Nuclear Power: For/Against?

Seeing as I am doing a design project for AREVA on the design of their upcoming VHTR reactors, I am obviously biased FOR nuclear power.

What are your opinions.

Serious concerns about the disposal of waste.

Original Post by kathygator:

Serious concerns about the disposal of waste.

 Especially since all the waste tends to be held on-site and (except for maybe one) nuclear power plants are located on large bodies of water.

The potential impact of a leak is huge concern.

Original Post by kathygator:

Serious concerns about the disposal of waste.

 Exactly.  Where will the waste go?  Just look at the oil spill accidents! No thanks.

Honestly, I don't think we're reallly going to find an alternative fuel solution until we've depleted our oil.  The same thing happened long ago when they used Whale oil. People told them that the whales were going extinct and that they needed to do something.. but no one did. They depleted the resource and drove the whales to almost extinction before they finally took action, smelled some funny black stuff and thought 'hey, maybe we can burn this?'.   I think we will have a few things here and there (some wind, some solar, etc) but nothing concrete will be done until we've depleted our resource... sad and cynical? Yep... and I hope I'm wrong.

I also have very little confidence in governmental oversight, on the whole, at this point.

It is a bit of a double edged sword.  As an alternative to coal - it is no contest - nuclear all the way.  However, from a risk management perspective it is horrid.  My vote is for geothermal, wind and solar.

Coal power results in more radioactive waste being released into the environment than nuclear power.

So do cigarettes. As a percentage of the emissions it is, of course, minute. But I don't like coal much either.

And you can't have all wind power.  In order to supply enough power that we need you have to have a wind thingy (what's the word?) every quarter of a mile. That means, that no matter where you stood at any given time, you would see them around you... cover to cover from coast to coast.  Also, they kill so many birds!

Solar power is good if you can make it less expensive and indestructable. I live in Texas and I don't think it would have a chance again golf ball size hail.

Original Post by yountsmonster:

Coal power results in more radioactive waste being released into the environment than nuclear power.

Yup -

Also has higher extraction cost (mining), higher amounts of disposable waste (ash) and obviously higher greenhouse emissions (given that nuclear GHG emissions are negligible). 

That is why I said, compared to coal, nuclear wins hands down. 

Original Post by yountsmonster:

Coal power results in more radioactive waste being released into the environment than nuclear power.

The concern is more with the potential accidental releases, not the regular releases. 

Original Post by jenniferthepennifer:

That means, that no matter where you stood at any given time, you would see them around you... cover to cover from coast to coast This assumes all of our electricity would come from onshore windmills.  I don't think anyone thinks wind will ever produce all of our electric needs and onshore windmills are much less efficient than offshore. 

Also, they kill so many birds! Do you have a source for this? Birds are actually smart enough not to fly into things.  Bats may be a concern, but impacts on birds would be minimal (especially with offshore windmills)

Chernobyl! no-one can guarantee that something like that would never happen again.

That's a concern to me because the fall out from it did reach parts of the UK.

Original Post by floggingsully:

Original Post by jenniferthepennifer:

That means, that no matter where you stood at any given time, you would see them around you... cover to cover from coast to coast This assumes all of our electricity would come from onshore windmills.  I don't think anyone thinks wind will ever produce all of our electric needs and onshore windmills are much less efficient than offshore. 

Also, they kill so many birds! Do you have a source for this? Birds are actually smart enough not to fly into things.  Bats may be a concern, but impacts on birds would be minimal (especially with offshore windmills)

 

 Windmills! I couldn't think of the word (I must be getting old). Yea, that was meaning if all electicity was provided through wind power only...

My source for the birds is my dad... haha  But he knows everything, didn't you know? Well, he also claims that he will never die. He just refuses to.  Um, I did search it a bit.. mainly found articles from newspapers which agreed with your post about it affecting bats more.. but that there are risks to migrating birds and endangered species such as the bald Eagle.  But, like you said, no one would agree to stictly wind power anyway.

Original Post by andie-joe:

Chernobyl! no-one can guarantee that something like that would never happen again.

That's a concern to me because the fall out from it did reach parts of the UK.

I can guarantee nothing like that will happen again because nobody is going to build a crappy graphite moderated RBMK reactor with some serious positive void coefficient again.

If we could get some you know FUNDING and actually start building modular pebble bed reactors or something of that sort instead of re-using our archaic PWR and BWR pre-existing technology that's still running we might get somewhere.

The only issue is the disposal of waste. I'm personally a huge fan of researching more re-use technologies and breeder reactors to lessen the load that has to go to the Yucca Mountains. Not every breeder reactor has to be a Fermi I either, the accident there happened due to a hasty decision. To me the problem with the civil nuclear industry from the start was the pressure put on contractors to just 'get it done.' If you examine a lot of the civil accidents such as Windscale, Fermi I, Chernobyl, TMI and others a combination of human error and humans under pressure tend to produce disastrous results. Chernobyl was a product of pride, Fermi a product of wanting too much at once.

Now mainly what is everyone's fear here regarding nuclear waste disposal? The amount of waste in one place over time, or the fact that it has to be transported across the United States to the Yucca Mountains themselves? I'd be more concerned about truck accidents and derailed trains than the actual storage facility.

I'm all for nuclear power as long as I own it.

I'm for it. It's cleaner, safer and more practical than anything else proposed.

and rely on future generations to deal with the waste?

The great thing about future generations is that they're always in the future.  No need to worry about them, since they're future generations.

Go Rays :)

Go Nuclear Power!!!

Granted the environmental risks with spills, leaks etc. are great...but I think the environmental risk of NOT using nuclear energy for a greater precentage of our energy needs is even greater.  It is cleaner and more efficient. 

Sure there is a storage problem..believe me I know...I did 3 projects on nuclear waste storage as an environmental studies major in college...but I'm still for it!!

Not to mention the POLITICAL and ECONOMIC risks of not using nuclear power....We can't keep using oil for everything....and at this point we cannot rely on wind, solar, hydro, geothermal etc...it simply has not been developed far enough