No, it’s possible to repair damage to a gas or coal fired plant right away, and get power back up. Which in this case, was really important. Especially since they just had another earthquake just now.
All the nuclear plants shut down when there is an earthquake. The coal plant doesn’t. If it was just nuclear, there would be no power right now.
Unfortunately, due to the moonbats’ irrational comic book fears, not at all.
Nonsense. Japan has many plants under construction, right now. Well, not right now because of the disaster, but they did last week.
Not helping! I’m trying to keep the nukebats’ attention focused on at least one topic at a time. They’re very easily distracted by shinies, and easily go off on tangents about cars, cocks and fuel rods.
Labeling people you disagree with is stupid.
I know, right?
Cite?
They are in the same building, yes. But you put a duck in a horse barn that doesn’t make it a horse. Google “spent fuel rods reactor number four” and you get a dump of cites talking about the spent fuel rod pool being located at Unit 4. That is not the same thing as being within reactor number four.
They are indeed related. They are in the same building. Which you might casually refer to as “reactor number four”. But they are not within the reactor. And all the weasel dancing in the world won’t make it so.
Your quote bolsters my point. But I don’t need it.
Nuclear power report: 14 'near misses' at US plants due to 'lax oversight' - CSMonitor.com Here are 14 near misses in American nuclear plants in 2010. They are mostly due to poor maintenance, poor training and aging reactors. They are also helped by poor regulation due to the close relationship of big business and government regulators. The Corporations will slice care of the plants to increase profits. That is a cold hard fact.
Eventually this slipshod relationship will result in a new full blown incident ,who knows how bad?
Japan had serious major problems after the 2007 quake, (which did not produce a tsunami). Fires and release of radioactive material. If there had been a large quake,with a tsunami, there are a dozen nuclear reactors sitting next to the sea that would have been swamped. They are still there.
With no protection from a big quake and a tsunami.
With Mt Fuji going off, and continuing earthquakes. you might think somebody would do something about this. The problem is, unless you shut down the plants, and move all the fuel, there really isn’t anything to do.
You anti-nuclear power people are like anti-vaxers; you guys don’t listen to reason and don’t respond to facts. It’s pretty tiring to argue about how dangerous nuclear power is when you won’t ever consider that while nuclear power may be dangerous, so is every energy technology and when you compare statistics, it is not that dangerous compared to the alternatives.
With coal and oil based power, the difference is clear; thousand of people have had their life shortened due to exposure to pollution from coal fired power plants. There are many studies that clearly show higher incidences of diseases and shorter lifespans for people who live downwind of plants. There are no such studies for nuclear power plants. Even with three mile island, it has not been proven that their were any deaths or increased cancer rates associated with the accident. Upthread, gonzomax linked to a bunch of studies that did show effects, but no reputable researches have been able to reproduce his results and most researches think the guy has little more credibility than Wakefield and his autism studies. You guys seem unable to recognize this.
Chernobyl was a bad thing, everybody agrees. But the Japanese plant is not Chernobyl, it is impossible for it to melt down and explode like Chernobyl. It is a completely different design. It is like trying to say that all new Honda’s are death traps and using the Ford Pinto as your main evidence. But you won’t seem to respond to this point either. Regardless, even though Chernobyl was a very bad thing, I bet I could prove that the number of years lost due to premature deaths due to Chernobyl pales in comparison to the number of years lost because of coal fired power plants in Europe. Not that you would acknowledge it if I did or understand that these kind of cost/benefit analysis have meaning.
When you start adding in the environmental effects of fossil fuels, both real and potential, nuclear looks even better in comparison, even with all the “dangers, risks, and costs” associated with it. But you anti-nuclear power people do not seem to be able to make these comparisons. It’s a failure of communication, and a troubling one at that.
I think everyone on this site can agree that it would be nice to switch our entire economy over to renewable energy sources. Solar, wind, hydro, algae based biofuels, tidal, etc… There are a lot of great emerging technologies that will serve us well in the future. But we are not there yet and because of the cost, both in time and infrastructure, we will not be there for at least another 3-5 decades. There are bunches of studies, even by renewable power advocates, that show this, but you won’t acknowledge this either.
So what should we do in the meantime, while we switch over our economy to renewable power? Most likely we will supply the majority of power in this transition with coal and natural gas. But a convincing case can be made that nuclear is better option in many ways, even though people are deathly afraid of it after all the cold war propaganda. When you start accepting climate change as a reality, the case for nuclear becomes almost unasailable. The problem is that you will not look at nuclear from a true cost/benefit analysis and instead just talk about the nuclear bogeyman with no facts or statistics to back it up.
Please make the convincing case for nuclear over natural gas for that transitional 30-50 years.
I am biased to having nuclear as part of the mix but I see nothing that makes the case convincing that it is better in many ways. A couple of ways better and a couple of ways not so good.
Radioactive waste is not a big problem. All we have to do is get it into small enough quantities . Them put it in food. We will all have the effects of a cat scan. And as Ann Colter pointed out, radioactivity is good for you.
No anti nukers are not like anti vaxers. If the vaccines caused a major meltdown several times and permanently polluted parts of the land scape forever, you might have a tenuous analogy at best. If vaccines had the ability to blow up you might have a small case.
We have to go whole hog into renewables. That is easy for even some pro nukers to understand. Building nuke plants takes 10 years, billions of dollars and the government has to guarantee them. Does that give you pause?
They are run by operators who will cut costs every time they can jeopardizing safety You are OK with that? The regulators and inspectors get under control of the industry allowing the plants to put off repairs and training to increase profits. Does that bother you? They hide and cover up problems. Are you comfortable with that? They get the government to allow them to operate long after they have outlived their usage and safety. That does not bother you?
No the anti nukers are absofuckinglutely like anti vaxers.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/01/national/main6163433.shtml A quarter of American nuclear plants are leaking. The leaks are not mothers milk.
The Japanese mess is now radiating the food supply. No problem. It is good for you. Anybody who thinks this stuff is important must be an anti vaxer type.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-20042852-76.html Reactor 3 contains Mox. That means it uses a plutonium mixture. Uranium isn’t poisonous enough. I read yesterday that 1 microparticle ingested results in lung cancer at a rate of 100 percent. The containment building only blew up.
No problem. Why would anyone have problems with that?
That is a problem. It needs to be addressed. However:
Link.
Plants releasing tritium is bad. The operators need to be stomped on and the problem fixed. However, the tritium releases are an accident. The emissions from older coal-fired plants are designed and actually kill people. Way more people.
Just a question for ya. Do you know how much radiation you are exposed to on a daily basis?
Slee?
When I hear this, I think, so what? Do you think they foresaw the previous nuclear accidents and decided to just go ahead anyway? Complex systems fail in complex ways. Newer reactors may not be vulnerable to the same situations as Chernobyl, but they certainly are vulnerable to some circumstance we haven’t thought of yet. Just because the Honda doesn’t have the same design flaw as the Pinto doesn’t mean it’s never going to have a problem. I don’t think we’ve ever invented something as complex as a nuclear plant that has never, ever, ever failed. And it’s not the sheer death toll, but the potential for massive massive problems. If some people get cancer from radioactive dust, whatever. But if something happens at a plan near Paris and the world loses Paris forever…well, that’s pretty bad.
Oh man, it is SO hard not to be sarcastic.
I think it’s the complete lack of any chance of a rational statement making any difference at all.
The next person who mentions coal itt loses.
Can you cite that 3-5 decade claim? Or retract?