Why nuclear power is still a good choice

[XemaSab]

Perspective is needed when deciding between nuclear and other power sources. Renewable energy and conservation aren't enough in the real world. And burning fossil fuels will only worsen global warming.

What a strange turn of events. Instead of uniting the environmental movement in renewed opposition to nuclear power, the Fukushima disaster in Japan has divided it still further. An increasing number of green advocates, including some very prominent voices, have declared their support for nuclear power as a clean energy option, even as radioactive water accumulates and the timeline for cleaning up the contaminated areas extends by decades. Can they be serious?

They can. The irony of Fukushima is that in forcing us all to confront our deepest fears about the dangers of nuclear power, we find many of them to be wildly irrational — based on scare stories propagated through years of unchallenged mythology and the repeated exaggerations of self-proclaimed "experts" in the anti-nuclear movement. As the British environmental writer George Monbiot has pointed out, if we took the scientific consensus on nuclear energy as seriously as we take the scientific consensus on climate change, we environmentalists would be telling a very different story.

The science on radiation tells us that the effects of Fukushima are serious but so far much less so than some of the more hyperbolic media coverage might suggest. The power plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., has been releasing enormous quantities of radioactive water into the sea, for example. It sounds scary, but a member of the public would have to eat seaweed and seafood harvested just one mile from the discharge pipe for a year to receive an effective dose of 0.6 millisieverts. To put this in context, every American receives on average 3 millisieverts each year from natural background radiation, and a hundred times more than this in some naturally radioactive areas. As for the Tokyo tap water that was declared unsafe for babies, the highest measured levels of radioactivity were 210 becquerels per liter, less than a quarter of the European legal limit of 1,000 becquerels per liter. Those leaving Tokyo because of this threat will have received more radiation on the airplane flight out than if they had been more rational and stayed put.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-lynas-nukes-20110410,0,3424093.story

[upi402]

1. bullshit

not worth a thoughtful response

stop this propaganda now!

LA times will glow when the earthquake splits their CA reactors. Op-Ed propagandist with 'experts say' bullshit cites.

suckers

stupid needs to hurt

[BeFree]

2. Yeah, Thank Gawd

Only a few plants have dumped their loads on a non-suspecting people.

Until more spew most of the people are safe. Problem is they will all eventually puke. Until then, we'll just adapt and go on thinking the coast is clear. Nothing to worry about.

[artesman]

3. Biggest problem I have with nuclear power

is that whenever something goes wrong the effects of that disaster will go on and on for decades and sometimes even more.

[HopeHoops]

4. That's bullshit. Nuclear power has ALWAYS been a bad option and it ALWAYS will be.

And I've worked in nuclear plants - control room "human factors engineering". The things are a disaster waiting to happen just because they are so fucked up. It is amazing that we haven't had more tragedies.

[Webster Green]

5. This is not much better than Ann Coulter telling us radiation is good for us.

She really said that. Radiation is used to treat cancer, therefor it's good for you. :silly:

*edit for spelling mistake

[Mist]

6. Well, radiation's dangerous enough, but this is an industry that is lacking

in safety standards, and implementation of those standards. The bad track record of the industry is a problem yet to be overcome.

[wtmusic]

7. Nailed it.

Nuclear is our best bet at fighting AGW, and whoever thinks that Fukushima changes that needs to read Mark's book Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet.

In it, he claims there's a 5% chance AGW will render the human race all but extinct in 100 years. If you think Fukushima is scary and Lynas is even half right, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

[BeFree]

9. Well

I give it a 95% chance nukes will cause humans to go extinct in 100 years.

Nukes are our worst enemy. We need a war on nukes, and we need to win that war.

[madokie]

21. Yup I agree

considering that we have a shitpot full, 104, of old reactors its only a matter of time before they start failing and when nuclear fails it fails in a big ass way.

If I was a betting man I'd bet that within ten years or so we'll have a major event here with one or more of our plants. The last time I looked it looked to me like they are for the most part sited near large population areas too. so sad that we'll have to experience one or more of these catastrophes before we shut the rest of them down due to the all knowing nuclear scientist that have about as much common sense as my pet dog blowing smoke up, as many as will allow its, asses.

[BeFree]

23. Indeed

We already have enough plants here in the US to poison the land for centuries.

And they are all run for-profit. That means they will cut corners and do things as cheaply as they can.

[Nihil]

26. And there we have the crux of the problem ...

> And they are all run for-profit. That means they will cut corners
> and do things as cheaply as they can.

That's why Bhopal happened (with no significant punishment for the principals).

That's why Deep Horizon happened (not holding my breath for any punishment there).

That's why the backup generators in Japan were left in a vulnerable (but cheaper!) location.

That's why all sorts of avoidable "tragedies" happen - not because there were
insurmountable technical issues but because some oik in the finance department
decided to "maximise profit" by cutting those "expensive" corners.

And I - for one - am not seeing any signs that human nature is changing.

:shrug:

[wtmusic]

35. The wind and solar industries will be run on charitable donations?

I had no idea.

Seems like we have a problem, Houston:

1) Nuclear needs loan guarantees because no one wants to invest in it.

vs.

2) Greedy corporations can't wait to make a killing in the lucrative nuclear industry.

Which is it? Seems your argument is biting itself in the ass.

[Nihil]

38. Scale matters.

> The wind and solar industries will be run on charitable donations?

When the wind & solar industries start to approach the scale of those
who they seek to displace, the usual problems will indeed arise.

They can be (and have been) found already (e.g., scams to get the grants
& subsidies then cash out & collapse the company before moving to the next
incarnation of the phoenix) but as they tend to be small concerns and only
affecting the odd locality or two, they are caught up with the noise.
(Although a certain natural gas millionaire has run along the line a few
times now and some other big players are starting to lay down their terms,
there isn't the visibility - or, to be honest, the criticality - to worry
about just yet.)


> Seems like we have a problem, Houston:
> 1) Nuclear needs loan guarantees because no one wants to invest in it.
> vs.
> 2) Greedy corporations can't wait to make a killing in the lucrative
> nuclear industry.
>
> Which is it? Seems your argument is biting itself in the ass.

FYI, you haven't heard me make the comments in your first point at all.
Maybe you're confusing me with someone else?

Your second point is closer to my view, not because the nuclear industry
is "lucrative" at the moment but because the corporations - who are the
only players other than governments themselves - most definitely are
"greedy" and they have been proven time & again to have cut corners for
the sole purpose of maximising profit.

I'll leave the "ass-biting" to other people if you don't mind! :P

[kristopher]

24. Not sure what happened to the sub-thread...

I just posted this to what seemed a reasonable discussion and by the time I hit send the anchor post was gone. It is still worth adding to the discussion though as there was concern that uncontrolled release of toxins from nuclear fission would possibly result in an extinction event for humans. That position was dismissed as being unrealistic. This was my response to the discussion:

Because just like carbon the long term effects of cumulative dosing are not readily seen? I'm not sure I would argue for extinction within X time, but there is a definite link between using fission to boil water as a response to AGW and increased risk of fission weapons proliferation. Additionally it is a fact nuclear war is still the greatest immediate threat facing human civilization.

So, if on top of that there exists the perception that continued ongoing deposition into the environment of long lived fission sourced toxins is going to result in us hitting some sort of environmental tipping point withing one hundred years, then I think the opinion has some degree of validity. Especially if we take into account the goals of the fission water boiler industry, which would be to expand the current global fission reactor fleet from 440 to about 10,000.

Can you imagine trying to find a new Yucca mountain size storage facility every 8 months, like that would require? Either that or we turn to breeder reactors which also totally fail to live up to the hype used to promote fission.

Did you know that should we follow that plan, it would require using much lower grades of uranium than is now the practice - a change that would cause the CO2e emissions associated with the nuclear fuel cycle to rise from its current level to that of natural gas?

Did you know that?

Data Trimming, Nuclear Emissions, and Climate Change
Kristin Sharon Shrader-Frechette
21 October 2008 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008
Abstract Ethics requires good science. Many scientists, government leaders, and industry representatives support tripling of global-nuclear-energy capacity on the grounds that nuclear fission is ‘‘carbon free’’ and ‘‘releases no greenhouse gases.’’ However, such claims are scientifically questionable (and thus likely to lead to ethically questionable energy choices) for at least 3 reasons. (i) They rely on trimming the data on nuclear greenhouse-gas emissions (GHGE), perhaps in part because flawed Kyoto Protocol conventions require no full nuclear-fuel-cycle assessment of carbon content. (ii) They underestimate nuclear-fuel-cycle releases by erroneously assuming that mostly high-grade uranium ore, with much lower emissions, is used. (iii) They inconsistently compare nuclear-related GHGE only to those from fossil fuels, rather than to those from the best GHG-avoiding energy technologies. Once scientists take account of (i)–(iii), it is possible to show that although the nuclear fuel cycle releases (per kWh) much fewer GHG than coal and oil, nevertheless it releases far more GHG than wind and solar-photovoltaic. Although there may be other, ethical, reasons to support nuclear tripling, reducing or avoiding GHG does not appear to be one of them.

...Ethics requires good science.

...Many...support tripling of global-nuclear-energy capacity on the grounds that nuclear fission is "carbon free" and "releases no greenhouse gases."

....such claims are scientifically questionable...for at least 3 reasons

...rely on trimming the data on nuclear greenhouse-gas emissions (GHGE),

...flawed Kyoto Protocol conventions require no full nuclear-fuel-cycle assessment of carbon content.

...underestimate nuclear-fuel-cycle releases by erroneously assuming that mostly high-grade uranium ore, with much lower emissions, is used.

...inconsistently compare nuclear-related GHGE only to those from fossil fuels, rather than to those from the best GHG-avoiding energy technologies.

...although the nuclear fuel cycle releases (per kWh) much fewer GHG than coal and oil ... it releases far more GHG than wind and solar-photovoltaic.

...Although there may be other, ethical, reasons to support nuclear tripling, reducing or avoiding GHG does not appear to be one of them.

[BeFree]

25. It is scary

Some people might have a hard time accepting that we could actually poison the planet to such an extent that only cockroaches can survive?

[Dead_Parrot]

32. The ST was deleted...

...for an insult towards an anti-nuclear post. I would have thought you'd be happy about that.

FYI, if you have queries about moderator decisions, it's best to use the ATA forum.

[bananas]

37. "I'd bet that within ten years or so we'll have a major event here with one or more of our plants"

I agree.

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Terry in Austin]

27. Canard alert!

>> best bet at fighting AGW

This is a case that has yet to be made, to put it mildly. AGW certainly needs to be fought, but whether widespread deployment of nuclear power is the means of choice toward that end, well, that's a question that's far from settled. I know there are pro arguments galore, but IMO none compel the conclusion that you're jumping to here.

It's more about the politics than the science -- nuclear industry co-opting fashionable eco-consciousness? That could never happen here!

[wtmusic]

34. American nuclear reactors prevent smoke from hundreds of billions of tons

of coal from entering the air every year. It's always been more "eco-conscious" among people whose base fears don't shape their opinions.

[mrgerbik]

30. ummm

that glossy, chic little book spouts a (whacky) THEORY based on sketchy data

.. nice try thou - kudos to your fearmongering skills...

[snappyturtle]

8. Nope. nt

[JDPriestly]

10. And, of course, no one died as a result of Chernobyl

or in American communities in which small "incidents" occurred involving nuclear materials. Oh, no. Never.

No children have died from leukemia. No increase in cases of cancer.
Nothing to see.

Ha! I wish I could believe you, but I know better because I have read about the cases and heard about them from extremely reliable sources.

[Marblehead]

11. The nuke industry...

is freaked out about Fukushima, prepare for the onslaught of propaganda.

[AndyTiedye]

12. Next Are You Going to Tell Us How Yummy All that Plutonium and Cesium Are?

Millions of acres of Japan are contaminated and won't be able to be used for ANYTHING for centuries.
Hundreds of thousands of people are being exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, according to IAEA.

Plutonium and cesium are getting into the food chain. They are orders of magnitude more deadly when taken internally.
Tons more where that came from and still spewing. It will be spewing for years.

There will be more earthquakes and tsunamis, and we still have nuke plants that are very vulnerable to them.
Some of them are here in California. They are only rated for a 7.5 and everybody expects the Big One to be at least an 8.

Of course they will insist that we come to love plutonium. There isn't enough uranium to keep the nukes running for long.
They try to hide it behind names like "MOX" because the nuclear boosters all believe that the public is ignorant and
needs to be kept in the dark about all things nuclear. For the same reason, the emphasis is on "reassuring" the public
that they are safe, rather than giving them real information, when there is a nuclear disaster. This was the case at
TMI, it was the case at Chernobyl, it is also happening at Fukushima.

[PamW]

13. More propaganda from the anti-nukes

Millions of acres of Japan are contaminated and won't be able to be used for ANYTHING for centuries.
===============================================

That's EXACTLY what they said about two places in Japan that were exposed to orders
of magnitude more radiation, and radioactive fallout than the area around Fukushima.

Perhaps you've heard of them; Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Nuclear weapons produce MUCH, MUCH more radioactive fallout and contamination than
that which has been released at Fukushima.

This is the same old yarn that we hear from the anti-nuclear weapons crowd - that a city
hit by a nuclear weapon will be uninhabitable for centuries.

It only took a few months for Hiroshima and Nagasaki to begin rebuilding the cities that
the anti-nukes say won't be inhabitable for centuries.

How can the anti-nukes say these things when they have the glaring counter-example of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki staring them right in the face?

PamW

[AndyTiedye]

14. The Bombs Dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Had a Fraction of the Radioactive Material

that has already spewed from Fukushima, and there are many tons of it left to spew.
At least one spent fuel pond has exploded and scattered framents of plutonium fuel rods all over the site.
Much of the site is too hot for even kamikaze workers.
3 reactors are in various stages of meltdown, but workers can't do anything except continue dumping in water in the ones they can still get near.
If any one of them hits the groundwater, then it all gets ejected into the environment — reactor cores, spent fuel, everything.
It is likely that the force of the the explosion would rupture the reactors next to it, and so it goes.

I don't know how anybody can still think this is a good idea.

:nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke::nuke: :hide:

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[madokie]

16. Only a fool thinks we need to be nuclear scientist to understand that nuclear energy

is some dangerous shit.

[AndyTiedye]

18. Well We Can See How those Who Actually Are Nuclear Scientists Might be Feeling a Bit Defensive Now

The good news is that there is a lot of demand for their services.
The other good news is that the pay is really really good!
The bad news is the Sieverts.

[AndyTiedye]

17. Fukushima Causing Chernobyl-Like Levels of Cesium 137 that Persists for Centuries

IAEA Confirms Very High Levels of Contamination Far From Reactors

| by Ed Lyman | nuclear power | nuclear power safety | Japan nuclear |

Today the IAEA has finally confirmed what some analysts have suspected for days: that the concentration per area of long-lived cesium-137 (Cs-137) is extremely high as far as tens of kilometers from the release site at Fukushima Dai-Ichi, and in fact would trigger compulsory evacuation under IAEA guidelines.

The IAEA is reporting that measured soil concentrations of Cs-137 as far away as Iitate Village, 40 kilometers northwest of Fukushima-Dai-Ichi, correspond to deposition levels of up to 3.7 megabecquerels per square meter (MBq/sq. m). This is far higher than previous IAEA reports of values of Cs-137 deposition, and comparable to the total beta-gamma measurements reported previously by IAEA and mentioned on this blog.

This should be compared with the deposition level that triggered compulsory relocation in the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident: the level set in 1990 by the Soviet Union was 1.48 MBq/sq. m.

Thus, it is now abundantly clear that Japanese authorities were negligent in restricting the emergency evacuation zone to only 20 kilometers from the release site.

http://allthingsnuclear.org/post/4213197648/iaea-confirms-very-high-levels-of-contamination-far
Millions of acres around Chernobyl are still radioactive and uninhabitable today, and will be for hundreds of years.

A vast area of Japan is now similarly contaminated. Ruined. A radioactive wasteland. Used to be Japan's prime farming and fishing area. Never again.

It's not done yet. Sometimes the wind blows the fallout towards Tokyo.

LOCAL contamination from Japan's quake-damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant would be a problem that would last "for decades and decades'', France's Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) said.

Releases of radioactivity from the plant “are now significant and continuing'', the head of the agency, Andre-Claude Lacoste, told a press conference, the Herald Sun reported.

“We have to assume that Japan will have a long-term issue of managing the impacts,'' he said.

“It's a problem that Japan will have to deal with for decades and decades to come.'

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/two-survivors-found-under-rubble-nine-days-after-japanese-earthquake/story-e6frf7lf-1226025761549

[Fledermaus]

19. I believe it was an air burst. More blast damage with an air burst and less fallout.

Less fallout. As the other poster has pointed out. It was only several kilograms not 100s of tons.

[bananas]

40. Yes - they are very different. nt

[Terry in Austin]

28. No wait - "propaganda" is YOUR argument

"Sound reasoning" is MY argument.

Can't we keep our terminology straight here?

:evilgrin:

[Systematic Chaos]

20. That's it people, keep un-reccing the actual intelligent threads here.

And keep on spreading that BULLShIT.

Plenty of sharks out there, people!

Better learn to swim. :)

[Terry in Austin]

29. "Intelligent" = "my view"

"Bullshit" = "your view."

Okay, got it.

[Systematic Chaos]

41. Three million people (or more) will die prematurely from fossil fuel pollution this year.

Just like they have every year for decades.

Might want to go learn something while you're getting your attitude adjusted.

[jpak]

31. what a stupid post

yup

[XemaSab]

33. You're welcome

:)

[Kablooie]

36. What other technology can create permanently uninhabitable land?

[Nihil]

39. CBW. (n/t)

[Kablooie]

42. Huh?

Community Bankers of Wisconsin?
Cincinnati Bell Wireless?
Catholic Book of Worship?
China Business World?
Continuous Butt Weld?
Calm Blue Water?
Chemical and Biological Weapons?
...

Ah! Got it.

There's a big difference.
CBW and even environmental pollution is bad and can make an area unlivable for years or even decades.

But I hold that that still is not nearly as serious as making an area unlivable for centuries or millennia, essentially forever.