# Is it time for nuke power? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 20, 2006, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498 "2006-05-20T05:00:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/81 "2006-05-26T06:19:14Z")
> [@ambushed](#): > > You sound like a LaRouchian (although I doubt you are). If there’s one thing that can make a dedicated pro-nuker like myself hate nuclear power, it’s LaRouchians and those who think and talk like them. > > I’ve read a book carefully analyzing the Three Mile Island accident twenty years later written by a former NRC expert who is as clearly pro-nuke as I am. True, there was only a trivial amount of radioactivity released and zero uptick in cancers and such. In that sense – and in that sense **only** – TMI was indeed grossly overhyped (but again, that’s just the norm for news coverage). Yet the truth is that the accident was far, **FAR** worse than anyone believed or even imagined at the time. The reactor did indeed melt down and the safety systems were dangerously inadequate. It was purely a matter of mere **luck** that there wasn’t a lethal release of radioactivity. > > So please don’t downplay TMI to such an excessive degree. It merely makes us pro-nukers seem like industry con-men or dupes. Downplaying the problem at TMI is not good but neither is overplaying the problem at TMI while ignoring the obvious problems other energy sources have. Some people have been shouting about the dangers of nuclear power, real and imagined, for so long that a lot people accept without question that it is too dangerous. They write it off without even thinking about it because ‘eveybody’ knows how dangerous it is. That is not good. We need to look at all our energy options and do so in a rational mannor. BTW, I just sent an email to my Dad asking him for his thoughts on TMI and the safety systems at the time. I am not sure when I’ll get a response, he is on a trip. He was flown in the day after the accident and was asked to head the clean up at one point. He ran the Sandia National Labs Nuclear Reactor Saftey division. What is name of the NRC guy who wrote the book? I probably know him, or at least met him. My summer vacations when I grew up were going to wherever the American Nuclear Society and NRC meetings were. My Dad worked during the week while we went sightseeing, though he’d go out with us on weekends. I’ve been to 43 states thanks to the NRC and ANS. Slee I still have [Nuclear News](http://members.aol.com/sleethestak/pictures/Socks.jpg) (an American Nuclear Society magazine) socks that I picked up somewhere along the way. I use them as string cleaners. Them ANS people sure made some good socks, those things are like 20 years old. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/82 "2006-05-26T07:40:21Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > What is name of the NRC guy who wrote the book? I probably know him, or at least met him. My summer vacations when I grew up were going to wherever the American Nuclear Society and NRC meetings were. My Dad worked during the week while we went sightseeing, though he’d go out with us on weekends. I’ve been to 43 states thanks to the NRC and ANS. His name is J. Samuel Walker. See [Three Mile Island : A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520239407) ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/83 "2006-05-26T23:32:23Z")
If memory serves me right , the Karen Silkwood story was about companies covering up inferior welds ,covering up deficiencies and stopping squeelers. The companies are after profits and the American way is at any cost. We have to pay the ultimate price .They will be as safe as we force them to be. And it is very likely they will cheat to maximize profits. Enron and other power companies haveshown contemptible practices and you want to trust them. They buy off the regulators and make the laws by buying the polititians. Sorry i am not comfortable with them. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/84 "2006-05-27T02:56:29Z")
Take the nuclear plants out of the private enterprise sector. They are so dangerous that the profit motive has to be removed. All energy should be done by the government. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/85 "2006-05-27T03:17:28Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Take the nuclear plants out of the private enterprise sector. They are so dangerous that the profit motive has to be removed. All energy should be done by the government. Like the Post Office? ---
**Author:** ![Monty22002](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@Monty22002](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty22002)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/86 "2006-05-27T06:54:55Z")
Nuclear power is just so darn icky… There’s no way that it can be accepted. It’s just, you know, ICKY! ---
**Author:** ![Monty22002](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@Monty22002](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty22002)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/87 "2006-05-27T06:58:13Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > So Mr. Bush is willing, although reluctant, to accept nuclear power as a lesser of evils compared to global warming. I knew he was a closeted environmentalist all along. I sure hope you don’t drive, or use a computer… Since apparently electricity use to you is something that needs to be done away with. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/88 "2006-05-27T07:19:34Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s so cool I should mention it again. > > Canada’s CANDU reactor is especially well suited for use in producing hydrogen for a hydrogen-fueled economy. There are several reasons: > > [ul] > [li]It’s extremely safe. [/li][li]The spent fuel from a CANDU reactor is particularly safe for long-term storage - its radioactivity decays to the level of the original uranium ore within 400 years. [/li][li]A CANDU reactor can burn spent fuel from current US reactor designs.[/li][li]A CANDU reactor’s moderator is heavy water - which can be produced as a byproduct of hydrogen electrolysis, making a CANDU hydrogen plant synergistic and cutting costs by 20%.[/li][/ul] > > Atomic Energy Canada has estimated that 200 CANDU reactors could provide enough hydrogen to power the entire vehicle fleet in the U.S. So here’s what you do: You build a huge field of CANDU reactors in Nevada near Yucca mountain. These reactors would burn high-level waste being shipped to Yucca, which would make it safer to store and lower the overall cost of fuel. And since they are all located near the repository, there would be no issues with shipping their spent fuel around the country. They could take in water from Lake Meade, create hydrogen, and pump it around the country. > > There are still technical challenges to overcome in using hydrogen as a primary fuel source, but they are of an engineering nature - no fundamental breakthroughs required. Fuel from this source would likely be more expensive than gasoline is today, but not outrageously so. I think **Sam Stone** has the best idea here. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/89 "2006-05-27T13:42:46Z")
> [@Monty22002](#): > > I sure hope you don’t drive, or use a computer… Since apparently electricity use to you is something that needs to be done away with. 😃 How in the world did you come up with _that_? mangeorge ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/90 "2006-05-27T15:29:22Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > Anyway, the publics lack of knowledge about all things nuclear is pretty immense. At one point in Albuquerque there was a huge outcry because Sandia Labs was going to dump some ‘radioactive’ water into the sewer system. There were letters to the editor going on about how evil Sandia was, that they were going to poison the city and wouldn’t someone please ‘think of the children’. The thing is that the water they were going to dump was a little more radioactive than beer. Yes, **BEER**. You could safely drink all of the water and it wouldn’t hurt you a bit. Heck, I stuck my arm in that tank of water. A salt substitute called NuSalt that you could buy in the local store was, IIRC, about 10 times as radioactive as the water (#1). The water was in a tank that had a strong beta radiation source at the bottom. They would take components, put them on the end of a pole wrapped in plastic and dunk them next to the source then pull them out and plug them in to see if they were radiation hardened. The outcry was quite ridiculous, it goes to show that the public is extremely undereducated when it comes to radioactivity. OTOH, there is a valid reason to be concerned about pumping cooling-tower water back into the river or lake it came from: Having been used to cool the reactor, it’s **warmer.** Raising the temperature of a natural body of water could really disrupt its ecosystem. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/91 "2006-05-27T16:32:58Z")
> [@Der Trihs](#): > > _And_, the region is not “fucked up for all time”; the wildlife is already rebounding nicely. Perhaps, but in the short run there was a lot of damage. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl\_disaster#Fauna\_and\_vegetation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster#Fauna_and_vegetation) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/92 "2006-05-27T16:58:43Z")
> [@David Simmons](#): > > Nuclear power won’t reduce our demand for oil all that much, will it? At least not until everyone starts using plug-in electric cars and trucks. For that to happen we need a breakthrough in battery development. Or hydrogen-powered cars. Nuke plants could generate the electricity to electrolyze water into hydrogen and oxygen. But there’s a lot of technical obstacles. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen\_vehicle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle) As for batteries . . . In his novel _Friday,_ Robert Heinlein envisioned a future revolutionized by the “shipstone,” a battery (named for its inventor) of practically unlimited storage capacity. No more need for power lines – every building’s power grid can run off a shipstone in the basement. Assuming it needs a power grid – appliances can run off miniature shipstones. Of course, that was a “black box” technology without even a theoretical basis suggested. A while ago I started a thread inquiring if such a thing is possible. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=315535&highlight=shipstone](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=315535&highlight=shipstone) Nobody could say it is. Unless, perhaps, they come up with room-temperature superconductors. Until we crack one or the other – or until we redesign our whole built environment to make us less automobile-dependent – the U.S. economy will remain dangerously dependent on cheap imported oil. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/93 "2006-05-27T17:01:45Z")
> [@robby](#): > > (The point was that the Navy Nuclear Power Program has an excellent safety record.) If it didn’t, how would we know? ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/94 "2006-05-28T05:42:27Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > OTOH, there is a valid reason to be concerned about pumping cooling-tower water back into the river or lake it came from: Having been used to cool the reactor, it’s **warmer.** Raising the temperature of a natural body of water could really disrupt its ecosystem. This wasn’t cooling tower water. It was swimming pool water. There was a beta radiation source at the bottom of a pool. Dumping this water into the sewer system would be the exact same as draining a regular pool (well, to be exact, a pool full of water that is about as radioactive as beer). Further more, as I stated, the outrage \*wasn’t \* because warm water might disrupt the ecosystem of the sewer system, the outrage was because the water was ‘radioactive’. A bigger point is that _EVERYTHING_ we do is going to change the ecosystem in some way or another. The question should be what things are going to do the least amount of damage. Slee ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/95 "2006-05-28T06:08:16Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > This wasn’t cooling tower water. It was swimming pool water. There was a beta radiation source at the bottom of a pool. Dumping this water into the sewer system would be the exact same as draining a regular pool (well, to be exact, a pool full of water that is about as radioactive as beer). Further more, as I stated, the outrage \*wasn’t \* because warm water might disrupt the ecosystem of the sewer system, the outrage was because the water was ‘radioactive’. > > A bigger point is that _EVERYTHING_ we do is going to change the ecosystem in some way or another. The question should be what things are going to do the least amount of damage. > > Slee I think it was at San Onofre that the warming of the sea by cooling water changed the local ecosystem. Whether the change was “bad” or “good”, I don’t know. “Good” is what I’ve heard. Modern reactors use pretty much all the heat they generate. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/96 "2006-05-28T13:14:27Z")
San Onofre caused El Niño! :eek: Sorry. Just woke up. Please continue with the serious discussion. ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2006, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/97 "2006-05-29T05:04:46Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > I think it was at San Onofre that the warming of the sea by cooling water changed the local ecosystem. Whether the change was “bad” or “good”, I don’t know. “Good” is what I’ve heard. > Modern reactors use pretty much all the heat they generate. I think there was some confusion on my part. When I responded to **BrainGlutton** about dumping water. I was thinking of one specific incident and he was speaking in general. In any case, if dumping warm coolant water is a big concern it is an easy problem to fix, just let the water stand for a while before dumping into whatever lake/river/ocean you need to put it in. I did get a response from my Dad about TMI and the safety systems. I asked him specifically if the saftey systems were 'dangerously inadequate’. He said: > [@](#): > > There was not a safety system failure, the design was fine. I do not recall the initiator. In fact, although the core melted, water was delivered to the core and the accident stopped. The containment building did stop any significant release, as it was supposed to do. No one was hurt, just the utility taking a financial disaster. Frankly, I am suprised he doesn’t remember the initator. He generally has a pretty good memory but it has been over twenty-six years and he has been retired for quite a while. Slee ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2006, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/98 "2006-05-29T15:31:34Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > Like the Post Office? Whatyou dont get your mail. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2006, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/99 "2006-05-29T15:36:33Z")
The idiots built a plant on the San Andreas fault for crying out loud.; The waste products will be shipped around the country. Enron and peolple like that want to build them. Sixty minutes did a story on a series of tanks that are being built by Halliburton . The welds are sub standard and they have been building thejm for years with huge over runs and construction problems. Enron is out of business but their spawn are still in power. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2006, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498/100 "2006-05-29T16:17:47Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Whatyou dont get your mail. I use the USPS whenever possible. They are efficient and cheap. First class mail is a hell of a bargain, as is parcel post. They level out the cost of a highly variable service. I can send a letter to the wilds of Rhode Island for less than I earn in one minute’s work. That’s why I, inspired by your post, suggested them as a business model for the nuclear power industry. mangeorge [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-time-for-nuke-power/357498.md?page=6)