Nuclear power for Australia.

[Elbert]

Advocates of nuclear power should think beyond the reactors. No matter how fool/fail-safe a reactor is, there will be human involvement at some stage and there lies the rub. If humans are involved there are, eventually, always accidents. There's not one example of any human invention that has worked without accident or failure during the last hundred thousand years, due to human failing. To imagine otherwise in the case of nuclear energy is to be as foolish as the most fundamentalist religionist.
As for the latest debacle, read this and get the iodine pills out! http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle27778.htm

[robertkd]

Some more interesting reading I found this link which has an overview of the Fukushima nuclear plants status.

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/...iupdate01.html

[Elbert]

Originally Posted by robertkd

Some more interesting reading I found this link which has an overview of the Fukushima nuclear plants status.

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/...iupdate01.html

As expected, the report says nothing in many words. But it's by the IAEA and that is a totally disinterested organisation... Ha!

[Mister Pervert]

Originally Posted by Elbert

Advocates of nuclear power should think beyond the reactors. No matter how fool/fail-safe a reactor is, there will be human involvement at some stage and there lies the rub. If humans are involved there are, eventually, always accidents.

The same could be said of automobiles. Tens of thousands of people have died in the past century due to car accidents but instead of simply banning the car, these deaths inspire developments for better safety. The same has already happened within the nuclear energy industry. To shut down research and development of nuclear energy using the argument "it'll never be completely fool/fail safe" is to state an absolute. It's no different than saying "wind-powered generators will never be sufficiently powerful enough to supply enough electricity to meet global demand". Should researach and development of wind powered generators be forced to shut down on this basis? Of course not - and it's a nonsense to suggest it.

[Fromm_Nicht]

Originally Posted by Mister Pervert

The same could be said of automobiles. Tens of thousands of people have died in the past century due to car accidents but instead of simply banning the car, these deaths inspire developments for better safety. The same has already happened within the nuclear energy industry. To shut down research and development of nuclear energy using the argument "it'll never be completely fool/fail safe" is to state an absolute. It's no different than saying "wind-powered generators will never be sufficiently powerful enough to supply enough electricity to meet global demand". Should researach and development of wind powered generators be forced to shut down on this basis? Of course not - and it's a nonsense to suggest it.

You make a good point but there is an obvious difference between the two subjects of nuclear power and cars. There currently exists no practical alternative for such effective and unlimited transport. All other forms of transport are too large scale to deliver a service unique to each individual user, or too limited in speed of travel, range and user capacity. There do however exist safer cleaner alternatives to uranium based nuclear that can deliver more than the energy requirements of modern societies.

[ponde]

Lets have a look.
Option 1 - Coal fired power station - discharging CO2 into the atmosphere
Option 2 - wind power - one of those propellor generators power one house.
Option 3 - Solar power I have seen a solar reflector burn through steel, maybe an option with a bit more reseach but need to be on a bigger scale.
Option 4 Fusion power - not really an option with todays technology.
Leaving option 5 nuclear fission power. Nuclear reactors have been around for 60 years Fukushima was 30 years old modern reactors should be far more realiable.

[Mister Pervert]

Originally Posted by Fromm_Nicht

You make a good point but there is an obvious difference between the two subjects of nuclear power and cars. There currently exists no practical alternative for such effective and unlimited transport.

The same could be said of power generation, given the exponential component in its use. Think back to the so-called "energy crisis" of the 70s. It was largely a "Western" crisis that saw the price of oil (set by those crazy American sock-puppets in the OPEC cartel - Arabs) skyrocket.

In the forty or so years since, the price of oil (and gold) continue to be the benchmark as to the price of everything else to do with living. I forget the economic term used for it, but it relates to another "flash point" in the production of energy/electricity whereby a new energy crisis exists in the foreseeable future - particularly as populous countries such as China and India "suddenly" tap into the energy grid that used to be exclusively oil/coal. Australia currently has one nuclear powered reactor for 20 million people (excuse the fact the reactor is an adjunct to numerous coal-fired power stations). China, by contrast, has billions of people and is gaining the financial wherewithall to sate their electricity needs.

Feel free to correct my (off-the-top-of-the-head) statistic, but China is currently building a new nuclear reactor per month - and even at this rate, cannot guarantee to adequately supply power to its populace. In other words, the time for "softer, environmentally sound" power production is not going to cut it with Chinese - they want "power" and they want it "now" - just as the West did so with oil/coal in the past century.

Anyways, while I have complete philosophical agreement with "soft power options" such as wind and solar, the reality is many new consumers (read - more than half the world population) "don't give a fuck". They just want what "we" have - consumerism, electric toasters, and warmth in winter.

Just sayin', ya know?

[Elbert]

Originally Posted by Mister Pervert

The same could be said of automobiles. Tens of thousands of people have died in the past century due to car accidents but instead of simply banning the car, these deaths inspire developments for better safety. ....

I was expecting this. A car crashed outside my house a while ago, killing the occupant. As far as I'm aware, no one else in the vicinity has suffered any physical ill. Crash a nuclear reactor and the consequences for everyone in the area are dire.You are supporting my argument. Cars have never been safer, yet people still crash, pedestrians still get killed. Always, where humans are involved, there will be mistakes made, and in the case of nuclear power, these mistakes will one day be catastrophic. To treat nuclear fission as just another tool, is insane.
Helen Caldicot, when asked if it was possible to have a safe nuclear reactor replied: No. They are very complicated machines containing the energy released when an atom is split: Einstein's formula e=mc², the mass of the atom times the speed of light squared. Anything can go wrong: natural disasters, failure of cooling systems, human and computer error, terrorism, sabotage. Radioactive waste must be isolated from the ecosphere for half a million years or longer, a physical and scientific impossibility, and as it leaks it will concentrate in food chains, inducing epidemics of genetic diseases, leukemia and cancer in all future generations, the greatest public health hazard the world will ever see.
Einstein said, "The splitting of the atom changed everything save man's mode of thinking; thus we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe." He also said, "Nuclear power is a hell of a way to boil water."

William Cowper, over 200 years ago put his finger on faulty thinking:
"Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one,
Have ofttimes no connexion--knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge, a rude, unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which wisdom builds,
'Till smoothed, and squar'd, and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber whom it seems t'enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.

[Fromm_Nicht]

Originally Posted by ponde

Lets have a look.
Option 1 - Coal fired power station - discharging CO2 into the atmosphere
Option 2 - wind power - one of those propellor generators power one house.
Option 3 - Solar power I have seen a solar reflector burn through steel, maybe an option with a bit more reseach but need to be on a bigger scale.
Option 4 Fusion power - not really an option with todays technology.
Leaving option 5 nuclear fission power. Nuclear reactors have been around for 60 years Fukushima was 30 years old modern reactors should be far more realiable.

On the solar reflector point...I'll start worrying about that when Lex Luthor builds a giant reflector he can point at Metropolis.

I did not use a broad brush stroke of ALL nuclear fission as you have. As I have mentioned before, Thorium based nuclear is a safer, cleaner, more preferable alternative to uranium based nuclear. There is no risk of meltdown and the half life of the resultant radioactive isotopes is on the scale of human generations rather than geological ages. Renewable energies are still preferable to Thorium nuclear as they do not require a finite fuel and they do not produce long lasting radioactive waste, but for developing nations with large populations it may be the only environmentally viable option to provide these populations with the First world lifestyle they deserve.

Originally Posted by Mister Pervert

Feel free to correct my (off-the-top-of-the-head) statistic, but China is currently building a new nuclear reactor per month - and even at this rate, cannot guarantee to adequately supply power to its populace. In other words, the time for "softer, environmentally sound" power production is not going to cut it with Chinese - they want "power" and they want it "now" - just as the West did so with oil/coal in the past century.

Anyways, while I have complete philosophical agreement with "soft power options" such as wind and solar, the reality is many new consumers (read - more than half the world population) "don't give a fuck". They just want what "we" have - consumerism, electric toasters, and warmth in winter.

Just sayin', ya know?

I think you will find (though I may be wrong) that China is investing heavily in thorium reactors, as opposed to uranium ones. This method is safer (no meltdown and shorter half life of radio isotopes) cheaper and does not produce plutonium that could be used in weapons. I like you have complete philosophical agreement with "soft power options" but also see the cons of thorium based nuclear (500 odd years is still a long time to store waste) as outweighed by the benefit of bringing a first world quality of life to people in developing nations. This is largely what I mean when I say there are more acceptable alternatives to uranium based nuclear. Thorium based nuclear can meet the needs of highly populated Asian and European nations without the same risks, while renewable energies can meet the needs of those countries that are gifted in such resources, such as Australia, Iceland and much of Africa.

When the day comes that fusion and solar satellite technologies are perfected I should hope that there isn't a person on the Earth that wants for cheap, clean power. I am not so naive to believe that will be the case however.

[gruber]

Iam not believing a dam word from any media about the nuclear plants in Japan because according to them they were supposed to have blown up the world a month ago