tlf9999 said:
If investment in nuclear had not been curtailed we would have generators way more cost-effective than the best we could produce today, large amounts of acid rain would never have been produced (or the huge amounts of excaped radiation a coal-fired plant produces -- way more than any nuclear plant ever has).
One could speculate that the reduced greenhouse gas from less coal & oil fired power plants, increased oxygenation from trees not killed by acid rain, earlier adoption of electric vehicles (or hydrogen) would have dramatically slowed the greenhouse gas situation we may be in.
Then consider that Katerinas could well be the norm as ocean temperatures countinue to rise, and the estimated 200 billion needed to rebuild the gulf (+ all the secondary economic effects) and nuclear energy starts looking more cost effective all the time.
dave
CBS240 said:
Yes. And many paper currencies -- including Canada's -- have a high percentage of hemp in them (good thing some countries weren't so stupid as to ban it)
dave
ghudnub,
Although I know less to nothing about nuclear plants, I did follow a bit what happened in Tsjernobyl years ago. Sure you can say it was an unsafe plant or it was a human mistake or it was too old or whatever you can come up with to tell me it shouldn’t have happened or will not happen in our or your plants, only the few leftover people living in that area might eventually believe you. The facts are there, no doubt about it. Indeed, nothing is 100% safe and nuclear power is certainly one of the most unsafe in my opinion.
I believe you when you tell us the precautions are very high but you can’t deny the fact that in case of a disaster, the amount of damage is unimaginable, for many generations. This also should be calculated in the cost of nuclear power and then, I think, it would be a zillion times more expensive than it is now.
/Hugo
Although I know less to nothing about nuclear plants, I did follow a bit what happened in Tsjernobyl years ago. Sure you can say it was an unsafe plant or it was a human mistake or it was too old or whatever you can come up with to tell me it shouldn’t have happened or will not happen in our or your plants, only the few leftover people living in that area might eventually believe you. The facts are there, no doubt about it. Indeed, nothing is 100% safe and nuclear power is certainly one of the most unsafe in my opinion.
I believe you when you tell us the precautions are very high but you can’t deny the fact that in case of a disaster, the amount of damage is unimaginable, for many generations. This also should be calculated in the cost of nuclear power and then, I think, it would be a zillion times more expensive than it is now.
/Hugo
Netlist said:
Hugo,
A good analogy here is airplane crashes. Even thou air flight is safer than driving a car, when one crashes the results are spectacular and the media has a hay day.
A tidbit i read in another thread (i haven't checked for substantiation) wrt to Chernobyl is that there seems to be a noticiable increase iin all sorts of positive parameters wrt the health & intelligence of children born to survivors of Chernobyl. I find this interesting as just that result had been predicted by some of the world's most forward thinking scientists.
dave
Netlist said:
Those are good points Hugo. Believe me, if our Three Mile Island had been any worse, this whole argument would be moot. Public opinion would be similar to yours.
We have looked closely at what happened at Chernobyl as part of our own training process. It is the nature of our industry to try and learn from the mistakes of others without actually making them ourselves. You'd better believe there are very significant differences in the design of those plants versus ours. I would only point out that even as things stand today, our plants are magnitudes more stable and safe than that particular Russian design. They didn't even have a containment for their reactors! The situation there would have been completely different had they deemed a containment building a necessary part of the design. It was a disaster, no question. But it could have been just a blip on the anti-nuke radar.
To consider nuclear power unsafe based on that event though, well, I think you just have to look farther. I believe the Russians learned a lesson, just like we did.
When the US Army was developing nuclear power plants, they made log entries that just blew me away. "The reactor shut down today, no indication as to why" Three days later, "the reactor started back up today, still no indication as to what happened" I guess the point is, we learned a lot by doing. There was plenty of theory, but a lot of what we know about nuclear fission didn't come before the reactor, it came after. Kinda like fiddling around with a new toy to see what it can do and how it does it, then writing the instruction booklet for it. Sounds absurd by todays standards.
You've got to believe that a plant conceived today, with todays knowledge, with todays concern for safety, with the lessons learned from TMI and Chernobyl, would be so safe that we'd question the continued operation of the plants that are currently in service today.
Unfortunately, the United States' lust for energy is outpacing our ability to generate power. Nuclear power may not be the only answer, but it is definitely a part of the solution.
Dave,
I’m very suspicious about what such scientist say for well known commercial reasons. To the contrary I still believe in the few trying to bring facts, be it scientists or a handful of decent media people.
Allow me to disagree with the statement as that would imply that we could eventually need more Tsjernobyl or similar ‘nuclear treated bread’.
Also, think about the long term effects of a nuclear meltdown, they are incomparable with an air crash. What was the half-life period of plutonium or whatever is used over there?
/Hugo
I’m very suspicious about what such scientist say for well known commercial reasons. To the contrary I still believe in the few trying to bring facts, be it scientists or a handful of decent media people.
Allow me to disagree with the statement as that would imply that we could eventually need more Tsjernobyl or similar ‘nuclear treated bread’.
Also, think about the long term effects of a nuclear meltdown, they are incomparable with an air crash. What was the half-life period of plutonium or whatever is used over there?
/Hugo
ghudnub,
I know you guys probably do the best you can in making things as safe as possible. I also believe that time is our friend in the evolution of the plants and mistakes are carefully studied to avoid them in the future.
What would happen if a plane crashed on a plant? Remember, sometimes they come without warning.
Nevertheless, I find it very interesting to have the opportunity to talk to someone who tries to objectively defends his point of view. I still have a lot to learn. 🙂
/Hugo
I know you guys probably do the best you can in making things as safe as possible. I also believe that time is our friend in the evolution of the plants and mistakes are carefully studied to avoid them in the future.
What would happen if a plane crashed on a plant? Remember, sometimes they come without warning.
Nevertheless, I find it very interesting to have the opportunity to talk to someone who tries to objectively defends his point of view. I still have a lot to learn. 🙂
/Hugo
I am not naïve enough to think that I could change your opinion on something as significant as nuclear power just because I express my observations in an internet forum Hugo. 🙂 I certainly don't want to try and downplay what happened at Chernobyl or Three Mile Island. The events were very serious, and I would have been scared to death to live downwind while the media blared gloom and doom, and it's easy to imagine that event forging peoples opinions in the area for years to come.
Exposure to ionizing radiation is only a risk to living cells. Irradiated food is a great idea. There are no nasty side effects, just dead germs. That has nothing to do with power plants though...
As far as the concerned scientists and their views go...I'm with you, with the kind of money these lobbyists have changing hands, it's hard to know who to believe. I have a step-sister-in-law who refuses to use a microwave oven because of the radiation. She is otherwise an intelligent person as far as I can tell. People just seem to be polarized on the subject, whether there is any basis for their opinions or not.
I don't judge anyone for their point of view, I just wish the media would portray things fairly and honestly so that preconceived notions could be laid to rest. Then again, where's the story in that?
Dave, no offense, but you don't strike me as the stereotypical BC resident or northwesterner at all. What a refreshing point of view! I bet I couldn't get two people from Seattle to simultaneously agree with you. 😉
Exposure to ionizing radiation is only a risk to living cells. Irradiated food is a great idea. There are no nasty side effects, just dead germs. That has nothing to do with power plants though...
As far as the concerned scientists and their views go...I'm with you, with the kind of money these lobbyists have changing hands, it's hard to know who to believe. I have a step-sister-in-law who refuses to use a microwave oven because of the radiation. She is otherwise an intelligent person as far as I can tell. People just seem to be polarized on the subject, whether there is any basis for their opinions or not.
I don't judge anyone for their point of view, I just wish the media would portray things fairly and honestly so that preconceived notions could be laid to rest. Then again, where's the story in that?
Dave, no offense, but you don't strike me as the stereotypical BC resident or northwesterner at all. What a refreshing point of view! I bet I couldn't get two people from Seattle to simultaneously agree with you. 😉
planet10 said:
that is very accurate. Actually, some of the more forward thinking (aka intelligent) greenies are approaching the entire nuclear issue from the same point of view. they are gradually realizing that they made a mistake in exaggerating the risks of a nuclear strategy to the public in the last 40 years, to the detriment of their (noble) cause.
tlf9999 said:
Now we are left in a predicament. The Chinese have pledged 50 billion dollars to their nuclear program over the next 10 years. They will effectively corner the world market on manufacturing of nuclear plant components. There are very few suppliers out there. The US has no infrastructure to support new nuke plant construction. It will redevelop, but who knows at what pace?
Public opinion of nuclear power is probably as high right now as it ever has been. The passing of the recent energy policy just about ensures the possibility of breaking ground on a new plant in the US within this decade. I'm pretty excited about that prospect.
ghudnub said:
I never figured out what exactly happened to US Combustion? A few players still remain in the business, notably GE and Westinghouse. Areva is probably the strongest of them all.
tlf9999 said:
I really don't know. Our new steam generators were built in France. I think our new head was forged in Japan and finished in Korea. We have some serious catching up to do. Not building a new plant in 20 years has that effect on the domestic market.
rfbrw said:
If the bit about improved offspring is factual, maybe people should have been running to Sweden 🙂
But then an airplane pilot (or frequent flyer) probably gets way more harmful radiation than anybody in Sweden did from Chernobyl.
Chernobyl was also a case of blantant studity. In the same league as making an open bonfire right on the wooden deck of your wooden boat in the middle of the ocean.
dave
ghudnub said:
Being from BC it is hard for me to know what is stereotypical -- BC is probably as diverse as anywhere in the world.
I am a practical evironmentalist -- i've looked beyond the media hype & the emotional reactions. Nuclear energy (done right) is without any doubt in my mind more environmentally friendly than any other form of energy generation -- typically the more concentrated an energy source is, the more environmentally friendly it is (and the more care that has to be taken because any accident will also be more dramatic). I see a big role for fission to play until we can get fusion working -- the rise of oil prices can only help as people start to realize that oil is a finite resource (even if we tap the huge resources of frozen gas in the ocean beds).
The very act of generating power with nuclear plants actually reduces the amount of radioactive material in the world... just that it needs to be concentrated to be used (and when concentrated the potential for a very serious accident increases). But because of the fear of radioactive materials the level of care & attention to safety is typically far higher -- it is just scary how much radioactive carbon dioxide is being spewed out by coal-fired plants for instance.
And there are also huge potential benefits from spin-offs of practical research.
But people tend to fear what they don't understand (or think they understand)
dave
planet10 said:
as is TMI.
Both cases taught us a very good lesson: you cannot design a system that relies on people making the right decisions, no matter how well trained the operators are.
Kind of buying power amps: you cannot rely on those golden ear types to make your purchase decisions, or you get a lot of burn marks.
The stupidity at Chernobyl was the design. The best people in the world couldn't have prevented the disaster. But that's not a design type used anywhere in the West. Note that, as is often the case, the reality of Chernobyl was much less severe than the hype.
France has shown that nuclear power is safe, efficient, and clean. I do note with amusement that they built many of their reactors near borders with other countries, prevailing winds blowing out of France...
The biggest real minus of nuclear power is the vulnerability to attack. John McPhee's "Curve of Binding Energy" was a fascinating biography of Ted Taylor, the physicist who made this argument most cogently.
France has shown that nuclear power is safe, efficient, and clean. I do note with amusement that they built many of their reactors near borders with other countries, prevailing winds blowing out of France...
The biggest real minus of nuclear power is the vulnerability to attack. John McPhee's "Curve of Binding Energy" was a fascinating biography of Ted Taylor, the physicist who made this argument most cogently.
I wouldn't consider TMI blatant stupidity. It was definitely a lesson learned. Those operators were not properly trained to recognize what was going on at the time.
You've got to realize that procedures they were using at the time did not allow them to take specific actions to mitigate the symptoms of the problem. Basically, they had to look at the big picture, figure out the cause, and treat that. They had a lot of difficulty doing that.
Today, our procedures don't care what is causing the problem, they treat the symptoms instead. If the plant is overheating, then we take specific actions to treat the overheating. What is causing the overheating is not of concern at the time, eventually it will be corrected.
The Navy lost two nuclear submarines early on. The engineers weren't stupid, they just never considered the consequences of unforseen events (e.g., moisture in high pressure air lines freezing up in the lines and blocking flow). The guys who designed TMI never considered that operators would deliberately override and turn off safety systems.
You can be sure that the future designs will not be as susceptible to human error. We've learned a lot of lessons along the way. Operators are trained to a much higher standard these days as well.
You've got to realize that procedures they were using at the time did not allow them to take specific actions to mitigate the symptoms of the problem. Basically, they had to look at the big picture, figure out the cause, and treat that. They had a lot of difficulty doing that.
Today, our procedures don't care what is causing the problem, they treat the symptoms instead. If the plant is overheating, then we take specific actions to treat the overheating. What is causing the overheating is not of concern at the time, eventually it will be corrected.
The Navy lost two nuclear submarines early on. The engineers weren't stupid, they just never considered the consequences of unforseen events (e.g., moisture in high pressure air lines freezing up in the lines and blocking flow). The guys who designed TMI never considered that operators would deliberately override and turn off safety systems.
You can be sure that the future designs will not be as susceptible to human error. We've learned a lot of lessons along the way. Operators are trained to a much higher standard these days as well.
But do note, as the bumper stickers say, fewer people died from TMI than died in Teddy Kennedy's car. So while there were operator issues, the system worked fine.
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