With no end in sight in Japan, is radiation the next plague worldwide on mankind?

[Omaha Steve]

Technically a plague is germ based. Mother nature has over time allowed over population reductions by plagues. Now man made climate change is doing the same. Man has helped with endless wars that kill civilians as well as troops. W.W.II ended with 2 blasts (it was the right thing to do) of radiation, and it seems we didn't learn anything from the slow deaths of so many by radiation.

Now we find more US reactors have trouble we didn't know about. I live about 60 miles (downwind by prevailing winds) from a reactor of the same GE design as is now leaking radiation with no end in sight. http://www.omaha.com/article/20110327/NEWS01/703279901 It is less than 50 miles from here to the Fort Calhoun plant.

Our technology still isn't advanced enough to merit the risks of cheap power verses massive doses or radiation on a planetary scale.

Do we shut down in rotation for complete inch by inch inspections?

I asking our DU community for it's opinion. I don't know the answer myself.

OS

[MilesColtrane]

1. The reward is too small for the risk.

The best designed systems will fail, due to direct human error, or lack of imagination, or the placement of profit over safety.

This is just a pain in the ass when it happens to your dishwasher or computer.

When it happens to a nuke plant, the extreme and long lasting toxicity of the fuel makes for very deadly, multigenerational consequences that just aren't worth it.

[CountAllVotes]

2. agree

It is not worth it. There is one not far from where I live too. It is supposedly being shut-down but the reality of it is that PG&E had NO AWARENESS of it's existence when I called to inquire about it last week. :mad:

Seems one of the rods for the damned thing is "unaccounted for". How does a nuclear rod become "unaccounted for"? :scared:

This whole thing is freaking me out and I think that Japan has unleashed a horrific plague upon man alright. This problem will not be going away anytime soon. It is much worse that Chernobyl!!

:dem: :kick:

[RC]

4. The fear is too great for the risk.

Nothing is 100%.

Coal releases radiation into the atmosphere and that doesn't seem to scare anyone.
Plane crashes kills hundreds at a time and we fly anyway.
A tsunami floods out a nuclear power site and the nuclear part the problem even though nobody has died, not the 10,000 plus people that died because of the earthquake and tsunami.

But what are facts against mindless paranoia.

[The Traveler]

6. We don't have good answers

When I search for the answer to a simple question, "How many died because of the Chernobyl incident", I find answer ranging from the dozens to the hundreds of thousands. Literally.

So what are the facts, and how reliably are they established?

I have a degree in physics ... I am an engineer. But I am not a nuclear power specialist. There are many questions I am not qualified to answer on this subject. But what I can tell you is that the fears are not unreasoning or mindless ... and they are aggravated by a lack of credible disclosure by the nuclear power industry and regulating governments. Add to that legitimate uncertainty (it can be difficult to say definitively, for example, that this man's cancer was caused by radiation, or that it wasn't) in the data, and there is a lot of ground for reasonable people to approach the matter with apprehension.

And while thus far Fukushima has in truth claimed no lives, this mess is not over. It is still unfolding. Truthfully, neither one of us knows how this will be resolved, or what the body count will be when it does.

Trav

[Mojorabbit]

10. We uncover artifacts from the past almost weekly

I am sure those civilizations thought all they knew and did would be known to future generations but it is not so. I shudder to think that future civilizations will stumble upon our nuclear waste and the havoc it may cause. It is not worth it.

[diane in sf]

11. Just because you don't do nukes doesn't mean you have to use coal. Efficiency,

wind, and gas are cheaper, cleaner, and faster to bring on line than coal or nukes. The price of solar is falling. Storage technology and an improved grid are on their way as well.

You have offered a false choice.

In California we structure our relationship with power providers to pay them for efficiency rather than selling more power--we have the lowest per capita use of electricity in the US. All the states could do this.

[RC]

17. We have a long way to go to use wind and solar in any sufficient amounts.

http://www.caer.uky.edu/kyasheducation/movies/us_utilization_2006.html
US Coal Utilization - 2006: 1,026,454,000 tons per year.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://investmentwatchblog.com/11-trillion-tons-of-coal-are-burned-each-year-in-the-united-states/

1.1 trillion tons of coal are burned each year in the United States.]/b]
Of this 92% is used for power generation, this is 1.01 trillion tons burned for this purpose, each year.

Coal generates 50% of our power while nuclear generates 20%. This nuclear power is the equivalent of 404 billion tons of coal usage each year. Wind which is considered the most efficient alternative form of energy generates less than 0.1% of our power. This is the equivalent of 11 billion tons of coal. Wind is only 25% efficient so it is necessary to produce energy as back-up 75% of the time. This is the equivalent of 33 billion tons of coal. Wind is a net-negative of 22 billion tons of coal for the same small amount of electricity produced.

In order to reduce coal usage by 50% would require approximately 110 new nuclear power plants which would cost anywhere from 550 to 660 billion dollars. The cost of nuclear plants is borne by private companies; however incentives would be needed to have such a large number built. A guess would be 10 to 20 billion in incentives; 100 billion would certainly be overkill. In order to produce the same amount of wind power three times the capital costs are required,as wind installations have capital costs three times that of the very high nuclear power capital costs and since wind has only 27% of the efficiency of nuclear (90% for nuclear, 25% for wind) the nameplate power required for the wind power would need to be over 11 times that of nuclear. This would be capital costs of 6.05 trillion to 7.26 trillion dollars which would have to be 100% financed through taxes. This 25% of our power would cost more than 5 times the cost of nuclear power, therefore this enormous amount of wind power would more than double our cost of electricity (ignoring the fact that this amount of capital costs would shut down the country). Also placing this amount of fluctuating power on the power grid would not allow us to shut down any fossil fuel plants as they would be required to back-up the wind power. As a practical matter our national power system would need a complete revamp which could easily match the cost of the wind farms. Also it is impossible for any power grid to accept more than 5% wind power and still function without blackouts and brownouts. The clean air from this wind power would be minimal,if even detectable.

Nuclear, is the intelligent choice.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=coal_home-basics

Getting (Producing) Coal
Where We Get Coal
Coal production is the amount of coal that is mined and sent to market. In 2009, the amount of coal produced at U.S. coal mines was 1,072.8 million short tons. Coal is mined in 26 States. Wyoming mines the most coal, followed by West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Montana.

[Codeine]

21. Exactly.

We're very blithe about the real danger and very hysterical about the more manageable nuclear risk.

[truedelphi]

9. Very well ssaid, Miles.

Set the words to a soulfultune and you just may have a jazzy hit.

[ladjf]

15. Excellent, succinct post. Thanks. nt

[The Backlash Cometh]

18. So we just keep going until the radiation begins to thin our numbers?

[MilesColtrane]

19. The reward (electrical power) is too small for the risk. (radioactive contamination)

I hope that makes things clearer.

:hi:

[flamingdem]

3. Pro Union + Anti Nuke = 2011 and beyond nt

[Keith Bee]

5. Don't bring Mother Nature into this:

We're doing this shit to ourselves.

[TheMadMonk]

7. There is a "final sollution". Same as Chernobyl. Back up the concrete...

...trucks and start pouring.

It's prefered to leave the reactor accesible so that it can be safely disassembled and properly disposed of, but entombment is an option that WILL work.

[Prometheus Bound]

8. I can't see how that would stop it from leaking downward into the ocean and water table.

[PoliticAverse]

13. They tunneled under the Chernobyl plant and put in a concrete buffer . n/t

[Prometheus Bound]

20. Thanks for that.

[Sirveri]

12. Chernobyl occurred in Apr '86, The sarcophagus was finished Dec '86.

They might do that later, but right now they're still trying to get everything under control so that they can do that in the future.

[CountAllVotes]

14. like one of these

The plant was closed down for good in 2000. They must build a new sarcophagus soon, because the original one was hastily constructed and is disintegrating.

Only a very small amount of the radiation inside of there had so far actually escaped. More then 90% is still under sarcophagus. I heard with all the concrete they put down, the construction became heavy.. some day it may fall down, get in subterranean waters and leave Europe with no water.

This is the sarcophagus that entombs Chernobyl. It was meant to last for 30 years when it was built. It is in a state of decay as it now stands and the money is not there to do the necessary repairs to it.

Can we do better than this I ask?

Seems not.

:dem:

[ladjf]

16. A couple of hundred thousand years is a long time. nt