nuclear energy!!! whats it worth to us?

[wraithe]

i have just discovered the solution for nuclear waste...it is a place that has no commercial value and of no benefit to anybody that counts...will not effect the nation and can be stored under a lot of unwanted sewage waste...a bit of gas over head could be a problem but it has always been there so its acceptable....the place is right under a building....

Parliament house - Canberra...

[fringe_dweller]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Just to clear something up.. my attempted humour was possibly missed

I'm an anarchist by politics anyway, and we dont have an organised party as such

Wraithe, i wish people would stop voting for politicians , it only encourages them as they say hehe

[JimmyH155]

I have just looked through thr entire web site of photographs sent by g__day. I have completely changed my mind on nuclear energy. Anybody of a sound mind who still promotes the use of nuclear energy can't be sane. Is anybody seriously saying that another Chernoble will never happen? No Jumbo jets ever crashed?
I suggest those of you who havent looked at the site, do so. Here it is again http://www.kiddofspeed.com/

[Argonavis (William)]

Originally Posted by JimmyH155

I have just looked through thr entire web site of photographs sent by g__day. I have completely changed my mind on nuclear energy. Anybody of a sound mind who still promotes the use of nuclear energy can't be sane. Is anybody seriously saying that another Chernoble will never happen? No Jumbo jets ever crashed?
I suggest those of you who havent looked at the site, do so. Here it is again http://www.kiddofspeed.com/

well, you have just stuffed your own argument there, because people still fly in "Jumbo" jets even though they crash. It's the price paid for technology. Would you prefer that we were all still living in caves?

Emerging technologies will always have issues. Despite Chernobyl, Europe still has nucler powered generators. How many people dies from Chernobyl? 50? 70? A UN Report suggested that maybe a further 9000 will die prematurely from radioactive fallout. How many will die in road accidents? Should cars be banned? Yes Chernobyl was a disaster. However the engineering is improving to reduce risk and elimate waste hazards. Many industries produce hazardous wastes. Do you close down industries because of it? or do you deal with the waste disposal issue?

Our progress as a species is measured in how we engineer our technology to serve human need. The whole issue of nuclear power needs to be looked at rationally and dispassionately. Else you are reducing yourself to the shock horror outrage tactics of those tablod TV shows that invariably follow on from the news. Are we going to be an intelligent species, or not?
Nuclear power is just about the only alternative fuel source to coal or oil fired power stations.

[wraithe]

Originally Posted by Argonavis

well, you have just stuffed your own argument there, because people still fly in "Jumbo" jets even though they crash. It's the price paid for technology. Would you prefer that we were all still living in caves?


Nuclear power is just about the only alternative fuel source to coal or oil fired power stations.

to the first bit..mmm.. why not, best heating and cooling system around and cooberpeddy still has homes underground...are you saying that they are cave men for it...i also have a friend who built his house underground and he has been thru several bush fires and still there, but the neighbours have had to rebuild everytime...


second quote from you is wrong, in so many ways...get your blinkers off please, it is not the only alternative, the us used that one at the end of WW2 when they dropped a bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki...why didnt they just allow the Japanese to sign the peace treaty in France instead...because they want the world to be at there knees....If nuclear energy is the only answer then the countries that have stopped building new reators must be wrong...even the US dont put any huge money into nuclear power stations....are we sheep in this country and have to follow every one down the path of nuclear energy or can we be brave and stand outside the circle....NZ dont have them and why should we when we have so many other options(oh yeh. you just said we don't, sorry i forgot)...

[JimmyH155]

Argonavis,
If you,ve bothered to look at those photographs (and read the text regarding the number of deaths) - just imagine a chunk of our beloved Australia looking like that - Victoria farmland? Sydney? It's complete madness to even contemplate. If we go nuclear, see you in the caves.

[fringe_dweller]

Originally Posted by wraithe

to the first bit..mmm.. why not, best heating and cooling system around and cooberpeddy still has homes underground...are you saying that they are cave men for it...i also have a friend who built his house underground and he has been thru several bush fires and still there, but the neighbours have had to rebuild everytime...

well thats hardly a serious option for most people, what about claustrophobic ppl

Originally Posted by wraithe

second quote from you is wrong, in so many ways...get your blinkers off please, it is not the only alternative, the us used that one at the end of WW2 when they dropped a bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki...why didnt they just allow the Japanese to sign the peace treaty in France instead...because they want the world to be at there knees....If nuclear energy is the only answer then the countries that have stopped building new reators must be wrong...even the US dont put any huge money into nuclear power stations....are we sheep in this country and have to follow every one down the path of nuclear energy or can we be brave and stand outside the circle....NZ dont have them and why should we when we have so many other options(oh yeh. you just said we don't, sorry i forgot)...

well i hardly think having 100 nuke reactors in the US is lacking in comittment to nuke power
are we sheep that has to follow the anti-nuke line? that arguement goes both ways
NZ doesnt have 40% of the worlds known easily recoverable uranium reserves (its like god meant us to have nuke power?)- and it doesnt have vast badlands to dump waste, or build plants on
anyway the world needs NZ as a refuge for when the merde hits the fan

[fringe_dweller]

Originally Posted by JimmyH155

Argonavis,
If you,ve bothered to look at those photographs (and read the text regarding the number of deaths) - just imagine a chunk of our beloved Australia looking like that - Victoria farmland? Sydney? It's complete madness to even contemplate. If we go nuclear, see you in the caves.

Jimmy you are continuing to take a tack based on emotion - stick to the facts - the 1950's chernobyl plant design and management systems was pure folly - an accident waiting to happen (it was human error that caused the whole meltdown, not nuclear power btw)

[Argonavis (William)]

Originally Posted by JimmyH155

Argonavis,
If you,ve bothered to look at those photographs (and read the text regarding the number of deaths) - just imagine a chunk of our beloved Australia looking like that - Victoria farmland? Sydney? It's complete madness to even contemplate. If we go nuclear, see you in the caves.

and you would know. Well it shouldn't providing that proper risk management strategies are used. This is an emotional argument with no basis in fact. Did Bhopal mean that no one builds chemical factories anymore?

Why would you say "see you in caves"? Is that the best you can do? Nuclear power plants are not nuclear explosives, they should not explode with proper containment facilities. The technology is also moving away from pressure water reactors to gas diffusion. Safety is not an issue.

Are you prepared to look at all the costs, risks and benefits of this technology ? This is the first step to the nuclear power option, and there is no harm in taking it and drawing some conclusions whether it is worthwhile. Anything else is luddite.

[Kieken]

@ Wraithe: The USA did not drop the bomb on Japan just to get the world on their knees but to end the war in a more speedy way. Germany was already blown away by tons of explosives (Dresden anyone?) so basically Germany could not bring up the forces for a decent resistance.. Japan however was still active. They were still present on the continent and on a couple of island in the Pacific. Everybody back then knew that the Japansese would never surrender (or atleast not that easy) so basically it was the only thing you could do (besides sending more troops to get slaughtered). I don't say it was a good thing they did but I think it saved more lives then ending the war without them. The war lastest only 9 days after Hiroshima.

About not building nuclear reactors. Sweden has started one not so long ago, and so will Finland. In my opinion these countries are pretty concerned about their forests, people and stuff. I think it's better then bulding yet another plant that works on coal or oil. Their wastes cannot be reused. Nuclear wastes (which are dangerous, yes I know) can be reused. New types of power plants use the waste as their fuel to generate power.

[mickoking]

The US nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki to put the wind up stalin. The Japenese were on the cusp of surrendering anyway(their forces by this stage were almost completely crippled). 300000+ lives wasted for politics.

[Argonavis (William)]

Originally Posted by mickoking

The US nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki to put the wind up stalin. The Japenese were on the cusp of surrendering anyway(their forces by this stage were almost completely crippled). 300000+ lives wasted for politics.

and you would know because you were there, right? Like Forrest Gump.

the atomic bomb was used to force the surrender of Japan. all the signs were that the Japenese would fight to the last.

[gaa_ian (Ian)]

A few (more) Points:
- Australia does not have "Badlands" we have desert ecosystems
- Human Error will continue to occur (this includes the handling of Nuke waste)
- economic rationalism will ensure that corners are cut.
- No matter how well built a Nuke power station is it will not outlast the nuclear fuel it contains & the contamination within it
- I do acknolwedge the new technology makes a modern reactor safer, but how do you stop people from making mistakes & cutting corners ?

[wraithe]

reuse of nuclear fuel....yes and no...
it is reused in breeder reactors, but what about the waste from them...
reprocessing only extracts so much and leaves residue that is worse again...
there is and probably will be nuclear waste...problem is what sort of waste do we need in the future...and there are alternatives but nobody wants to bite the bullet and use them...the propaganda over lords have done a good job for nuclear energy, but alas, check the ancestry of the companies pushing nuclear power, you may find they use to build fossil fueled power stations under a different name...what better way to sell a product than to dismiss one that is being used....
as for claustrophobia at living in caves, hmmm i dont like homes with ceilings less than 10 feet but i would live in a cave if i had to...i usually do when i go to perth, the homes have 7 foot and 8 foot ceilings, cant reach a light globe in my home without using a chair or ladder...


and the other issue...japan...is it worth killing innocent civilians to win a war...dont claim to be civilised when killing innocent people...dresden in germany was another total annihialation...hitler dropping bombs on london... it was all tit for tat... people didnt vote for war, polititions do tho... and why target them with bombs of destruction for politics... and if you think i wouldnt know what its like in the military, think again, i served my time for this country and have an injury to remember it..(and yes i'm a woman)...

[wraithe]

I would like to put a few ideas to everyone here:

1/ The atomic testing at the atols, that the french have done.. underground, but still atmospheric fallout...where is that fallout dispersed to..
any body here into meteorology, is it possible that it has travelled to parts of the globe...
2/ Nuclear accidents, where does that fallout end up...where in the world does it end up in the end...
3/ look at a bush fire, the smoke ends up hundreds of miles from where the fire is, is that not how nuclear fallout(albiet, nuclear accidents or tests) travels but usually at a higher altitude...
4/ How many tests with nuclear weapons have been done world wide so far...
5/ Maralinga, Barrow island, there are more on Australian soils...How long before it will be inhabitable...
6/ The government said it was safe and they had the scientists back them up...But people believe a government sponsored scientist over one who is not on there books...Wow, of course all the letters after there name make them know all...
Are we not willing to question these people and want answers to all issues or just accept that they will tell you the truth...Power gel is fairly safe but dont drop it, it may explode, nuclear is no difference...how many here would sleep with a kilo of gelly...with a nuclear power station you have so many things against there use why take a chance on some thing so dangerous, would it not be prudent to use another method of power generation even if its not as efficent...but not damaging to the environment or the future...

[ving (David)]

Originally Posted by JimmyH155

Argonavis,
If you,ve bothered to look at those photographs (and read the text regarding the number of deaths) - just imagine a chunk of our beloved Australia looking like that - Victoria farmland? Sydney? It's complete madness to even contemplate. If we go nuclear, see you in the caves.

you drive a car jimmy? more deaths have been caused by motorvehicle accidents... just not all in one go.

the plant was created in the 1950s' i believe, comparing that plant to one built today and saying the safety standards havent changed is no different to saying that the safety standards of a 1950's car is the same to todays standard.... can you really compare them?

[Kieken]

War isn't civilised in anyway. Even when only politicians would die it is uncivilised. But to end certain uncivilised things we have to do from time to time certain uncivilised things. I'm against all nuclear weapons and I would rather have them banned then anything else. The only thing is that without the bomb the war could have lasted yet another year or so. Here in Europe the USA thought to be in Berlin somewhere end '44 but the got stuck here in Belgian because of heavy battle in the Ardennes (Germans used everything, even children and seniors). But their back was already broken. Japan was a different story. They were in battle since '37 and even after 6~7 years of battle the USA had problems with Japan. Though Russia also started fighting against the Japanese in northern China, Japan still had an entire island for their own full of people they could use in battle.

Oh, and Dresden? Hitler killed some 30.000 people in London and destroyed it almost over the course of 4~5 years, the Allies killed something between 30.000 and 65.000 people in one night and thereby destroyed the entire city in just a couple of hours. In total 3900 tons of bombs were dropped and 1.300 tons of incendiaries. When you take in fact that the Allies knew how the weather was (very cold so hot air would raise fast => suction) but still decided to continue. Another thing is that the factories were situated around Dresden, but where were the bombs dropped? In the centre. When did they do it? February ’45, Germany was almost defeated (Germany lasted until 8 may before admitting they lost on paper).

Back to the fuelstuff: the waste from a traditional plant can be reused in a breeder that on his turn produces fuel for a normal plant. This makes fuel for the breeder and ……. The tiny bit of waste that is produced has a halftime of 30~40 years. So storing it for 100~200 years would make it somewhat safe. I guess this waste is “better” then the waste we have now, not? Our highly radioactive waste has a halftime of a couple of thousand years.

As I stated in the beginning of this post I’m against nuclear weapons but a lot of those early tests taught us the dangers and benefits from uranium and plutonium. Any tests after the 1950 can be seen as unnecessary. Probably more then 60% of all the tests before 1950 were unnecessary to. We learned a lot but at the end the fallout was there. A nuclear plant has a lower risk on exploding and spreading fallout then a bomb. Here in Europe we never had any problems with nuclear energy, only in 1986 when a human error (someone forgot to tell the people who operated the reactor what they could and couldn’t) started perhaps the biggest nuclear catastrophe ever known (some 150.000~200.000 people will die eventually from the effects from the radiation). Other incidents with reactors caused in total 4 known deaths.

[Argonavis (William)]

Originally Posted by Kieken

Oh, and Dresden? Hitler killed some 30.000 people in London and destroyed it almost over the course of 4~5 years, the Allies killed something between 30.000 and 65.000 people in one night and thereby destroyed the entire city in just a couple of hours. In total 3900 tons of bombs were dropped and 1.300 tons of incendiaries. When you take in fact that the Allies knew how the weather was (very cold so hot air would raise fast => suction) but still decided to continue. Another thing is that the factories were situated around Dresden, but where were the bombs dropped? In the centre.

The firestorm was a deliberate tactic to destroy the city, from the brilliant mind of astrophysicist Freeman Dyson (as I recall). Remember Dyson spheres? same bloke. He is still alive and publishing. His son did some interesting things too, like live up a tree in British Columbia for a year.

[wraithe]

There are some missing....
December 12, 1952

A partial meltdown of a reactor's uranium core at the Chalk River plant near Ottawa, Canada, resulted after the accidental removal of four control rods. Although millions of gallons of radioactive water poured into the reactor, there were no injuries.
October 1957

Fire destroyed the core of a plutonium-producing reactor at Britain's Windscale nuclear complex - since renamed Sellafield - sending clouds of radioactivity into the atmosphere. An official report said the leaked radiation could have caused dozens of cancer deaths in the vicinity of Liverpool.
Winter 1957-'58

A serious accident occurred during the winter of 1957-58 near the town of Kyshtym in the Urals. A Russian scientist who first reported the disaster estimated that hundreds died from radiation sickness.
January 3, 1961

Three technicians died at a U.S. plant in Idaho Falls in an accident at an experimental reactor.
July 4, 1961

The captain and seven crew members died when radiation spread through the Soviet Union's first nuclear-powered submarine. A pipe in the control system of one of the two reactors had ruptured.
October 5, 1966

The core of an experimental reactor near Detroit, Mich., melted partially when a sodium cooling system failed.
January 21, 1969

A coolant malfunction from an experimental underground reactor at Lucens Vad, Switzerland, releases a large amount of radiation into a cave, which was then sealed.
December 7, 1975

At the Lubmin nuclear power complex on the Baltic coast in the former East Germany, a short-circuit caused by an electrician's mistake started a fire. Some news reports said there was almost a meltdown of the reactor core.
March 28, 1979

Near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, America's worst nuclear accident occurred. A partial meltdown of one of the reactors forced the evacuation of the residents after radioactive gas escaped into the atmosphere.
February 11, 1981

Eight workers are contaminated when more than 100,000 gallons of radioactive coolant fluid leaks into the contaminant building of the Tennessee Valley Authority's Sequoyah 1 plant in Tennessee.
April 25, 1981

Officials said around 45 workers were exposed to radioactivity during repairs to a plant at Tsuruga, Japan.
April 26, 1986

The world's worst nuclear accident occurred after an explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It released radiation over much of Europe. Thirty-one people died iin the immediate aftermath of the explosion. Hundreds of thousands of residents were moved from the area and a similar number are belived to have suffered from the effects of radiation exposure.
March 24, 1992

At the Sosnovy Bor station near St. Petersburg, Russia, radioactive iodine escaped into the atmosphere. A loss of pressure in a reactor channel was the source of the accident.
November 1992

In France's most serious nuclear accident, three workers were contaminated after entering a nuclear particle accelerator in Forbach without protective clothing. Executives were jailed in 1993 for failing to take proper safety measures.
November 1995

Japan's Monju prototype fast-breeder nuclear reactor leaked two to three tons of sodium from the reactor's secondary cooling system.
March 1997

The state-run Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation reprocessing plant at Tokaimura, Japan, contaminated at least 35 workers with minor radiation after a fire and explosion occurred.
September 30, 1999

Another accident at the uranium processing plant at Tokaimura, Japan, plant exposed fifty-five workers to radiation. More than 300,000 people living near the plant were ordered to stay indoors. Workers had been mixing uranium with nitric acid to make nuclear fuel, but had used too much uranium and set off the accidental uncontrolled reaction.

Sorry just had to post these...the european ones should interest you kieken...
Kath

[Kieken]

After the war he admitted that the bombing was an act of unresponsible destruction. This bombing simply did not change the way the war was going. I've got the quote in front of me but in Dutch. I'll search for an English one.

Anyway, yep, brilliant guy. Didn't know that those spheres were from the same guy.

EDIT: forgot the quote

"In februari 1945 bombardeerden we Dresden. De Duitse verdediging was toen min of meer al uit elkaar gevallen. Dus vlogen we boven Duitsland en verwoestten alles wat er nog over was. Dresden was echt onverantwoorde vernietiging. En het was natuurlijk een menselijke tragedie, omdat het zo laat in de oorlog gebeurde. Steden platbranden was het enige dat we nog konden doen en dat deden we dan ook.Het beïnvloedde het verloop van de oorlog op geen enkele manier. Harris gaf de feitelijke bevelen. Hij was persoonlijk verantwoordelijk toen hij zei: "Ja, vannacht vallen we Dresden aan." Dat was zijn beslissing. Toch was hij een man met sterke gevoelens van medemenselijkheid."

EDIT 2: just found out that some Dutch organisation published it.