U.S. stands by nuclear power, Energy secretary says - Polidicks

[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;28629117]Shut the fuck up greenpeace.[/QUOTE] yes stop crippling humanity

[QUOTE=TH89;28630798]I'm not really throwing down my chips on either side here but are we just going to ignore the massive meltdown that is happening in Japan right now? In the past the argument was always "Chernobyl was bad, but that was a long time ago and nuclear plants today have too many failsafes to have a dangerous meltdown." And I bought that. And now there is a dangerous meltdown, which is [i]why this is a story right now[/i], and the pro-nuke people ITT are seemingly just ignoring that.[/QUOTE] How often does America or Europe get earthquakes on a scale of 8.9 followed by a tsunami? [editline]16th March 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=TH89;28635834]There is no other form of power that even comes close to being as dangerous as nuclear power. For years I have been hearing nuclear proponents say "don't worry, nuclear power isn't dangerous anymore!" And that has obviously turned out to be false. And the idea that nobody could have expected a giant earthquake in a part of the world famous for giant earthquakes is kinda lame. But more troubling is the fact that they COULD have built it safer, but didn't because it was too expensive. If the thing that kept them from building safe plants was technology, that could be solved with time. But if the problem is cost, it's not going to go away as easily. That leaves us with two shitty options: let power companies build insufficiently safeguarded nuclear reactors, or have the federal government issue stringent safety standards, which will make nuclear reactors unprofitable, so none will be built.[/QUOTE] I'm pretty sure the Fukushima plant was put into service in 1971, you can't compare modern reactors to that.

[QUOTE=Van-man;28636140]40 years old plant hit by both earthquake much more powerful than what it were designed for and what they expected would ever happen AND a tsunami. [B]Considering all those things the plant's been handling it all great actually.[/B][/QUOTE] So the fact we're a few steps away from a major nuclear accident is all great to you? [QUOTE=Van-man;28636140]But it should've been shut down and replaced with a new generation nuclear plant around 10 years ago.[/QUOTE] Exactly, but as TH said... profits seem to be more important than safety.

[QUOTE=carcarcargo;28636315]How often does America or Europe get earthquakes on a scale of 8.9 followed by a tsunami?[/QUOTE] There are lots of other things that can happen. Terrorism is possible. Earthquakes are possible, at least on the West coast. Hell, if the big Yellowstone eruption were to actually happen I don't think all the nuclear reactors in the Midwest melting down and spewing radiation all over the place would be a big help. That's kind of the point--crises happen. "Fine unless something happens" isn't good enough. [QUOTE=carcarcargo;28636315] I'm pretty sure the Fukushima plant was put into service in 1971, you can't compare modern reactors to that.[/QUOTE] Why wasn't it upgraded? [QUOTE=Van-man;28636140]40 years old plant hit by both earthquake much more powerful than what it were designed for and what they expected would ever happen AND a tsunami. Considering all those things the plant's been handling it all great actually.[/QUOTE] Calling this disaster comparatively "great" isn't really a point in the plant's favor.

[QUOTE=TH89;28636546]There are lots of other things that can happen. Terrorism is possible. Earthquakes are possible, at least on the West coast. Hell, if the big Yellowstone eruption were to actually happen I don't think all the nuclear reactors in the Midwest melting down and spewing radiation all over the place would be a big help. That's kind of the point--crises happen. "Fine unless something happens" isn't good enough. Why wasn't it upgraded? Calling this disaster comparatively "great" isn't really a point in the plant's favor.[/QUOTE] It probably did get upgraded, but it's kind of hard to upgrade something that's permenantly reacting, you can't just switch a nuclear reactor off.

TH89, you're arguing against light water reactors. Heavy water and molten salt reactors don't melt down. They're far safer. And I'm sure the Japan incident is still less dangerous than having a couple of coal plants there pumping out CO2 24/7 [editline]16th March 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=TH89;28636546]There are lots of other things that can happen. Terrorism is possible. [/QUOTE] OvB already covered this [QUOTE=OvB;28629889]Not to mention: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q35xHzjxB0[/media] The reason why the advert doesn't show you the plane hitting the power station is because nothing would happen.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=bubbagamer;28636343]So the fact we're a few steps away from a major nuclear accident is all great to you? [/QUOTE] Considering it's age and the fact is hasn't, nor will go Chernobyl: yes.

Sweden is all up in arms about how nuclear power is going to go Chernobyl on us. For the first time in a very long time, I'm actually agreeing with Reinfeldt about this situation. Stupid hippies, it took a motherfucking scale 8.9 earthquake followed by tsunamis to cause this disaster in Japan. This shit is NOT likely to happen anytime soon in Sweden.

[QUOTE=TH89;28631074]And the "grr I fucking HATE Greenpeace so much they are dumb idiots fuck environmentalists" is at least as much of an emotional response as saying "oh wow a catastrophic nuclear meltdown maybe nuclear power isn't as safe as they say."[/QUOTE] Because they aren't listening to reason. I'll just leave this here : [B]Energy Source Death Rate (deaths per TWh)[/B] Coal – world average 161 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity) Coal – China 278 Coal – USA 15 Oil 36 (36% of world energy) Natural Gas 4 (21% of world energy) Biofuel/Biomass 12 Peat 12 Solar (rooftop) 0.44 (less than 0.1% of world energy) Wind 0.15 (less than 1% of world energy) Hydro 0.10 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy) Hydro - world including Banqiao) 1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead) Nuclear 0.04 (5.9% of world energy) [U][url]http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html[/url][/U][URL="http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source"][/URL]

[QUOTE=TH89;28631074]Japan is a first-world country. As nations go they're one of the most heavily invested in modern technology in the world. If they can't keep their plants safe, why should we expect a tech-phobic, penny-pinching country like the United States to be able to? And the "grr I fucking HATE Greenpeace so much they are dumb idiots fuck environmentalists" is at least as much of an emotional response as saying "oh wow a catastrophic nuclear meltdown maybe nuclear power isn't as safe as they say."[/QUOTE] 40 year old nuclear plant built to withstand a 7.9 earthquake and it's doing this well against a 8.9? I'd say we're good with nuclear power.

[QUOTE=TH89;28636546]There are lots of other things that can happen. Terrorism is possible. Earthquakes are possible, at least on the West coast. Hell, if the big Yellowstone eruption were to actually happen I don't think all the nuclear reactors in the Midwest melting down and spewing radiation all over the place would be a big help.[/QUOTE] Dude, if Yellowstone erupted, the entire world would be fucked to death. Having some nuclear power plants meltdown near it would be nothing compared to the blast and ash.

[QUOTE=Van-man;28636140]40 years old plant hit by both earthquake much more powerful than what it were designed for and what they expected would ever happen AND a tsunami. Considering all those things the plant's been handling it all great actually. But it should've been shut down and replaced with a new generation nuclear plant around 10 years ago.[/QUOTE] I see you beat me to saying this [editline]16th March 2011[/editline] It's not like we don't have other options to the standard reactor we have now. We have a lot of safer alternatives and a lot of ways around this kind of shit. taking a 40 year old example of why something doesn't work today isn't really fair to me. How would a modern reactor handle this situation is the question I want answered before we start drawing arbitrary lines in the sand.

Nuclear waste?

[QUOTE=DrBreen;28639674]Nuclear waste?[/QUOTE] There are ways of handling it.

[QUOTE=DrBreen;28639674]Nuclear waste?[/QUOTE] It gets recycled.

"Energy secretary" is a pretty cool title.

[QUOTE=TH89;28630798]I'm not really throwing down my chips on either side here but are we just going to ignore the massive meltdown that is happening in Japan right now? In the past the argument was always "Chernobyl was bad, but that was a long time ago and nuclear plants today have too many failsafes to have a dangerous meltdown." And I bought that. And now there is a dangerous meltdown, which is [i]why this is a story right now[/i], and the pro-nuke people ITT are seemingly just ignoring that.[/QUOTE] This is four decade old reactor that was not designed for anything about a 7 earthquake wise. I'm sorry TH89, but this was worse than their worst case scenario.

I really hate people who look at these events as proof for lack of safety. They talk about how the reactor exploded, but ignore the fact that the other 50 stayed intact.

If there was a way to take energy directly from the reactions instead of the steam that is generated, then the world would be set for a long time on the energy from from just a few plants.

[QUOTE=Ninja Gnome;28641292]If there was a way to take energy directly from the reactions instead of the steam that is generated, then the world would be set for a long time on the energy from from just a few plants.[/QUOTE] I'm sure if we knew of a way, they would try to use it.

[QUOTE=Swilly;28640886]This is four decade old reactor that was not designed for anything about a 7 earthquake wise. I'm sorry TH89, but this was worse than their worst case scenario.[/QUOTE] That's why I'm saying hey maybe they should have had a worse worst case scenario. But apparently that's too expensive to be worth it? [editline]17th March 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Janizaurd;28641171]I really hate people who look at these events as proof for lack of safety. They talk about how the reactor exploded, but ignore the fact that the other 50 stayed intact.[/QUOTE] How many non-nuclear power stations exploded? [editline]17th March 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Turnips5;28638241]Because they aren't listening to reason. I'll just leave this here : [B]Energy Source Death Rate (deaths per TWh)[/B] Coal – world average 161 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity) Coal – China 278 Coal – USA 15 Oil 36 (36% of world energy) Natural Gas 4 (21% of world energy) Biofuel/Biomass 12 Peat 12 Solar (rooftop) 0.44 (less than 0.1% of world energy) Wind 0.15 (less than 1% of world energy) Hydro 0.10 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy) Hydro - world including Banqiao) 1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead) Nuclear 0.04 (5.9% of world energy) [U][url]http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html[/url][/U][URL="http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source"][/URL][/QUOTE] This is interesting. What's the timeframe, though? If those averages are taken from the time period nuclear's been used, that's fair. If they're going back to 100 years ago when people got crushed in coal mines every day that'd be a little spurious. [editline]17th March 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=carcarcargo;28637400]It probably did get upgraded, but it's kind of hard to upgrade something that's permenantly reacting, you can't just switch a nuclear reactor off.[/QUOTE] Wait, we can't turn them off? That's not very reassuring either :v: [editline]17th March 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;28637524]TH89, you're arguing against light water reactors. Heavy water and molten salt reactors don't melt down. They're far safer.[/QUOTE] That's good! Are there reasons to still have light water reactors?

The only place I could see a problem with nuclear power is anywhere where you get earthquakes and tsunamis at the same time, because, well, look what happened. But otherwise there's nothing fucking wrong and people just overreact when something bad happens.

[QUOTE=TH89;28642848]That's why I'm saying hey maybe they should have had a worse worst case scenario. But apparently that's too expensive to be worth it? [/QUOTE] They did, thats why it could survive a 7.9 a rare earthquake in of itself. 8.9 is powerful enough to affect how much time we have day to day. It did shift our earth, that's how fucking strong it is and rare.

Good. I thought we were going to pussy out after what is happening in Japan.

[QUOTE=Swilly;28643885]They did, thats why it could survive a 7.9 a rare earthquake in of itself.[/QUOTE] How can they have a worse worst case scenario than the worst case scenario they had? That is recursive and makes no sense

We still need to find more renewable power sources though.

[QUOTE=TH89;28644302]How can they have a worse worst case scenario than the worst case scenario they had? That is recursive and makes no sense[/QUOTE] You don't see me living in fear that I'm going to get shot while walking to class, but I have a higher chance of that happening then an 8.9 earthquake. It's all about the odds of it actually happening, they called it the "worst case scenario" because it's the largest magnitude earthquake they believe would happen at least once in the NPP's lifespan.

Does an 8.9 earthquake really constitute this concern? For fucks sake, the earthquake itself has killed thousands upon thousands of people as it is, and it's the reactor we're complaining about? That's like saying nobody should wear glasses, because on the off-chance that somebody strikes you in the face with a baseball bat, they will shatter into your eyes.

[QUOTE=TH89;28644302]How can they have a worse worst case scenario than the worst case scenario they had? That is recursive and makes no sense[/QUOTE] ....The Apocalypse is the worst of worst case scenarios. What's your plan for it :colbert:?

[QUOTE=OvB;28629773][media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZreEBnqlZlk[/media] God I hate Greenpeace.[/QUOTE] I counter that with this: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJT2N0ULwEs[/media] TAKE THAT FUCKING GREENPEACE LATE