Nuclear Power

[Pestcontrol]

Secondly, dumping radioactive waste into the sea is dangerous. There are no barriers to stop contaminated water from spreading around the globe.

You're ignoring the fact that it's diluted. Nuclear waste small. Oceans big.

Tokamak for the win!

Actually, Tokamak is promising but extremely difficult and hence expensive. With ITER going ahead though progress is still being made, so that's hopeful. Alternative fusion methods have long been out of the picture after the cold fusion hoax, but i still feel there may be more than one way, it doesn't hurt to do research in alternatives like inertial containment fusion.

I think that many of you are forgetting the fact that nuclear power stations still require fuel, and that the output from the plant should exceed the costs of commissioning and decommissioning. Estimates of nuclear fuel availability include Uranium that has to be recovered from the oceans, and it has been demonstrated that with current technologies this produces an energy deficit (costs more than it produces). Excluding this source means that we have an estimated 20 years remaining, or the life cycle of this generation of reactors, and whilst MOX can be used it will only extend this by a few years.

As i stated in my previous post, nuclear power is indeed more expensive, and uranium is limited. When breeding and burning plutonium though, the supply is practically limitless, but it does increase cost further.

I should qualify this by saying that I am not a raving lunatic green activist and that I agree that nuclear power could have been a clean source of power, but the nuclear industry has had its chance. The politics and scandal associated with this energy source means that it cannot be trusted. Finally I think there is the issue of risk. Nuclear without a shadow of a doubt is the most hazardous form of power generation, and adding to this the fact that accidents can lead to quite catastrophic consequences results in a question mark as to whether we can accept the risk.

The problem here is that peaceful and military use of nuclear technology have long been mixed. Add to this the novelty after WW2 and strategical pressure on postwar governments to invent their own nuclear technology, and it's easy to see how the climate for mishaps and accidents like the windscale fire could have happened. Those practices were extremely dangerous, no doubt about that, but i believe that today expertise is at such a level the benefits outweigh the risks, even chernobyl was caused by a chain of events and reactor design unthinkable today.

Heterogeny of power generation linked to hydrogren storage is the only answer, that linked to decoupling power generation from local political boundaries. Imagine a world in which productive nations in the temperate zones, purchase or trade for power generated in the equatorial regions. Perhaps a one world government might be the answer.

I'm convinced that this will probably happen at some point in the future, although maybe that's more of a belief than a rational assumption. For now however electrical power is difficult to transport in such vast amounts over long distances at acceptable cost, and hydrogen isn't quite there yet, either. Not to mention the fact that the decoupling you mention will never happen for political/strategical reasons. If another nation controls your power, that gives them far too much, well, power. It would require such an amount of trust and unity that the power problem is likely solved before that point is reached.

I think that for the mid to near term future the richer western nations should invest in alternative and nuclear power, and start on building a hydrogen economy, leaving the cheaper fossil fuels for use in developing nations. Not that that will ever happen, but still. [edit]France is setting the right example here, imho[/edit]

For good or bad, interesting times lay ahead, that's for sure.

 

[social_outcast]

Nuclear power is pretty much the only real soloution to energy problems that can be implemented at this time in history.

Nuclear is not only by statistics safer (seriously, how many people die at a nuclear plant compared to all the coal/gas burning ones that have gone up over the decades) but as close to renewable as large scale energy-producing materials get (very little isotope is used in the reactor -- certain amounts of waste can be recycled using purification processes -- consider how much isotope is used to create the same amount of energy as burning a tonne of coal, your talking grams I believe).

People should stop worrying so much about the dangers of radiation
Whats gonna kill you quicker:
A)Living a few miles from a nuclear power plant where the radiation above background is still a fraction of living under power cabels
or
B)Taking a fucking plane trip accross the Atlantic where you end up getting up to 4 times your yearly background radiation dose in the space of a couple of hours!!!
behond the reactor and waste capsules, there isnt much of a difference in background levels - every precaution is taken to make sure radiation discharge is at a minimum.

As for the worry of waste containment - I think they should at least double the cooling time before disposal (currently I believe its 5 or 10 years a plant keeps old fuel submerged to let the reaction rate settle down) - but whats worse? A minor leak of radiation a mile down a concrete encapsulated tunnel, 50 miles from anywhere, OR breathing in the thousands of tonnes of carcinogenic fumes we belch out of our citys every day?

The world is dieing becuase it cant breath through the co2 levels - the OZone layer is a layer of o3 gas - people think we cant repair it, but solar energy levels are high enough to create new o3 molecules, provided it can salvage enough 02 AND isnt being ripped off by co2 - if you turned all energy production in the world to a nuclear source for A DAY, the results would quite possibly be clearly seen, at which point people would curse the day another hydrocarbon was combusted...

 

[decky101]

nuclear power is tooo dodgy sure look wat happend at chernobyl and there is still the threat of nuclear genocide from it as the inner dome is near collapsin these are my views on the whole situationbut if we can find a safe way 2 use nuclear energy i'm all for it