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The Forum > General Discussion > Nuclear power why not

Nuclear power why not

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Belly
Why not Nuclear? three objective reasons.
1. Operational safety, Longford explosion = hand full of casualties. Fixed in a few months.
Chernobyl= the body count/pollution goes on.... Centuries.

One US reactor ('minor') leak released 100Ks gallons of radioactive water that is now in the ground water and is spreading over an ever increasing area. Strontium and thorium etc are now detected miles away from the leak.

The whole industry is prone to whoops' from start to finish. Tailings dams collapses, unaccounted material, Security breaches to the storing of waste.

2. How is it an improvement?
Fossil fuel= Finite resource
down side.... CO2
technical solutions against possible consequences on humans are possible.
duration of problems -perhaps a century if we do something now.

Nuclear= Finite resource
down side ...radioactivity, no defense, waste toxicity and remediation virtually impossible.

Radiation disrupts ALL life and ecological wed necessary for human life. No know solution.
duration of problems - potentially/probably indefinite. Capitalist short cut(expedience) can't be trusted.
There is no guaranteed method of storage of by products and waste. Synrock etc. are still in experimental stage or unproven or have their severe limitation.

3- Not business economical.
The economic/business argument is dubious it doesn't make business sense on its own.
Time lag -to set up the number of reactors required is 15-20 years (alternatives less time.) The viability depends on taxpayers signing a blank cheque. Subsidies and indemnities etc. (we pay?)
Life span of a reactor life span >40 year approx massive $ in decommissioning not including upgrades. Estimated to be more that establishment costs then site remediation (?) (not for food production or habitation)will be tax payer supported . Did I mention open ended waste storage costs again taxpayer funded?
Conclusion: Mass nuclear anything, especially power generation is a problem thousands to tens of thousands times worse than we have now. As in all things, sooner or later 'the piper must be paid' But much of the real costs are hidden in the debate.

There is no one magic bullet. It's time we realised this mass anything especially power generation are virtually obsolete.
Posted by examinator, Saturday, 22 August 2009 2:43:20 PM
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My first concern is that every project that governments plan
are built by the lowest bidder!
Posted by kendra, Saturday, 22 August 2009 4:00:22 PM
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R0bert
I agree with you my friend
Today more than 46 countries in our planet use Nuclear energy, some of them and percentage of their total energy.
Belgium 53.8%
France 76.2%
Canada 14.8%
Germany 28.3%
Japan 24.9%
Lithuania 72.9%
Sweden 42.0%
Switzerland 39.2%
United States 19.7%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_by_country

Do you mean that the people and the governments(left or right) from all these countries PLUS from many other countries are Idiots and ONLY WE ARE THE SMARTS?
These countries import the uranioum, we have it in our feet, Australia has the bigest quantity of uranium minerals in the world and we do not use nuclear energy!
Our nuclear minerals is one of our bigest national assets and we undervalued and underestimate them and we do not use them!
In many countries which use nuclear energy the persons is 300-400 people per sq klm and they do not worry In Australia is about 2.7 persons per sq klm we have not only the minerals but also huge deserts and not residential areas far of our main cities and we worry from accidents! Did any one asked for the type and maintenance of the Chernobil nuclear reactor?
Do you know any new technology without accidents?
There is a little problem with the nuclear weast but every year we make improvements on this problem, probably in the future we will transfer them to the space, asteroids etc.
We like it or not, soon or later we will use nuclear energy as did the most developed countries.
It is stupid to underestimate our minerals, to underestimate our national assets.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide
Posted by ASymeonakis, Saturday, 22 August 2009 5:01:38 PM
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AS
Are they dumb and we're smart? from my perspective possibly it is a matter of options. It is only in recent times that such things as the limitation of resources world wide were considered....People thought "there's always some where else to mine". Aso it is only recently that the flaws in our capitalist system have become 'widely know and understood'
By that I mean the world economy needs to expand and in order to do that we need more consumption and that has meant people. In this process what wasn't considered was space to grow, new areas to farm places to build houses and put our rubbish.
Contrary to common belief our mass system capitalist system creates upto a 60% waste. Both in garbage but also wasted produce and products etc.
As for the foolproof system ....that hasn't been invented yet. So long as humans are involved there will be stuff ups.
In the nuclear context one stuff up = thousands of deaths and almost for ever pollution of the surrounding ground. Read about Chernobyl and particularly its legacy.
N.B. one speck of strontium or thallium the size of any letter on this page in our food can mean cancers and probable death. Chernobyl released 100s of kg of the stuff over 100's of miles and radioactive particles with medium half life over thousands of miles.
Do you want the risk?of just One calamity screwing say half of Adelaide.
To implement this imperfect technology with even more imperfect humans the reactors need to be relatively close to where the people are. Given most Ausies live 100k from the sea on a narrow coastal plain and given the winds one bang could spoil more than an Aussie city.
While this is dramatic stuff history shows that leaks and whoops' will happen and give the above one sizable leak into Adelaide, Perth and many inland centers' groundwater would be a catastrophe. All the above rely on their groundwater to survive.
To me the risk is way too high.
Posted by examinator, Saturday, 22 August 2009 6:21:39 PM
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examinator
Can you tell me how many deaths per year we have in sweden of cause the nuclear energy and how many from car accidents?
Can you tell me in France what damage more our environment the Nuclear reactors or the cars?
Can you tell me what damaged more the Japan environment the nuclear reactors or the car industry?
Without doupts in all countries the deaths or the damage of the environment comes from the cars and car industry, not from nuclear reactors. Very low environment damages and near to zero human deaths.
Why do not you say to stop the car industry and the use of cars which cause so many deaths, wounds,and they damage so much the endironment but you are against nuclear energy?
Do not you know that we have plenty uranium minerals and it is for our benefits to promote them, or at least not to be against them more than all other developed countries?
WE LIKE IT OR NOT SOON OR LATER WE WILL USE NUCLEAR ENERGY, AT LEAST LET'S PREPARE OUR SOCIETY FOR THE COMING NUCLEAR ENERGY AND LET'S TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT NUCLEAR ENERGY, EVERY DAY WE HAVE IMPROVMENTS IN NUCLEAR REACTORS, FORGET THE CHERNOBIL IN A COLAPSED SYSTEM.
Do not sell our minerals for pinuts, they have much more higher value!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide
Posted by ASymeonakis, Saturday, 22 August 2009 6:54:23 PM
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It is not generally recognised that there is more radioactivity
from a coal fired power station than from a nuclear power station.
The ash heaps should have radio activity warning signs.

The coal mining costs more lives than have been lost from Chernobyl.
How do you balance up one cost against another ?
None of this is simple, but we will have to face up to the fact that
there will be no base load solar or wind power or alternatives
except for geothermal.
Posted by Bazz, Sunday, 23 August 2009 7:54:12 AM
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