Your stance on nuclear power

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Nuclear isn't long-term anyway. As people have already said, 80-100 years more of fuel.

And while it's statistically "very safe", they're not completely safe. When a nuclear plant has a problem (and they do have problems, make no mistake), the ramifications can be massive. When a natural gas plant, coal plant, hydro plant, solar farm, wind farm, etc have problems, the ramifications are pretty confined.

So cheering how statistically safe Nuclear Power Plants are, they're still a tremendous risk compared to the others.

nuclear can be long term, with tech already available... and other than the radiation when "malfunction" issues it is safe... plus radiation is overrated ... if you were in the vicinity of the plant you would have ample time to go away, in this particular case for example.

So, sure - if a nuclear plant in your backyard malfunctions, it is not exactly rosy, but if you get Katrina, and earthquake or a tsunami, it is not rosy either, with the difference that you can attempt to design around nuclear plant malfunctions with better tech, you cannot exactly help with natural catastrophes and people still buy houses in Japan, Chile or California...

Overall given the current reliance on oil and fossil fuels, nuclear is by far the better alternative... not to mention that the two countries with most reserves are Canada and Australia :b ... ME and a host of other dictators are out of luck as an added bonus...

wind, sun and other renewables - there is just not enough time to wait until those techs mature enough to be relied upon...

[Cort Haus]

Wind farms are fugly. Like a battalion of giant daddy-long-legs dancing creepily on the hilltops. I'd definitely rather look at a coal or nuclear plant.

[Perfection]

There'd be literally thousands of wind power plants to each coal plant! Like weeds sprung from a compost they'll be everywhere.

At least with coal you can imagine they're like big cloud-making machines. Perfectly natural. And nukes seriously? They're just big harmless boxes.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/im-...factory,11165/

[MikeH]

Like a battalion of giant daddy-long-legs dancing creepily on the hilltops.

You even make them sound really cool looking!

[giblets]

Yeah, older infrastructure. Newer cities in Ontario don't have the problem as bad as the older ones.




I asked Yahoo "How many square miles of Windmills equal 1 Nuclear power plant?"

Answer:

A typical nuclear power plant produces 1,000 megwatts of electricity per hour.

What's a megawatt/hour?

[dannubis]

Nuclear isn't long-term anyway. As people have already said, 80-100 years more of fuel.

And while it's statistically "very safe", they're not completely safe. When a nuclear plant has a problem (and they do have problems, make no mistake), the ramifications can be massive. When a natural gas plant, coal plant, hydro plant, solar farm, wind farm, etc have problems, the ramifications are pretty confined.

So cheering how statistically safe Nuclear Power Plants are, they're still a tremendous risk compared to the others.

And then there is Thorium. Enough in the ground to last us several million years and inherently safer than Uranium.

[dannubis]

What's a megawatt/hour?

1 kWh = 3600 kJ.

[giblets]

1 kWh ≠ one kilowatt per hour

[Hauldren Collider]

I'm skeptical of the claim that we only have 100 years of nuclear fuel. Does that assume we use nuclear to power everything? Does it only take into account proven reserves?

[germanos]

I'll quote myself from earlier in the thread:

From wiki:
A prominent use of uranium from mining is as fuel for nuclear power plants. As of 2008, known uranium ore resources that can be mined at about current costs are estimated to be sufficient to produce fuel for about a century, based on current consumption rates.

And:

Nuclear power provides about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity.

[Cort Haus]

FFS germanos, you were immediately called out for selective quoting by the next post, and now you repeat it.

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

[Felch]

1 kWh ≠ one kilowatt per hour

It's likely that the person writing the article made a mistake, however there is a megawatt/hour measurement used for measuring how fast a power plant can come online. Hydroelectric is apparently really good at coming online for peak usage, while others need time to get their boilers hot.

I like Hydro and Nuclear. Coal is great, but per kWh prices are higher than nuclear. Natural Gas is even more expensive, and last time I checked (~5 years ago) North America had very limited infrastructure for importing LNG. That meant that prices for NG would quintuple between summer and winter.

Also, that 80 years prediction for nuclear fuel is probably inaccurate. New technologies and new ore discoveries will probably extend supplies at current prices for generations to come.

[germanos]

FFS germanos, you were immediately called out for selective quoting by the next post, and now you repeat it.

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

FFS Cort, even your link has the pessimists confirming my quote.

[Felch]

Germanos, the OECD pessimists recognize that technological advances could stretch our supplies for centuries, and the EU and Australians are assuming that we aren't going to discover any new sources of uranium ore.

[BeBMan]

Otoh the optimists there take also "undiscovered" sources into account.