Here is a vid showing a time-lapse map of every nuclear explosion from 1945 to 1998. It sort of puts things into perspective. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W_lLhBt8Vg
Because it isn't that risky, we've had one western accident of note that was on an old design in a place it never should have been built in a once in 100 year earthquake and the amount of radiation released was not as great as that from the carbon 14 release from coal plants from that year alone, but it's NUUuuuUuuUcleeeeaaaarrr so is scaaaAAaaAry! Meanwhile there are dozens of towns over thousands and thousands of acres that have had to be abandoned due to coal mine fires that will burn for centuries, have killed and poisoned many many people and are causing cancer and high carbon fueled power plants kill thousands each year through many routes including cancers. I wouldn't recommend building a nuclear plant in a geologically unstable area but why not build next generation plants in places that only get earthquakes 1/100th as strong as happens recent ones every few decades? The impact in the worst western nuclear accident under all those poor management conditions doesn't add up to the effects of heavy metal poisoning or nitrogen run off in Japan but it's effects are localized and easy to see as well as good news material. I would have no problem eating japenese food or living there. I'd live next door to a nuclear plant, if they let me I'd swim laps in the heavy water pool, it's just not that dangerous when you look at the actual impact from other energy alternatives instead of looking the other way because the impact heron those is diffuse. They estimate that the total radiation deaths from fukashima over the whole lives of those affected will be about 130, this includes people who die at 60 instead of 70 and is tiny compared to the nearly 20,000 who died in the earthquakes/tsunami. Fail safe means that you can not get a meltdown. That means in a fukashima like situation you would not have gotten an explosion and would not have to keep pumping coolant in to keep the pile calm. It would absolutely have stopped Chernobyl So yes, it would have made the impact negligible. If you don't like uranium then go LFTR. I agree it's not perfect, but the nuclear boogey man makes no sense when our current energy options kill people every day. Are you going to frack our farmland as a "clean" alternative? Build the nuclear plants to power solar cell factories and then close them down when you've built enough to meet our needs if you like. All that before you mention climate change. *edit* regarding skyrockets post about the the US being blasted by radiation, this is from April 2011 from the Washington state department of health: "As of 28 April, the Washington State Department of Health, located in the U.S state closest to Japan, reported that levels of radioactive material from the Fukushima plant had dropped significantly, and were now often below levels that could be detected with standard tests."
phrenzy, for a start where possible they can build geothermal power plants. They are clean and they are inexhaustible.
phrenzy, This clip someone put up on youtube contains in it a recent news report from 8th this month about Fukushima. I didn't hear this recent event/news about Fukushima on our mainstream media when it should be mentioned because of it's importance. Basically - "Fuel Removal Delayed by Up To 3 More Years (BECAUSE THERE IS NO KNOWN WAY TO REMOVE THE MELTED FUEL, THE ICE WALL WAS A JOKE, AND TEPCO IS BUYING TIME before Fukushima crumbles into the Pacific Ocean and it's off their hands." Imo, our media is playing down Fukushima like it is doing with the BP oil spill. Fukushima is WAY Beyond ANYTHING Anyone Prepared For, Update 6/12/15 [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyR_eC3AXUw[/youtube]
Which is why you would build a plant that can't sustain a reaction in a failure mode. Geothermal is highly dependant on local geological conditions but I would strongly support that where practical, I doubt even extreme support could bring it to even a few percent of our needs. Not that I believe your video (having said that I don't believe tepco either), here's a video about coal move fires that have burned for 50 years without any sign of stopping and no way to stop them, in 3 years or any length of time. Chinese coal mine fires alone put out 200 MILLION tonnes of carbon into the air every year, that's just China and that's every single year and does not count the coal we deliberately burn, you want to look at the epidemiological statistics on that? Makes fukashima and Chernobyl look reasonable. By the way, with big reactors you can massively cut oil use as well, electric cars look attractive when you can charge them at 1/5th or less of current power prices. If we were willing to put 1% of global GDP into fusion research this might not be necessary, but if you live anywhere but Tasmania you're going to wish we pushed nuclear on the world when 3 degrees of global warming makes the California drought look like a great time. But then I'm for geoengineering to take care of that, dust titanium into the upper atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space and cool things down, that sort of thing, but I know people are scared to advocate that because then we won't do anything about the carbon problem.
When we have the technology to drill "deep deep" shafts, then Geothermal power plants could be practically built anywhere providing they have water nearby to pump down into these shafts. But water can be pipe in anyway much like oil is piped from long distances away. When that time comes Geothermal can supply most of the world's energy needs. Hopefully it is not too far away.
There are very hard practical limits to where you can dig deep, how deep you can dig anywhere and where favorable geothermal conditions exist beneath the ground. Unless you imagine drilling all the way through the earth's crust I'm which I think we should start over with some 8th grade earth sciences.
I'm not dumb. We need to drill 10-20 kilometers deep that practically any location on earth can serve as power source. Current technology is still suffering from temperature loss during the transport upwards.
A report I read a few years ago indicated that a movement to uranium is almost pointless - reserves wouldn't last any more than 50-80 years if used in a major way, with a polluted legacy.
Nuclear power is very expensive, that's why, even though its been around since the 40"s , it's been relatively little used
That's with current known reserves, there's been almost no uranium exploration in the last 30 years since the demand is so low. Also the recycling of uranium and plutonium from nuclear weapons could provide decades more power. In any case I would advocate LFTR that would run on thorium which has much fewer risks in the event of some sort of extreme problem and of which there is enough for centuries of use. Even if it was only 80 years then your talking about 80 years of hugely reduced carbon output and cheap clean power to get us to the point of being either being primarily on renewables or (hopefully) fusion. We have a poisoned legacy now that is getting worse every day. Nuclear is the only near term solution. Anyhow I don't think it's for every country, but australia with all the uranium we could ever use, extremely geologically stable land and the infrastructure to maintain a high degree of engineering safety it's a good fit. It's not expensive at scale and if we were reprocessing uranium for other countries it could be an extremely lucrative industry with huge amounts of energy as a simple byproduct. As for drilling 20km deep holes it's a pipe dream. The deepest drill hole ever was about 12km in geologically ideal conditions and is only a tiny fraction of the widths required. It would be impossible in some places but even in places where it would be practical you couldn't bring it online generally before ITER pattern fusion plants are supposed to start coming on line, then we don't need any of it. We only need 30-50 years of nuclear to give us the required breathing space of sustained economic advancement to bring alternatives on stream, but I haven't heard one practical idea that allows us to sustainably increase our energy output in the near term in years of watching energy policy.
Phrenzy, An interesting conversation relating to reprocessing of spent fuel rods from other countries here in Australia at the 23.40 minute mark by Dr Chris Busby. An opposing view of the risks under the cover of a green strategy and commercial gain with much to be saved by the supplier countries at our countries expense. http://fairdinkumradio.com/?s=Uranium
I'm hoping that Carnegie can upgrade their trials, they look great for potential to me. http://carnegiewave.com/
While there is much money to be made distributing and supplying the gas and coal energy that's here "for free" , the sound logic of getting an environmental break of 30-50 years nuclear energy to innovate and prepare for the next approach is that of someone who thinks like an engineer and is at odds to those who have the hold on the situation orientated more to a regulatory/financial perspective.
You've forgotten the Green Car Innovation Scheme already? Within the next couple of years we will reach the point where State and Federal Governments have been subsidising wind and solar continuously in various ways since one of my nieces was born, completed university and be in the workforce. An entire generation of subsidies and people are whinging that "it's not enough" or "forward looking". :lol: Rentseekers just keep on sucking.
How do you feel about hydraulic fracturing to release coal seam gas? I ask because, as I understand it, geothermal power plants require hydraulic fracturing to open channels in rock to exploit the geothermal energy. And has been pointed out above, there are innumerous limitations on where hot rocks can be exploited.
Why complain about subsidizing new energy technologies but not complain about subsidizing brown coal?
