Whatever the merits -- safe, clean, available, etc. -- nuclear power was an economic disaster in the Pacific Northwest. Taxpayers and ratepayers have not yet forgotten the hit they took from WPPS in Washington and Trojan near Portland.
Granted, no one died. But plenty of people lied in trying to bring these projects on line-- some of them were abandoned before they were completed-- and all of them are gone now.
It doesn't seem likely that nuclear power could ever be "viable" without massive government subsidies. There are, of course, massive hidden subsidies in our hydrocarbon and hydroelectric infrastructure -- and in any rational world, the subsidies would all be put on a spread sheet and a rational decision made about supporting them for the "public good." But of course, only TOD is "rational." Everything else is homo politicus
The disaster which befell nuclear power was mostly caused elsewhere. To list some of the exogenous causes:
Erroneous projections of near-term electric demand. They had been made during a period of rapid growth, which had not continued.
Rampant inflation. Interest rates peaked over 20% per year. This combined with...
Government regulation of utility financial practices. Utilities had to put the cost on credit instead of paying for it out of revenues.
Government mis-regulation of the nuclear industry in particular. Regulators demanded changes to parts of plants which had already been completed, to list just one egregious practice. This ran up costs and pushed back schedules, adding to the woes caused by #2 and #3.
Courts allowed "environmental" (Luddite) groups to block construction, also driving up costs.
Add to this the paranoia pushed on a scientifically-illiterate public by propagandists claiming that American PWR's, Soviet RMBK's and nuclear weapons are all the same, and the industry couldn't keep up.
Just cutting off water flow thru a nuke waste site is mega death.
That's a misunderstanding that tends to perpetuate carbon monoxide poisonings, each of which has associated with it a few tens of millions of dollars in fossil fuel tax revenue.
When spent fuel is old enough to leave its cooling pools and go into dry casks -- minimum five years, I think -- it no longer requires any cooling water.
Our year-2108 descendants will inherit lands in which, buried a kilometre deep or a little less, are 250 billion watts of radioactivity. This may include, halfway down or a little further, our radioactive legacy to them, now approaching 0.3 billion year-2108 watts, in sturdy containers. The rest will be natural; it's there now.
I've been protesting nukes since TU's Matagorda Plant.
I've neglected in depth studies to concentrate on other matters.
I'll engage you across the board on this, but note that we'll be decommissioning
these plants faster than we can get new ones up and running.
I note you didn't bring up Sellafield and Yucca.
We can start at 1998:
Friends of the Earth: Press Release: BNFL/WESTINGHOUSE DEAL ...
The NII has urged British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), which runs Sellafield, ... including Sellafield (also Yucca Mountain in the US, and a site each in East Asia ... www.foe.co.uk/pubsinfo/infoteam/pressrel/1998/19980624164849.html
Then 2000:
Crisis deepens over British nuclear reprocessing plant
Before the approval of the Yucca site, BNFL had expressed interest in transporting waste materials from the US for storage in Sellafield. ... www.wsws.org/articles/2000/apr2000/nuc-a03.shtml - 20k
2004:
[Jan 15, 2004] Irish MEP Nuala Ahern has called for a team of international experts to investigate possible contamination at the Sellafield nuclear plant in Britain. Ms Ahern said yesterday that a study conducted by the British Ministry of Health found higher levels of plutonium in people living close to ...
2007
Sellafield 'not fit' for nuclear waste disposal | Business | The ...
It was last updated at 09:54 on November 02 2007. The government has been warned that it would be "wrong" and possibly illegal to use Sellafield in West ... www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/nov/02/nuclearindustry.greenpolitics - 60k
And yes I did.
(3 Mile Island/Chernobyl did it and cost over runs)
As much as protesters brought VietNam to an end.
(Mutiny in the ranks did it and cost over runs).
I'll stay with Sellafield and Yucca.
" But lingering resentment over cost overruns, concerns over spent fuel storage and fear of terrorist attacks or human error that could cause catastrophic destruction means California's major utilities may have to look outside the state to build a nuclear power plant -- at least initially, Mr. Wan says."
And it seems no one has talked about Matagorda in awhile.
I asked, "The Matagorda nuclear plant? Do you think you made a difference?".
'mcgowanmc' answered,
... yes I did.
Then we agree.
... it seems no one has talked about Matagorda in awhile.
That's what I figured, since I hadn't heard of a Matagorda plant.
We agree you made a difference. Has anyone died, in the region that might have been powered by the plant you stopped, from domestic carbon monoxide poisoning? From natural gas explosion?
That is the sort of difference I believe you have made. Also, government has made a lot of money taxing fossil fuel that might, but for you, have stayed in the ground.
If no-one's talking about the Matagorda plant any more, maybe you should restart the talk. It is not impossible for a traitor to mend, but time is limited.
And dont forget a million tones of radioactive gloves, packaging, pipe lagging, floor sweepings, nose blowings - the sort of stuff piling up at places like Drigg near Sellafield [300 metres from the sea incidentally].
We are going to be diverting enough energy cleaning up non-radioactive landfill.
Name all the people who have died from civilian nuclear waste in the last 10 years.
Just on the death certificate, or is it OK if the life was shorten because of processing material that ended up in in some manner that a civilian paid for the kWh?
If there were any statistical evidence for this, fine.
the fact is that studies have now confirmed that the standards which were set for radioactivity were based on a false premise - that from the amount which would outright kill you straight off, down through a dose which would make you really sick, and then right down to tiny amounts they thought might affect some future generation, there was a straight line function - IOW any dose at all of radiation was harmful.
It is now apparent that we had (rightly) been over-conservative, and that below certain levels it was impossible to show any ill effects - I am not just making that up, that is now standard knowledge for medical treatment, radiation assessment and so on.
This means that you don't need to worry about living in Denver! - no excess deaths are detectable there due to the mile-high location!
It also means that all the talk of so many millions dying, mostly in fact hypothesised for future generations, were in fact based on this mistaken notion.
Don't go eating tritium sandwiches, but most radioactive material is a lot less harmful than mercury, released by the bucketload by the coal industry, and with a half-life of forever!
The discussion is the waste, not radiation. The waste is:
Tailings from the mines
The heavy metals
In short - things not U-235
Iraq, Kosovo and other places have some of 'civilian waste' as fine dust. When some of that dust was a sabot, said sabot did kill someone.....is that dead wo/man to be included in the body count requested?
How much harm has non-nuclear power oriented mine tailings done? Enormously more.
The comparative benefit from nuclear power relative to costs is very high.
In Iraq the deaths from uranium quite pretty insignificant from the deaths from fast moving lead and steel.
"When some of that dust was a sabot, said sabot did kill someone.....is that dead wo/man to be included in the body count requested?"
Sure, once you add up consider the many more thousands killed by petroleum powered bombers as oil deaths.
I.e. "no".
The question is civilian nuclear power, operated in a regulated environment.
Not weaponry designed to kill efficiently.
Is this magical thinking which applies only to things nuclear? That there is a vicious and essentialist spiritual contamination from clearly horrible nuclear weapons and uranium-containing missiles?
So, how many people have died from nuclear waste from civilian power in the last 10 years?
A few hundred to thousand coal miners die in China, the pollution undoubtably kills many, many more. Nuclear power directly replaces coal, or it ought to.
This is like banning vaccinations because there is a tiny chance somebody will get sick from the vaccine instead of the much larger chance of harm from the wild-type disease itself.
People die mining coal every month. People get killed driving cars every month. Thousands of people die each year due to accidental electrocution in the home, falling off ladders, building site accidents etc. Farmers get run over by their own tractors a few times a year.
Pretty much everything is dangerous to some degree.
On the other hand, the French seem to be able to manage to generate most of their power from nuclear reactors without poisoning their population. And there are plenty of reactors operating in the USA, Germany, Switzerland and Japan without problems.
The dangers associated with nuclear power are exagerated for emotional effect.
As for waste, it's waste now. Sometime within the next 200 years we are likely to figure out how to reprocess it to extract the remaining radioactivity for energy. Building a facility that will last 200 years isn't that hard - the Romans could do it.
I really don't see it doing any harm while it sits out in the desert a thousand miles from anyone.
Compared to the current fossil fuel setup, nuclear is a clean option. As an alternative to the anarchy of a poorly managed global powerdown and rapid population decrease, it looks pretty good.
Talk to the tens of thousand of sub-mariners who spent years to careers within 50 yards of an active nuclear power plant. They don't seem to be dying early. And, as their job involves possible Armageddon, any psychiatric effects and we probably wouldn't be here to talk about it. Consider the French countryside. Nuclear power is safe. Realize there is no net increase in radioactivity, rather a concentrating of natural radioactivity and a hastened and harnessed decay to less radioactive elements. Yes, there are problems. No I don't think it can entirely solve PO issues, but until someone gives me a well reasoned argument otherwise I see it as part of the (possibly temporary) solution. Ever hear of miner's black lung disease? I am open to other views but perspective is needed.
One further point, and understand that I am not rabidly pro-nuclear but this occurred to me after I just posted. The net radioactivity of the Earth decreases from nuclear power. U235, or is it 238, decays in a chain reaction through an elaborate decay scheme basically to mostly lead I believe (to bad for the alchemists;) The point is radioactivity from nuclear power cannot somehow (easily) poison the whole world. It is less than what was input as starting material. If it leaks from Yucca Mountain and distributes to an area equal to what it was gathered from it has returned to a natural state. It is only the concentration of radioactive elements that is problematic. If you want to avoid radiation exposure, and this no joke, avoid unnecessary whole body CT scans done with current equipment.
No doubt this is all true. But what is remembered is how much it cost, and the visible bones of dead nuclear plants, commemorate a vast swindle. I'm not really sure safety was the main issue -- I lived in Oregon when all that was going on, and a friend of mine was on the WPPS board. We mostly thought it was just a con game. After all, the really toxic nuclear stuff was /is upriver at Hanford -- and WPPS is small potatoes compared to that.
It was pigs at the trough then, just as now. I'm really surprised anything at all ever gets done constructively. It certainly is easier to tear things apart than to build them.
The Rancho Seco nuclear power plant near Sacramento, California was shut down decades ago because they could never get the plant to produce anywhere near its rated capacity reliably. There are now fields of solar panels on the property that produce electricity cleanly from the sun. While the panels do not produce anywhere hear the output of the nuclear plant when it was operating, it serves as a symbol of what can be done.
That seems to sum it all up right there. The nuclear power plant didn't work perfectly as advertised (over-hyped?), so therefore it makes more sense to do even less with these solar panels. The whole argument with the anti-nuke types is full of this sort of idiocy.
And, ironically, you display your own inability to think logically.
One tech uses horrible poisonous materials that are radioactive for millennia. We have to use extra-special measures to protect us and the rest of the environment from these wastes for thousands of years. Therefore, we want these processes to be as safe as possible, if not perfect. The potential harm is so great from a "minor" slip-up that we must think in terms of perfection.
On the other hand, solar, which is far less dangerous and requires no millennia long interment efforts, does not require such safeguards. If you screw up with solar, you simply get less power.
So, anyone with the thinking power of an eight year old can see that your argument is so flawed as to suggest you have recently suffered a brain injury.
I'm just asking: How much chemical waste gets generated by solar photovoltaics production? It is my impression that the semiconductor industry generates a lot of waste. Yes? No?
Thin film solar cells that are not used for concentrated solar photovoltaic can use small amounts of toxic materials, much smaller than are emitted by coal burning power plants per KWHr. Much smaller.
But crystal silicon concentrated solar photovoltaic emits mostly dirty silica.
Computer chips also use small amounts of toxic material. These have nothing to do with solar power except for some silicon circuits and power frequency controllers and stuff.
Solar photovoltaic is cleaner than the alternatives, even wind. Wind power uses carbon and plastic resin blades that put some organic chemicals into the air.
I would put solar, wind, nuclear, gas, oil, and coal as polluting in about that order. Hydro and geo are situation dependent. Some hydro plants produce essentially no pollution, some produce lots of methane from drowned vegetation. Most geo is clean, some dumps sulfur compounds. Depends on the geothermal field involved.
Here is a link to the EU's estimate of the external costs of different forms of energy - the link gives a discussion, and there is a link to a pdf by the EU itself there - might be a bit boring for some, so I will leave it to fellow geeks to click through! :-) http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/12/22/202710/47
Boils down to fairly small externalities for most things non-fossil, although use of stuff like copper in, for instance, windmills is not trivial if you are building a lot.
I would gladly take the "horrible poisonous materials" from nuclear reactors, all of it neatly stored at the plant, over the relentless spewing of mercury and radioactivity and CO2 from the coal plants we have, where the harm isn't just potential. And, I'll take having my lights working over not working, thank you, which is what happens when we find out solar can't scale up fast enough.
I took a course at the Armed Forces Radiological Institute (AFRI). Along with building a thermonuclear weapon (just kidding :0) I remember an exercise in calculating the energy content from Uranium 235 present in the coal. The U235 provided about an additional 50% energy content if harvested from the coal and used in a nuclear power plant.
People seldom have a conception of the sheer amount of coal used in a coal burning plant. It is on the order of two long trainloads every day. The corollary to this exercise, as I think about it now, would be the venting of half the radioactivity from a nuclear power plant. If I get the time I will try and recreate the numbers and give some basis for comparing nuclear and coal based power. Nuclear power is not a great solution, coal kills thousands each year and exposes us to far more radioactivity, not to mention possible global warming.
Once we hit Peak Natural Gas (and we already have in North America) and Peak Coal then symbols aren't going to keep our lights on and heat blowing on cold nights.
I'm not interested in symbolism. I'm interested in avoiding a massive deep economic depression. I think we are headed toward such a depression right now. A few hundred more nukes could make that depression far less severe.
Yeah, damned "Luddite" groups. What is it with them people what want unpolluted soil, air, and water. Who do they think they are? Don't they know they just need to get converted? All they need to do is get themselves an engineering degree and they will become enlightened!
That means they will get these special blinders where all tech appears good and all people opposing tech appear to be damned Luddites.
Rinse and repeat.
The list of poisonous activities started by the engineers and which they promised would not hurt anyone is so long that we would not have the trees to print the list.
What is it with these damned luddite groups, who seem to prefer soil, air and water to civilisation and would rather civilisation collapses and billions die than to develope the energy we need?
Don't you know that nothing is perfect, and if you keep shooting down every alternative to fossil fuels, you'll end up with people remaining on fossil fuels due to their being.... no alternative. And civilisation will collapse as they peak. And your soil, air and water will be destroyed anyway. We must do something
And for now we need nuclear, it's the best technology out there are the moment, we must be practical about this, you don't look for perfect solutions if you ever want to get something done, you look for what is there and what will work. Nuclear works and is plentiful in supply and low in impact on climate. It's cheap, clean and low risk.
I can only hope that when starvation becomes the order of the day that we first starve every BANANA who blocked a sensible renewable project.
I've got to answer to dipshits (industry term) about bird mortality with wind projects. They know that there is a problem, despite the fact that I have hundreds of wind turbines around me in what is basically a 3,000 square mile Super 8 for migrating arctic waterfowl and I've never personally seen nor have I heard any stories of troubles here. We have a little bat mortality problem and I cringe to write that, because the Friends of the Bat, an NGO a thousand miles from here, will cause immense waste and delay just as soon as they find out, despite the fact that the creatures aren't endangered.
The Altamont Pass site has a lot of older, smaller turbines. They're low to the ground and smaller means faster blade speed. They're eagle choppers and no mistake about that - the birds stoop on prey and get clipped on the approach. Why this one poorly placed system which would not be a problem if it had modern turbines continues to be used to block wind projects just amazes me.
You see that is one great example.
It's simply crazy, that people value birds, more than they value getting us off fossil fuels. It's so crazy and irrational.
re: "It's simply crazy, that people value birds, more than they value getting us off fossil fuels."
Or else, it's evidence of a sane skepticism and shows progress in people at least thinking about the environment.
Why do I use the word "sane"?
Because the argument of "what is more valuable" has been used to justify a host of "improvements" and has arguably led us to the present, cliff-hanging moment humanity finds itself in.
Of course, I could say a "worry about birds" also shows a lack of understanding about the magnitude and scale of energy resources we currently enjoy.
But then again, this is where education comes into it.
It's good that we're able to enjoy this present scale of energy resources. It benefits humanity immensely.
There is no rational person who'd want to give it up and stop efforts to maintain it, to save some birds, is what I meant.
The real issue is the complete lack of long term planning for how to deal with fossil fuels. Responsible usage of fossil fuels would have been fine, they'd just sit in the earth and go to waste if they weren't used. But it has to be responsible use.
Automobiles were a pretty bad idea from the start, they're a dangerous technology that have killed more people than wars and consumed fossil resources in a inefficient wasteful manner. There should have been more of a focus on mass transit, electric trains etc. Now you have an economy reliant on petrol cars for transport, no body even made an effort to get us onto say electric cars, no planning was made for resource depleteion of oil, completely irresponsible.
Fossil fuel consumption in general should have been keep at lower levels to keep co2 production to acceptable levels, with a focus on nuclear energy for power production. There are a few areas were fossil fuels can not be avoided though, like aviation. It would have made the most sense, to limit oil usage to aviation, shipping and large diesel industrial vehicles, while using trains or electric vehicles for mass transit powered by nuclear energy.
But people were thinking about short term quarterly profits, and not long term risks.... And that's the bane of capitalism, it's short sightedness.
The problem is not simply that we use energy on such a scale. Energy is good, it would infact be completely idiotic to not use it if you have it.
It's like this analogy, you have rich parents and receive a large inheritance. A stupid person will spend the money away in parties and fun and end up poor by the time they're 60. A smart person, would use the inheritance to make investments in property, stock market, use the money to found a business of their own, end up a lot richer by the time they're 60.
We're the stupid person and we'll end up in a great depression if this stupidity goes on.
This is off-topic, but I was wondering...since I've been away from TOD (esp. DB)...how is Bob Ebersole? You said you'd been in touch w. him - yes? (did you list your email at some point?) I'm afraid to ask but wanted to send best wishes.
I've been meaning to call him - he was supposed to be back on here. I thought of it tonight, but at 23:00 and I figured he was in bed already. I'll call tomorrow and find out how he is doing.
Whatever the merits -- safe, clean, available, etc. -- nuclear power was an economic disaster in the Pacific Northwest. Taxpayers and ratepayers have not yet forgotten the hit they took from WPPS in Washington and Trojan near Portland.
Granted, no one died. But plenty of people lied in trying to bring these projects on line-- some of them were abandoned before they were completed-- and all of them are gone now.
It doesn't seem likely that nuclear power could ever be "viable" without massive government subsidies. There are, of course, massive hidden subsidies in our hydrocarbon and hydroelectric infrastructure -- and in any rational world, the subsidies would all be put on a spread sheet and a rational decision made about supporting them for the "public good." But of course, only TOD is "rational." Everything else is homo politicus
The disaster which befell nuclear power was mostly caused elsewhere. To list some of the exogenous causes:
Add to this the paranoia pushed on a scientifically-illiterate public by propagandists claiming that American PWR's, Soviet RMBK's and nuclear weapons are all the same, and the industry couldn't keep up.
See Selafield UK on what all nukes have to look forward to.
And Yucca Mt after you've seen Selafield.
The waste problem will always be with us.
Just cutting off water flow thru a nuke waste site is mega death.
That's a misunderstanding that tends to perpetuate carbon monoxide poisonings, each of which has associated with it a few tens of millions of dollars in fossil fuel tax revenue.
When spent fuel is old enough to leave its cooling pools and go into dry casks -- minimum five years, I think -- it no longer requires any cooling water.
Our year-2108 descendants will inherit lands in which, buried a kilometre deep or a little less, are 250 billion watts of radioactivity. This may include, halfway down or a little further, our radioactive legacy to them, now approaching 0.3 billion year-2108 watts, in sturdy containers. The rest will be natural; it's there now.
How shall the car gain nuclear cachet?
I've been protesting nukes since TU's Matagorda Plant.
I've neglected in depth studies to concentrate on other matters.
I'll engage you across the board on this, but note that we'll be decommissioning
these plants faster than we can get new ones up and running.
I note you didn't bring up Sellafield and Yucca.
We can start at 1998:
Friends of the Earth: Press Release: BNFL/WESTINGHOUSE DEAL ...
The NII has urged British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), which runs Sellafield, ... including Sellafield (also Yucca Mountain in the US, and a site each in East Asia ...
www.foe.co.uk/pubsinfo/infoteam/pressrel/1998/19980624164849.html
Then 2000:
Crisis deepens over British nuclear reprocessing plant
Before the approval of the Yucca site, BNFL had expressed interest in transporting waste materials from the US for storage in Sellafield. ...
www.wsws.org/articles/2000/apr2000/nuc-a03.shtml - 20k
2004:
[Jan 15, 2004] Irish MEP Nuala Ahern has called for a team of international experts to investigate possible contamination at the Sellafield nuclear plant in Britain. Ms Ahern said yesterday that a study conducted by the British Ministry of Health found higher levels of plutonium in people living close to ...
2007
Sellafield 'not fit' for nuclear waste disposal | Business | The ...
It was last updated at 09:54 on November 02 2007. The government has been warned that it would be "wrong" and possibly illegal to use Sellafield in West ...
www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/nov/02/nuclearindustry.greenpolitics - 60k
And do Yucca Mt the same way.
If you so desire.
Sounds like you're changing your ground.
The Matagorda nuclear plant? Do you think you made a difference?
Not at all.
Just establishing my postion/bona fides.
And yes I did.
(3 Mile Island/Chernobyl did it and cost over runs)
As much as protesters brought VietNam to an end.
(Mutiny in the ranks did it and cost over runs).
I'll stay with Sellafield and Yucca.
" But lingering resentment over cost overruns, concerns over spent fuel storage and fear of terrorist attacks or human error that could cause catastrophic destruction means California's major utilities may have to look outside the state to build a nuclear power plant -- at least initially, Mr. Wan says."
And it seems no one has talked about Matagorda in awhile.
I asked, "The Matagorda nuclear plant? Do you think you made a difference?".
'mcgowanmc' answered,
Then we agree.
That's what I figured, since I hadn't heard of a Matagorda plant.
We agree you made a difference. Has anyone died, in the region that might have been powered by the plant you stopped, from domestic carbon monoxide poisoning? From natural gas explosion?
That is the sort of difference I believe you have made. Also, government has made a lot of money taxing fossil fuel that might, but for you, have stayed in the ground.
If no-one's talking about the Matagorda plant any more, maybe you should restart the talk. It is not impossible for a traitor to mend, but time is limited.
How shall the car gain nuclear cachet?
Senator Reid has done an excellent job delaying Yucca Mountain.
And dont forget a million tones of radioactive gloves, packaging, pipe lagging, floor sweepings, nose blowings - the sort of stuff piling up at places like Drigg near Sellafield [300 metres from the sea incidentally].
We are going to be diverting enough energy cleaning up non-radioactive landfill.
Name all the people who have died from civilian nuclear waste in the last 10 years.
Didn't 160 people or so get fried in one single platform (piper alpha) in the North Sea?
Name all the people who have died from civilian nuclear waste in the last 10 years.
Just on the death certificate, or is it OK if the life was shorten because of processing material that ended up in in some manner that a civilian paid for the kWh?
If there were any statistical evidence for this, fine.
the fact is that studies have now confirmed that the standards which were set for radioactivity were based on a false premise - that from the amount which would outright kill you straight off, down through a dose which would make you really sick, and then right down to tiny amounts they thought might affect some future generation, there was a straight line function - IOW any dose at all of radiation was harmful.
It is now apparent that we had (rightly) been over-conservative, and that below certain levels it was impossible to show any ill effects - I am not just making that up, that is now standard knowledge for medical treatment, radiation assessment and so on.
This means that you don't need to worry about living in Denver! - no excess deaths are detectable there due to the mile-high location!
It also means that all the talk of so many millions dying, mostly in fact hypothesised for future generations, were in fact based on this mistaken notion.
Don't go eating tritium sandwiches, but most radioactive material is a lot less harmful than mercury, released by the bucketload by the coal industry, and with a half-life of forever!
The discussion is the waste, not radiation. The waste is:
Tailings from the mines
The heavy metals
In short - things not U-235
Iraq, Kosovo and other places have some of 'civilian waste' as fine dust. When some of that dust was a sabot, said sabot did kill someone.....is that dead wo/man to be included in the body count requested?
How much harm has non-nuclear power oriented mine tailings done? Enormously more.
The comparative benefit from nuclear power relative to costs is very high.
In Iraq the deaths from uranium quite pretty insignificant from the deaths from fast moving lead and steel.
"When some of that dust was a sabot, said sabot did kill someone.....is that dead wo/man to be included in the body count requested?"
Sure, once you add up consider the many more thousands killed by petroleum powered bombers as oil deaths.
I.e. "no".
The question is civilian nuclear power, operated in a regulated environment.
Not weaponry designed to kill efficiently.
Is this magical thinking which applies only to things nuclear? That there is a vicious and essentialist spiritual contamination from clearly horrible nuclear weapons and uranium-containing missiles?
So, how many people have died from nuclear waste from civilian power in the last 10 years?
A few hundred to thousand coal miners die in China, the pollution undoubtably kills many, many more. Nuclear power directly replaces coal, or it ought to.
This is like banning vaccinations because there is a tiny chance somebody will get sick from the vaccine instead of the much larger chance of harm from the wild-type disease itself.
People die mining coal every month. People get killed driving cars every month. Thousands of people die each year due to accidental electrocution in the home, falling off ladders, building site accidents etc. Farmers get run over by their own tractors a few times a year.
Pretty much everything is dangerous to some degree.
On the other hand, the French seem to be able to manage to generate most of their power from nuclear reactors without poisoning their population. And there are plenty of reactors operating in the USA, Germany, Switzerland and Japan without problems.
The dangers associated with nuclear power are exagerated for emotional effect.
As for waste, it's waste now. Sometime within the next 200 years we are likely to figure out how to reprocess it to extract the remaining radioactivity for energy. Building a facility that will last 200 years isn't that hard - the Romans could do it.
I really don't see it doing any harm while it sits out in the desert a thousand miles from anyone.
Compared to the current fossil fuel setup, nuclear is a clean option. As an alternative to the anarchy of a poorly managed global powerdown and rapid population decrease, it looks pretty good.
Talk to the tens of thousand of sub-mariners who spent years to careers within 50 yards of an active nuclear power plant. They don't seem to be dying early. And, as their job involves possible Armageddon, any psychiatric effects and we probably wouldn't be here to talk about it. Consider the French countryside. Nuclear power is safe. Realize there is no net increase in radioactivity, rather a concentrating of natural radioactivity and a hastened and harnessed decay to less radioactive elements. Yes, there are problems. No I don't think it can entirely solve PO issues, but until someone gives me a well reasoned argument otherwise I see it as part of the (possibly temporary) solution. Ever hear of miner's black lung disease? I am open to other views but perspective is needed.
One further point, and understand that I am not rabidly pro-nuclear but this occurred to me after I just posted. The net radioactivity of the Earth decreases from nuclear power. U235, or is it 238, decays in a chain reaction through an elaborate decay scheme basically to mostly lead I believe (to bad for the alchemists;) The point is radioactivity from nuclear power cannot somehow (easily) poison the whole world. It is less than what was input as starting material. If it leaks from Yucca Mountain and distributes to an area equal to what it was gathered from it has returned to a natural state. It is only the concentration of radioactive elements that is problematic. If you want to avoid radiation exposure, and this no joke, avoid unnecessary whole body CT scans done with current equipment.
No doubt this is all true. But what is remembered is how much it cost, and the visible bones of dead nuclear plants, commemorate a vast swindle. I'm not really sure safety was the main issue -- I lived in Oregon when all that was going on, and a friend of mine was on the WPPS board. We mostly thought it was just a con game. After all, the really toxic nuclear stuff was /is upriver at Hanford -- and WPPS is small potatoes compared to that.
It was pigs at the trough then, just as now. I'm really surprised anything at all ever gets done constructively. It certainly is easier to tear things apart than to build them.
The Rancho Seco nuclear power plant near Sacramento, California was shut down decades ago because they could never get the plant to produce anywhere near its rated capacity reliably. There are now fields of solar panels on the property that produce electricity cleanly from the sun. While the panels do not produce anywhere hear the output of the nuclear plant when it was operating, it serves as a symbol of what can be done.
That seems to sum it all up right there. The nuclear power plant didn't work perfectly as advertised (over-hyped?), so therefore it makes more sense to do even less with these solar panels. The whole argument with the anti-nuke types is full of this sort of idiocy.
To speek,
And, ironically, you display your own inability to think logically.
One tech uses horrible poisonous materials that are radioactive for millennia. We have to use extra-special measures to protect us and the rest of the environment from these wastes for thousands of years. Therefore, we want these processes to be as safe as possible, if not perfect. The potential harm is so great from a "minor" slip-up that we must think in terms of perfection.
On the other hand, solar, which is far less dangerous and requires no millennia long interment efforts, does not require such safeguards. If you screw up with solar, you simply get less power.
So, anyone with the thinking power of an eight year old can see that your argument is so flawed as to suggest you have recently suffered a brain injury.
I'm just asking: How much chemical waste gets generated by solar photovoltaics production? It is my impression that the semiconductor industry generates a lot of waste. Yes? No?
Thin film solar cells that are not used for concentrated solar photovoltaic can use small amounts of toxic materials, much smaller than are emitted by coal burning power plants per KWHr. Much smaller.
But crystal silicon concentrated solar photovoltaic emits mostly dirty silica.
Computer chips also use small amounts of toxic material. These have nothing to do with solar power except for some silicon circuits and power frequency controllers and stuff.
Solar photovoltaic is cleaner than the alternatives, even wind. Wind power uses carbon and plastic resin blades that put some organic chemicals into the air.
I would put solar, wind, nuclear, gas, oil, and coal as polluting in about that order. Hydro and geo are situation dependent. Some hydro plants produce essentially no pollution, some produce lots of methane from drowned vegetation. Most geo is clean, some dumps sulfur compounds. Depends on the geothermal field involved.
Here is a link to the EU's estimate of the external costs of different forms of energy - the link gives a discussion, and there is a link to a pdf by the EU itself there - might be a bit boring for some, so I will leave it to fellow geeks to click through! :-)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/12/22/202710/47
Boils down to fairly small externalities for most things non-fossil, although use of stuff like copper in, for instance, windmills is not trivial if you are building a lot.
I would gladly take the "horrible poisonous materials" from nuclear reactors, all of it neatly stored at the plant, over the relentless spewing of mercury and radioactivity and CO2 from the coal plants we have, where the harm isn't just potential. And, I'll take having my lights working over not working, thank you, which is what happens when we find out solar can't scale up fast enough.
I would gladly take the "horrible poisonous materials" from nuclear reactors, all of it neatly stored at the plant,
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/02/030214073629.htm
I took a course at the Armed Forces Radiological Institute (AFRI). Along with building a thermonuclear weapon (just kidding :0) I remember an exercise in calculating the energy content from Uranium 235 present in the coal. The U235 provided about an additional 50% energy content if harvested from the coal and used in a nuclear power plant.
People seldom have a conception of the sheer amount of coal used in a coal burning plant. It is on the order of two long trainloads every day. The corollary to this exercise, as I think about it now, would be the venting of half the radioactivity from a nuclear power plant. If I get the time I will try and recreate the numbers and give some basis for comparing nuclear and coal based power. Nuclear power is not a great solution, coal kills thousands each year and exposes us to far more radioactivity, not to mention possible global warming.
HI Z,
re: "If I get the time I will try and recreate the numbers and give some basis for comparing nuclear and coal based power."
This is a great idea. To have a separate article and discussion.
Once we hit Peak Natural Gas (and we already have in North America) and Peak Coal then symbols aren't going to keep our lights on and heat blowing on cold nights.
I'm not interested in symbolism. I'm interested in avoiding a massive deep economic depression. I think we are headed toward such a depression right now. A few hundred more nukes could make that depression far less severe.
Government mis-regulation of the nuclear industry in particular.
Right, cuz when the government passes a law, all comply with that law.
Or, did you mean there should be no laws, and let 'the market' act?
You are not clear in your writing on this.
Yeah, damned "Luddite" groups. What is it with them people what want unpolluted soil, air, and water. Who do they think they are? Don't they know they just need to get converted? All they need to do is get themselves an engineering degree and they will become enlightened!
That means they will get these special blinders where all tech appears good and all people opposing tech appear to be damned Luddites.
Rinse and repeat.
The list of poisonous activities started by the engineers and which they promised would not hurt anyone is so long that we would not have the trees to print the list.
What is it with these damned luddite groups, who seem to prefer soil, air and water to civilisation and would rather civilisation collapses and billions die than to develope the energy we need?
Don't you know that nothing is perfect, and if you keep shooting down every alternative to fossil fuels, you'll end up with people remaining on fossil fuels due to their being.... no alternative. And civilisation will collapse as they peak. And your soil, air and water will be destroyed anyway. We must do something
And for now we need nuclear, it's the best technology out there are the moment, we must be practical about this, you don't look for perfect solutions if you ever want to get something done, you look for what is there and what will work. Nuclear works and is plentiful in supply and low in impact on climate. It's cheap, clean and low risk.
I can only hope that when starvation becomes the order of the day that we first starve every BANANA who blocked a sensible renewable project.
I've got to answer to dipshits (industry term) about bird mortality with wind projects. They know that there is a problem, despite the fact that I have hundreds of wind turbines around me in what is basically a 3,000 square mile Super 8 for migrating arctic waterfowl and I've never personally seen nor have I heard any stories of troubles here. We have a little bat mortality problem and I cringe to write that, because the Friends of the Bat, an NGO a thousand miles from here, will cause immense waste and delay just as soon as they find out, despite the fact that the creatures aren't endangered.
The Altamont Pass site has a lot of older, smaller turbines. They're low to the ground and smaller means faster blade speed. They're eagle choppers and no mistake about that - the birds stoop on prey and get clipped on the approach. Why this one poorly placed system which would not be a problem if it had modern turbines continues to be used to block wind projects just amazes me.
You see that is one great example.
It's simply crazy, that people value birds, more than they value getting us off fossil fuels. It's so crazy and irrational.
Hello Morn,
re: "It's simply crazy, that people value birds, more than they value getting us off fossil fuels."
Or else, it's evidence of a sane skepticism and shows progress in people at least thinking about the environment.
Why do I use the word "sane"?
Because the argument of "what is more valuable" has been used to justify a host of "improvements" and has arguably led us to the present, cliff-hanging moment humanity finds itself in.
Of course, I could say a "worry about birds" also shows a lack of understanding about the magnitude and scale of energy resources we currently enjoy.
But then again, this is where education comes into it.
It's good that we're able to enjoy this present scale of energy resources. It benefits humanity immensely.
There is no rational person who'd want to give it up and stop efforts to maintain it, to save some birds, is what I meant.
The real issue is the complete lack of long term planning for how to deal with fossil fuels. Responsible usage of fossil fuels would have been fine, they'd just sit in the earth and go to waste if they weren't used. But it has to be responsible use.
Automobiles were a pretty bad idea from the start, they're a dangerous technology that have killed more people than wars and consumed fossil resources in a inefficient wasteful manner. There should have been more of a focus on mass transit, electric trains etc. Now you have an economy reliant on petrol cars for transport, no body even made an effort to get us onto say electric cars, no planning was made for resource depleteion of oil, completely irresponsible.
Fossil fuel consumption in general should have been keep at lower levels to keep co2 production to acceptable levels, with a focus on nuclear energy for power production. There are a few areas were fossil fuels can not be avoided though, like aviation. It would have made the most sense, to limit oil usage to aviation, shipping and large diesel industrial vehicles, while using trains or electric vehicles for mass transit powered by nuclear energy.
But people were thinking about short term quarterly profits, and not long term risks.... And that's the bane of capitalism, it's short sightedness.
The problem is not simply that we use energy on such a scale. Energy is good, it would infact be completely idiotic to not use it if you have it.
It's like this analogy, you have rich parents and receive a large inheritance. A stupid person will spend the money away in parties and fun and end up poor by the time they're 60. A smart person, would use the inheritance to make investments in property, stock market, use the money to found a business of their own, end up a lot richer by the time they're 60.
We're the stupid person and we'll end up in a great depression if this stupidity goes on.
Hi SCT,
This is off-topic, but I was wondering...since I've been away from TOD (esp. DB)...how is Bob Ebersole? You said you'd been in touch w. him - yes? (did you list your email at some point?) I'm afraid to ask but wanted to send best wishes.
I've been meaning to call him - he was supposed to be back on here. I thought of it tonight, but at 23:00 and I figured he was in bed already. I'll call tomorrow and find out how he is doing.
I tried to call him the other day and the cell phone did not ring. Before I called and left messages.
Best Hopes for Bob,
Alan