Whats the problem with nuclear power?

pragmatic

Noted but not really on topic, at best this is not a problem with nuclear but an alternative that sits higher or lower than nuclear preferntialy depending on your point of view.

BISHI

Coal is by far the dirtiest way to generate electricity, it is unfortunately also the cheapest. This is why China are building an unprecedented number of coal and anthracite fuelled power stations. This is a national ,and in all probability global, environmental disaster waiting to happen. China appears to have little concern for the environment in its race to overtake the USA as the no 1 economy. The only realistic alternative for the UK is nuclear power stations. Modern reactor designs are much safer than previous ones but are quite expensive to build and maintain. We should do like the French and produce so much nuclear electricity we can export it beyond our borders.

Kebabhead

What about all the waste

Do we dump this on third world countries

andy1249

Religious reasons ? Baffled by that , what have people been saying ?

No , the number one perceived issue is Chernobyl , and the horrific aftermaths .... Be warned , these pictures are disturbing ....

nuclear NIGHTMARES

Regardless of how unlikely it is to happen here , which is the favourite rational defence , the fact is it happened , and your ordinary punter doesnt know how Nuclear power stations work or how safe they are , they just know that it happened in Chernobyl , so no one wants to be near one.

pragmatic

I know this is america not the UK but its the same industry, and they don't recycle their waste as much as say France.

"All the spent nuclear fuel from power plants and other sources since the beginning of nuclear power in the US 50 years ago is so small in volume that it could all fit in a single CostCo stacked to a depth of 9 feet.  All the spent fuel generated in the annual operation of a single power plant reactor would fit in the bed of a standard pickup truck."

and

"If an American got all his or her lifetime electricity solely from nuclear power, that person’s total share of the waste would fit into one soda can. Of that, only a trace is long-lived. In France, where nuclear fuel is recycled, waste is drastically reduced, so that the lifetime total for a family of four would fit in a single coffee cup."

compared with

"Half of our electricity comes from burning coal.  If an American got all  his or her electricity from coal over a lifespan of 77 years, that person’s mountain of solid waste would weigh 68.5 tons and would and would fit into six 12-ton railroad cars.   That person’s share of carbon dioxide from coal emissions would come to 77 tons."

From:
Cravens - What about nuclear waste?

pragmatic

Chernobyl was terrible but that was a unique/old design and if you read through the incident at Chernobyl e.g. The Truth About Chernobyl: Amazon.co.uk: Andrei D. Sakharov, Grigorii Medvedev: Books you'll understand that it is just not possible to happen with modern designs, safeties wouldn't be compromised and systems would make it impossible to override the safeties as where done in Soviet Russia, the cause was as much political as technical.

I likened it to air flight above for 2 reasons, one its the safest form of travel but if an accident does happen its pretty catastrophic, but people fly by plane all the time.

The second reason is during the early days of passenger flight there was a plane called the Comet Comet , those early passenger planes have design problems that have since been dealt with, square windows instead of round ones made the plane implode.

This doesn't happen today as the design issue has been dealt with.
Would this ancient incident dissuade you from travelling by aeroplane, if not why should a similar design issue affect the use of nuclear power (I think they are comparable)?

Kebabhead

Just becuase qauntity of waste produced is small is irrelevant, the fact remains it's it hightly toxic and disposing of it still remains a problem given it takes thousands of years to decompose.

DPinBucks

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Are you saying that nuclear power is so dangerous that we must not use it? If so, what alternatives do you recommend, and how would they cope with projected growth to say 2100? What other global technologies have proven to be safer than nuclear? Should we also ban those which are less safe?

If you're not saying that, then I apologise, but I'm afraid that wasn't clear.

DPinBucks

So what is your recommended approach:
Make sure it's stored safely?Don't use nuclear because, even though millions will die without it, it's too frightening?

Kebabhead

Millions die bit of an exagerration

Certainly not some of the suggestions of building stations so we can generate and export electricty