What is your view of nuclear energy?

[Renew Deal]

[Kali]

1. other

why argue about it, can't we just FOR ONCE do something else???!!! why do we continue to poison our nest?

[Renew Deal]

9. Why argue?

Because this is DU. :)

[Kali]

13. oh hell,

I didn't mean US on DU:rofl:

I meant as policy here in the U.S. of A.

[Renew Deal]

26. I know

I couldn't resist. I still remember the night before Kerry picked his VP. Someone posted "will people on DU argue about who is chosen?" And someone replied "will the sun come up tomorrow?" Never forgot that.

[still_one]

2. I think all nuclear power stations should be built on earthquake faults, doesn't that make sense?

Oh, and the titanic is an unsinkable ship

Whenever people's arrogance gets in the way something always happens

[nebenaube]

3. I'm still on the fence about the technology...

I don't like the big ones but 2MW bathtub reactors don't seem to have these problems. Then but there's the waste some hapless archeologist will expose a few millennium from now. Rumor is the creator told us to leave the crap in the ground.

[nc4bo]

4. Here's what concerns me the most in regards to nuke energy...

even if we reject this type of energy production and shut down and seal up all the reactors in the U.S. and were never to build another one, what in God's name do we do with all the fuel?

It's like some nightmarish gift that keeps giving forever and ever amen.

(I know, dependence on fossil fuels is not the answer either)

[Zoeisright]

20. That's exactly why no new ones should be built.

We're already in trouble with the tons of poisonous shit we've created. Solar and wind is the ONLY answer.

[KittyWampus]

23. And WASTE. I am getting really annoyed that DU'ers still don't understand that using WASTE is the

future. It's already being done in Europe.

Really, you'd think DU'ers would be better informed.

I started a thread about it, sank like a stone.

[cui bono]

25. And conservation. Of all resources. n/t

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. Nuclear power is an interim step sort of like CF light bulbs

Serious issues to be sure, but as renewables ramp up they have been an interim solution, particularly in place like Japan which had major air quality issues and no other natural resources.

[Erose999]

6. The problem of what to do with the spent waste material has yet to be solved. So it is unsafe. But

I don't see why we can't just use rockets to shoot that stuff into the sun or something.

[originalpckelly]

14. Um, yeah, what happens if the rocket blows up?

It's a good idea, to be sure, if it worked perfectly, but just like with the actual plants themselves, the failure modes can get to be so awful that they cannot be tolerated!

[dkofos]

7. We can live without it.

[Drale]

8. I personally feel that it is safe

barring a worst case Scenario, but we still shouldn't build more plants. We should be investing in renewable forms of energy such as wind, solar and geothermal.

[LynneSin]

19. I think that is a fair statement

:D

[msongs]

10. a technology whose time is passed but corporate powers want the money nt

[Renew Deal]

11. Has it's time really passed?

There is a long power hungry future and something will be needed to power that future. Are there enough alternatives?

[Luminous Animal]

12. Portugal went from 17% to 45% renewable sources to generate electricity in 5 years.

"Today, Lisbon’s trendy bars, Porto’s factories and the Algarve’s glamorous resorts are powered substantially by clean energy. Nearly 45 percent of the electricity in Portugal’s grid will come from renewable sources this year, up from 17 percent just five years ago.

Land-based wind power — this year deemed “potentially competitive” with fossil fuels by the International Energy Agency in Paris — has expanded sevenfold in that time. And Portugal expects in 2011 to become the first country to inaugurate a national network of charging stations for electric cars."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/science/earth/10portugal.html

[Zoeisright]

21. Yep.

If only people would quit accepting "solar energy isn't feasible" (wind energy is technically solar energy too) bullshit, we could get renewable energy going quickly.

And wind power is far more than "potentially competitive" with fossil fuels. Figure out the REAL cost of nuclear, gas, coal, and oil to include cleanup costs and human illness and death. Renewables are a fucking bargain.

[originalpckelly]

15. Why fuck with something like fission on earth, WHEN WE HAVE THE SUN!

The sun has a fusion reaction so big that the fucker is gigantic compared to the entire Earth, why crap up the environment with this shit?

[Saturday]

16. Use Plasma Gasification! We don't need nuke plants. nt

[Tikki]

17. Shut down children, but What About The Waste?!!!.....

dangerous stuff....Ghost Busters isn't going to work with all that waste.


Tikki

[LynneSin]

18. I've lived near many of the more notable in the news and I support Nuclear Power

My hometown was only 15 miles from TMI; I've lived near Peach Bottom and Limerick - today I'm close to Salem.

[KittyWampus]

22. I wishDU'ers would stop limiting the argument against nukes to safety. It's inefficient and outdated

It costs way too much and perpetuates a broken energy supply paradigm that relies on methods too centralized to be economically viable.

The amount of money involved in nuclear energy is staggering.

It has to be extracted, shipped, processed, stored, used and then disposed of. Every one of those steps costs huge amounts of money that isn't factored into the ultimate cost.

[Terry in Austin]

27. Thank you

Nuclear costs too much and does too little.

The bottom line is the bottom line, and with nuclear, it's red.

The issues of safety and waste, real as they may be, basically miss the essential point.

[Renew Deal]

28. People care about safety the most.

There's lots of inefficient power sources, but we use them for other reasons.

[Enthusiast]

24. While the individual nuclear plant

could remain safe for many years there is always that chance for a mishap. These 'mishaps' will be unforeseen. And that is the point.

Why use nuclear when alternatives could do just as good if alternatives had equivalent investments. See, that is the problem. Republican talking heads always say, "Oh, alternatives like wind and solar only supply 1% of our energy needs." Well, duh. That is the point. Let us invest in alternatives until they supply 40 or 50% of our energy needs. With a will there is a way.