What size nuclear disaster will convince us to ban nukes?

[grahamhgreen]

If we lost a city, would that be big enough? (already happened - 336,000 were relocated due to Chernobyl)

How about a country?

A continent?

Do we really have to wait for that?

When will enough be enough, and we abandon this dirty dangerous fuel from a bygone era and move into the future of unlimited, renewable energy?

[provis99]

1. you'll never convince the pro-nuke fanatics on DU.

they have a religious fervor about nuclear energy that approaches the level of love the gungeon people have for guns.

[Kennah]

3. I wasn't previously a pro-nuke fanatic, but this one does it for me

[LAGC]

5. Pro-nuker and pro-gunner atheist checking in.

Religious? Try practical.

When every reputable statistic says nuclear power is is the safest form of high-output efficient energy available to man right now, its hard to deny:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=630540&mesg_id=630540

Chernobyl was the exception, not the rule. Nuclear plant construction is much safer now.

And when this whole thing in Japan blows over with no serious radiation leakage, it will bolster the case for nuclear here in America as well.

[bananas]

11. Except his statistics are wrong. nt

[cleanhippie]

25. SO because you SAY so, they are wrong?

How about pointing out what is wrong, or are you going to run away from your comment?

[bananas]

35. No, they're wrong because they're wrong.

Are you so incompetent I have to do all your research for you?

[cleanhippie]

42. Ahh, so because YOU say so... I get it now.

Are you so ignorant that I have to explain to you that you have to support your claims with facts in order to be taken seriously?





Yes, I guess you are.

[spanone]

30. i hope you enjoy that little fantasy world you're living in

[madokie]

6. You got that right

Some I had somewhat some respect for have shown themselves to be nothing but apologist for the industry. Kinda like the teabaggers in some ways.

[InvisibleTouch]

2. I've been wondering just that myself.

Enough already with the nuclear plants. We have the means to do better, but we are running out of time to do it.

[Matariki]

4. I think you may be looking out the wrong end of the telescope.

And the answer, sadly, is that disaster has to strike most people directly and individually. It's sad because the truth is that far too many people lack empathy. It wouldn't surprise me if even an entire continent could register on the emotional scale for many people. But perhaps I'm just being cynical. I hope that's the case.

[Tikki]

7. Follow the money trail....When General Electric and their ilk

start losing real money on this predatory venture then
the lies will begin to cease and you'll hear the 'What!!Me?'
revisionist history try to wipe their participation out of the books....


Tikki

[DefenseLawyer]

21. How are they going to lose money?

Has there ever been a nuclear power plant built in this country with private money? I think not.

[Tikki]

27. When design, maintenance and contracting errors lead to

blow-back.
Private contractors...overseen by a gov. agency..(who, often, act on the behalf of the private contractor).*

Tikki
*degrees vary by Administration

[movonne]

8. This is just one more thing the corporations are doing to destroy

our planet...and anyone thinks not are crazy...

[Zax2me]

9. Ask Obama

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703363904576200973216100488.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[Initech]

10. I'm convinced nothing will.

[Teaser]

12. nothing

at least not for decades.

1/5 of our power comes from nuclear energy, and the only thing we can replace it with is coal or oil at this point and they are worse and MORE dangerous than nuclear, long term.

If we ever manage to get nuclear fusion working, that could help change things. Solar and wind will take decades to scale, and even when they do, full deployment will take another decade or so.

Basically we're fucked, energywise, unless we make some real breakthroughs. And fission is here for the foreseeable future.

[grahamhgreen]

13. Wind alone can do it. And we have many more options.

Figure 1.4: 16 Years of Global Wind Energy Development 1991-2006 Compared to the First 16 Years of Nuclear Development



Wind energy increased its share of total capacity in the EU to 7 per cent in 2007, and its impact on new generation capacity has been noticeable. 30 per cent of all power capacity installed between 2000 and 2007 was wind power, making it the second largest contributor to new EU capacity over the last eight years after natural gas (55 per cent). In 2007, no other electricity generating technology increased more than wind power in the EU. 6 per cent of all new capacity over the eight-year period was coal, 3 per cent fuel oil and 2 per cent large hydro, with nuclear and biomass coming in at 1 per cent each (Figures 1.5 and 1.6).


http://www.wind-energy-the-facts.org/en/part-4-industry--markets/chapter-1-wind-in-the-european-power-market/wind-in-the-eus-energy-mix.html

[Teaser]

14. wind is not ready to scale or deploy yet

and won't be for decades.

furthermore, if people don't think wind energy isn't going to cause climate change, they are deluding themselves.

When wind turns a turbine, it will pull energy out of the atmospheric wind currents passing over a region. The wind will be slowed just a little bit.

If we are pulling enough energy out of the air to power the entire United States grid, that is going to have some kind of climatic impact, definitely local, and possibly some broader impact. But no one, to my knowledge, has done extensive modeling of the impact this will have. It may be miniscule, but we're getting into a very nonlinear area with this.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. For some here, Nuclear power is a Sacred Cow. Untouchable and holy.

[catenary]

16. A massive resurgence of neo-Luddites.

Which sadly seems to be underway.

[Terry in Austin]

29. Cute.

Every cult has its term for non-members.

You've successfully identified yourself as a member of the Neato Hi-tech Salvation cult by applying the "L" word to all these sad non-believers.

Welcome to DU, and I hope your stay is a pleasant one.

[LiberalAndProud]

17. Us?

I was just wondering if it would be safe to assume that this will mark the end of nuclear power in Japan. I have my doubts.
Us? Not until it happens here, if then.

[DefenseLawyer]

18. Have you SEEN the amount of public money that gets poured into corporate pockets to build them?

The answer, in a country that is under more corporate control every second, is that nothing will derail that gravy train. Ever.

[LiberalAndProud]

19. I am certain I have never seen that amount of money in my life.

How much money are we talking here?

[killbotfactory]

20. What size of an oil disaster will convince us to ban oil?

What size of a coal disaster will convince us to ban coal power?

[Fuzz]

22. One that makes the rich, connected, powerful or elected sick or dead.

[DCBob]

23. I doubt nuclear power will ever be banned... just more regs and restrictions..

to minimize the risk.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

24. "When" will be when other forms of renewable power become affordable on sufficient scale.

At the moment they aren't.

[grahamhgreen]

28. The fact is: "In 2008, renewable energy supplied around 19% of the world's energy consumption."

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

Getting off nuclear is doable, now.

[joshcryer]

37. The vast majority of that was hydroelectricity:

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

The other largest contributor was ethanol:

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

Please read the World Energy Outlook. Renewable energy is only slated to provide 20% of our energy in 25 years. Take the nuclear offline and we'll be burning even more fossil fuel.

I'm all for renewable energy (and lately I've begun to believe Space Based Solar Power is the way to go), but I don't got my head in the sand about it.

[Terry in Austin]

31. Depends on what you assume "sufficient" is

And that's one thing Americans really haven't a clue about.

Renewable power will be about the only game in town in a couple of decades, and the scale of it will be a small fraction of what we're used to.

That's when we really find out about "sufficient"!

[Donald Ian Rankin]

38. "Sufficient" is significantly more than the world currently uses.

It won't be appropriate to phase out nuclear power until most of what the first world is currently using, and significantly more than the third world is currently using, can be supplied by other means.

I'm not quite as pessimistic as you are on this one - I suspect that a) renewables will improve significantly over the next few decades and b) your "couple of decades" estimate is far too short.

[Terry in Austin]

40. I hope you like surprises, then

>> It won't be appropriate to phase out nuclear power

Nobody actually has the decision-making power to phase out nuclear. But it will happen by itself as nuclear proves unsustainable. Costs too much, does too little.

>> until most of what the first world is currently using... can be supplied by other means.

Other means -- what are they, exactly? There aren't any. No combination of renewables, or renewables plus nuclear, can even come close to the sheer amount of energy we're used to getting from coal and petroleum.

Describe and quantify, if you can, a non-fossil energy infrastructure that would give us 450 exajoules per year. Once the scenario starts calling for solar arrays the size of Vermont, then we can start figuring the likelihood of it ever happening in the real world.

[FLPanhandle]

26. Did these oil disasters stop us from using oil?

On March 23, 2005, a fire and explosion occurred at BP's Texas City Refinery in Texas City, Texas, killing 15 workers and injuring more than 170 others.

The Phillips Disaster refers to a devastating series of explosions and fire on October 23, 1989 near the Houston Ship Channel in Pasadena, Texas, USA. The initial blast registered 3.5 on the Richter Scale, and the conflagration took 10 hours to bring under control. Some 23 employees were killed and 314 were injured.

July 23, 1984, Romeoville, Illinois, Union Oil refinery explosion kills 19 people.

May 5, 1988: Norco, Louisiana, Shell Oil refinery explosion after hydrocarbon gas escaped from a corroded pipe in a catalytic cracker and was ignited. Louisiana state police evacuated 2,800 residents from nearby neighborhoods. Seven workers were killed and 42 injured. The total cost arising from the Norco blast is estimated at US$ 706 million.

Piper Alpha disaster. An explosion and resulting fire on a North Sea oil production platform kills 167 men. Total insured loss is about US$ 3.4 billion. To date it is rated as the world's worst offshore oil disaster in terms both of lives lost and impact to industry.

Exxon Valdez oil spill. The Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach, California, hits Prince William Sound's Bligh Reef dumping an estimated minimum 10.8 million US gallons (40.9 million litres, or 250,000 barrels) of crude oil into the sea. It is considered to be one of the most devastating human-caused environmental disasters ever to occur in history. 100,000 to as many as 250,000 seabirds died as well as at least 2,800 sea otters, approximately 12 river otters, 300 harbor seals, 247 bald eagles, and 22 orcas, and billions of salmon and herring eggs were destroyed. Overall reductions in population have been seen in various ocean animals, including stunted growth in pink salmon populations. Sea otters and ducks also showed higher death rates in following years, partially because they ingested prey from contaminated soil and from ingestion of oil residues on hair due to grooming.<13> The effects of the spill continue to be felt 20 years later.

2010 Connecticut power plant explosion. A large explosion occurred at a Kleen Energy Systems 620-megawatt, Siemens combined cycle gas- and oil- fired power plant in Middletown, Connecticut, United States. Preliminary reports attributed the cause of the explosion to a test of the plant's energy systems.<14> The plant was still under construction and scheduled to start supplying energy in June 2010.<15> The number of injuries was eventually established to be 27. Five people died in the explosion.<17>

Humble oil disaster: The exact death count may never be known. Newspaper of the day accounts had the number of casualties ranging from a hard-to-believe solitary death to 40 or 50 fatalities. The day after the fire, the Houston Chronicle reported 15 deaths, but the stories said that the heat of the fire had reduced man and animal to piles of ashes, preventing an accurate assessment of the death toll.

On July 29, 1956, 19 firefighters were killed while battling a fire at the Shamrock Oil Refinery in northern Texas. This incident caused the fourth largest loss of firefighter lives in U.S. history.



While I agree that we should be investing in alternative energy sources, it's hard to believe this will kill nuclear energy if all the deaths and environmental damage of coal & oil hasn't stopped those plants.

[Terry in Austin]

34. Interesting take

You present a case here that deserves some serious consideration, IMO.

Right offhand, though, I think the difference may have to do with the psychology of acceptable social costs.

We're fine with the car system, for example, even though every year or so it kills off about the same number of Americans who died in Vietnam. Petroleum is part of the car system, so I imagine that massive wildlife kills have much the same social acceptability as human traffic fatalities.

We're a lot more committed to the car/petroleum system than we are to nuclear power, so it's easier to turn a blind eye to the former, and still get shocked by calamities of the latter.

Not that social acceptability makes it okay, of course. Nor does it seem likely that anything that supports our "non-negotiable way of life" is going to be banned. But you still make a strong point -- thanks!

[Cleita]

32. Seriously, those of us who are in the shadow of

a nuclear plant need to start fighting tooth and nail to get those plants decommissioned and a commitment from government to start funding installation of solar panels on all roofs, as well as wind turbines in windy canyons. We also need to cut down on our electrical usage. Those of us who are in places where nuclear plants are being planned need to fight tooth and nail for alternative energy instead. We also need to push the government to fund scientific studies to improve the results of capturing solar energy and finding other clean sources of energy.

Either that or we have to go back to the twelfth century and not use anything that requires electricity or a combustion engine any more.

[unkachuck]

33. I'm convinced already....

....maybe in 100 or 200 years, if mankind matures, we could once again consider using this highly toxic and dangerous process for producing electricity....as of right now, we're incapable of doing safely....

[yurbud]

36. nuclear energy is a perfect source of power--for the rich

because it can be monopolized.

[KittyWampus]

39. For some nuclear support is a religious zeal that cannot be approached with reason.

They have simply replaced god with nuclear energy.

[yawnmaster]

41. only when a reactor blows up the world. eom