Is that so? Well, some estimate from the Chernobyl disaster over 1,000,000 cancer cases in children IIRC already, these being thyroid cancer from radioactive iodine released. Are you saying that other forms of energy creation are worse? Can you support that claim?Lets see, how long has nuclear power been in play? 50/60 years? And how many big accidents have we had? 2? 3?
And how many big accidents have Coal/Gas plants had? How many mining accidents have we had? How many people have died, directly or indirectly from other forms of power generation?
Deaths from other forms of power generation are so common that they hardly make the news now-a-days.
Nuclear is the cleanest and best thing we got. You're retarded if you think otherwise.
Safe is a relative term. Nothing is safe.
There are over 400 functioning nuclear plants across the globe and a hundred in the US.
Will there be future catastrophes from these? Yes. As there will be damage from all forms of power.
Personally, I don't subscribe to Murphy's Law. Some possible things are exceedingly unlikely. However, it is very very true that what the public hears about nuclear accidents has generally been anything but credible information. For example, the only reason we became aware that there was a catastrophe at Chernobyl was that the Swedes detected radiation.A while back there was a report of a release of gas from a reactor in France and the government chose not to tell everyone. After hearing about that, it made me wonder how many other things the government may choose not to tell us.
Sooner or later, whatever can go wrong, will.
That is far from certain at this point. There are now 9 reactors in Japan in a state of emergency.The biggest Earthquake and (biggest?) Tsunami in Japanese history, both affected the plant. It is currently having 3 reactor cores melt, 2 containment buildings exploded, and the freaking thing IS STILL contained.
That's a testament to their safety, so long as containment remains during this crisis.
Is that so? Well, some estimate from the Chernobyl disaster over 1,000,000 cancer cases in children IIRC already, these being thyroid cancer from radioactive iodine released. Are you saying that other forms of energy creation are worse? Can you support that claim?
Chernobyl, the site of the world's worst nuclear accident by far, was not hit by a tsunami or earthquake. It was a combination of bad design, poor training and inexperienced operators that caused the catastrophe.
None of which is as relevant as the one difference I posted.
40 million people are counting on fire trucks(?) to pump sea water fast enough to keep the last barrier to direct exposure to the core from going away.
The level of risk that presents never existed at Chernobyl, even when the worst happened.
That is far from certain at this point. There are now 9 reactors in Japan in a state of emergency.
That article states that the spent fuel pool was on fire, which was the cause of the "radiation leaking directly into air" quote.As of the explosion at #2 and the fire at #4, containment has been breached. You quoted me from before those incidents.
The truth of the matter is now this:
Japan radiation leaking "directly" into air: IAEA
I obviously cannot stand by my earlier statements of the safety of the situation.
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said that an oil leak in a cooling water pump at Unit 4 was the cause of a fire that burned for approximately 140 minutes. The fire was not in the spent fuel pool, as reported by several media outlets. Unit 4 was in a 105-day-long maintenance outage at the time of the earthquake and there is no fuel in the reactor.
I've never thought nuclear reactors were safe. I was nervous as hell when I had a summer job at the Cambridge Electron Accelerator (long time ago when I was a physics major), would have been much more nervous if there were fissionable material around. Part of my job was to walk around with a portable radiation detection device. I did extra homework to reassure myself that I was safe. I did a bit of research recently and found out that they had a very bad accident not long after I worked there.
In just one nuclear reactor is around 20 tons of uranium (well, the ones I was reading about online last night at Wikipedia were the 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl reactors). The amount of deadly radioactive materials in the world's nuclear reactors is staggering. Chernobyl was badly designed (no containment vessel), but even reactors whose fissionable material are in containment vessels are subject to potential full meltdown in the event of some equipment and/or operator error scenarios and subsequent explosion and massive contamination. Safe? They will never be safe.
Dear Dr. Pizza, I read the article already. I knew almost all of that stuff already by virtue of the other things I've read recently. I feel no reason to recount my statements. Nuclear power generation by uranium reactors is inherently and will always be unsafe. What technology has such a high level of advanced and redundant safety built in (because they don't need it)? Each and every nuclear power plant today is a disaster waiting to happen. Yes some are worse than others. I wouldn't want to live close to either of the plants here in CA. They are subject to severe tsunami and earthquake exposure.You're yet another person who needs to read the articles linked to a dozen times now.
Seriously, you need to read a couple of the articles that have been posted repeatedly in these threads. A few posters in the past have noted that sometimes I appear to be "left" and sometimes I appear to be "right" politically. I generally don't give much concern to politics. However, my passion is for accurate knowledge which you seem to greatly lack on this issue. I highly recommend you read those articles, because generally, you don't seem to be an ignorant jackass. However, on this particular issue, you can stop making yourself look like an ignorant jackass like the other ignorant jackasses on the forum, simply by reading those 2 or 3 articles.
You're yet another person who needs to read the articles linked to a dozen times now.
32 reactors around the globe use this design according to the article. How is that the norm?
Then you would doom us to being stuck in this gravity well in perpetuity, 'cause we damned sure ain't going to another planet on windmills and proper tire inflation. Progress is scary and dangerous; always has been, always will be.Correct me if I'm wrong but one of the reactors is leaking dangerous levels of radiation.
I'm apparently so ignorant that this is exactly why I don't want nuclear power. Because I'm stupid enough to think that radiation doesn't result from the failure of any other kind of power plant. Yes, I'm the ignorant moron, not the nuclear industry that shouts at the top of its lungs how safe it is and how nuclear isn't any riskier than any other types of power, while radiation is spewing into the air.
I'm guessing the cost difference is a LOT less than it was ten days ago.Apparently in the early 1970s this design was not considered as safe as a more expensive design, by some high ranking officials, but for some reason plants were built anyway.
From what I've read, some experts said the containment was inadequate if the systems designed to cool it failed. For more money the containment could be strong enough to hold even without cooling..
I wonder what the cost difference was/is ?
-does any one know how many wind mills it would take to feed\outfit 10 billion people with a medium low standard of living, how many cars ,trains , house ,places to work , cities ? or will it just be a lucky few that will have food on the table every day.
Dear Dr. Pizza, I read the article already. I knew almost all of that stuff already by virtue of the other things I've read recently. I feel no reason to recount my statements. Nuclear power generation by uranium reactors is inherently and will always be unsafe. What technology has such a high level of advanced and redundant safety built in (because they don't need it)? Each and every nuclear power plant today is a disaster waiting to happen. Yes some are worse than others. I wouldn't want to live close to either of the plants here in CA. They are subject to severe tsunami and earthquake exposure.
According to the experts in the 1970s, if nuclear power plants weren't built that way, nuclear power would die. How did the world end up with only 32 less safe plants if it was the only option?
Maybe i am wrong, but have you ever looked at chemical plants where chemicals are created for industrial use ?
Some of the chemicals produced are very lethal as well when spread as a cloud just like radioactive dust clouds.
I doubt that there is no safety systems there.
Yes, Bopal comes to mind. The death ravage was like chemical warefare. However chemical spills, devastating as they can be are not as insidious as radiological contamination, witness the current run on and sell out of potassium iodide in west coast pharmacies ($10/pill) or the rape going on on ebay ($500!) or the million plus cases of cancer already from Chernobyl.
That's really public perception, fear, panic, price gouging, etc. It doesn't really prove that radiation poisoning is inherently worse than chemical poisoning. Do you believe that chemical pollution isn't collectively worse than radioactive pollution?