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In Italy we'll do another referendum
vote whether to have the NNP in Italy
what do you think?
Top rated and commented

Nuclear is the way forward. Scientists all say this.

Hippies who smoke drugs and don't read books say it isn't.

I listen to the smarter guys.

elam wrote:In Italy we'll do another referendum
vote whether to have the NNP in Italy
what do you think?
Top rated and commented

I think you should protest. I think you should burn as much high sulphur coal and oil as possible, but don't forget to recycle, because recycling is important. Remember, by conserving energy and recycling you never have to build another power plant, because, contrary to all those math guys, you can actually generate more power by conserving. That’s right!

Oh and wind and solar, and front loading washers.

Trust me.

Plus if something goes wrong everyone gets super powers.

It is a win/win senario.

Don't give in to ignorant hysteria, Nuclear power is the best thing we got until someone works out fusion, until then we need to keep on rolling.

Maybe they'll invent a lamborghini that transforms into an autobot and dances at mall openings and wedding receptions?

Is their an option for people who don't care either way?





Oh wait.... it's 'just don't post anything', isn't it? Damn, too late.

Oh if they invented a dancing lamborghini, you'd care.

How can you not care either way mate? I feel pretty strongly about it after listening to an hour long debate on the topic a few years back. It basically went like this..

Expert A - We need nuclear power

Random old woman on the phone "eeee! But what about Chernobyl eh!? Eeee! The radiation innit!"

Expert B - Its safe.

Random idiot in the public "oh no! But what about the mutant babies eh?"

Expert C

Following this amusingly bad debate, I started looking into the whole "debate" and the overwhelming consensus among people who actually deserve to be listened to on the subject is that we should have more nuclear plants, not less.

In this respect I think its similar to conspiracy theory nuts. You know, the structural engineers and the architects say "Oh yeah the twin towers fell down from point of collapse due to burning jet fuel and gravity." And the worlds leading biologists say "Evolution can be proven in numerous ways." And NASAs finest technicians and the worlds leading cosmologists say "Oh yeah here is how you can get to the moon."

And who disagrees with all of these people?

Thick bastards. People with no expertise in the fields required. Hippies, stoners, people with beards and loud shirts who dont read fething books.

Nuclear power is the way forward, and only people that are ignorant or idiotic disagree.

They think we can power the world with waves but they cant tie their own fething shoes. How can you comment on something you do not fully understand and expect to be taken seriously? If my car breaks, I take it to a fething mechanic, not a random bloke in the street who works in a shoe shop but happens to feel strongly about cars. I am as annoyed with whinging wind power hippies who know nothing about nuclear power as I am with whinging 9/11 wingnuts and whinging moon landing retards who think they know more about how a photo looks in space than the NASA guys and ignorant Creationists who think they know more about biology than the worlds best biologists because they look at some websites.

But then.. im annoyed at almost everything in life.. this world is full of people that make decisions without educating themselves in the topic they are commenting on, however the point stands!

I'd totally support nuclear power if it wasn't for the waste management issue. Saying that accidents "won't happen" or "likely won't happen" just doesn't cut it, look at Japan ATM. Besides, how about we start actually using the energy we have effectively instead of building more power plants that promote careless energy waste?

AlmightyWalrus wrote:I'd totally support nuclear power if it wasn't for the waste management issue. Saying that accidents "won't happen" or "likely won't happen" just doesn't cut it, look at Japan ATM. Besides, how about we start actually using the energy we have effectively instead of building more power plants that promote careless energy waste?

I'm all for dealing with the waste management issue, and for conserving, but frankly conserving doesn't do anything. In the US, which is a mature energy user, energy usage grows a minimum 2% to 3% annually. If you get uber eco friendly and save 40% of your energy costs a a nation, you'll be at the same exact place you were in just a few years. Conservation is great but it generates not one watt of power.

And thats the US. Go to developing areas and the energy usage growth is geometrically higher.
So hydrothermic good
wave action good
wind ok but utterly unreliable except in certai areas
solar currently is not economically viable. Maybe one day it will be though.

As I said Walrus, Im no expert on the topic, ive merely sat and read a couple books on the subject. But If you do your homework im pretty sure the consensus is that the waste generated is comparatively little.

Nuclear waste can be generally classified a either "low level" radioactive waste or "high level" radioactive waste. Low level nuclear waste usually includes material used to handle the highly radioactive parts of nuclear reactors (i.e. cooling water pipes and radiation suits) and waste from medical procedures involving radioactive treatments or x-rays.

Low level waste is comparatively easy to dispose of. The level of radioactivity and the half life of the radioactive isotopes in low level waste is relatively small. Storing the waste for a period of 10 to 50 years will allow most of the radioactive isotopes in low level waste to decay, at which point the waste can be disposed of as normal refuse.

The rest of it (I think only makes up like 5%) os waste, is more difficult as it has a longer half life, and you basically just dig a landfill, bury the bastard and forget about it. Well, not totally obviously.

The French have loads of Nuclear plants and as a result we are all buying our power off them, my mate is an engineer for national grid, and he and every one of his collegues has told me in no incertain terms that we really need to start getting some made. It should have been getting done 15 years ago.

Have you seen how much gak we landfill from regular waste?! Millions and millions of tonnes of crap gets dumped in holes all over the world. Nuclear is really not that big an issue.

And as for the Japan thing, it got malleted by natural disasters of insane proportions, and it STILL hasnt gone Chernobyl on anybodys ass.

I'm sure I caught some of programme a while back saying they are looking at a new generation of Nuclear power plant.

One that will have byproducts that would only be toxic for something crazy like 50yrs compared to the thousands as it stands now.

Whatever those are, make lots now, or asap.

You want to power all your electrical dohickys? without power outages and brown outs? then the atom is your friend.

Yes. Nuclear power is one of the safest forms of energy production, is easily scaleable, has little environmental impact in it's carbon chain, and modern plants are much safer then the 40 year old ones like three mile island or fukushima.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:I'm sure I caught some of programme a while back saying they are looking at a new generation of Nuclear power plant.

One that will have byproducts that would only be toxic for something crazy like 50yrs compared to the thousands as it stands now.

Whatever those are, make lots now, or asap.

In fairness unrefined nuclear materials when they are in the ground un-mined are toxic for a lot longer. I've always kind of wondered why we don't just put exausted nuclear materials back into the nuclear mines when they become exausted themselves. It's not like the local biosphere far underground was thriving when surrounded by the uranium.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:I'd totally support nuclear power if it wasn't for the waste management issue. Saying that accidents "won't happen" or "likely won't happen" just doesn't cut it, look at Japan ATM. Besides, how about we start actually using the energy we have effectively instead of building more power plants that promote careless energy waste?

Sure thing. You just tell those people in africa and china to keep on living in thatch huts without power so that we can maintain our current usage while our own populations grow. I'm sure they'll love your stance of "no more power plants".

but at home
would be safer
solar panels
or NPP

AlmightyWalrus wrote:look at Japan ATM.

Yeah, what's happening in Japan's the perfect argument in favor of nuclear power: an antiquated power plant nearing the end of its life shuts down because of the fifth largest recorded earthquake, its coolant system switches over to the external power grid since it's no longer producing any power, but the gas burning power plant it would have relied on blew up, leveling everything within 200 meters (or was that a refinery? I can't recall offhand; outside power was cutoff by the earthquake, in any case), so it switched again to on-site gasoline powered generators, then a 23 foot wave hit the twenty foot wall that was in place to protect against tsunamis, flooding the generators, after which the emergency batteries ran for eight hours before running out of power. Despite several explosions, the inner containment still hasn't been breached, and last I heard they'd managed to get the plant hooked back up to the external electricity grid and were trying to restart the coolant systems.

Ars Technica on the matter.

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:I'm sure I caught some of programme a while back saying they are looking at a new generation of Nuclear power plant.

One that will have byproducts that would only be toxic for something crazy like 50yrs compared to the thousands as it stands now.

Whatever those are, make lots now, or asap.

Integral Fast Reactors?

ShumaGorath wrote:Sure thing. You just tell those people in africa and china to keep on living in thatch huts without power so that we can maintain our current usage while our own populations grow. I'm sure they'll love your stance of "no more power plants".

Ooh! I have an idea: we could construct giant hamster wheels, and pay them in food to run on them and generate electricity! It's win win!

Not enough juice mate. Renewable energy just "dinnae have the pooer captain!"

Microgeneration (ie generation of power at home using turbines and solar pannels) is great in theory, but in practice you need vast quantities of raw materials (some of which is very damaging to mine/process) in order to wean yourself off mains power. Which is still required because it is never sunny in the UK and wind power is very unreliable and not very efficient.

Geothermal power generation would be possible for a low impact power supply.

Frazzled wrote:
solar currently is not economically viable. Maybe one day it will be though.

Only in the way that you cant power a city on Solar Energy.

You can, however, completely power your home on Solar Power. Even make the meter run backwards on good days and make money.

Dreadwinter wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
solar currently is not economically viable. Maybe one day it will be though.

Only in the way that you cant power a city on Solar Energy.

You can, however, completely power your home on Solar Power. Even make the meter run backwards on good days and make money.

Depends on where you live and the surface area available for panels and the orientation of your house. We looked into getting solar panels fitted because of a government subsidy available. We are lucky enough to have a south facing garden and fairly large roof area. It was a fairly moot point anyway given that in the best circumstances we would probably only save £170 per year off our electricity bill. In order to be completely self sufficient and run night and day off solar panels you would have to have a huge area for panelling, a battery storage system for running at night, plus you would need to live practically on the equator to guarantee the amount of sunlight hours needed.

Don't get me wrong, it can help - its just not the magic bullet it is made out to be.

Dreadwinter wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
solar currently is not economically viable. Maybe one day it will be though.

Only in the way that you cant power a city on Solar Energy.

You can, however, completely power your home on Solar Power. Even make the meter run backwards on good days and make money.

ONly a portion of it and not every day. Else unhook yourself from the grid you moocher!

Solar furnaces are much better than solar pannels and can also be far better for the environment (as they don't use so much harmful stuff in their production). Also far more robust.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_tower

elam wrote:but at home
would be safer
solar panels
or NPP

Doubly safer, not only do the panels spend 80% of the time not generating electricity and therefore posing no electrocution risk themselves, that 80% of the time nothing else electric in your house works either keeping you safe from things like the TV, computer, and air conditioning.

Went digging, I remember it was a similar name to how current Nuclear site work, so I think it was this one.

Fusion Reactor

They did say it was still at its experimental stage. I must have missed apart of the programme as it seemed to me they where on their way to moving forward with a plant.

Looks like they where talking about DEMO, so sadly its a potential power source, not one we can utilize yet. Dang.

ShumaGorath wrote:
Sure thing. You just tell those people in africa and china to keep on living in thatch huts without power so that we can maintain our current usage while our own populations grow. I'm sure they'll love your stance of "no more power plants".

I spy with my litle eye, something beginning with straw man. Did I say that we weren't going to build more power plants? All I said was that I feel that efficient usage of the power we're already using would go a long way. For example, some researcher found out a couple of years ago that a Volvo production plant in Sweden uses up 3 times as much power as an identical one in the Netherlands, because the electricity was cheaper in Sweden than in the Netherlands. Another good example of things that would reduce power usage would be to start building properly insulated houses. By cutting down on the amount of energy we use to power our houses we can instead use that very energy to power all our "must-have" electric gadgets and doo-daahs. I'm not saying that this is some kind of magical panacea, but it sure as hell would go quite a way. Even better, everyone except the ones selling the power wins!

AlmightyWalrus wrote: Even better, everyone except the ones selling the power wins!

Yeah, feth those donkey-caves that provide us with the basic services that allow us to live our modern lives.

Tyyr wrote:Yeah, feth those donkey-caves that provide us with the basic services that allow us to live our modern lives.

Yes indeed. Though I would be quite happy to feth over the oil and banking conglomorates that are raping us all constantly while raking in massive profits and giving their top executives huge payments.

Fusion power is something like 30 to 50 years away from being feasible on a commercial scale.

Saving energy by efficient gadgets is a good thing because you don't need to spend so much on your national grid and the size of your power plants.

There are all sorts of ways to save energy, such as fitting double glazing and switching off lights in the rooms you are not using.

Kilkrazy wrote:Fusion power is something like 30 to 50 years away from being feasible on a commercial scale.

Saving energy by efficient gadgets is a good thing because you don't need to spend so much on your national grid and the size of your power plants.

There are all sorts of ways to save energy, such as fitting double glazing and switching off lights in the rooms you are not using.

Exactly! I just can't get how SAVING energy can be a bad thing. Regarding the "feth the donkey-caves" argument, yes, feth them! We DON'T need as much electricity to "live our modern lives" if we use what we have more effeciently! That's what I've been saying all along!