The recent trend among the public seems to be Environmental issues. The masses cry out for an end to fossil fuels, they prop up Global Warming as their rallying cry. Regardless they have a point, fossil fuels are neither clean nor cheap for the common man. A slue of technologies are being suggested and tried to solve this problem; wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, etc.
But the Nuclear option always seem to be absent from this conversation. Why?. So let's talk

Nuclear Power and Energy. Right or wrong?

Isn't nuke power worse than fossil fuels?

That and we can't use it in a everyday power sucker like your house or car, and if you can it probably cost WAY to much.

That's the problem with nuclear power. It's actually much more efficient and safe but most people relate it to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I think we should just be looking towards Fusion. Ten years and we will have fully functioning and power generating Fusion Generators.

Nuclear Power is a nice bit of transition power.

Right, because there aren't electric cars that you plug into the main power grid to charge, and we couldn't possibly supply the main grid with electricity generated in nuclear power plants. That's crazy talk.

When you live in a state with about 40% of the world's known uranium deposits, in a country with clueless, buzz-word, faux-environmentalist politicians, nuclear power's appeal is just that little bit greater.

Agreed with above.

Yeah people (wrongly) associate nuclear power with kablooey. Sure, there have been accidents. But there have been accidents resulting in fire from coal plants and oil plants. Natural gas plants have exploded.

Also I think it's only fair to point out that nuclear power puts out zero carbon emissions.

I am completely against nuclear power. We must never allow ourselves to forget the terrible things that nuclear power has caused, for example the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Even though there were only around 50-60 deaths caused directly by the plant, the radiation (which was at least 100 times the amount released by the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) from it caused hundreds of thousands of people to die from cancer. The accident didn't just affect one area either: it affected the whole of Europe and even Canada. And its effects are still being felt today. For example, we had some children from Belarus, a country which was very badly affected by the radiation, come to our school. Because of the terrible radiation, many of them had been born with disabilities and none of them were expected to live past the age of 30 or 40. By staying in the UK for just one month, they added up to two years to their lives. All of them are too poor to move away from the radiation-affected area, and only managed to visit the UK through the tireless efforts of a charity. Whilst Western Europe was certainly nowhere near as badly affected, there was still a radioactive cloud. Even now certain farms in the UK and other areas still have to pass radioactivity tests to prove that their crops and livestock do not contain dangerous levels of radiation. The concrete sarcophagus built over the nuclear reactor is crumbling and, whilst a new one is being built, if something goes wrong during the placement of the new sarcophagus yet more radioactivity could still be released. Some estimates say we will still be experiencing the terrible effects of this disaster in 48,000 years time. After that, I don't see how anyone can ever be in support of nuclear reactors.

That's because a bunch of (to use the British term) muppets were running the plant. They didn't know what the hell they were doing.

It was a combination of things, including the people running the plant, that caused the disaster. They were not the sole cause.

What I'm saying is that nuclear power has the potential to kill every single person on this earth. How the hell is that a good thing?

Pretty much. Hard to expect anything more than catastrpohic failure when you replace standard engineering practice with a ho-hum, high-school-chemistry-set mentality.

There have been plenty of cases in other countries, including the US, where workers have been found to be doing things that could have caused disasters on a similiar scale, such as sleeping whilst they should have been monitoring the state of the plant. ANY nuclear plant has the potential to kill us or poison us with deadly radioactivity.

Not if run properly. I have heard of few cases outside of Chernobyl where neglegence has been shown. Espicially now where health and safety is so over the top.

Anyone can make a mistake though. I don't think it's fair to rest the responsibility of preventing hundreds of thousands, possibly even millions, of people from dying on just one group of people (per reactor, that is). Besides, what about the issue of disposing of the nuclear waste? We can't bury it out of sight for ever...Nuclear power seems to me to be this force with a lot of potential for terrible things that we barely understand how to control.

I think if we make these plants 100% foolproof (like some sort of radiation shield if it blows) it would be fine.

This statement highlights, perhaps, the extent to which you understand nuclear power.

Scaremongering is a fantastic way to get people to see things from your point of view. But why stop at a greener alternative to fossil fuels? There's millions of cars on the road, all just waiting for some reckless driver to get behind the wheel and mow-down a group of teenagers and pensioners. Gas stoves too - they're an exploded apartment block just waiting to happen. I'd suggest reverting back to the stone age, but rocks are pretty dangerous too. Can we really trust just one group of people (geologists) to protect us from the dangers of rocks? One mistake and, BOOM, igneous holocaust.

You do realize that the same can be said for just about ANY industrial site, right? The only difference is that the material may not be radioactive, but the sites themselves and the areas surrounding them, are equally contaminated for nearly as long a time-period as any nuclear "disaster" would cause.

The difference is - these sites are, have been and always will cause damage to their surrounding environs -- the same only happens in the event of catastrophic failure with respect to nuclear power.

I never claimed to completely understand nuclear power. I don't think many people know much about it, with the obvious exception of those that work in that field. However, from the amount I do know about it, it does not seem like the best way forward for generating electricity. I think the risks it poses, even when regulated with health and safety rules, significantly outweigh the advantages of it. And I'm not scaremongering; I'm presenting the real risks that I am aware of.


I never said I was in favour of industrial sites that pollute with hazardous chemicals...Last time I checked we weren't talking about them.

If you're going to use fear-mongering as a weapon to shoot down the notion of using nuclear power as an energy source, you should at least be aware of the fact that nuclear power isn't any more dangerous than those same industrial sites that already exist.

As I said, we are not discussing industrial sites. The danger they pose and whether or not I am in favour of said sites is irrelevant as far as I can see. And I'm not fear-mongering, scaremongering or whatever you want to call it. I'm giving my opinion.

Indeed you are -- but it is an opinion against nuclear power based solely on the potential "danger" it poses, while giving a complete disregard to the FACT that nuclear power is no more dangerous than already existing industrial sites and, in actuality, even less so.

So why be opposed to something because it's "dangerous" when it isn't any more dangerous to you than something that already exists?

I agree with you that the majority of the time, nuclear power is not as dangerous. However, on the rare occasions that a disaster happens, the effects are felt all over the world and many people die, others get cancer or are born with birth defects, and many, many more others are affected, not just by the radioactivity but also by loss of people they know, damage to the economy, e.t.c., so that by the time you add all the people affected directly and indirectly you are in the millions. To me it just seems like a risk not worth taking.

And I AM against the industrial sites that selfishly pollute the environment, btw. I never said I wasn't, I just thought that whether I was against it or not was irrelevant.

This is "fear mongering".

Again, the risks involved in developing and using nuclear power stations is no more of a risk than any other industrial site. One can list off a much longer list of industrial sites that have had more incidents, caused more damage, been a great affect on the environment and killed a lot more people -- and been more costly -- than all the nuclear incidents combined.

You prolly live in the vicinity of a chemical plant that poses a greater danger to you than any nuclear plant ever built.

So - again - why not use it?

You seem to be under the impression that a nuclear plant will be run by people like Homer Simpson who makes a lot of mistakes and controlled by people like Mr. Burns who dumps the nuclear waste into a lake.

No shizzle.

@Cattius: "A risk not worthwhile"?

Lemme give you a quick factoid courtesy of National Geographic.

Manhattan is a pretty power-hungry place, no? Well, according to NG, this is the power requirement for the three "green" power sources: wind, solar, and nuclear fission:

For wind power to provide enough power for Manhattan, you would need to literally cover the state of Massachusetts. For MANHATTAN, forget the entire US, or, hell, the world. That was literally the weakest power available, according to their calculations. Solar comes in a distant second--128 mi² would be enough to power Manhattan--there goes 1/10 of Rhode Island (the smallest state in the Union).

For a nuclear generator to power Manhattan...4 km².

Is that even a contest? Solar can kill people too, man. No, seriously. Cleaning crews have been killed by being cooked alive on the mirrors.

France has been using Nuclear power on a massive scale since the 1950's. Currently 80% of their electricity is provided by Nuclear power, and they have an impeccable safety record(besides a minor incident in 2008). They also recycle large amounts of spent fuel, as compared to the U.S. where we just dump all of our waste in Nevada. I believe France to be a model example of a country using Nuclear Power responsibly and safely.
Chernobyl was a sad incident, caused by gross negligence of a decrepit and stagnant empire. It shall serve us a reminder never to be lax again. Nuclear weapons of course I am firmly against. I see no need for any nation on this Earth to posses them.

And as Doddsy pointed out, once Fusion technology comes along, we will be home free. Research needs to continue, to simply cut off an entire arm of science and the possible benefits it has for society, that is just foolish.

You beat me to mentioning France. They had massive government investment, which is the best model for nuclear power provisioning. If you leave it to corporates, they'll think too short term and not plan effectively for the long term effects of nuclear waste management.

Also, there's an underlying assumption that any fission reactor has the potential to meltdown. This is not true. The designs used in France will fail-safe. That is, if they go wrong, are left unmanaged, their control computers fail or whatever, the whole plant will simply shutdown and stop generating power. Designs used in America (Long Island), The Soviet Union (Chernobyl) and the UK (Windscale, later renamed Sellafield) all were designed to manage fast reaction rates with coolant having to be pumped through them continuously. If the pumps failed or the control rods couldn't be inserted - blammy - meltdown. The French reactors are slightly less efficient, but a lot more safe.

Fusion power was "20 years from viability" when I visited JET in 1987 - now it's "10 years from viability" in 2009. I'm not holding my breath. Yes, keep up the worthwhile investment, but depending on the possibility? I think not. Nor is it a holy grail. Some constraint will be found that makes it unscalable to some extent. We just don't know what that is yet. Limitless power is a fiction. If we achieve some massive leap in generating capacity, then like the application of Moore's law in computer power, the ever inventive consumer market will swell to consume the new capacity and set new heights of expectation - a la Windows minimum requirements specifications.

Nuclear power has its place, but it's not the solution to current environmental and power consuming concerns. Alongside carbon capture fossil fuel burning, solar, wind, tidal, geothermal etc. and better management of power transmission and consumption behaviours (energy saving light bulbs anyone?) it is one essential weapon in the arsenal of the fight against the looming energy crisis.

And that's the problem. You don't seem to really understand nuclear power.

It really isn't that complex to understand the prevention.

To really boil it down to it's basics you have rods of a radioactive material which, within the reactor emit a radioactive particle which collides with another radioactive material until you have a continuous stream of radioactive particles, generating energy in the form of heat which boils water to move generators which power a dynamo and produce electricity. To prevent a run away chain reaction you have 'rods' which prevent the flow of radioactive particles. You lower them to slow the rate of energy produced and lift them to produce more power. At Chenobyl, they were asked to pull the rods out to see the consequences, even against the advice of all non-Soviet scientists. We are well aware what happens now so the chance of it happening again is insignificant. If the reaction gets too powerful you drop the rods down and can halt it to almost nothing.

The nuclear plants in France may be fail-safe, but as you said there are plenty of nuclear plants that aren't, and these all have the potential to be very dangerous. Chernobyl is not the only example of a terrible implementation of nuclear power that proved to be incredibly dangerous. Sellafield is another; it may not have caused a disaster on anywhere near the same scale as Chernobyl, but it is still going to cost the UK billions of pounds whilst being very harmful to the environment. (in response to Gillis) The terrible management of the plant, including dumping nuclear waste in the sea, was so appalling that it may as well have been managed by Homer Simpson. I don't trust governments to not make the same mistakes again, and next time these mistakes are made there could be much more disastrous consequences.

I only posted in this topic because I saw Demon Jelly's flippant "sure, there have been accidents" comment and it made me incredibly angry (sorry). As I said before I've met some of the children affected by one of those "accidents", seen the terrible deformities some of them have and the poverty they live in because of the damage the disaster did to their economy. I felt so guilty meeting them, knowing that when I went home I wasn't going to have to eat and drink poisoned substances that I knew would kill me, knowing that I was expected to live for twice or three times as long as they were. I felt so terrible meeting them that I don't think I will ever be able to support nuclear power, but that is something very personal to me and I'm sorry that I posted in the first place.

I could say the same of people I met who I would argue are poor because of their culture and religion.

As for the "flippancy", FYI, it wasn't flippant. I was merely pointing out that yes, nuclear power is not on the whole fail-safe.

Also, the only injuries/deaths that can in fact be attributed to Chernobyl are the men and women who were inside the plant. The Ukrainians who had cancer had cancer of the thyroid, more likely a lack of iodine (common in the Third World), rather than radioactively-induced cancer.

I'm not against nuclear power as it is a great way of gaining power. But saying that, it is very expensive investment and should only be used in the most developed countries. If it were, for example, used in a place like China their economy would grow at a slower rate. And countries that have already passed industrialization can not force them to use "greener" enermy, as we certainly didn't care when we were developing.

Also there is the potential countries, especially secretive ones, can hide nuclear weapon technology behind plans for nuclear power. This as you are probably aware with Iran, can stir up tensions. Iran, who said they were using nuclear just to develop their energy source have recently stated they were after all developing a nuclear weapon program. While I don't think other countries should stop people from having nuclear weapons, I do think that Nuclear power can lead to suspisions.

Also the idea that Nuclear power will slow down the effects of Global warming is one I disagree with. Many people like myself don't believe global warming is actually contributing to Global warming as much as we think. Such as, the sun is the hottest now than it's been in the last 1 thousand years, not to mention the sun's heat and the earths' heat have a strong correlation. Also there was even a period in which scientists were worrying about global cooling in the 70s'. So is this investment really worth it? I do agree that a cleaner fuel can help reduce the smog and air pollution that coal factories produce, so my opinion on Nuclear fuel and the environment is mixed.

Saying that, some power stations in the UK now give off much less pollution with the new filters in place like one's in Drax (The Uk's largest power station). Also would also remind people that I'm not fully against Nuclear, but I'm dubious to it's effect, and if it's worth the extra cost.

I did say in my last post that I was sorry I'd got angry at your post. When I first saw your post I interpreted the remark as flippant, and as it wasn't I apologise.

And I was actually talking about children from Belarus, which you'd have seen if you'd read my first post.

Line 1: Oh...sorry... >_<

Line 2: Belarus, Ukraine, geographically speaking, they're relatively the same, economically not much difference either...I'd like to see some more info on that though.

If you re-read my quoted text, you'll see I already referred to Sellafield. But thanks for the link you provided, I particularly enjoyed the following excerpt of which, by your stance, you substantiate the final sentence:

According to Wikipedia here, about 70% of the nuclear fallout from the Chernobyl disaster entered Belarus, and today an estimated 1/5 of Belarussian land is still affected by radioactivity today. I'm fairly certain that the reason Belarus was affected more was because of the wind direction after the disaster, although I may be wrong.

Hmm...it's an interesting point but what's described is kinda vague :\

Cattius. If you've read what Slashing said about the new plants and their environmental factors and what I said about dropping the rods if worst comes to worst then there isn't any real reason to object to it except for the fact that Uranium is also a limited resource.

Apart, of course, from the waste fuel disposal issue - which is generally the bigger concern with nuclear these days anyway.

I was under the assumption some is used in weapon technology and the rest is stored in a base somewhere in Britain, New Scientist mentioned something about it.

The technology of the last fifty years has drastically improved both safety and viability of nuclear power plants. You'd have to live in a five-thousand-year-old house made out of a few feet of lead if you wanted basically the absolute minimum in receiving radiation. Radiation is a quarter the problem it's made out to be, and the worst of it can be avoided entirely. In the case of a nuclear bomb, radioactive iodine is the largest radiation threat; if absorbed, it will cause internal damage. The influence of radioactive iodine is drastically decreased by consuming common iodine (thus overfilling your body's "stock") which will prevent radioactive iodine from being absorbed. I-127 excess is a drop in the bucket compared to I-131.

Now as for nuclear power safety, it's basically the safest and cheapest power available to the modern world. Using fossil fuels is expensive and dangerous, not just to humans but also to the planet. The sheer amount of carbon dioxide released by industry is appalling. If global warming is true to the extent it has been made out to be true, then the majority of the world's population will be forced out of their homes and inland as the ocean slowly rises. Something like 80-90% of people live within 50 miles of the ocean. Damage will be caused to some natural habitats being flooded and to arctic and antarctic habitats that are being melted.

Nuclear waste is actually quite reusable. I'm sure that new uses will be invented in the future. Simply storing the waste underground does not sound like the best idea, but it is. It's doing a tiny fraction the harm compared to the billions of tons of carbon dioxide being released each year.

Also, the amounts of radioactivity shown to be existent in radioactive waste is believed to actually prevent cancer.

Hormesis theory. I'm a subscriber to it.

That's one of the largest problems when it comes to nuclear power: the radioactive waste produced by it. There's almost no good way to dispose of it.
Compared to the reactors of 30-50 years ago, technology has come a long way since then, and almost all of the accidents caused by nuclear reactors have been due to human error.
Nuclear power is a much better alternative to the relatively inefficient coal-powered power plants in my opinion.
Fusion reactors would be a better alternative to Fission reactors, but the current technology for it is either just conceptual or it would take a bit more time to make it more cost effective.

Actually Fusion is cost effective now. It just needs to be shown.

ITER is going to be turning on soon and that will show the world fusion can be done to produce energy and be cost effective. That is very likely to change things dramatically.

I am pro of the use of nuclear energy and research (of course only for non-warfare matters).
People are marked by some events and the media so much they will reject it without thinking or investigating. Events like Chernobyl, Three Mile Island (barely an incident, but people tend to exaggerate) hve "told people" nuclear power is dangerous and evil. It is true that if a serious event like chernobul repeats, the consequences are catastrophic, but the level or incompetence to let that happen would have to be pretty high. I beleive Chernobyl has been the only large scale meltdown.
Media doesn't help either. How many games, programs and comics are there that depict in some way depict a nuclear holocaust caused by a war or a nuclear energy plant meltdown(Fallout 3 is awesome btw).

Another reason why it's not as widespread as other non polluting energies (at least here in Mexico...which, honestly there aren't that many widespread green energies) is because of the quantity of water needed to cooldown the reactors.
We have only one nuclear plant in Mexico (so far no problems with it). Now, it draws water from a nearby lagoon. The water cools the reactors, and then this superhot water is returned to the lagoon, causing part of the ecosystem to die slowly. I know all plants require water to cooldown, and they need to get rid of that water, but I'm not sure if all of them are causing this trouble.
I think that's the reason my country does not have more plants.


Also, question ¿A country that has nuclear power plants, could in time become a country with nuclear weapons?

nuclear weaposn are easier to make then nuclear power plants

the hard part is keeping the reaction under control, not starting it

There are some technologies being used and developed that attempt to recycle spent fuel. I know France has been partially successful with this, and I'm sure in the future it will be possible to recycle all spent fuel. Unfortunately the U.S. just keeps dumping it all in Nevada.
If there's one thing I always appreciate when discussing Nuclear Power, is that the men of science(like Slashing) will always come forward from the shadows, and impart some great wisdom. Hopefully current trends in the U.S. can change and public opinion will become more informed on the benefits of Nuclear power.

Here's another little mini-debate on this subject: Are you more comfortable with a government run nuclear power system or plants that are owned by companies and private hands?

It depends. It's one of my great bugbears with social problems in general today. In modern democracies, most politicians (i.e. decision makers) face elections every 4 years or so. They will make decisions primarily on the likelihood of re-election at that milestone. Companies are generally even worse off - looking at the next stock market financial report, once a year. When investing in nuclear power, it's a 50+ year investment, possibly 200 year if the waste disposal is fully considered. There are no social institutions well placed to manage such long-term investment. Look around you and ask yourself honestly, what institution can you guarantee will still be here in 50 years time? Pretty much nothing human can be guaranteed for such a period.

The solution? Establish a government funded institution or department with an independent remit. The problem is assurance of future funding (Chernobyl's problem). Just watch what happens to NASA every budget round. Yes, they have long term aims, but they fluctuate at the whim of successive government regimes. I don't have the answer, but I believe that such an approach is about the best we're likely to achieve.

I think nuclear power is great, but it does have it's flaws, too. I think it would be better than what were are currently doing, however. Cattius does have a point. There is always room for error. If we handle it correctly, which nuclear plants are doing, we should be fine.


Best method.

People asume nuclear power would be Chernobyl every day, which is stupid. The Russian reactors were much different than the reactors we use in America, and would you really expect the USSR and their low-budget to successfully run a nuclear power plant? Chernobyl was terrible, but it should've never happened. What's the worst nuclear power disaster in America? Three Mile Island. The radiation did have some health effects on some people nearby, but the number of people TMI directly killed is zero.

Another thing to consider is that due to the failure of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, scientists have designed power plants that are even safer than they were. Of course, no one wants to build these, because everyone thinks that every nuclear power plant is going to be like Chernobyl. See, if it weren't for Chernobyl, so many people wouldn't be afraid of nuclear. Those damn commies had to ruin it for everyone!

Actually Vera, TMI had no health effects.

Unless people also get radiation sickness on planes now

sorry for the bump but...

my problem with nuclear power, is that,
1. work must be done to get the fuel
I'm not sure how uranium is obtained, though I'm sure it takes a lot of effort, as compared to solar/and wind power, where you just sit back, and repair them every few years.
2. places power in the hands of the few.
I'm not quite sure how much uranium is in america, but my guess is, it will lead to monopolies, as we have now, with Saudi Arabia's oil, though most likely in different parts of the world.
plus, i don't see the average joe managing to set up a nuclear power plant.
3. what you gonna do with all that junk?
seems a bit irresponsible to just burry a bunch of radioactive junk, both for the environmental concerns, and in case a terrorist gets a hold of it.