To answer the question, Why do I fear Nuclear Energy ? UHHHHHHH "FALLOUT"
WHY DO YOU FEAR..........NUCLEAR ENERGY?
by Terry 50 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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Terry
But on the serious side, my understanding, limited that it is was that the waste was a real problem.
We should reflect on the fact that, at one time, among humans living in cities it was human waste disposal that was responsible for the spread of disease!
If you lived in the wide-open spaces you went off in the woods to squat and whatnot. As more and more people began grouping into walled cities for safety the disposal problem became quite severe.
Every manner of disposal was tried only worsening the problem.
But, human ingenuity is what solves problems and not those crying "the sky is falling".
The invention of the flush toilet and sewer systems, in the context of all human history, is only a fairly recent development.
Sooner or later our oil supply will reach a crisis beyond remedy.
Resources being what they are (finite) only the will to surmount our energy problems will lead to the solutions.
There has to be the balance between innovation and caution. One without the other leads to trouble.
This is the main reason I raised the issue of NUCLEAR energy.
I want to emphasize that people don't tend to assess problems with balance. It is seemingly always too far PRO or CON and that doesn't solve the problem.
Fear without the remedy is useless.
T.
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talesin
If you think less people have been killed by fossil fuel extraction, transport, processing and use in power plants, you're wrong. And apart from a dedicated group of nay-sayers, it would seem unlikely that the increase in atmospheric CO2 this past 100 years, the use of fossil fuel this past hundred years, and recent climatic trends are just accidental.
When you find a nay-sayer against this... follow the money. It will probably end in the offices of an oil company. Common sense alone would indicate a likely causal likage.
However, the deaths/Mw is incalculable for both fossil fuels and nuclear power, so which is worse is hard to say. Nuclear power is just an easy target most people don't understand, and is therefore far more easily demonisable.
Exactly.
The real question is, why do we have this need to consume, consume, consume.
We have no real lives. People are identifiying themselves as CONSUMERS. Is that what/who you are? How sad.
The whole purpose of your life is to make money so that you can buy things. To have the mod cons that make you 'comfortable', and nothing else matters. A proud consumer.
I want to emphasize that people don't tend to assess problems with balance. It is seemingly always too far PRO or CON and that doesn't solve the problem.
Fear without the remedy is useless.
There are other solutions. You just choose to ignore them .
It's ironic to see you talk about balance, on a thread where you are preaching that nuclear power is the ONLY way. Now there's balance.
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hillbilly
I dont. I have lived with a plant north and south of me.... the south on was only 5 miles away. Worked in a few Nukies too... very safe if you follow the rules and do what you're supposed to.
We have been operating nukies based on "50's era engineering ... the 20 year gap in building new ones has allowed some new developments and if we can get the politics out of regulation I am sure we can build a safe plant that returns a lot of watts for a resonable investment.
Back when the US plants were built every plant was individual in design. Standard engineering will save a lot of cost and make performance more predictable.
~Hill
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upside/down
why do we have this need to consume, consume, consume.?
It's what humans do...alway have...always will.
There is no "society" without the making and obtaining of goods.
It's what gives most people purpose in life...
Consumption feeds the engine of society...without it...there is no economy.
True...it's currently out of balance...but the laws of nature will eventually bring it back to equilibrium...if man doesn't do it on his own.
Without society...we lose the protection it provides...
In theory...we could all live on a couple acres of land...endlessly...and well fed (like the Dubs pair-o-dice)...
But the Earth and the people on it....USED TO BE THAT WAY...nobody liked it.
We are an insatiable race... which is OK...until greed and OVER consumption take over (materialism)...
This is the very reason the WTS cult...takes hold...people WANT a solution...can't seem to find an "easy" one and so relegate it to a "God"...at some time in the future. How convenient.
And the world still turns...
u/d (of the even the hippies get tired of "nature" and want some civilization eventually class)
p.s.- If only "civilization" were actually "civil".
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SeymourButts
SOME NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS
An accident anywhere is an accident everywhere.
This list is based on Chris Busby's compilation in Wings of Death: Nuclear Pollution and Human Health, pages 89-92 (1995), and Arjun Makhijani and Scott Saleska's The Nuclear Power Deception: U. S. Nuclear Mythology from "Electricity 'Too Cheap to Meter' to 'Inherently Safe' Reactors: A Report of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (1999), with additional commentary and updated information by this author. It is by no means a complete list, and specifically does not include military nuclear accidents such as lost bombs and lost (or rusting in docks, or purposefully sunk) submarines, or the global irresponsible dumping of radioactive waste into our environment, or so-called "civilian" nuclear space mission losses, or radioisotope thermoelectric generators which have been used around the world by spy organizations for powering various listening devices:
Chalk River, Canada, 1952:
A heavy water-moderated, light water-cooled, experimental reactor suffered an inadvertent supercriticality and partial meltdown with an unknown amount of radioactivity released.
Windscale, England, October, 1957:
A graphite-moderated, gas-cooled reactor suffered a reactor-core fire that burned for two days. 20,000 Curies of Iodine-131 were estimated to have been released. Authorities, in a decisive move, changed the name of the nuclear facility where the accident occurred to Sellafield.
Kryshtym, South Urals, 1957:
Apparently a storage tank containing about 168 tonnes of radioactive waste overheated and exploded. The United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) knew about the accident at the time (as did, undoubtedly, Congressional leaders), but nobody said anything to the American people. There is little question why not: Because if the public was able to grasp how dangerous the entire nuclear fuel cycle really is, they might have put a stop to this madness. But the CIA wanted bombs. The military wanted bombs. Congress wanted bombs. And the industry loved being given FREE FUEL for their power plants, which, they were also assured, the U.S. Government (that's US, folks!) would take back afterwards! What a deal (for the reactor operators, not for us!). Indeed, nearly everyone was happy, for a while. (The American public was happy only because they didn't know they were suckers.)
Chalk River, Canada, 1958:
At a heavy water-cooled and moderated reactor, there was a lack of coolant for a fuel element accidental exposure. One worker received a dose of 19 rem, but radiation was said to have been contained within the building. ("Contained within the building" usually means it was released to the environment slowly, instead of all at once.)
Near Idaho Falls, Idaho, 1961:
A light water experimental BWR was destroyed by an accidental supercriticality followed by an explosion. The small Army reactor was using Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) fuel. Three workers were killed, one being impaled on the roof by the force of the explosion.
Fermi-1, Lagoona Beach, Michigan, 1966:
A sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor suffered a cooling system block and partial meltdown during testing for full power. From the first indication of "negative reactivity" to meltdown was just four minutes.
Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, March, 1979:
A Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR), TMI Unit 2's partial core meltdown was a relatively small accident, but very nearly a catastrophic one. Even so, scientists have "shown persuasively that significant increases in infant mortality and other morbidity in states downwind of the releases did occur" (Busby, p. 91). (This author's brother may have contracted leukemia from Three Mile Island. He later died of complications from that disease.)
Chernobyl, Ukraine, April, 1986:
Considered the most serious nuclear accident so far, even Chernobyl was small by the standards of what could happen. The #4 reactor at the complex went supercritical, exploded, and then burned for 10 days. Radiation releases continued for months afterwards. The explosion occurred less than two minutes after starting an unauthorized test, and less than 90 seconds after the reactor computer warned to shut the reactor down immediately. Authorities at first said nothing to the public (in this case Russian authorities, first, but American CIA and Congressional leaders unquestionably also knew about the accident and said nothing). It was not until other countries downwind of the accident noticed severely increased radiation levels that the accident was publicized, and America condemned Russia for not saying anything. The concrete sarcophagus for the ruined Chernobyl reactor is deteriorating and in danger of releasing additional radioactivity.
Narora, Rajasthan, India, 1993:
A heavy water-moderated, heavy-water-cooled CANDU reactor suffered a turbine fire. Its Emergency Core Cooling System "operated to prevent a system meltdown".
Monju, Japan, 1995:
A sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor had a large secondary sodium leak, probably due to early embrittlement. Fortunately the reactor was still being tested and the secondary sodium loop was not radioactive, but the plant was contaminated with sodium.
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San Onofre, California, 2001-2002:
Although few outside California are aware of it, the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (site of two operating reactors) has recently suffered numerous expensive and dangerous accidents including fires, explosions, dropped and destroyed capital equipment, a nearby airplane crash, a nearby fuel tanker truck accident, a nearby fire (threatening offsite power, essential for plant operation), as well as several security lapses, and in January, 2002, an ex-17-year disgruntled employee threatened the plant while possessing a "one-man arsenal" consisting of hundreds of weapons, which he could use to carry out his threat with.
Davis-Besse, Ohio, April, 2002:
Again, another major accident has received virtually no major media publicity, but the near-catastrophe, due to corrosion and inattention at the Ohio reactor should have been a wake-up call to America that our nuclear reactors are aging very poorly.
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DannyHaszard
Back when the US plants were built every plant was individual in design. Standard engineering will save a lot of cost and make performance more predictable.
That's it!The goldbricking / featherbedding at Seabrook station was scandalous.
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hillbilly
Danny... at Port St Lucie we would get a big bundle of drawings..then sit. Then the engineers would pencil up the drawings in a big engineer pow-wow...we would buld it. Two days later we would tear it all out and throw it away.
This would go on for days...while we were paid OT for 6 and 7 -12 hour days a week. After a while the big bundle of drawings the plan would arrive on a bar napkin..we would build it and it got signed- off.
Folks..this was for simple electric work on warehouse lighting, break rooms, and rest-room lights and outlets. The same level of BS existed for core control work, control centers etc. I wont even tell you the level of stupid that goes on in the "critical" stuff.
~Hill
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Terry
There are other solutions. You just choose to ignore them . It's ironic to see you talk about balance, on a thread where you are preaching that nuclear power is the ONLY way. Now there's balance.
What a puzzling (and colorful!) reaction.
Funny, I don't recall saying "that nuclear power is the ONLY way."
Could you show me where I said that? I must be getting old.
T.
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FreeWilly
Seymour,
Whenever I see information intent on stoking fear about nuclear power I consistantly find absent comparisons to other forms of electrical generation. You post attempts to paint a very scarey picture that implies nuclear power has proven to be a very dangerous option. Has it? What has the past 50 years of comparative data shown? Is it really scarey when placed in the context of the modern world? Perhaps you can present your arguement with comparative data?
For instance, you mention (somewhat emphatically) the TONS of Nuclear material that will be transported across America to facilitate waste storage and disposal.
- We have been shipping Nuclear waste for the past 50 years. How many people have died or suffered from it compared with other hazards?
- How does the tonnage figures you mention compare with other more hazardous material that is likewise shipped daily?
- And lastly, how does Nuclear power compare to other forms of generation in terms of deaths and sickness - better or worse? Please supply data.
Your arguement reminds me of Jr High School student who won first prize at the
Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair on January 26. He asked 150 people if they supported a ban of the chemical Di hydrogen monoxide. 143 said YES!All of the following information is true and factual. Would you support a ban of this substance ?
BAN DI-HYDROGEN MONOXIDE!
The Invisible Killer
Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) is colourless, odourless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year.
Dihydrogen Monoxide:
- is also known as Hydroxyl Acid or Hydrogen Hydroxide, and is the major component of acid rain.
- contributes to the "greenhouse effect."
- may cause severe burns which can be fatal, especially to children.
- contributes to the erosion of our natural landscape.
- accelerates corrosion and rusting of many metals.
- may cause electrical failures and decreased effectiveness of motor vehicle brakes and other vital components.
- has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients.
Contamination Is Reaching Epidemic Proportions!
Significant quantities of dihydrogen monoxide have been found in almost every stream, lake, and reservoir in Europe today. But the pollution is global, and the contaminant has even been found in Antarctic ice. In England DHMO causes millions of pounds of damage to property each year, in virtually every part of the country. Remember - costly damage caused by DHMO could affect your house at any time without warning.
Despite the danger, Dihydrogen Monoxide is often used:- as an industrial solvent and coolant.
- in nuclear power stations. - GASP!!!
- in the production of styrofoam and other poisonous chemicals.
- to accelerate the growth of genetically modified crops.
- as a fire retardant.
- in many forms of cruel animal research.
- in the distribution of pesticides. Even after prolonged washing, food and produce remains contaminated by this chemical.
- as an additive in certain "junk-foods" and other unhealthy food products.
Companies - more concerned with profits than the environment - dump waste DHMO into rivers and the ocean, and nothing can be done to stop them because this practice is still legal. The impact on wildlife is extreme, and we cannot afford to ignore it any longer!
The Horror Must Be Stopped!
The Blair government, under pressure from powerful industrial lobbies backed by faceless and unaccountable
- BTW , Dihydrogen Monoxide (or H2O) is the chemical name for WATER! Scarey stuff indeed !!