It wasn't to long ago DU had a nice debate on Nuclear Power.....

[trumad]

I was a bit surprised to see so many here in favor of it.

I wonder how they feel today?

[peacebird]

1. I wondered the same thing. I have long opposed it, and still think of it

as at the very best - a last resort.

[ixion]

2. Yep, events like this, and the toxic waste produced make nuclear energy

a bad, bad idea.

[LiberalEsto]

3. I'm sure their petrified mind-sets haven't changed

They will find ways to rationalize it.

[trumad]

5. Yeah---

I was reading comments from another site....

Comments like ---we'll never get an 8.9 earthquake.

Tell that to California who has plenty of vulnerable NUKE sites.

[RegieRocker]

21. Dead end neural pathways

[tekisui]

4. Just like the debate after the Gulf oil leak,

those on the side of dirty power follow the leader.

[Divernan]

6. Quarter of a century later, deformed children from Chernobyl area fill 2 orphanages

I heard a presentation from a professor from Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute. He was the robotics expert who designed robots to go into 3 Mile Island for cleanup. He was on the ground in Chernobyl, at the request of the Soviet govt., before the public even knew about Chernobyl. He returns there every year and visits two orphanages housing the deformed children born in the area since then. Here's their story.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/26/earlyshow/main1547965.shtml

This story is from 2006:Twenty Years Later, Heart-Breaking Effects Of Nuclear Accident

An overview of the world's worst nuclear accident and its fallout.

(CBS) April 26 marks the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, but the tragedy lingers in heartbreaking ways.

Twenty years ago, a nuclear power plant in the former Soviet Union exploded not once, but twice, soaking the atmosphere with 100 times more radiation than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

The plant is located on the border area between Ukraine and Belarus. At the time of the accident, about 7 million people lived in contaminated territories, including 3 million children. More than 5 million people, including more than a million children, still live in contaminated zones, according to the Chernobyl Children’s Project International, a not-for-profit organization that provides humanitarian and medical aid.

Two decades later, radioactive elements are spread through dust particles deposited in the earth by rainfall or enter the food chain through plants and animals, according to the organization. Millions continue to be exposed to these low doses of radiation, and their children are showing the tragic results. Many of them are born with disabilities so severe their parents either don't want them or can't help them.

[trumad]

8. Oh---but it provides power for my coffee pot....

[Tesha]

22. And there just nothing else that can do it like the old (sic) nukes can!

(I don't need a sarcasm tag for you, right Trumad? ;) )

Tesha

[jimlup]

7. Reactors that are safer than the distressed reactor in Japan have already been designed

And are in operation. We don't need to do the light water reactor thing if we are smart. We generally are not but we could be. Just sayin'

[trumad]

11. Perhaps...

but changes to existing reactors...like those in Ca, won't come for years.

[Tesha]

23. Well, they at least have *NEW* (and untested) failure modes.

The real world often reveals different information
than even the best-intentioned FMEA.

Tesha

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

[PA Democrat]

9. These debates are like flashbacks to my childhood.

My dad worked in nuclear energy, he did actual design of nuclear plants. What I have found is that people in the field have an almost religious cult-like zeal in their need to convert everyone to the belief that nuclear power is safe.

While I have an enormous respect for science, I have a greater respect for nature. We as humans make errors, make miscalculations and often fail to fully understand and respect the power of forces (such as hurricanes, earthquakes etc.) which are beyond our control. With nuclear power, a 99.9% track record can do a tremendous amount of damage.

[Tesha]

26. It's funny; I actually believe that nuclear (fission) power production is a mostly-safe enterprise.

I'm firmly in the anti-fission camp. But it's not because
I believe that the power plants are generally unsafe. So
far, well-designed plants have an admirable safety record,
even considering TMI, Besse-Davis, and some others. (I
accept that Chernobyl was an aberration that probably
won't repeat.)

The reasons I'm firmly in the anti-fission-power camp
are, essentially, threefold:

1. We have no acceptable solution to the problem
of disposing of nuclear waste and given the long-
term stewardship that would be required, I do not
believe humans can come up with a safe-yet-practical
disposal method.

2. Commercial nuclear power production will *ALWAYS*
be entangled with nuclear weapons production. You
simply can't create Enriched Uranium (at any level
of enrichment), Plutonium, Tritium, etc. and not be
of interest and aid to the folks who make the bombs.

Finally, and probably least of all:

3. Even though real accidents at nuclear power plants
are rare and catastrophic accidents are even more
rare (one might even argue "so far, nonexistent"),
the worst case scenario accident is so horrific that
we probably shouldn't be tempting fate in that way.
Essentially, we have a system that has a decidedly
non-zero probability of an accident which could render
an entire region incapable of supporting any life more
complex than microbes for decades or centuries. There
are few human endeavors undertaken that accept this
sort of risk; the only other one I can think of might
be our endeavors with biological warfare.

We can wait for fusion power; we don't need more
fission power.

Tesha

[PA Democrat]

27. I agree.

There is just too small of a margin for error.

[LAGC]

28. Meanwhile we burn thousands of tons of coal every year...

The pollution that goes... where?

[rucky]

10. We're not gonna let a little radiation stop progress, are we?

:hide:

[meow mix]

12. human capacity to rationalize is endless. look briefly up thread for proof

dont worry, they are to compromised to make any other choice. no matter what.

sick

[katnapped]

13. Hell no!

If anything because of the money-hungry bastards (cough...Koch...cough) that'll make DAMN SURE to use substandard materials to construct it and the lowest-wage employees to run it.

Oh and they gots PUH-LENTY of money to pay off nuisances like the NRC (assuming they don't have them abolished)

[jschurchin]

14. Still the same.

I am still in favor of nuclear energy. Then again, i'm in favor of the right to own weapons, a womans right to her body, freedom of religion, raising taxes on all income i.e. dividend's, protecting ANWR, UNIONS, and stopping illegal immigration.

It's how I feel.

[jimlup]

15. I think we need to be accurate to the science

Which means that "safe" nuclear power is one opinion we must consider if we are to get CO2 down to safe levels. The CO2 problem is much more serious than most folks realize in my opinion.

[MikeW]

16. here we go

:popcorn:

[Jamastiene]

17. To be honest, I'm surprised Japan is using it...considering.

If you really stop and think about it though, they have a weird sense of humor. They invented Atomic Chicken too.

The risks are not worth the reward. Humans are too error prone and in cases like this, it is beyond anyone's control anyhow.

[PATRICK]

19. Their so-called safety

assurances rating the possibility of an accident as statistically insignificant has discredited things up and down. We now can prove accidents in such locations are not only inevitable but unlikely to plan redundantly enough for. A slight cheer that all the brilliant technology in the industry has prevented the corrupt claptrap Chernobyl disaster so far.

What exactly do you have to do to let reason prevail in a dangerous world now and then? The immensely stupid argument "that could never happen" or "a million to one!" always comes form arrogance and profiteering. Those arguments were made by bought "experts" about inherently untrustworthy electron voting systems years ago.

The appeal of nuclear for governments will always be at some time or other in the ability to produce weapons. The money likely is an integral part of the military industrial complex anyway. It seems a way to sidestep conservation and the larger scale effects of biofuels. Most of all it centralizes the distribution of energy from one alluring pot controlled by the few.

In the capitalist dominated world you can only learn the hard way, but then just you try and do anything about it.

[Statistical]

18. Hundreds maybe thousands are dead from the tsunami not nuclear power.

So far not a single civilian has been killed by the 40+ reactors in the country.

Fission has been halted so they need to simply cool the heat produced by nuclear decay. They will get the reactor cooled.

Still it does make sense to move forward with GenIII+ reactors. The GE ABWR (advanced boiling water reactor) can cool itself for 48 hours without any human action, without any pumps, and without any power.

Better safety through better engineering.

[leveymg]

20. I suspect the number of vocal nuke supporters was somewhat less than it appeared.

Some of the supporters appeared to be well organized and coordinated. We all know what can be done with socks these days.

[NutmegYankee]

24. I still support it.

And no, I'm not paid to promote it. I think Skinner should ban accusing other DU'ers of being paid shrills frankly.

I still think that in order to meet the energy needs of a future without oil, we are going to need some serious baseload electric power. I support installing solar panels and doing some serious upgrades to the national grid to allow power to be distributed better, but I doubt we can get there alone on just solar and wind.

[ensho]

25. I must have missed the 'nice' debate. whenever I bring up anything

about nuke plants it turns into a nasty debate

[Cleita]

29. It seems some are still in favor of it, or

maybe they are part of the industry.

[Zorra]

30. Corporate visual media propaganda is extremely powerful.

They have the money to hire the best talent.

This talent is so clever at manipulating susceptible people and public opinion that they influence people to want things they don't need, or even things that are harmful or maybe harmful to them.

They pushed the idea that nuclear power is clean power over and over. There is an enormous amount of money at stake for the owners of nuclear power plants and related industries. They need enough people to believe that nuclear power is safe so that they can maintain their bottom line. Their greatest fear is that alternative energy systems that do not generate vast profits will become widespread

So they spread their bullshit, republican legislators chant the mantra over and over in service to the corporations that own them, and people believe their crap without really thinking the situation through. I think maybe many people are so disconnected from the natural world that they do not intrinsically understand this most basic indisputable fact about the natural world:

Nature is not stable. It never has been and never will be. It is not controllable, and it is far more powerful than the collective abilities and capabilities of humankind. Nature can destroy a nuclear power plant and/or storage facility in the blink of an eye, leaving a mass of some of the most lethal poisons in existence as the epitaph on their grave.

The death of even one person from a nuclear disaster is not worth the risk of using nuclear power. That person could be you, me, or someone's awesome beautiful 3 yr. old daughter or son. The devastation of a natural area from a nuclear disaster is not worth the risk.

I have used solar power for most of my life. It is fantastic. Yes, it is less convenient (unless you want to count the risk of nuclear disaster as an inconvenience:think:) than getting power generated through a nuclear plant. I have to maintain a battery bank periodically. I have to monitor my energy usage. But the system paid for itself long ago, and my power is free. And it will never hurt anyone in any way.

We really need to ditch nuclear and fossil fuel generated elecricity and get on with a committment to safe, clean alternative energy systems. President Obama? We're waiting for you to honor your word?;-)

[bananas]

31. Over 300,000 evacuated from the nuclear exclusion zone and some still refuse to grasp how serious

this is. While recovering from this devastating earthquake, Japan has had to direct resources to evacuating over 300,000 people because they were in extreme danger.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=622475&mesg_id=623353

26. 300,000 evacuated from 'exclusion' zone

#
1427: More than 300,000 people have now been evacuated from homes in northern Japan and that number will rise as the government increases the exclusion zone around the Fukushima nuclear power plant, Kyodo reports

[LAGC]

32. More Chicken Little bullshit.

The situation is well under control.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/12/japan.nuclear/index.html?hpt=T1

[backscatter712]

33. Let me go against the grain.

My position, prior to the events in Japan was that I'd support nuclear power only if there was a transition to safer technology - thorium-cycle designs, and other designs that used fertile materials as opposed to the current uranium-based designs which are obviously dangerous. Most of the time, they emit no pollution, but as Fukushima and Chernobyl show, when things go bad in a uranium reactor, they can go REALLY BAD!!!

Thorium-based designs are much safer, the waste is far less toxic and radioactive, and because the fuel is fertile rather than fissile, there's another mechanism available to stop the nuclear reaction in an emergency - stop the mechanism that is needed to initiate the reaction.

But just about everyone here at DU is right in that current uranium designs cannot be made safe enough. And then, there's the waste disposal problem that doesn't seem to have a good solution, except to "burn" the waste in a reactor, which coincidentally, is part of the same process used to create weapons-grade material, thus has weapons proliferation and security issues.

[ROFF]

34. Give some thought to

1. the cost of building 3+ complete generation systems. Solar, wind and battery backup. Are you willing to pay for each of these systems that each would have to be large enough to supply all the load by themselves?

2. the use of "dry cask" storage systems. If you don't know what "dry cask" is , Google it. Scientific American magazine had an article on this technology in the last year.

3. fossile fuel plants put more radiation into the environment than the nuclear plants. Do you think that coal and oil are completely free from dissolved radioactive materials?

I believe that whatever method is used to generate the energy we use in our lives is going to cost lives. Nothing is free. We just have to choose our poison.