That about sums up why I'm somewhat sadly against nuclear power. At the end of the day, try as we might and as clever as our "smart people" might be, it amounts to a species trying to McGyver a way to use a substance that is incredibly toxic- right down to the genetic level- to that species.

And as it gets floated out there that the endgame in Japan may be to just bury the mess under sand and concrete for the rest of human history, hoping for the best, while lord only knows what happens to future ground and seawater and so on... it becomes painfully obvious that this is NOT a technology we have a handle on.

Guys I'm a techno-geek, a sci-fi lover, a believer in the power of technology. I also believe that greenhouse gasses are f*ucking things up, and nuclear power generation is clean and green in that regard. I WANT to like it.

But I didn't before this latest example of just how fundamentally unable we are to truly control this process. I am that much less inclined to believe the "just trust us!" guys now.

Curious if this accident has changed anyone's minds about nuclear power. Also, for those pro-nuke, would you accept a plant 20 miles away from your home?

same thing can be said for fire.

Without it we best be ready to pay some really high prices for oil, gas and coal.

I have one 20 miles from my home.

Point taken, but a "fire"-fired <grin> power plant doesn't have the toxicity and long-term potential to basically destroy areas that are geological in scale, for amounts of time also geological in scale.

Put another way, a fire-fired power plant 25 miles from my house wouldn't make me happy, but contrast that with a nuke plant going in 25 miles away...

Whats more interesting in recent news is that the USA is sending robots to Japan to help. Domo arigato mister roboto.

Jeff,

What sources of energy do you support? Please don't say wind and solar. I'm asking about energy sources that can really supply our needs.

It seems that every one of them costs lives and negatively impacts the environment in one way or another.

I support nuclear power but I wouldn't put a reactor in a high earth quake risk area.

Rick

the main problem is building huge plants that can't be controled if thier is a problem,bigger is not always better.thier are small package plants that only supply small aeras (and these are small in size}that can be esaily managed if they have a problem.the technology is not bad just the way we are applying it.

I lived 15 miles away from Three Mile Island when that incident happened, didn't evacuate, and I'm still here with no health problems.

Another good point, but I'd counter by asking, don't you believe that we'd best get ready for more expensive energy regardless?

Also counter it by saying that here in Oregon we pay very high electric rates. Why? Because we are still paying for the Trojan nuclear plant via our electric bills... which was decommissioned over a decade ago if memory serves! So there's MY energy costing more because of a nuke plant.

... which is illustrative of the "Raid" aspect of this. At the end of the day, even if all goes well on the anthill while the Raid-fired plant <grin> is in operation... the ants have got a mess on their hands for a looong time to come.

If it isn't earthquake it's flood.
If not flood, tornado.
Hurricane.
Lightening strike.
Terrorist attack.
Meteorite strike.
etc

Long list of whatif's.

What I want to know is if Japan has had a 3rd containment failure. Sans that, I say it's no biggie. Listening to the news I'm inclined to believe that's a very good possibility.

Very bad news, if so.
Wish we could know for sure.

I live about 14 miles from a nuclear power plant. Doesn't bother me in the least. More nuclear plants, drill baby drill, wind, solar, and clean coal is fine by me. We need the energy. Until we come up with a cost effective viable alternative, let's make the best use of what we have.

I have a Nuke plant less than 10 miles from my home. They haven't had a major problem I am aware of in something like its 40 year +/- life. There was a small steam leak a while ago but it was quickly fixed with no harm to anyone or anything.
I don't know how many alternatives exist that people will tolerate. Where wind works, people bitch about the looks of the towers or their bird killing ability...Lots of NIBY's. Electric,other that what few run on water power,most burn coal to operate,,hmm,,burning coal,that doesn't sound too Green.Well there is solar. In my past I had involved in the building of 2 solar heated Town Halls. Great idea,unfortunately in this part of NY winters are generally very cloudy with little actual sunlight to generate much heat, at least no enough to make a solar heated building work. It seems to me that most of the alternate sources really don't work well enough for entire cities to depend on 24 hours a day.

I live with one about fifty miles from me, as the crow flies. Unfortunately, I am mainly east of it. I have never liked it there.

I am neither pro nor anti nuke at this point. I had been about convinced that we needed more of the things before this incident. I have a wait-and-see attitude now. So in a sense, it has made me think more about the issue. I don't know if "changed your mind" is the most appropriate description of what I think.

As to Toot's assertion that not having them will cause energy costs to rise, the last I knew, the one close to me had never paid for itself. It's been there probably nearly forty years.

I'd need to know more about how the technology has advanced and differs from the Jap meltdown. Then again, I think both sides are so emotionally invested in their own arguments as to be untrustworthy. You see it here even. This will either be ignored or spin downward into a flaming pissing insanity contest.

Jeff. If'n it's a Trojan, you should be safe.

You're covered!

To what degree of "high", Jeff? It is going up, no doubt but regarding nuclear, do the necessary full risks analysis and mitigate to the best you can.

More, smaller, less expensive nuke plants, strategically placed would appeal to me.

Take it offline and mothball it. Then see what you pay on fuel surcharges.

Away from the safety issue, I am not sure that Nuclear Power (current & near future technology)is financially viable, especially if the costs of decommissioning are taken into account...

If there wasn't Government financial assistance in various forms, and whole life costs were taken into account, I wonder if private industry would finance new stations??

As to the alternatives, we have to develop *many* different forms, not put all our eggs in one or two baskets.

A side from wind and solar power, the sea is probably the biggest potential source that is viable..And I just don't mean wave or tidal power..

We should be looking at producing bio fuels from algae/sea weeds such a kelp...

Our modern farming methods wash masses of fertilizer/nutrients into rivers and lakes and these already cause algae blooms, sometimes on a massive scale. As an example, remember the scenes on the lake shore in China prior to the last Olympics when thousands of tons of the stuff was washed up and had to be disposed off?
We also have to build more efficiently, with regards heating and cooling for our homes and work places...If termites can build those huge colony�s which are internally remarkably temperature stable, despite huge external climatic variations, (and do that without electricity or technology) surely we humans can do better?

I'd much rather live 25 miles from a nice nuclear plant than a coal fired one. As far as immediate danger, do you have any idea how many people die every year producing the coal and natural gas to fire non-nuclear power plants? And as far as long term health effects, compare the death toll from US nuclear plants (that would be zero) to the health effects on those downwind of coal fired plants.

In spite of nuclear power plant near me,my electric bill is mostly taxes,fees and charges by who knows who
Last month my actual cost of electric used was $21.38 not bad,but add to this all the crap, graft, taxes and hidden costs. I have a delivery charge of $16.00. A NY assessment of $1.21 a SBC charge of $1.84 for what? I don't know. Now there is a variable supply charge,merchant function charge. Taxes etc.
So my electric use of 21.38 now costs me $54.12

And that surcharge is a "floating charge", not a fixed one.

if only they didn't store their spent fuel rods in a pool outside the containment structure.

I'd have no problem with a nuke plant 20 miles from my place.

Or create another Berkely Pit.

Awe...horse shixt.

What are the health effects? Got any stats or a site? I live about fifty miles south of a major coal fired plant with another one about sixty miles southeast of me. Due east of the north one lay Jeff City and Columbia. Eventually, St. Louis is over there. A nuke accident would eventually get to those places if it was catastrophic, say the New Madrid fault. What would happen to a Coal Plant?

What ever happen to the clean atomic power fission?

I'm pretty sure that Trojan was, in the end, with decommissioning costs factored in, a total financial BUST for everyone involved.

Put it this way- since I'm still paying for it, and will be for the foreseeable future, it's awfully hard to see it as anything but.

Someone asked what energy I do support. That's a tough one. Reality is, we need energy, and LOTS of it. It seems to me we are stuck with fossil fuels as the backbone of our energy infrastructure for as far out as we can reasonably see, and the consequences of that will be what they will be.

One idea that makes a lot of sense, in some areas anyway, is roofs shingled with solar shingles. A sunny, densely populated area like California could do well with this- I've read.

Geothermal works well where you can access it.

What's more dangerous, nuclear power or financing our own demise by funding terrorists throughout the middle east? Besides, the plants in question in Japan were built 40 years ago. Our technology is a tad better now.

That and some folks pencil whipped some inspections on safety valves.

Another good point. I'd answer, "ideally, neither", but I'd concede that the answer is unrealistic as things currently stand.

Pixie dust and Unicorn milk?

The fuels of liberals dreams.

Build reactors, lots of them. One single good design that is modern and uses lots less fuel than the sixties designs we have for them most part today.

Since it's one design a far larger range of contingencies can be planned for, training will be greatly simplified and we will get very efficient at all aspects of planning, building and operating them.

Honestly Jeff, I believe we should do "all of the above". Drill for oil, clean coal technology, shale, natural gas, look at methane hydrates, AND pursue wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, other alternatives and efficiency standards. If we do all that, our economy will be strong enough to more aggressively transition down the road when the technology catches up with what we want to achieve. The current philosophy of forcing innovation through starvation and high prices will do nothing but stifle our ability to develop the very technologies we seek.

Good gravy....
Two factors here.
One, a 9 point oh is a HUGE quake, a hundred times more than a 7.
Two, the Japanese have never been particularly talented at taking initiative in a conformist society bent on preserving "face."
When you have a fluid and unprecedented situation such as occurred, protocol should go out the window, but I'm certain that when the investigation is completed, they'll find that the people involved reverted to form out of fear.

If you get your understanding of what happened from sound bites- Yes, you will be scared to heck of nukes.

If you do a little research on the newer small scale plants- these are much safer- apples and oranges to the plant in Japan that was scheduled to be mothballed due to the many downsides of these old designs.

The toxicity issue is a problem with existing/old design especially when you have to deal with government and bureaucratic idiots and all of the graft, inefficiency, not acting responsibly etc. Case in point; They did not do complete backup safety drills and when they really needed it, could not get the backup procedure to work. I heard the backup generators were wired differently and they couldn't "plug and power up" the equipment they needed.

Until people are actually held accountable, we will have problems with all of this stuff.

A lot of modern designs have a gravity feed water reservoir system as a backup to the backup power. If what happened in Japan occurred in one of these, 1,000s of tons of water would naturally flow into the core and cool the rods.

Bring this thread back up a year from now after we have all the"facts" about what is really going on in Japan.

The truth is the situation there is much worse than anyone is telling you.

A little birdie is telling me that the clean up plans involve astronomical amounts of concrete to encapsulate the area.

There will be 4 very large pumps buried underground and they are being made and shipped NOW!

That area will be nothing more than a wasteland for many generations.

Again, a valid point.

I'll counter by saying that saying protocol going out the window in an American "cowboy up!" fashion just might not be desirable in a disaster/nuclear accident scenario. These are extemely complicated devices- WAY over the pay grade of most "cowboys".

And to COUNT on such, is folly. What's that saying? "In a true emergency, you won't rise to some unprecedented level of competancy; you'll default to your training.". Something like that.

To your first point, "we" fought and ultimately defeated a nuke plant going in on Heceta Head. This is on the Oregon coast, about 10-15 years ago, and is about 50 miles from where I'm shoveling [bleep] (yep, I am) right now.

Anyway guess where is overdue for a huge subduction quake and massive tsunami? And yet, this plant almost happened. It defies common sense.

if my computer gets any slower in responding on the Campfire, i'm thinking of going back to horse and buggy days.....

for some ten years or so, some of the top oil men have indicated we have come to the end of the oil economy. so what's next? a myriad of fall-back positions.

if ya got sun, why not use it? and of course wind, hydro, coal, natural gas, nuclear, and biomass. probably none are as cheap and eficient as oil, right? i mean, why use oil, if there's something out there that is better?

nuclear is good because it doesn't leave a carbon footprint. well, not much, except for the mining and processing of the ore, and distribution process.

oil and coal has fueled our standard of living for about 200 years. at it's end, something needs to replace it.

short of discovering a mystical "free energy" source, nuclear power certainly seems to offer a solution to a piece of the puzzle.

it might even benfit evolution. a few "rays" gets down there into our gene work, and the result is a more competitive human being?

i mean if fireants can become resistant to insecticides, what about us humans becoming more adaptive to radiation??

Gus,

Brilliant tie-in to the thread title!

BUT, ants breed like insects <g>. Humans are on a what, 25-yr generational cycle? Point being insect adapt an order of magnitude faster to environmental stressors....

Here's an interesting perspective by an anti-nuke writer.
http://www.monbiot.com/2011/03/21/going-critical/
Excerpt below.

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 22nd March 2011

You will not be surprised to hear that the events in Japan have changed my view of nuclear power. You will be surprised to hear how they have changed it. As a result of the disaster at [bleep], I am no longer nuclear-neutral. I now support the technology.

A crappy old plant with inadequate safety features was hit by a monster earthquake and a vast tsunami. The electricity supply failed, knocking out the cooling system. The reactors began to explode and melt down. The disaster exposed a familiar legacy of poor design and corner-cutting(1). Yet, as far as we know, no one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation.

Some greens have wildly exaggerated the dangers of radioactive pollution. For a clearer view, look at the graphic published by xkcd.com(2). It shows that the average total dose from the Three-Mile Island disaster for someone living within 10 miles of the plant was one 625th of the maximum yearly amount permitted for US radiation workers. This, in turn, is half of the lowest one-year dose clearly linked to an increased cancer risk, which, in its turn, is one 80th of an invariably fatal exposure. I�m not proposing complacency here. I am proposing perspective.

If other forms of energy production caused no damage, these impacts would weigh more heavily. But energy is like medicine: if there are no side-effects, the chances are that it doesn�t work.

Frankly, I think he makes excellent points - including not build a few big nuclear plants but more smaller ones.

Anyway a timely and interesting article

I agree, interesting.

I'll further the argument by saying what the pro- side will be saying soon enough anyway (assuming things don't get REALLY bad): "this was a worst-case scenario, and it's still not that bad..."

Oh come on! you actually believe that?

How many times have I said it before, but yep, 20 miles from a nuke, no problem. At least I know as long as its running, and no catastrophies I'm good.

OTOH, I've had this coal plant here since the 70s, we get dust off the coal trains coming through town every day. We get acid rain from the plant and all its pollution even though its been cleaned up and new scrubbers just recently. Since the mid 70s, we've had one of the highest if not highest county rate of cancer in the state.

Coal is totally clear to me that it damages. Nuke, only if there is a problem.

Its much like a plane crash vs a car crash. More folks die in cars but its 1-2-4 at a time, not hundreds.... the planes get coverage, the cars not so much hype by the media but in reality the cars are more dangerous.

I'd say the same about coal plants, I bet you could trace way many many many more deaths to coal plants and all that it takes to run them, than you cold to a few nuke plant disasters.

OR.. will it be like the vast barren waste lands of the Gulf of Mexico after the horrible oil well blowout that would end life for many years to come.... and I'm not saying you are wrong, just saying, until we know... we know nothing. Ask Schultz.

Jeff, points well taken BUT here's the crucial (IMHO) difference.

I'm no fan of coal plants, having seen what the 4-corners area ones did to air quality in NM.

But a coal plant isn't going to take everything you have.

Ask the Japanese living near the nuke plant if they'd rather it'd been a coal-fired plant. Ask the former residents of Chernobyl...

Even the utility that was trying to put in a nuclear plant near here in the early 70's (I was badly wrong on the date earlier- sorry! ) said this just a few years later:

In hindsight, even Keith Parks, who took over as EWEB general manager three years later, had grudging respect for the Future Power Committee.

�They did a great favor for this community,� he told Pope. �They saved its butt.�


------------

In light of Japan�s earthquake, tsunami and subsequent teetering on nuclear disaster, imagine driving north on Highway 101 just beyond the Heceta Head Lighthouse.

You wind inland, dip down the long, straight stretch toward Big Creek and, suddenly, there it is: a nuclear power plant gouged into the beach.

A nightmare?

Perhaps, but one that, nearly 41 years ago, came perilously close to becoming a reality.

In 1970, Eugene came within less than a thousand votes of essentially green-lighting the Eugene Water & Electric Board�s desire to build a $234 million nuclear power plant � and Big Creek was among a handful of preferred locations.

�Unless you�re an old-timer and have lived in Lane County a long time, people don�t know about it at all,� says Daniel Pope, a University of Oregon history professor who�s written about the issue.

The fact is, he says, if a grass-roots group from Eugene had not led a fight to place a local moratorium on building such a plant, it may well have happened.

�It was an incredible fight to overcome EWEB�s plans,� says Jane Novick, then a 46-year-old activist who helped spearhead such efforts and now, at 86, is a resident of the Willamette Oaks apartments. �Many people joined the movement. And it took all of our energy.�

Four decades removed, it seems inconceivable that such a plant, particularly at such a scenic � and seemingly dangerous � location, would have even been considered.

�With the Cascadia fault, we have records of 41 earthquakes in the last 10,000 years with an average of 240 years apart,� Yumei Wang, the geohazards team leader at the state Department of Geology, told The Associated Press. �Our last one was 311 years ago, so we are overdue.�

But remember, the environ mental movement back then was in diapers (cloth, of course). And, with signs that the era of abundant energy was ending, Northwest�s energy czars were giddy about going nuclear.

Armed with predictions that U.S. power needs were going to double every decade � it didn�t happen � the Washington Public Power Supply System was launching a five-plant nuclear system.

EWEB wanted a piece of the nuclear pie, too.

�Many had come to see it as the best source of safe, cheap electricity,� Pope wrote in a 1990 piece for Pacific Historical Review. �Some were predicting that nuclear reactors would generate half of the nation�s electric power by the end of the century.�

Bonneville Power Administration officials envisioned 20 nuclear plants in the Northwest by 1990.

Now, we have just one � at Hanford, the other four WPPSS plants having been quashed amid the project�s financial meltdown. Meanwhile, the country�s 104 nuclear reactors now produce only about one-fifth of our electrical power.

But attitudes were different back then. In November 1968, when EWEB placed a $225 million bond measure on the ballot to fund construction of a nuclear power plant, it passed by a whopping 79 percent to 21 percent.

Once voters OK�d the measure, however, some started second-guessing the decision. After Novick�s League of Women Voters book group read a just-out expos� called �The Careless Atom� by Sheldon Novick (no relation to Jane), she started organizing opposition.

Others jumped on board, forming the Eugene Future Power Committee.

Meanwhile, EWEB identified about a dozen sites it was considering, from Oakridge to Florence, whose city officials welcomed the economic boost that the proposed plant would provide.

On the other hand, farmers voiced concerns about reactors raising river water temperatures that would hurt irrigation. The state got involved. EWEB brought in experts from nuclear plants to defend the decision. The Register-Guard, which favored the bond measure, hired an outside investigative reporter to do what turned into a 14-part series that, in Pope�s view, didn�t advocate a position but showed �evident sympathy� for those questioning EWEB�s decision.

The Future Power Committee decided its stance would not be anti-nuclear-power, but pro-�let�s-study-this-more.� After going door to door to get the required number of signatures, it placed an initiative on the May 1970 ballot putting a four-year moratorium on EWEB building a nuclear plant.

By the time Eugene voters went to the ballot box � no mail-in voting back then � EWEB had narrowed its choices to six sites: Big Creek, about midway between Florence and Yachats; the south bank of the Siuslaw River, about two miles upstream from the Highway 101 Bridge; a second Siuslaw site nearby; a third Siuslaw site about nine miles up river; Poodle Creek near Noti; and High Prairie, north of Oakridge.

Big Creek was considered a front-runner because the engineer leading EWEB�s site selection study preferred an �ocean water� location. Water would be drawn from the ocean to cool the plant generators, then returned after it became warmed.

But the site became a moot point. Voters approved the measure to halt the project, though by a mere 851 votes � 51.8 percent to 48.2 percent.

Still, the turn-down essentially killed EWEB�s construction plans.

In hindsight, even Keith Parks, who took over as EWEB general manager three years later, had grudging respect for the Future Power Committee.

�They did a great favor for this community,� he told Pope. �They saved its butt.�

Kind of going along what roast just said...

Electricity is "toxic" to us as well. It's caused more fires, electrocutions, and general death than all nuclear disasters combined.

I don't think it's a scourge that must be stopped though.

Most of the people I work with wouldn't like to hear this, as I work for the largest underground coal company in the United States, who is also the largest natural gas producer in the Appalachian Basin.

Without nuclear power, there is no way that we will be able to sustain our way of life in the future. The coal and natural gas will eventually run out, and I am not sure if renewable energy sources will be able to ever pick up all the slack.

Right now about 75% of our energy needs are met by coal (~50%) and natural gas (25%). Nuclear energy definitely has its place in this country, as do various other sources of energy.

The Navy has been using nuclear power since 1955 and they haven't had a nuclear reactor failure or accident yet.

Not too concerned with what happens 500 yrs from now.

yeah, and the trout fishing is spectacular this spring....only problem is the wind. not the oil.

the disaster of all time wasn't all that when it was all over....except for the economic damage the unneeded fishing and drilling bans have imposed.

A coal plant can't take everything you have? I think you missed part of my point. When you die, of cancer related to the emissions, even if it didn't take your house and land, its of no concern to you at that point.

Granted none of the rest of the family can use it in theory. I'll give ya that side of it.

But all in all, I'd rather gamble all of it, than part of it.

As pointed out, the history of Navy Nukes has something going for it.

And lets see now, how many did we loose in our only "disaster" so far? Divided by how many years of nuke power so far? Seems to me vs Coal fired plants, the Nuke has a safter track record HERE at least.

And I'm not overly complaining about this coal plant, other than the fact I have to put up with its dangers to fuel not only my energy needs but those of hundreds of thousands in some big city 60 or so miles away that don't have care in the world, other than to cry the sky is falling every so often.

Now I'll give you this, we need to use the newest technology, and use the history of all the disasters, to develop the newest ones. Just about like planes...... and they'll be more efficient, less waste and safer every evolutionary round we go.

But to hop on a band wagon RE a 40 year old plant..... nah....

Its like our coal plant here, its a given that it has to be somewhere, but in the meantime as the technology came along to make it cleaner emissions wise, you had to sue the entity more or less to get any type of move towards cleaner.

You will if/when all the coal and gas that is easy to extract is gone and your electricity bills skyrocket due to the overhead involved.

The company I work for owns most of the world's largest underground coal mines. The three big ones (Bailey, Enlow Fork, and McElroy) all have about 30 years worth of reserves left and together produce 30+ million tons per year. Their coal is some of the best high-BTU steam coal in the world and is mined from the world's best coal seam (The Pittsburgh 8 seam). When their reserves run out, it's going to leave a pretty big void. Some folks in the industry I've talked to think a lot of our coal reserves are overrated, which does not bode well for us.

The jury is still out on how much natural gas we will be able to get out of the Marcellus Shale and hopefully the Utica Shale. It's going to be a lot, and probably the richest gas shale in the country, but it's still in its relative infancy and faces a lot of environmental obstacles right now. For the sake of my career, I hope it's bigger than ever imagined.

Do you have any idea of how much coal is (just) in the San Juan Basin?

How about Ak., Can.?

BP's coal bed methane production from the North San juan is 600 Million scfs/day. Their South San Juan is 250 Million scfs/day. That's just BP. That's just Co. and N.M. Wanna talk about Wyo.?

I ain't at all too worried about my elctric bill going up cause coal or nat gas is going to deplete anytime soon or later.

I know nothing about the coal there, so I won't begin to speculate. What kind of coal is it? Is most of it mined via surface mines or underground? One thing to remember, while many western states produce exorbitant amounts of coal via surface mines, it's not near the quality of the coal produced in Appalachia.

While you may not be concerned about it running out during your lifetime (which it most assuredly won't), I know our reserves aren't getting any larger.

Hopefully federal regulations do not do severe or irreversible damage to our oil, gas, and coal industries in the future, otherwise it won't matter how large our reserves are.

They will hang the regs if fuel costs get high enough.

Anyone want to take a swing at the dollar amount we've subsidized the nuclear industry? No googling allowed!

Nuclear energy = .gov energy....

Or how much we have and will subsidize solar, wind etc....?

We don't have kids. When we are dead, our family is done. That being said, one thing you'll never hear from me is I don't care about my planet. Its your right not to care, but just doesn't make good sense to me.

Sorry Jeff but the dream of solar panels on every house has some severe environmental issues as well.

http://www.ehow.com/about_5437044_environmental-impact-solar-panels.html

Oh, absolutely!

My point here is just that in addition to the obvious other issues (such as being, at the very core of the thing, anti-life) nuclear power has been heavily subsidized. 150 billion is what the article I read said.

Point being, was that the best way to spend 150 billion of public money on energy? How about the next 150 billion? I think it's at least debatable that it is not.

I don't doubt it takes something to make em that could be dangerous. Ever see an oil well being drilled, it takes fossil fuel energy and isn't exactly clean either.

I'm not saying that solar is good or bad. I will say that I have no issue with putting a big bank of them out side the house. And contrary to that article, it won't affect any of our wildlife. I frankly think saying panels in place will affect wildlife is about the stupidest thing I've read on solar panels.

And anything by the Washington Post, I'd have to seriously question as to reality of truth of the matter.

Just my take.

Jeff

JeffObama's post PERFECTLY illustrates the NIMBY-mentality that's crippled any energy project development (nuclear, petroleum, coal, gas, wind, solar, all of them) here in the U.S.

Here's an example:

I worked on a wind generation project in Vermont (of all places).

This one, in fact: http://www.projectnoproject.com/2010/12/glebe-mountain-wind-energy-project-vt/

The project was literally perfect. The mountain geography was exactly as it needed to be, the wind speeds and consistency were text-book, there was NO environmental quality problem (no birds, bats, bees, bears, whatever impacted).

The end result? Well, the mountain couldn't be moved, and all the folks that had moved into the area threw a fit and tied the project up in court over aesthetics.

Yep, they killed the project because it would "spoil their scenic views". Nothing more; nothing less.

Take a look at what the NIMBY mindset is doing to wind projects (remember they are the DARLINGS of the left) in Vermont....

http://www.projectnoproject.com/category/states/vermont/

Those projects would have produced over 150MW of electricity in the state annually.

All the while, the left in Vermont is trying to get Vermont Yankee shutdown. VY is a 540MW facility that produces over 70% of the electricity in the state, and provides about 35% of the state's electricity needs. Of course, there are no replacements for the VY power, and any new generation facilities face at least the level of opposition that the wind facilities do.

Energy, especially electricity, is required. A certain level is already in demand, and increases are coming. That power will HAVE to be generated from something, somewhere.

The questions are, simply, by what, and where.

Eventually, someone's NIMBY has to give.

Our new sources of energy will come from satellites converting solar power to lasers, to earth, to electricity. We'll cook our rainbow stew with it.

We are deluding ourselves if we think that solar is a viable option. It costs over 100 times that of oil/gas fired power plants. So its a viable replacement if you live in a fantasy land ignoring economic realities.

Lots of people want to shut down everything that produces electricity for one reason or another. Coal too dirty, Oil pollutes, Nukes are scary, Hydro too ugly, Wind think of the animals and the view, solar takes too much space an cost too much, Nat Gas is viewed the same as oil.

Ask the idiots where they will get there electricity from when everything is shut down and they will tell you the electrical outlet in their house.

Lots of this schit is evil I will give them that, but necessary none the less.

I thought that gravity would lower the rods into a substance (graphite?) that would absorb the radiation and stop the nuclear reaction quickly.

None of it is evil.

I guess we will have to disagree on that....

When an oil rig blows up in the middle of the gulf, people die and it spews millions of gallons of oil into the water, is that evil.... yes IMO but necessary......

When wars are fought over land for no other reason that oil, and thousands of people die as a result, is that evil..... Yes IMO but necessary......

When a Nuke plant releases radiation during a meltdown, puts fear into thousands of people and all but guarantees the slow and painful death of the people trying to prevent the situation from getting any worse. Is that evil..... Yes IMO but necessary.....

I guess if you look at it differently you can make the case that it is people who make these thinks evil and that by themselves they cannot be, but until you can take the human factor out the two are one in the same.

Maybe a better statement would have been lots of this schit "can" be evil.....

Getting back to Japan, it seems unacceptable radiation levels have now been detected out side the exclusion 12m zone and the UN is calling for the zone to be doubled...

Radiation levels in the sea off the coast from the plant have hit in excess of 4500 times the legal limit, the highest levels since the accident occurred..

This is not over by a long way and the situation is far from stable...

Not sure if it was gravity that lowers the fuel rods, but...

From what I read the rods were lowered and the plants shut down. The problem is that that there is still radioactive decay of particles that produces heat. That heat has to go someplace so they need the cooling.

If not cooled the cladding around the cooling rods has a melting point of about 2300f and the fuel itself about 3Kf. If the heat from the residual decay is not removed, then it very possible that the rods might melt (can't remember how many watts is still be produced even when shut down). They then flow out and into the remaining water in the bottom of the vessel.

The problem is that the water also acts as a neutron moderator. It slows down the neutrons so that they will hit the fissile material and make more nuetrons and so on...

So if the rods melt and then land in the water a reaction starts up again. Real hot now and still no cooling.

Anyway that's what I know from a layman's POV. Some here know a lot more about these things than me...

Steve, that's about how I understand it too.

Since they are finding radiation levels climbing 300 yards offshore, and now it's in the groundwater 50 feet under the plant, it sure seems like there's a breech in one or more reactor vessals, or whatever it is they call them.

When I came up with the "ants using Raid" analogy it had real resonance for me; it's easy to imagine a buncha ants trying like heck to make use of this substance that's like instant death to them... and easy to predict the results, too, over the long haul.

Currently one of the big issues in Japan is that they can't even get near the problem; it's simply unapproachable by a human being. Ants and Raid. That's insane.

This isn't a technology that we have a handle on, not really. And it drives me a bit crazy that the SAME scientists who promised us 40 years ago to trust them, they knew best, everything was going to be fine, which has turned out to be untrue big time (with the waste factored in, especially) are the same bastids we are supposed to trust now. Well, I don't.

All the whiners that don't want nuclear energy are just that whiners. It is as safe ass you make it. Don't take shortcuts like storing spent fuel rods in the pond out back, because you were going to get around to it.

I live on top of a uranium deposit, am I worried about nuclear energy? Not a bit.

You should be more worried about radon gas in your basement.

What worries me are the liberal idiots in this country.

You probably saw the story- looks like entombment might be the "solution". Bet THAT was never pitched to the locals.....

Look at it like this.... we get 20% of our electricity from it, at a publicly subsidized cost of 150 billion (which is to say, 150 thousand million).

Spend that same 150 large <g> on increasing efficiency and you & I both know, there was 20% to be had. Upgrading the transmission grid. Make better houses.

Instead, we have ticking time bombs, festering pools of waste we really have no clue how to deal with, and so on.

What's done is done, but I'm arguing against spending another kajillion dollars on subsidizing this technology.

Ya Jeff, I think someone mentioned earlier "its worse than you know" and "start ordering large amounts of concrete"

Dont fall off your chair when you hear about 4 cooling pumps being buried underground.

"Instead, we have ticking time bombs, festering pools of waste..."

Falling back on hysterical, non-technical phrasing is usually a pretty good indicator that you picked an indefensible argument.

Dealing with a few thousand tons of radioactive waste is preferable to dealing with a few billion tons of coal emissions. All there is to it. If that costs another 2 cents a kwh I'm more than happy to pay it.

Aspade,

I'll concede the phrasing was non-tech but it's accurate. Every reactor in the world is a potential time bomb and they all generate waste, usually put in pools, which we have no rational way of dealing with.

And my overall argument here is quite defensible. Try me!

Nuclear power plants are very similar to deficit spending, when the costs of waste "disposal" (in quotes, cause it ain't) and decommissioning are considered. A reactor has HUGE back-loaded expenses and they are borne by future generations. Factor in those costs and the power they make is not cost-effective.

At least, so say articles I've read. I'm no expert on this (are you?); just a concerned citizen making noise about what I see as a blatant waste of public money, in addition to being, well, like ants using Raid.

The only way to make this world safer is to do away with electricity.

Of course thats not going to happen. And right now we are focused on ONE incident thats going wrong. Not on the fact that there are how many other plants that DON"T have anything wrong....

On the topic of solar being unfeasible cost wise... I have but a single question.... costs here run about 20,000 or so to put enough up to power a house almost all the time. There are rebates to cut that in half but lets just say there were no rebates...
Electricity will be like gas, will not do anything but go up in price over the years.
Figuring one can easily have a 300 plus dollar a month electrical bill... assuming it all stays the same we are talking appx 6 years to break even. I think most solar cells last a hair longer..... batteries I"m not sure... but bottom line there, you could technically save more, if not, spend the same amount as electricity, but without the use of production of power via other methods...

Bring the Raid on for me anyway. We need it, unless we intend to move back to no power, ride horses etc....which actually, other than no AC in this miserably azzed hot state I live in, wouldn't be a big issue personally.

Call the waaaahmbulance for Jeff.

Or, for another perspective:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/31/[bleep]/

Jeff,

"Miserably hot"... lol... can I quote you on that to my wife? She's been on a roll lately for wanting to move somewhere like southern AZ or NM or TX, because the winters here get her down... I keep telling her, having grown up in NM, that the problem in those places is that summer sucks!

If I'm reading you right you showed the numbers for break-even on solar? Interesting. Around here the break even point is so far in the future that it really makes no sense... over 20 years if I remember right. Had a tech looking at an older system installed on a house a client was looking to buy... the numbers the tech talked about were uninspiring to say the least (in terms of my clients putting up new solar equipment). About the time the system breaks even, it's worn out!

The angle I'm approaching this from at this time isn't one of using alternate sources, though that's certainly interesting. Right now my points are:

- this technology is incredibly dangerous when stuff goes wrong, and stuff does go wrong.
- it's yet another example of us foisting our problems onto future generations, and I'm tired of that kind of thinking.
- looking backwards at the amount of public subsidy so far- which I've seen quoted as 150 billion in two articles now- and considering that we get 20% of our power from nuclear, I think it's VERY arguable (and defensible, lol) that that same 150 bil spent on power grid upgrades and greater heating/cooling efficiency in buildings would have netted us that SAME 20%. In other words, we could be using 20% less energy and not have these ticking time bombs generating unmanageable waste, sitting around everywhere.

-and looking forwards, I am arguing that we'd be better off appyling the next 150 bil, if indeed we are going to spend this public money on energy subsidy, on things like the above, rather than on more ticking time bombs generating more waste we can't get rid of, and deferring more nightmarish cleanups to future generations.

Alternative energy sources are another conversation. I agree that the magic bullet, the obvious solution, does not exist.

I have a nuke 10 miles from my home, give or take. I kill ducks in the NH salt marsh with the reactor in the background. So yeah, I do accept it. But then, we're not located on the ring of fire...

Jeff if you want to argue that nuclear power is somewhat more expensive than advertised when you include subsidies and decommisioning costs while ignoring fossil fuel pollution costs I agree with you. The nuclear power industry agrees with you too. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html

Safety is a separate case. If you want to call an industry that powers 15% of the planet yet hasn't released meaningful radiation off site in the western world since the 1950s ants using raid, time bombs, unapproachable by humans, incredibly dangerous, unmanageable, etc. it's on you to show it with numbers instead of additional adjectives.

Nuclear power will never be safe as long as plant workers have to drive their cars to get to work.

I don't base my opinion on 40 year old plants built on 60 year old technology.

And yet, we are littered with the [bleep] things. The decommisioning cost will be astronomical. Then y'all can pay for it as a surcharge on your electric bill- just like I do!

The promise of this kind of this- nuclear power, genetic engineering- is "THIS time, we'll get it right!". Not buying it.

Yes, Jeff use adjectives.

Now what would you call your "western" world sentence.

Trying to avoid Chernobyl are we?

Lets just all go back to the dark ages....only way to keep the idiots happy. Stop using electricity and all fossil fuels. the hand wringers are all messed up!

Go read how Chernobyl was designed and what they did to it to make it fail. Just as well compare against Hiroshima for all it means against designs used by civilized countries.

It might be good to decommission some of the older reactors and replace them. AND REPLACE THEM!! Nothing wrong with new technology.

I think they should make one style advanced reactor and make them all the same I think it should be like a class of submarine, everything is in the same place and works the same. A type "A" reactor in St. Louis is exactly the same as one in Atlanta, to the letter. We should be able to take any technician from any company rated for that reactor type and drop him in to run it.

It's nice to know that worst comes to worst, we can always use diapers on our melted-down nuke plants.........

speaking of ants and raid.....you can't let it go can you...

In further news, it's also very comforting that should such a disaster unfold around one of our nuke plants, in between sending "jumpers" in to plug the leaks with diapers the utility will offer "condolance money" to those in the several hundred square mile area who just lost everything. Condolances for your loss!

As an added bonus, since no utility can bear such an unfair burden, in the finest tradition of "make money until there's a nasty problem, then when the SHTF crawl off to the government to cover your ass...."- the debt incurred by such an accident will be essentially nationalized! How cool is THAT!

Yep, this nuclear power bidness is just coming up roses across the board.........

China ain't scared.

'The People's Republic of China has initiated a research and development project in thorium molten-salt reactor technology. It was announced in the Chinese Academy of Sciences annual conference on Tuesday, January 25.' The liquid-fluoride thorium reactor is an alternative reactor design that 1) burns existing nuclear waste, 2) uses abundant thorium as a base fuel, 3) produces far less toxic, shorter-lived waste than existing designs, and 4) can be mass produced, run unattended for years, and installed underground for safety."

Chinese energy demand is growing rapidly, and despite the world�s largest campaign of new nuclear construction, the vast majority of Chinese power generation still comes from fossil fuels. China has abundant supplies of coal, but their combustion has led to some of the worst air quality in the world. The ability of thorium MSRs to operate at atmospheric pressure and with simplified safety systems means that these reactors could be built in factories and mass-produced. They could then be shipped to operational sites with standard transportation. Their thorium fuel is compact and inexpensive. Chinese rare-earth miners have been rumored to have been stockpiling thorium from rare-earth mining for years, and if this is true, the Chinese will have hundreds of thousands of years of thorium already mined and available for use.

The Chinese now have the largest national effort to develop thorium molten-salt reactors. Whether other nations will follow is an open question.

Personally I"m all for all uses to generate power, wind, water, waves, solar, nuclear, fossil fuels etc....

Subsidy wise, REA was the original, and i"ve paid more than my share of rural rates to get power all over the country side so I just toss subsidy issues out the window generally speaking.

I could check on costs for solar at some point again, but I have to go to a larger town to inquire, we don't have anyone for solar installations in a town of 4500.....

Yes the solar will wear out the panels and batteries, but then again so do power plants...

As you note, nothign is free or lasts forever.

Once again I'll simply mildly mention what I dont' think I"ve seen you reply to, though I certainly could have missed it.... our coal plant pollutes and kills, thats proven and a daily given. A nuke plant is only an issue IF there is an issue. Seems like to my way of thinking the nuke is still far ahead. Like I"ve said, the nuke is like getting on a plane. You are on the wrong one it'll suck for all involved, but how many are wrong? Way more than nuke plants anyway, but still not many.

You ahve to pay for what you want one way or another.

Plus I figure there isn't anything to guarantee my safety from every other thing in life, and that if I factored in deaths due to nuclear issues vs life of everthing else that comes at me, the nuke margin of death would be WAY WAY WAY smaller chances than anythying else.. way smaller than getting struck by lightning as an example too would be my guess.

Good point Jeff!

Natural Gas is very clean and abundant.

Nuclear waste may not last forever... but it comes close


Snake

Nat Gas will not abound forever though either.

We have the technology to make nukes really safe, and without much waste to speak of.

As I've said, I have nothing against fossil fuels at all either, just let me use every gun in my safe, I didn't buy them all to sit there. Same thing with energy, lets use it all/and develop more as we go. Lets not limit ourselves... limiting creates issues.

And I for sure did not say kill everything else and go to all nukes, just that they shoudl be part of a large plan/formula.