All Nuclear Reactors Must Go Now, Expert Panels Charge

Eryiedes
reply to post by Alekto

 

That's not accurate either because some of us (wait for it) get our power from coal plants.

-Amitaba-

But not all (insert smiley thing).

Every single day more people die because of coal, oil and other energy sources that serve as a substitute to nuclear energy than will ever die because of Fukushima. Fear of nuclear energy is quite simply ignorance- a fundamental misunderstanding of risk and probability. It's not unlike people's fear of flying even though it is orders of magnitude safer than driving. People have a tendency to overestimate the dangers of low probability high impact events and underestimate the probability of the opposite.

reply to post by Alekto


It is in my case.

-Amitaba-

reply to post by Eryiedes


Good for you!

reply to post by Alekto


No, good for the world.

-Amitaba-

reply to post by Eryiedes


I agree. Coal is wonderful! P.S. If you wanted to do something productive around here, you could at least try to argue the points I raised above.



Your humble servant.

reply to post by Alekto


That's because there is no arguement.
It's a simple matter of "it goes or the human race goes".
There's nothing to debate.
(Unless it's a matter of how big you want your coffin to be)

-Amitaba-

Neither coal nor hydro are disaster-free either, so it seems clear that nuclear is being held to a different standard. When a nuclear plant leaks a bit of radiation into the atmosphere, it becomes international news for months, but when a holding dam near a coal plant collapses and floods an entire town with so much toxic sludge that the wave of coal waste literally pushes entire homes off their foundations, it barely even makes the regional news. A single puff of radiation gets people into a panic, while fossil fuel disasters lead to people saying things like "It does have some heavy metals within it, but it's not toxic or anything" going completely unchallenged. People are studying like crazy to find the health effects of the Fukushima disaster, but is anyone even still studying the effects of the BP oil spill on coastal populations?

reply to post by Alekto


That's because when a coal plant burns down, it doesn't poison the entire ocean.
If a coal plant has an accident, the squirrels don't start growing two heads.
If a coal plant suffers a mishap, you don't need to buy potassium iodine.
(Are we seeing a pattern emerge yet?)
Sure hydro and coal plants give off a little radiation but thats like saying a single chihuahua is more dangerous than a pack of wolves.
Anything else?

-Amitaba-

Eryiedes
reply to post by Alekto

 

That's because when a coal plant burns down, it doesn't poison the entire ocean.

" A handshake.... some carbon monoxide...."

Alekto

" A handshake.... some carbon monoxide...."

I'll take that over the effects of MOX reactors any day of the week and you'd be a fool to do otherwise.

-Amitaba-

Anyway... Enough of the two headed squirells. Would any adults care to discuss?

Natural gas reserves are estimated at lasting around 50 years, and coal around 200+ (we're in serious environmental trouble if we actually burn off all that coal). Granted there are major problems with these sorts estimates (New deposits being found, new recovery techniques, and they don't account for market forces changing demand), but it does indicate that if we just straight up replace coal with natural gas we're going to start depleting our supply of it very quickly. Natural gas also has transportation and storage issues, pipelines and liquefied containers can leak and cause huge explosions.

Chemical and fossil fuel spills are notorious for causing mysterious, unexplained disorders in residents long after the chemicals are apparently gone, or sometimes when the chemicals haven't been noticed in the first place. Despite the BP oil spill having supposedly been "cleaned up", severe health issues persist in the area. Incidents like Love Canal and Minamata disease were incidents of improper disposal of toxic chemicals which were completely invisible to the residents and were only discovered when someone decided to investigate high rates of sickness and birth defects. Radiation is by no means the only "invisible killer" out there.

reply to post by Alekto


So, now you go from nuclear power to fracking?
Another terrible premise and if you can't grasp why, I suggest you watch both parts of "Gasland" then get back to us. We'll still be here.

-Amitaba-

reply to post by Eryiedes


It is interesting because i bought a new Geiger Counter today
and i asked about the Levels in his place in Canada.

He wrote:

Levels in Toronto vary a bit, but about 0.15uSv per hour. However, 140km south in Buffalo N.Y. I've seen levels 10 times that and in Bancroft, Canada (about 300km north of me) 50 times that because there are millions of tons of tailings from uranium mines up there.

Please tell me all about the two headed squirells, if nothing else, it shall be a source of delight and amusement for us all.

They built a nuclear reactor on the coast of a tsunami-earthquake zone.

That should be the issue here......

The problem is "for profit" nuclear energy.. .

Cut corners to save a buck comes back to bite every time.

reply to post by Human0815


Aye sir.
Toronto has the Pickering nuclear plant RIGHT on the edge of Lake Ontario and less than 50 clicks from the cities edge. Bad place to live.
The Canadian government has been fudging those radiation levels as well in an attempt to trivialize how serious things have gotten.
Let's just say visiting British Columbia is definitely OFF my bucket list!

-Amitaba-

liejunkie01
The problem is "for profit" nuclear energy.. .

Cut corners to save a buck comes back to bite every time.

Ah yes, the most dangerous technology man can devise...built by the lowest bidder.

"I love the smell of cesium-137 in the morning...smells like...thyroid cancer."

-Amitaba-

I think everyone likes the idea of renewables, but I wonder how far they've looked into them. Here's an interesting article summarizing some renewable efforts now.

www.thecommentator.com...

Energy insiders have long known that the notion of ‘renewable energy’ is a romantic proposition – and an economic bust. But it is amazing what the lure of guaranteed ‘few strings attached’ government subsidies can achieve. Even the Big Oil companies bought into the renewables revolution, albeit mostly for PR reasons. Like Shell, however, many quickly abandoned their fledgling renewable arms. Post-2008, they knew, the subsidy regimes could not last. Neither was the public buying into the new PR message.

And all the signs are – as Germany’s solar sector just went belly up and the UK is made aware of how much every wind job actually costs – that the slow implosion of the renewables revolution is under way.

In June, the sun finally set on Germany’s solar sector with power companies, large and small, seeing their £21 billion investment in solar energy disappear into the ether. As one German commentator wryly observed: “the sun does send an invoice after all”.

Bosch board chairman Franz Fehrenbach, who had been behind the company’s push into solar energy since 2008 has further admitted that the German solar sector generally is “doomed to die”.

Germany’s SolarWorld and Q-Cells, among other solar companies, lost tens of billions in capital investment.

A new analysis of government and industry figures revealed that every UK wind industry job is effectively subsidized to the tune of £100,000 per year. In some cases it rises to £1.3 million per job. In Scotland, with its 230 onshore windfarms, the figure is £154,000 per job. Even if the highly optimistic maximum projection of 75,000 wind industry jobs by 2020 is realised the figure would only drop to £80,000.

European industry and power stations have already turned to burning millions of imported tonnes of American wood pellets in a desperate bid to keep costs down. And that, as has been reported, is to the detriment of fine forests in the US and a resultant impact on CO2 levels.

So, it seems that renewables are only working where taxpayers are willing to pay exorbitant sums for their energy. In many countries, that willingness is quickly fading.