

Is there something wrong with you?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BHdsjo-NR4

Watch this video.

Learn lots.

Impress your professor.

>>5566514
>Is there something wrong with you?

No; is there a problem with one of those statements?
Maybe something you don't understand, or that I didn't give enough context for?

I can promise I am not claiming anything even remotely controversial; I am writing only recognized, validated statements of experts (because that is where I prefer to get information).
But I might not be writing it well.

Not in my backyard.

>>5566573

You're being mad and I'm missing your point.

No one is saying nuclear is perfect but there is a real problem with anti-nuclear activism fanatics painting an unfair negative picture. They get in the way of rational debate.

>>5566601
>it is the anti-nuclear fanatics paining the negative picture

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/23/us-usa-nuclear-leak-idUSBRE91L19G20130223

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_environmental_disasters#Nuclear

Yeah, ok.

>>5565699 >EXACTLY! (That is a HUGE amount of application, isn't it?)

Solar will always only be partially useful on a personal basis, a grid infrastructure with capacity for everyone will always be required and that is why the choices only include nuclear, hydro and coal.

>>5566620
and you're comparing nuclear to what?

>>5566627
Any type of energy that doesn't generate ecological disasters that leave acres of land uninhabitable for the next 1000 years.

>>5566620
Pasting links like that with no description is exactly the behaviour I'm talking about. People get their news from headlines now, they rarely critically analyse the content of an article they don't immediately understand.

The fact you omitted details such as

>no immediate risk to human health
>poses no near-term danger of polluting the Columbia River

will unnecessarily panic retards.

Fukushima was largely a lot of nothing but that didn't stop the retarded rage machine overhyping it to hell.

>>5566641
>no immediate risk
>immediate

Nuclear facilities get old and age. Then, they fail. Just like everything else. The difference is that nuclear plants generate ecological disasters.

>>5566630

>OH THE HUMANITY!

>>5566630
well name one

>>5566647
If aging systems which operates as the backbone of a power grid was phased out with the approval of new designs with safer and more efficient systems we would be better off. Instead we have situations like Fukushima where we are forced to depend on facilities with unreliable safety measures that are decades old.

>>5566647
Only if the nuclearphobes keep objecting to us building newer, safer plants to displace the older, unsafe ones.

The Fukushima plant was supposed to have been dismantled a decade ago, but the greenies protested the process because the evil atoms would have been released.

Then when the tsunami hit, the old shitty plant went up.
And greenies blamed the people who would have wanted to replace the unsafe plant.

Hypocrisy at it's best.

>>5566667
they're not hypocrites, they just don't understand why wishful thinking is worthless.

Cleaner and less lethal than coal, and oil.

>>5566664
>we are forced to depend on facilities with unreliable safety measures

No, we are never "forced" to keep a nuclear power plant running. If you nuclearfags really cared about safety, you would shut the aging plants down instead of keeping them running dangerously.

You just admitted that Fukushima was running for longer than was safe. How can I possibly trust power companies to dismantle aging plants?

>>5563199
Coal plant emissions are more radioactive than living next to a nuclear power plant.

>http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste

Chernobyl/Fukushima/pretty much every plant were/are outdated as fuck, modern designs are magnitudes safer

Nuclear waste CAN be safely disposed of OR reused

>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9M__yYbsZ4

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant

>http://www.nwtrb.gov/facts/BoreholeFactSheet.pdf

Also, wind and solar are a bad joke. Absolutely worthless without extreme gov. subsidies, not to mention the power companies still have to maintain a minimum load capacity with traditional coal/oil/nuclear regardless of how many wind turbines or solar farms are operating.

Until vastly improved solar panels, tidal generators, fusion, etc. are discovered we're stuck with coal/oil/nuclear. Clean coal has a lot of promise through removing the primary downside (pollution) - we literally have mountains of it. Thorium/breeder reactors have a lot of potential too.
>Yes, I mad.

>>5566667

Don't forget Yucca Mountain. Perfect site for safe waste storage, built and then shut down before it even started. They needed time to think about where to put their waste in the mean time... Sounds like a waste of time...

>"Yucca Mountain as a repository is off the table. What we're going to be doing is saying, let's step back. We realize that we know a lot more today than we did 25 or 30 years ago. The NRC is saying that the dry cask storage at current sites would be safe for many decades, so that gives us time to figure out what we should do for a long-term strategy. "


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository

>>5566685
Do you realize how Japan suffered from rolling blackouts and that the other power stations were overloaded after the failure of Daiichi? Even severely crippled they tried to keep the power going to the grid in hopes of preventing total and complete blackouts.

These ancient facilities are the backbone of most power grids, dismantling them is not a reasonable request unless you can provide an alternate source of power that will match the output and reliability of the current structure. All other sources failed to match that than nuclear.

>>5566688
Nuclear plants under normal conditions are quite safe.

The problem is that when the plant fails, it is a huge fucking deal.

>>5566685
see >>5566667

It's not even an isolated incident. 'Green' people around the world have forced power companies to run old plants because they don't want them dismantled or new ones to be built to replace them.

>>5566620
Here's a couple videos of an oil refinery that outright exploded, in the middle of a metropolitan area in Japan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0M8q9bP-78
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvspkDSuUkc

This happened during the same earthquake that caused the Fukushima nuclear 'disaster' that resulted in the deaths of no-one and raised the background radiation level of the nearby area to 200 millisevierts per year. If you examine the attached image, you'll see just how little that actually is.

Do you think the contamination from a burning oil refinery in the middle of a city and right next to the ocean caused any sort of uproar about the environmental handling of oil? Why wasn't there an outcry about the toxic compounds washing over the city from the fire? This is stuff that would've easily made it into the groundwater, and definitely poisoned the local ocean, yet there's not a goddamn peep about it.

Could it be, that people irrationally focus on nuclear merely because of its name and what it represents, as opposed to looking at the hard facts objectively?

Want some more hard facts? The cosmo oil refinery fire actually killed people, unlike the Fukushima 'disaster'. (Which has one death - as a result of the tsunami wave knocking a crane over onto a man, killing him.)

>>5566700
Oh god I remember the burning tsunami destroying most of the affected areas in Japan. Fucking horrible.

>>5566698
Then build a coal plant? I don't see what the problem is.

>we wont shut down this old plant unless you let us build more plants

Oh.

>>5566706
Japan can't afford coal.

>>5566712
lel

>>5566697
Again, that's because we're using plants from 60 years ago. This whole social stigma on nuclear technology is only worsening the situation preventing new regulations, improved plants, and upgrades for existing plants.

>>5566700
Fukushima only at the small end of nuclear disaster. If you recall, it was contained, but barely. Your 0-death analysis also ignores any damage the radiation released caused, pic related.

If Fukushima had a full scale meltdown, the Japanese would have needed to abandon the entire city. That isnt any fun.

>>5566720
New plants age, and fail as well

Before Fukushima , it was "that's because they were using Russian technology." After the next meltdown it will be "that's because they didnt have the third power back-up."

>>5566601
>No one is saying nuclear is perfect but there is a real problem with anti-nuclear activism fanatics painting an unfair negative picture. They get in the way of rational debate.

Agreed; anyone with a strong opinion that is not founded in information or expertise is a barrier to good decisions.

I, for instance, am not an expert, so I read the opinions of experts.

(Not sure how you read my post as being mad, though.)

>>5566734
>New plants age, and fail as well
Welcome to our universe, here we have this thing called entropy. What it means is that nothing lasts forever and tools need to be replaced from time to time. Like building new nuclear plants to replace old nuclear plants.

How were things in your magical world?

>>5566725 >If Fukushima had a full scale meltdown

You're using meltdown badly where you're maybe implying a total containment breach. A meltdown describes damage to the fuel where it has partially or fully melted. This does not imply a containment breach or any sort of danger.

>>5566743
>power company is going replace the plant before it fails
>at huge expense to themselves
>every time

How is life in your fantasy universe? Fukushima was "too old" at, what, 60?

Have fun replacing your plants every 40 years. Hope you factored that into the cost. I hope no one ever slips and lets a plant run too long. That would be....unfortunate.

>>5566754
Youre right. Fukushima had both a meltdown and a containment breach. Thanks for clarifying that.

>>5563176
I agree. It just needs to be used responsibly.

>>5566685
>No, we are never "forced" to keep a nuclear power plant running.

Hahaha, here's how it actually works:

>We need to build a new and modern reactor to take load off the old reactor so we can dismantle it

>NO, NUKES KILL CHILDREN AND RAPE BABIES, WE WONT LET YOU BUILD NEW REACTORS
>NO NEW COAL OR OIL PLANTS EITHER
>NO HYDRO DAM IT DESTROYS THE ENVIRONMENT
>WINDFARMS RUIN MY VIEW OF THE COUNTRYSIDE AND KILL BIRDS

>We're too far north for solar power to work...
>Well, I guess we can retrofit these old reactors and keep them operating for awhile longer

>Reactor runs straight to end-of-life failure because we can't shut it off, and we can't build new ones to replace it

>SEE THIS IS WHY NUCLEAR POWER IS BAD, EVERY 50 YEARS THERE'S AN ACCIDENT THAT DOESN'T KILL ANYONE
>Media goes crazy about the nuclear accident that didn't kill anyone and barely increased local radiation levels, especially because it hardly ever happens so it's always fresh, new and exciting when it does. Then the media paints a picture of it being highly controversial to draw more advertisment and eyeballs.
>Average joe just parrots whatever the TV tells him
>Environmentalists smug and vindicated that they prevented the construction of newer, safer nuclear power plants to the point that the old ones start to fail.
>One more step towards the goal of bringing humanity back to the stone age where we live in communal groups out of caves and survive by the dictations of nature, not ourselves.

Fuck. Environmentalists.

>>5566725
>If Fukushima had a full scale meltdown...
Yeah, and if a huge hydroelectric dam blows up, or an oil refinery explodes, or whatever electric plant you want has a major disaster shits gonna get fucking real.

The point is that nuclear is not inherently more dangerous than any other energy source.

>>5566755
Then you're going to hate the fact that Japan is so starved for power that they are reinstating nuclear facilities that were shutdown in response to the Fukushima disaster.

>>5566725
>Your 0-death analysis also ignores any damage the radiation released caused, pic related.

Oh, what damage did the radiation cause? All I see is an image manipulated to appear scary to people who don't know a damn thing about radiation. It doesn't even have a scale on it. Fearmongering at its finest.

>>5566621
>Solar will always only be partially useful on a personal basis,
Let's say small-scale. Larger scales may be practical, too, but I don't need to defend that now.

>a grid infrastructure with capacity for everyone will always be required
Certainly; but 'everyone' in today's world seems to mean 'an interconnected network, covering as much of the country as possible, regardless of need, fees, costs, or infrastructure.

Let me suggest what is better: SF/Oakland uses two smaller nuclear plants, and has a grid covering ONLY SF/Oakland. Where it turns to countryside, the grid ends.
The benefit is about local control and almost no extra corporations or fees. It's a lot of money charged people now, for just one reason: they can arrange it that way.

PGE (or whomever it is up there) gets political power, can make arrangements for extra fees, can even get government support of expenses like repair and maintenance, fuel issues and security. They also get to charge other nearby states for power sent long distances, and distant plants can charge SF's government for any power. Middlemen corps 'manage services,' which is to say they keep records, and get a percentage, too. Service corps (which can still be wholly owned by the guys who own the plant) can charge higher fees for any maintenance; they also get government money for hazardous, urgent, emergency or disaster work -- and are paid very quickly.
Since they are so critical to the entire state, they get the influence of state determinations and don't have to deal with local politics or issues very much.
That is to say, the guys building and running the plant get money and influence from everywhere, but only when they keep their grip firm on the plant.

>and that is why the choices only include nuclear, hydro and coal.
That is no reason to limit your range of choices -- every single method can contribute to the same grid in that plan. (And they do already.)

>>5566755
Do you have, like, ANY connection with how things work in the real world?

In places where the greenies haven't gone full retard, old plants HAVE been dismantled and replaced by new plants.

It's how industry works. If an old machine can be used safely by fixing and upgrading it, it gets fixed and upgraded. If it can't be, it's dismantled and replaced.

I don't know if you're a little kid or just have never set foot in an industrial environment, but you REALLY need to get your shit together and learn stuff before opening that mouth of yours.

>>5566764
Like I said, you are never forced to keep the plant running.

If nuclear power companies truly cared about safety, they would turn them the fuck off when they got old. It wouldn't be "oh lets keep running this dangerous nuclear plant because we cant get power any way else," it would be "holy fuck this is dangerous, we need to turn this off now."

How do you not see the difference?

>>5566775
Obviously, old plants get dismantled. Most of the time.

Sometimes they dont get dismantled. Like what happened with Fukushima. And Chernobyl. And [insert next nuclear ecological disaster here].

>>5566764
Well to be fair, dont blame environmentalists, they are retards with good intentions.

Blame the politicians that obey them.

If only we could replace all politicians with a STEM guy. The world would be perfect.

>>5566777
Japan did. And now they are turning them back on with the request of the people because of severe power limitation. But they still won't approve new plants. Funny how that works.

>>5566777
Here's your mistake:
You assume nuclear power is actually that dangerous. In fact, you assume that nuclear power is so dangerous, that it's better to shut off a few nuclear power plants and let entire cities have rolling blackouts / permanent blackouts, than to keep the reactors running and risk an accident, or even to do the smart and thoughtful thing and build new nuclear power plants to take on the load while dismantling the older ones.

In other words, you are goddamn retarded. The loss of refridgeration alone would mean the deaths of tens of thousands. Any city that couldn't maintain reliable supply of electricity would essentially have to be abandoned. There's a bigger and worse impact shutting the reactors down than there is keeping them running.

Your mind is in some sort of fantasy land, detached from reality.

>>5566777
>nuclear power companies
What about state run power? Like you know, Russia and Japan.

The problem is not nuclear power, its socialism.

>>5566787
So the nuclear power companies are willing to use the old, dangerous plants?

>>5566688
>Also, wind and solar are a bad joke. Absolutely worthless without extreme gov. subsidies,

Sorry; I just don't see why you're so biased. And it is bias -- there are tons of places and ways that solar and wind are used exclusively, and effectively.

In my neighborhood, there are plenty of neighbors who get paid by the local utility because they over-produce. Lots more who pay just a few dollars a month.
Yes, they invested their own money, or got a good piece of it paid by a govt program. But that's just an outlay issue -- the government pays into any plant of any other kind, too.

If you condemn solar just because it doesn't fit into a national scale well, you would cause people to overlook this simple, cheap, and effective choice.

Please stop your hyperbole, and qualify your statements to reflect what scale you are talking about.
Please?

>>5566794
No, the Japanese government are informing them to reinstate them. They aren't allowed to make new facilities but they need to feed the need. Compromises have been made.

>>5566794
Yes, because:

1. They're needed to keep the nation supplied with power, because nothing else has close to the capacity of nuclear

2. The companies make money off of selling their electricity, so they want to continue operations

3. Nuclear isn't actually as dangerous as your warped mind thinks it is, and the power companies and government knows this.

>>5566798
So the old plants are safe?

I'm getting mixed messages here.

>>5566803
They are outdated and use decades old failsafe measures. The Japanese public would rather use these existing monstrosities rather than approving new designs.

>>5566803
How fucking retarded are you? Green text for you:

>old nuclear plant getting old
>hey guys can i build new nuclear plant?
>noooooo its evil, muh environment
>well, i'll shut it down
>nooooooo muh energy,
>well, i guess we can operate a bit further
>fucking 9.0 earhquale followed by tsunami, during a fucking maintenance cyle
>you seee, nuclear is bad


No wonder you dont like nuclear. You cant fucking read.

>>5566725
>Fukushima only at the small end of nuclear disaster.
Agreed;
Fukushima is at the very long end of the scale, one of the most damaging ever.
Shame on anyone for minimizing it because it didn't have huge fatality numbers.

Hundreds of people were irradiated, and the effect on the environment likely drastic, but it won't be appreciated because it affected ocean.

A nuclear plant disaster is inarguably more significant than, say, a fire at a coal or petroleum-fueled plant. Any of those are vastly more damaging than a wind generator falling down or a solar panel on a roof getting cracked.

>>5566764
>Fuck. Environmentalists.
So fucking this.

Every time in the past ten years, when I get notified of any kind of accident that's in any way connected to nuclear power, radioactivity, radioisotopes or happen less than ten kilometers away from a nuclear plant, I cringe.

Because I know that for the next several day or weeks I'm going to get swamped by green hipsters about 'ebul nukular'.

When the radioactive liquid container in US started leaking last week, I just wanted to get back into bed and sleep over the whole thing.

>>5563176
>I am writing a persuasive essay on how nuclear energy is not all that good (its the form we have just now) and that only hipster's and idiots think that its prefect.

lmftfy

>>5566822
>not getting the point

You have to accept one of the following
>old plants are safe
>nuclear power companies are willing to operate unsafe plants

It's that simple.

>>5566831
>nuclear power companies are willing to operate unsafe plants
At the coercion of the Japanese public and government.

>>5566765
>Yeah, and if a huge hydroelectric dam blows up, or an oil refinery explodes, or whatever electric plant you want has a major disaster shits gonna get fucking real.

The difference is still in scale and solution;
a nuclear plant destroys huge amounts of area, probably poisoning all animal and plant life for many decades.
a refinery just burns itself; there usually aren't many facilities nearby
a coal plant fire or a petroleum-fueled plant just burns itself and the nearby hills; it will produce tons of pollutants and destroy the plant and, historically, several lives immediately and a few from smoke.
hydroelectric break will destroy everything downstream for miles, but probably no pollutants and there might be lots of warning

It's extremely unfair (and ignorant) to leave out important details when arguing over these things. No one is fooled, you look bad, and people might be swayed by the mentioned stuff too much.

>>5566833
They dont have to operate the plants. But they do operate them, because they are driven by money. Money drives them to operate unsafe plants.

Nuclear power companies are willing to operate unsafe plants for money.

Do you see where this is going?

>>5566831
no you nigger, life is not fucking black or white, there is not fucking safe or fucking unsafe

Life is, "well, there's a 3.456 % probability that if the plant keeps running for 4.5 years we might have a disaster that can kill 0-1000 people IF we get hit by a 8.9+ earthquake".

And then they ask the major/prez if thats is acceptable, and he says "oh god of course not", our safety policies say that you must have a 3.454 % chance, so fuck off".

The point, is that its always a tradeoff, and the only thing you can measure it in is money. Running the same plant is cheaper than making a new one. But at the same time, killing some fuckers, or having a high chance of killing some fuckers is cheaper than , say, building a pure solar power infrastructure.

Human life is a commodity.

>>5566826

Don't hate all environmentalists.

As a /sci/entist I love the environment, I want all of human civilization to leave our ecosystems as untouched as possible, even to great inconvenience to humanity.

But there are intelligent environmentalists like me that realize nuclear power is among the most reliable, sustainable, and clean solutions for most of our energy needs.

And I want to continue investing in nuclear power research if new development can help further minimize the risk of meltdown of reactors in the future.

Chemists and Physicists tend to dislike nuclear energy
Pop-science fans/atheists/people that want to seem more intelligent usually blindly support nuclear power and mock those that don't

Guess which category /sci/ will fall in

>>5566843
So you want the japanese to enjoy their blackouts instead?

You're not an idiot, you're actively evil.

Nuclear energy doesn't sound economically viable if we force companies to pay for their wastes' safe storage for a hundred thousand years.

>>5566843
Just to make this crystal clear to you, I'll finish it off.

>Nuclear power companies are willing to operate unsafe plants for money.
>unsafe plants cost less to operate than safe plants
>??????
>MELTDOWN

>>5566775
>I don't know if you're a little kid or just have never set foot in an industrial environment, but you REALLY need to get your shit together and learn stuff before opening that mouth of yours.

You might not realize it, but a nuclear plant has a very drastic set of requirements, approvals, long-term plans and such to do before even willingly building something.
Then they are fought by people who are scared, and politicians delay to find out whether the scare is going to last.

I'm with the other guy -- yes, regular industry replaces stuff all the time. But this isn't just replacing 'a machine.' Nuclear plants very slowly, with much difficulty, and always much later than they proposed.

>>5566849
I know. I consider myself an environmentalist too.
But the public eye has been captured by these fucking illiterate assholes so efficiently, that if I say I am one, I then need fifteen to thirty minutes to explain what I mean by that.

Fun times when assholes from both sides of the issue blame me for being in cahoots with the other side.

>>5566848
>Human life is a commodity

Nice analysis for nuclear power. It seems totally fair for nuclear power companies to profit by betting against my life.

>>5566852
Why not just build a different kind of plant instead of waiting for government approval to build a new nuclear one?

>it costs $500 million to build a new plant
>that's a lot of money
>let's just keep using the old reactors, whaddya say, bob?
>they seem safe enough to me
>me too

>>5566853
But that's retarded.

Nuclear waste isn't even dangerous that long. It's clear you haven't the faintest idea what a half life is or how it works.

Protip: The shorter the half-life, the more dangerously radioactive a substance is. Which means shit that lasts for hundreds of thousands of years isn't actually dangerous to begin with.

Anyways, this still ignores the fact that nuclear waste is compact and easy to store, and further ignores the fact that a good 90% of the 'waste' can actually be reprocessed and re-used as fuel again. The absolutely unusable stuff needs to be stored for 200-500 years maximum and is barely a percent of the current waste totals.

>>5566881
You're more than welcome to start a purely solar powered grid with your own money.

>>5566850
This

Nuclear power needs die or at least become fully nationalized.

>>5566854
Let me make it clear for you
>We have new designs can we get zoned for new station?
>no
>okay
>meltdown
>shutdown
>why you shut down we need power

When the stations shutdown the fucking stations because they were unsafe the japanese people coerced them to turn it back on saying the risk was worth the cheaper power and still they don't approve any new power station.

>>5566893
Of course it is dangerous. The risk is that it will reach a water table and end up causing thousands or millions of cases of cancer before the next human civilization figures out what is going on.

>>5566898
>it costs $500 million to build a new nuclear plant and run it for 40 years
>it costs $2000 million to build and run a new coal/oil plant and run it for 10 years

There's a reason why nuclear plants are built, and its not becuase some guys want to get spider powers.

>>5566898
>Please approve our new nuclear facility
>but everyone says nuclear is bad no new one
>okay
>please approve our new nuclear facility
>but everyone says nuclear is bad no new one
>okay
>old station is too old
>new station would mean more nuclear so no
>okay

Also new stations would have cheaper operating cost for the power company meaning more profits. Stop being retarded.

>>5566850
I wouldn't mind a little more nuclear, but I have to agree, /sci/ seems irrationally supportive of nuclear energy.

I remember Fukushima. Plenty of /sci/ posters kept saying "it's nothing but hype" and "nothing will go wrong" as things went from bad to worse. There is an irrational fear of nuclear among a lot of people, but that doesn't mean we should take the opposite end of the spectrum.

>>5566898
>Why not just build a different kind of plant instead of waiting for government approval to build a new nuclear one?

You understand Japan is a fairly small place, mostly in use, and that providing another kind of fuel is a different massive problem?

Japan is moving toward some alternative methods, but too slow for their incredibly high demands.

>>5566881
You are so incredibly naive and childish it hurts.

Protip: It's not just nuclear power companies that treat human lives as commodities. See: Every single corporation and government in the world.

Grow the fuck up, jesus.

>>5566932
For the last time Fukushima was the result of environmental concerns. Everyone reasonable wanted these station shut off years ago, the power stations themselves wanted to build more efficient system to increase profit margins. It's more profitable to make things more efficient, safer , and more reliable.

>>5566904
>please dont build nuclear power in my city
>no
>please stop running the old plant in my city
>no
>please build a different kind of power plant to replace the old one
>no, it has to be nuclear, nuclear is the safest kind of.....
>please stop using the old reactor
>YOU'RE FORCING ME TO USE IT

>>5566941
/sci/ - greentext stories from retards

>>5566795
I said it before and I'll say it again.

Power companies HAVE to maintain a minimum load capacity, even if everyone in the country had solar panels on top of their houses the power companies would still have to burn the same amount of coal/oil/nuclear as if people didn't.

Even if your using power from solar panels on top of your roof it's not like the coal plant down the road can simply turn the dial down and burn less coal. It burns the same amount no matter what, wind/solar aren't dependable enough to contribute to the base load capacity.

That's why it's a bad joke - you can buy solar panels or "green energy" credits but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't reduce your "carbon footprint" or save the environment. The power companies produce the same amount of energy whether you use it or not.

>>5566904
I looked up your story. It isnt real. Most of Japanese nuclear reactors are not running.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/11/japan-reverse-nuclear-phase-out

>It could take months – perhaps years – before a significant number of reactors are switched back on.
>written 11 January 2013

>>5566921
Nice citation. I'm sure those figures are totally made up and real.

>>5566850 >Chemists and Physicists tend to dislike nuclear energy

>Engineers tend to like nuclear energy

Get out of the way pls.

>>5566940
Your post is a good example of /sci/'s all too common knee-jerk reaction to anti-nuclear comments. The fact that it was partly do to design and nature has nothing to do with my post, but you posted nonetheless. We all need to take a step back and make sure we don't entrench ourselves.

>>5566952
Except aggregate power demand effects the capacity of new power stations. Every solar panel slows the ever advancing need for new plants.

If half your city gets solar panels, they wont be building any coal plants soon.

>>5566983
Except that that actually happened. Posting embarrassing but accurate facts shouldn't be considered a 'kneejerk'.

Especially when one side carries much of the blame but tries to roll it all onto the other side?

>>5566921
>>5566968
Looking at the captial cost of the AP1000 design a new nuclear facility looks at about $5 billion

>>5566850
Chemists and Physicists want money to fund their research, why would they support something that's already developed, tried, and tested?

The energy business is all about money.

>>5566850
i've had a few physics instructors love nuclear energy

>>5567062
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2010/11/23/eia-releases-new-generating-plant-capital-cost-data/

>>5563176
Nuclear power has the least.

Deaths per Gigawatt per hour.

Compared to any other energy resource, including solar.

>>5567128
What now, nuclearfags?

>>5567144
What you made you pick wind over natural gas?

>>5567156
Wind was getting bashed pretty hard in this thread.

Also note that solar photoelectric is cheaper than nuclear, too. I really dont get this whole "pay more money for radiation center" dealio that nuclear proponents are going for.

>>5567144
>zero operating and management cost
HAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAA

Yeah, I guess the fairies and unicorns don't charge much these days.

Just to make this clear, that chart is bullshit.

>>5567166
>>zero operating and management cost

>Just to make this clear, that chart is bullshit.

Variable operating cost is set to zero

Look at set operating cost.

Yeah. One point I argued was the waste of nuclear energy is contained and easy to isolate, instead of just pumping all the shit into the atmosphere. Other points were the actual radioactive levels of living near a coal plant are 2x+ the levels of a nuclear power plant.

OP; look into liquid thorium/salt thorium nuclear reactors. so much better in every single way than uranium.

>>5566932 >I remember Fukushima. Plenty of /sci/ posters kept saying "it's nothing but hype" and "nothing will go wrong" as things went from bad to worse

There were plenty of posters, propagandists and media jumping onto the bandwagon to complain about and exaggerate the actual happenings.

>Chernobyl + 9/11 x 1000

A large percentage of news stories focused on Fukushima while totally ignoring the little yellow people floating down the road in their houses.

I bet there are people that forget other things got damaged that aren't the nuclear plant.

>>5566980
And what happens when it's cloudy? You have this ever increasing population with all these solar panels that are now useless but people still demand power.

Energy storage technologies aren't remotely near the level that would be required to store surplus for cloudy days later. Hell, it still costs $10 for a pack of AA batteries.

>>5567166
Actually, youre looking in the "variable O&M Cost."

Please direct your attention to the column to the left of it, labelled "Fixed O&M Cost."

>>5567188
Interestingly, the solar power industry deals is not the only industry that has to deal with peak power issues. Even coal and natural gas plants sometimes cannot keep up with the demand for power. On the other hand, there is little power demand at 2 am, so a coal plant would need to run at much below capacity.

The solution is to use the extra power produced during nonpeak times to pump water into a water tower. When you need extra power, let the water flow into a hydroelectric generators. This has a huge advantage over batteries because it is vastly cheaper in a large scale. This way, large amounts of energy can be stockpiled for a later use. This exact technique can be applied to solar power.

Another alternative is using solar to supplement your power use, to run several coal plants at low capacity year round. In times of need, you can bring the full power of the coal plant to bear.

I'm sure you can think of countless solutions. Why are you working against solar?

>>5567188
>And what happens when it's cloudy? You have this ever increasing population with all these solar panels that are now useless but people still demand power.
>Energy storage technologies aren't remotely near the level that would be required to store surplus for cloudy days later.

A cloudy day doesn't mean no energy is produced; just less energy. Maybe 40-70%
A stormy day, real darkness and solid rain, reduces production to 0, as does snow on the panel.
But that only means that solar isn't an answer everywhere, and no one said it was.

>>5567268
Yes I've read about using valleys/canyons/etc for energy storage, but I like said - such technology is far on the horizon.

I'm not specifically fighting solar, I think it's much better than wind power. However, solar tech is nowhere near what we need right now - nuclear/thorium is.

>>5567279
The water tower into hydroelectric is currently bering used, in everything from solar to coal. There is no new technology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity

What kind of technology did you think we needed to develop?

>>5565711
but most energy is wasted commercially, and either way, with population growth and riseing number of electronic devices people regularly use, its naiive to think that we can cut energy use lower than todays useage. we can slow the growth, but we wil defidently be using more power in the future

No, it's not worth the risk.

Get power in exchange for the possibility of mild to complete irradiation of an area, leaving it entirely inhospitable unless you're cool with cancer or radiation poisoning.

And as Fukushima proved, accidents WILL happen, PERIOD. It's just a matter of time. No other power source is so volatile, not even the gulf oil spill for example.

>>5567463
accidents in..
hydo
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
23x more killed than chernobyl, just as valid to bring this up if you bring chernobyl up, despite both being decades old
oil
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BP_oil_spill
shitton of enviromental damage along coast, moreso than a 20km radius around bumfucknowhere-ukrane which is essensially a proteced wildlife reserve nowdays
coal
>http://www.msha.gov/fatals/fabc2012.asp
home-solar (and everything elce...)
>http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html

fukushima was hit by a tsunami, flooded, had a fire and lost electrisity and still caused 0 deaths despite failing to follow all regulations

>>5567495

I never said dams, oil or coal were good sources of energy either.

All of them involve altering the environment which usually has a pretty shitty effect on ecology. Electric, wind, and other energy sources harness naturally occurring energies and forces.


Just like nuclear? Yeah, but when a power plant blows up it doesn't irradiate the land and should a wind turbine fly off it will just decapitate a handful of people and/or some trees.

>>5567495

Oh, and you have no idea how many deaths Fukushima may have or will cause due to cancer. Also, what is the ecological situation around the plant nowadays?

>>5567306
Obviously we have hydro-electric damns and reservoirs. I'm talking about a large enough infrastructure to actually store and distribute enough energy to contribute a sizable percentage of the total power used. Such a reservoir would have to be MASSIVE (large canyon/valley/or something) with a sprawling transmission grid feeding it energy from the solar/wind farms. You also need a very large body of water to draw from nearby to keep things efficient. Unfortunately you just have to look at the placement of current hydroelectric dams to realize ideal locations are few and far between.

However, after you build all this up, you're still stuck with inefficient power sources (wind/solar) filling this storage and at the end of the day you'll look back and realize we could have used a much more efficient power source (nuclear/thorium - clean coal) for probably the same price if not less and drop the plants wherever we want them.

so people really think that dams, windmills and solar panels will be enough when petroleum and natural gas run out

>>5567513
>Electric, wind, and other energy sources harness naturally occurring energies and forces.
Can't tell if stupid or trolling.

>too cheap to meter

This catchphrase was said about fusion power. Not about nuclear.

>hurr durr chernobyl

Nuclear is not perfect, but it is the best source we have. Nuclear produces so much energy that even including all the victims of Chernobyl puts it at comparable deaths per TWh than renewables. And new reactors are an order of magnitude safer.

>but fissionable reserves

Fissionables are virtually inexhaustible.

>thorium

Thorium is great, but dont be too hung up on it. Other modern desings are just as good, if not better.

Nuclear fission is only the first step toward nuclear fusion.
-more powerful
-not radioactive

>>5567941
>and quite impossible ATM

>>5567540

>clean coal

I can't help but always crack into a smile when I hear or see that phrase.

>>5567515
actually i do, its extemated to be less than 100, and those are plant workers and first responders, who were well aware of the dangers.

besides, 100 people getting cancer 10 years down the line and 40% dieing from that cancer over a period of a year isnt as bad as the thousands of dads who die yearly installing rooftop solar panels

>>5567941
Fusion is awesome, but fission isn't so bad.

What we need now are more advanced fission power plants, for instance accelerator-driven subcritical fission fragment reactors with direct electric conversion. 90+% energy efficiency, no possibility of a runaway reaction, no accumulation of large quantities of radioactive gasses, and it burns up the dangerous parts of its own waste, and separates the valuable parts.

>>5568347
>thousands of dads who die yearly installing rooftop solar panels

>>5568381
>sexism

>>5567446

Yes, commercial waste is a bigger factor.
But that never makes personal waste acceptable or unimportant enough to ignore. Habits spread.

Yes, personal electronics use is going up, but it's also going to lower current, because of tinier portables.

>>5567495
>accidents in..
Actually, you seem to be counting ONLY fatalities from the immediate event.
That isn't anyone's only metric, and you know it. Land, environment, health, animal, pollutants -- all of these matter, and we've included them all along.

>hydo
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
>23x more killed than chernobyl, just as valid to bring this up if you bring chernobyl up, despite both being decades old

Not as valid, because it was a third-world town that was destroyed; unregulated, desperate, and impoverished.

>oil
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BP_oil_spill
>shitton of enviromental damage along coast,
And which will not last as long, but thanks for noticing environmental damage.

>moreso than a 20km radius around bumfucknowhere-ukrane which is essensially a proteced wildlife reserve nowdays
It's a protected area (the wildlife reserve part is a bureaucratic joke) because no one should stay there long. That's because of the damage, long ago.

>coal
>>http://www.msha.gov/fatals/fabc2012.asp
OK, but that includes all industrial deaths of any kind (doesn't need to be related to operating the power plants or mining). In the first few I see a fall, a drowning, and a guy that was crushed.

>home-solar (and everything elce...)
>>http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html
Very good, but reading the report it seems the author just took the roofer's fall rate and divided by 3. Not only isn't this a fall because of the power choice, it cannot be a reasonable injury rate just for solar installation. Roofing takes several days, solar installation perhaps an hour.

>fukushima was hit by a tsunami, flooded, had a fire and lost electrisity and still caused 0 deaths despite failing to follow all regulations
No, Fukushima devastated the ocean environment, threatened massive atmospheric radiation, and devastated the health of more than 300 people with radiation consequences.

>>5567540
>you're still stuck with inefficient power sources (wind/solar)

How can anyone call these inefficient?
They are the cheapest of all choices given to build, cheapest to install, and require little maintenance and NO FUEL EVER.

These are vastly, many times more effective at providing power without human interaction.

>>5567928
>but it is the best source we have.

This is several people's point -- it just isn't.

It is, AFTER you put in a huge number of conditions that require massive supply, massive distribution, and force the analysis to provide to every kind of need at once.

We never have to actually entertain all those conditions!

>>5569113
>No, Fukushima devastated the ocean environment

>implying nuclear accidents are bad for wildlife in the long run

>>5568347
>isnt as bad as the thousands of dads who die yearly installing rooftop solar panels


That study showed 362 falls per year in the constructions industry.
It was entirely the author who decided that represented 100-150 deaths per year just from solar installation.

He apparently just considered that construction, roof repair, and solar installation (3 activities) meant he should divide by 3, which is ridiculous beyond measure.

>>5568373
>Fusion is awesome, but fission isn't so bad.

Fusion is FANTASY.
Yes, we expect to have it eventually, but right now you cannot fairly compare it to anything -- it just doesn't exist.

>>5569147
>>No, Fukushima devastated the ocean environment
>>implying nuclear accidents are bad for wildlife in the long run

How can they not be?
They cause deaths, poisonings, disrupt stable ecologies...
oh, dammit, I guess you are implying something silly about mutations.

That's neither beneficial nor calculable, and it is silly for anyone to suggest causing mutations is a helpful thing. Particularly since those forced mutations usually just kill.

>>5569162
>Fusion is FANTASY, it just doesn't exist.
See: Sun.
See: $2000 dollars garage fusors.
See: thermonuclear weapons.

What does not exist is commercial fusion power generation, yet.

>>5569191
>What does not exist is commercial fusion power generation, yet.
And that's just because nobody takes my internal thermonuclear detonation engine idea seriously.

And I can't afford to build a big enough piston on my own.

>>5569191
>>Fusion is FANTASY, it just doesn't exist.
>See: Sun.
>See: $2000 dollars garage fusors.
>See: thermonuclear weapons.
>What does not exist is commercial fusion power generation, yet.

That was excessively childish.
You know the context of the discussion is power alternatives -- not the existence of physics principles.
I shouldn't have to write that in each sentence just to keep children from pointing uselessly.

>>5569211
>I shouldn't have to write that in each sentence just to keep children from pointing uselessly.
You shouldn't write anything at all really.

>>5569211
>You know the context of the discussion is power alternatives
And the context of the post you were quoting is future developments in power technology.

Don't be so fucking autistic, then get upset when other people are as nitpicky and unreasonable as the example you just set.

>>5569173
no, im pointing to the fact that most animals die naturally before any kind of cancer kills them, and the next generation will grow up free from humans in the area destroying the enviroment there. this happened in chernobyl, large wilfelife population there, and they are healthy.

>>5569226
>And the context of the post you were quoting is future developments in power technology.

Ah, I see the problem.
The discussion is NOT about FUTURE developments in power.
It is about CURRENT choices, real choices.

>>5569517
>no, im pointing to the fact that most animals die naturally before any kind of cancer kills them,
>and the next generation will grow up free from humans in the area destroying the enviroment there.
I object to the pretense that the area was sanctioned as a wildlife refuge IN SPITE OF the nuclear disaster. I do not deny there is a refuge there, I just think it silly anyone believe it would have been there otherwise.

>this happened in chernobyl, large wilfelife population there, and they are healthy.
But Chernobyl also enjoyed a vast international clean-up effort.

yfw you invent a way to fuse 1 carbon atom and 2 hydrogen atoms into 1 oxygen atom
thus supplying energy and oxygen and solving global warming all at the same time

>>5563199

>>5569565
>The discussion is NOT about FUTURE developments in power.
>It is about CURRENT choices, real choices.
Guess what? Current choices have to be made based on reasonable expectations about future developments. REAL choices do have to take into account future systems, and in fact will determine which systems are ever brought from theory into reality.

Power plants involve a large up-front investment, and operate for decades. It's often better to invest in some short-term maintenance and upgrades to keep what you've got working, to give a superior technology time to develop, rather than build something all-new based on the technology you have at the moment, which is none-too-impressive.

And the discussion CLEARLY already included discussion of developing technologies, you god damned autist.

>>5569130

>Ctrl-F Thorium
>8 results

C'mon /sci/.

anyone got a link to that video about how we constantly strive to use more energy than we can produce and how we are doomed to an energy crisis no matter what?

>>5569576
sorry but a that is not how theoretical global warming is theoretically caused

also oxygen is, believe it or not, fatal to organisms without protection. A higher concentration might not be good

also this

>>5569226
>And the context of the post you were quoting is future developments in power technology.

And there are no current developments planned for the future that will allow workable fusion.

If there are no designs that will work then it's fantasy