they will only be as safe as the idiots who install them on earthquake prone ground..oh wait i'll build one next to mount st. helens

Because power plants last too damn long and the newer technology that will make things safer requires a complete replacement of the reactor core and containment. YOU WILL BE ASKING THE SAME QUESTIONS WHEN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST SAN JUAN DE FUCA PLATE FAULT ZONE LETS GO. And the neat thing about it is that earthquakes make us safer by flattening old infrastructure and buildings, killing a lot of people in the process, but clearing the way for new construction to be built quake resistant.

People are the same the world over. They don't want to change, they don't want to spend the money to prevent loss of life until they really have to... After the major disaster happens that claims all those lives. We always build to the best of our knowledge at the time, the problem is we don't have the balls to rip out perfectly good, fully functional buildings, infrastructure and power plants to rebuild them to the strength and safety current knowledge says we should.

And the whining that would ensue if we did is fully supported by the Red Blooded American noise being generated in some areas along the west coast because there was no tsunami which wasted people's time because "they were evacuated for no good reason". I fully hope they're there when the real one hits to serve as an example to the rest of us...

Sean,

Very good post!

Thank you!

The nuclear power industry has a lot of control over the media, which is why you haven't seen hardly any reporting on the nuclear risks in the USA. The nuclear industry is also receiving huge subsidies (your tax dollars and money borrowed from China) from the politicians who are on the take, bribed by the nuclear industry. The answer to all these problems is not wind, solar, clean coal, etc. It is for us to greatly decrease our consumption of electricity NOW!

Like any industry, this one builds to the highest specifications and then capitalizes on the additional information that becomes available over time and with experience. This is not a difficult concept to understand. No one can foresee all possible nuances in anything. That is why car designs, building designs, toys, medicines and literally thousands of other products are "new and improved" year after year.

I wish Americans would grow the eff up and realize that nuclear energy is a necessary resource - obviously no less safe and clean than oil, given the BP and Exxon Valdez disasters. What exactly do the posters on this thread who are down on nuclear energy propose we do for an energy source that would support your personal (yes, YOUR personal!) demand for energy?

If you are so opposed to nuclear power, try this - turn off your lights, your refrigerator, your heaters and air conditioners, stop using your microwave, your oven, your computers and entertainment devices, and anything else you have plugged in. There. Now you are no longer personally contributing to the exponentially escalating power demands in this country and other countries that have made the construction of nuclear reactors a necessary and viable alternative.

If you don't have a better alternative, than again, grow the eff up and realize that in the real world, where the adults live, there is such a thing as trade offs. You get to live in a sophisticated world with all kinds of luxuries and advanced technologies and in exchange there is an extremely remote possibility that in the event of an catastrophe you might be asked to evacuate your neighborhood someday for your own safety.

KarlStevens,

The nuclear power industry has a lot of control over the media, which is why you haven't seen hardly any reporting on the nuclear risks in the USA.

Really Karl? The nuclear power industry has that much control? WTF then haven't they been able to bring any new reactors online since 1996?

The idea of safe is subjective. If we were told that our houses had to be built to spec's that would withstand a 8.9 earthquake none of us would be able to afford them. We evaluate the risk (not chance) for anything we do and either decide it's worth the risk or not. These comments are not written to say I'm in favor or opposed to nuclear power only to point out that nothing is or can be made 100% safe.

I wonder what would happen to our nuclear power plants in the same situation. Other than pure construction issues, most would be melting down because they would not have the ocean next to it. Currently, the Japanese are able to cool them by pouring ocean water on the reactors. They would probably be Chernobyl East right now if not for the proximity of the ocean. Most of ours also would not have that saving grace.

The problem is simple, as is I believe, the solution. The problem is that though the reactors are designed by nuclear engineers, the buildings are not. They are designed by architects. "Make it look advanced, make it look powerful. make our new building say, I AM power" Great. What ever happened to "form follows function"? The solution, as I have thought for years is to build these plants deep underground, drilled into solid bedrock. (Containment that is, control could be in a nice pretty building above ground along with turbines, storage pools ext.) In the case of a meltdown, the core would harmlessly seal itself up, you could rebuild next door. If the plant is on the ocean, a flood tunnel with a blast door could be used to cool a runaway in a last ditch effort to prevent a core melt. These things are simple. We need atomic energy. Wind and solar are a pipe dream. But we need nuke plants built with a bit of humility, in order to be less prone to disaster. There is an island off of Indonesia (I think) somewhere in the south Atlantic. Geologists have determined that a chunk nearly the size of Everest could potentially shear off causing a tsunami that would cause unbelievable damage, including on the East coast. The whole East coast. So it is time for this government to stop f--king around, and get on the ball.

The nuclear industry has an ABYSSMAL safety record, and your first indicator is their off-booking of the uranium extraction and fuel rod processing costs and loss of lives, and their off-booking of the spent fuel reprocessing and burial (sic) if that ever happens, you see, all those spent fuel rods are still being stored onsite! Besides the 'big' exposes like Chernoble, Three Mile Island, and now Sendai, try Googling 'Santa Susana Research Lab', where experimental liquid sodium reactors were built right over an earthquake fault, even as late as the 1980s when I worked there, INSIDE the Los Angeles Basin exposing millions of Angelinos to plutonium, and killing a number of workers at the plant, so badly organized that Rocketdyne completely scrubbed all records of the projects. Or take WPPSS, the largest bond default in US history for construction of a nuclear power plant that was never used, partly because the massive COST OVERRUNS, operating power costs proved too expensive (even with offbooking the uranium extraction and radwaste disposal), but also the huge number of DEFECTS. Well, they claim, every form of power has hidden costs and loss of life, but they always HIDE the fact nuclear power is FAR AND AWAY, ORDER OF MAGNITUDE AWAY in cost from other energy resources, largely because Americans Corporate's PROFIT MOTIVE and MONOPOLIES. The success of Japan and France with modular reactors can NEVER BE MATCHED IN THE GREEDNITED STATES, and here we still have low-tech GE BWR designs still being built, only now they're being built with TAXPAYER MONEY, thanks to Dick Cheney's Energy Policy Committee of Banditos, then OPERATED AS FOR PROFITS!! Incredible blatant in-plain-view theft of public monies for private profits using the most expensive form of power, 'regulated' without transparency by a Federal board of appointed regulators, closed monopoly, one-off designs, they are literally Corporate Cathedrals to Science and Mammon. Then forty years later, discarded hulks, their moon-pools choked with leaking fuel rods that will remain radioactive for 200,000 years, well, that's YOUR problem America, that's the TAXPAYERS problem. But, hey, America is hard-wired for hideous, just look at the econometrics of burning ethanol food for fuel. You see, Corporate is willing to starve us to death, Corporate is willing to freeze us to death, Corporate is willing to tax us to death, for any Frankenfandango that makes a profit. Never say die.

Now Google 'Hanford Nuclear Reservation'. The radioactive groundwater from teh plant is entering the Columbia River. Plutonium in the drinking water supply of downstream communities. Hey, OK!

GOPTR8ORS

Again, grow the eff up.

What, exactly, are the alternatives that are available that can replace what nuclear energy offers that you speak of? Tell me about them. I would love to hear it. Solar, wind, water - none of these are even close to being able to meet a fraction of current demand, let alone replace these resources.

And just because YOU don't know what the individual futures of these facilities are, or what plans are in place for their security, does not mean that there aren't any.

If you "refuse" to accept the reality of our current way of life, and all that it implies, including what the future holds for your children, perhaps it would have been wiser to not have any.

Nuclear reactor facility design has improved dramatically over the years, each new construction informed by previous experience. There are certainly negatives about this type of energy source. There are negatives about all types of energy sources.

What I am insisting on is a grown up conversation about what we are actually doing and what it means - all of it, not just the part that freaks you and other people out. Again, abundant and cheap energy is the basis for and makes possible every single thing that each one of does throughout the course of our daily lives. Start there, and then talk about how we support this lifestyle and this size population (the growth of which you freely contributed to) given the restrictions that you claim are feasible.

P.S. I forgot the best joke of all! Those former Soviet nuclear-powered warships? Entire fleets from the Soviet Navy, nuclear powered, their hulks so radioactive that no industrial country would take them, were scrapped on the beach in Bangladesh, without safety protection, cut up with gigantic wire saws by the Pharoahs slaves, the highly radioactive metal scrapped into the general melt, and shipped all over the world as recycled metal, where it ended up (that I know of) as radioactive stainless steel razor blades!!

Is that a pimple on your chin, or your first look at the Black Hole of Corporate Calcutta? Ahh,ha,ha,ha,ha.

Maybe this will hasten the decommissioning of the old style reactors that have none of the intrinsic safety features developed over the last 40 years and we can build updated fast neutron reactors that not only use passive cooled sodium pools (no power needed) and heat-expansive cladding fuel rods that can stop reactions even if all coolant is drained out of the reactor...

But can extract the other 99% of the energy in uranium and "burns up" the long live dangerous actinides (like plutonium) so we only have to store small amounts of low grade waste for decades in stead of large volumes of long lived highly dangerous waste.

It is a real bummer that so many of these nuclear power plants without intrinsic safety systems are still around, we should have been replacing them for a long time now, but over-zealous environmentalism basically froze nuclear power plant replacement process 40 years ago, so now we are stuck with these dinosaur plants that are dangerous.

And whenever circumstances arise that these obviously dangerous plants are shown to be dangerous, the same people who left us stuck with them cry about how they are dangerous and we should stop development of nuclear power. Thanks a lot for nothing!

Hmmm. Some interesting trains of thought on this topic...

Having worked as a subcontractor at a nuclear power plant off and on for several years, I can personally attest to their rigid protocols for safety and security. Before I got "badged", I had a certain mindset of what I would encounter. Once I was working onsite, day to day, it was changed for the better. The security and precautions they take at these places are insane. There are standard operating procedures for writing standard operating procedures.....

"Just a thought" raised a very good question..those of you opposed to nuclear power, please explain to me what you would supplement it with? Wind farms? To give you an idea of the kind of electricity a nuclear plant puts out, you would have to cover the entire state of Texas in wind turbines to equate the 30 year power output of one of these plants. "Clean coal"...haha, clever rebranding by the industry. Take a trip out to western PA and look at the whole mountainsides they've leveled, look at the miles of uber iron rich streams devoid of life, and sit in a rainstorm that looks like falling milk and tell me about the benefits of the coal industry.

Oh, @ Sane Science, sorry to burst you bubble, put it wasn't "overzealous environmentalism" that dovetailed the nuclear industry, it was the general public. Most environmental organizations support nuclear power.

For anyone who is Monday morning quarterbacking this thing and looking for any reason why these things are so unsafe; that earthquake was so unimaginably strong, I believe there was no way to anticipate everything that could happen. The quake moved the country 8 feet! These reactors were built as strong as they could be given the technology at the time and it's incredible they are still contained; it's a testament to the engineering. The media seems to be really focusing on what these plants are doing and the perception is getting skewed. So far, those reactors have killed no one. But the quake and waves already killed thousands. I even saw tidbits about a refinery buring out of control. I remember seeing past documentaries about the huge sea walls over there and their regular Tsunami drills. These people were more prepared than anyone on earth for this type of event. This isn't Chernobyl where there was no natrual disaster and they were just irresponsibly conduting a drill that went wrong in a stupidly built facility. There's just no point in fear mongering or debating. What we're seeing is a disaster of epic proportions and this is all part of it.

" . . . .Why does it have to be a tragic accident to make ANY thing "Safer"?Should it not all ready been done when they build the dam things? I mean come on, they should know the what "Ifs"...Soon Japan will be looking for some new land or live in the Ocean.. "

Because its untested. All they can do when they build one of these things is rely on their theories and projections of whether all the systems will work in a crisis situation. When the nuclear reactors and all its systems are actually bombarded in a disaster situation, then and only then, can they see how the systems will actually respond and whether their systems will actually work according to their theories and projections--and they didnt and they probably won't next time either.

The problem I have is "human arrogance" which believes it can actually CONTAIN a nuclear event (geez louize who do we think we are --God?) and continues to try to build one that is "safer." We need to just take them all off line and use the myriad of other technologies that are safer to use.

Japan should have NEVER allowed itself to be drawn into the nuclear game to begin with. I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that you live on an island and that you don't have much space to begin with. Why even RISK polluting it with something that will cause harm for centuries? They have nowhere to go . . .except into the ocean.

Oh, @ Sane Science, sorry to burst you bubble, put it wasn't "overzealous environmentalism" that dovetailed the nuclear industry, it was the general public. Most environmental organizations support nuclear power.

Um, the "general public" tends to refer to heard mentality. "Overzealous environmentalism" is not a group, it is a position taken by any number of people of fame, or in the general public, or by organizations.

Action groups like Greenpeace, friends of the earth, etc. carried the banners for what mostly started as a movement against weapons and grew to include electric power. Such issues were politicized and used to gain attention and political power.

I don't care how safe they think they can make nuclear power. Get them out (and keep them out) of CA, please. Put them where they don't care what happens to their environment, somewhere like Texas. We know our big one will be here soon enough and the last thing we want or need is a nuclear meltdown to go with earthquake destruction.

One thing many are unaware of is the nuclear plants being built are too big. Small reactors like the size on ships are enough to power a small city yet does not have the danger potential like a giga watt reactor. Place these all around to power a large metro area and you don't have the worries of major meltdowns, and radiation leaks.

Source: Environmental Science class at UCSB

And, if I remember correctly, at both Chernobyl and 3-Mile Island, the people monitoring the facility ignored the warning signs because they didn't believe there was a problem. Or they were too arrogant to believe they're magnificent machines could breakdown...

I really can't believe all the fools on here telling us there is on other solution the nuclear power when hour by hour the situation in Japan gets more out of hand. You need to take that nuclear powerder leaf blower out of you a$$ and shut up. Wait and see what happens before blowharding how SAFE our current reactors are or what is really going to happen with Japans plants seemly failing like dominos.

Nuclear power may be a way but I sincerely doubt anyone one can say they have a plan that for a plant that would prevent what's going on in Japan now.

@John: Reactor fuel designs have been around for over 20 years now that don't need any cooling systems to self regulate. Being an unsophisticated typer I'll give you an analogy. If cars when they were first produced had been labeled a menace and dangerous (and they very much were) and a moratorium had been placed on their development, and no further improvements had been allowed to be introduced because no new cars were being built. Rediculous right? Well that is where we are with nuclear power.

If we had implemented the IFR program developed during Clinton, by now we would have replaced most of the reactors like the one's in Japan with cooling issues, and we would be significantly closer to energy independence, and we would be burning a fraction of the coal we do now, which would be much better for the environment.

And just to be clear: Automobile safety is where it is after *MILLIONS* of deaths. Every year tens of thousands more die. But I bet people hardly feel scared to use their cars. So lets get our cowardly heads out of the sand and do what is best for the planet and approve some modern power plant construction projects so we can get these older "unsafe" plants off line.

KarlStevens: Actually big oil has a lot of control over the media that's why people like you receive nothing but Armageddon like fear mongering every time a small incident with nuclear power happens... The gulf coast spill was infinitely worse for the health of the environment and human health then these minor leaks. Don't be afraid just because you refuse to understand. Everything emits radiation, if you want to avoid radiation... don't turn on your lights, don't sit in front of your computer and for god's sake don;t eat a banana(eating three banana's would give you about the same radiation exposure as the leaks from these plants)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose#Comparison_to_Three_Mile_Island_and_Chernobyl i dont usually like doing my research from wikipedia but i figured you wouldn't except these facts anyway

before you resort to correcting my grammar to support your inaccurate argument... i meant accept.. How Bout Them Bananas? also when did i mention the left? i am pretty left leaning myself... but sometimes facts trancend following a political line blindly

It is odd how the 'spin' is starting so quickly. Initially, "they" said that radiation leakage wouldn't happen--then it did. Now it has reached 100 miles out to sea and contaminated those aboard the USS Reagan. I never trust a group to regulate themselves nor do I trust their media damage control.

RickyBobby,

Nuclear power plants are a dead issue. It is worse than dancing with the devil. I would rather go without electric than to have one of those within a thousand miles of me.

Go without electric? You would end up dying. You have the perfect name.

You would rather go without electric? Let's see what that means to civilization in general -

Anyone who lives in an apartment or works in a building with more than few floors, is now homeless and jobless because there are no elevators and there is no air conditioning or heating.

No industry in general - all of that requires power and lots of it. No transportation - no cars, no trucks, no trains, no air transportation, since there is no power to support the infrastructure all of that requires.

No military capability. No medical capability, since almost all of modern medicine relies heavily on electrical equipment.

No communication. No TV, cell phones, computers, entertainment devices, computers.

Welcome to the 18th century!

Individually and collectively, we (that is every single person posting on this thread, no matter how holier-than-thou you want to feel) rely completely on an abundance of energy and its ready availability. That is what makes your life possible. So after you are done complaining about how terribly dangerous and horrible nuclear power is, take a look around you and realize that YOU are the reason that the demand for it exists.

None of you exist independently of any of this, so stop acting like innocent bystanders.

Sandtrich

Man you got it exactly. Remember BP and how that snake Hayward's story changed 3 times a day?

Now it has reached 100 miles out to sea and contaminated those aboard the USS Reagan. I never trust a group to regulate themselves nor do I trust their media damage control.

You should probably consider going and actually reading the article you're quoting. It said that radiation was detected on the crew members returning from missions. Not that it was detected on the ship itself. The crew members & equipment were scrubbed and considered good to go. The U.S.S. Ronald Regan was then moved to take it out of the direct path of radiation. They did not have all 5,600+ personnel on board exposed to radiation.

RickyBobby, there are already plenty within 1000 miles of you. One the the USA's biggest is near Phoenix --the Palo Verde plant; look it up. The southwest needs lots of juice for all of that A/C. It was built in the early 80s.

You better start packing your bags...but wait, outside of Alaska or Hawaii, there is no place in the USA more than 1000 miles from a nuclear plant.

Shhh, don't burst his bubble!

RickyBobby said, "I live in Las Vegas and if they build one of those deathtraps within a thousand miles of me I am moving."

You're pretty much screwed then. I guess it's also safe to say you aren't aware that your backyard contains the Nevada Test Site, one of the most radioactively polluted sites in the U.S. Let us know which country you move to.

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/4645/1000miles.png

The potential for hot air obviously extends to the Japanese government as well.

That is how *some* of them are designed to work. Others are designed in such a way that a loss of "cooling water" would actually stop the reaction. CANDU reactors (the only reactor type found in Canada) is designed to consume natural uranium instead of enriched uranium, it requires heavy water as a moderator (and in the case of a severe incident this heavy water is also able to act as an emergency coolant), and the fuel cannot self-sustain a reaction without the heavy water around. In actual fact, the CANDU reactor is more efficient than other reactor designs even though it uses a non-enriched uranium feed. CANDU reactors also do not produce enriched plutonium as a waste.

Hats off to john scott, my thoughts exactly.

Marcher, that sounds cool. I'm going to research more about it. I wonder why there isn't more of a push to go to that technology.

The ONLY two reasons we still toy with nuclear power plants is simple - It is not safe and it is not free.

Just like OIL - The auto industry chose for us to be dependent on gasoline.

Solar & wind are a heck of a lot safer and it's free - Nope - no one to control or push around.

Once a Nuke plant goes..You cant live on that part of land anymore.See Chernobyl, the land there is not inhabitant any more..

Actually the wildlife is thriving there.

There are still inhabitants that live in the region around Chernobyl. They refused to leave and still live there. And yes you can still drive there and "visit" the location. Chernobyl was a bad design. The reason why there was so much fallout was becuase of the Graphite moderator caught fire and burnt. That ash cloud carried the Fission Fragments from the exposed/cracked fuel rods 1,000 of miles away. Nobody uses that design.. I mean nobody. Cuba had that design as a gift from the Soviets and they tore it down.

All you shoot from the hip, full of your own non educational options are the real problem here. You all need to stop watching bad TV and actually read and learn about the world before you become mindless drones fixated on which way the wind flows....

Natural gas isn't that safe either... just in the past year alone there have been several gas explosions in the north east that have leveled peoples homes and caused some death. Granted its not on the scale of a major disaster but a death is a death.

I am all for wind power and solar energy.

Very few ever die from the initial accident, it is he exposure that kills people later. Chernoblye is estimated to have caused over 1,000,000 deaths since it occured.

"Chernobyl is estimated to have caused over 1,000,000 deaths since it occurred."

Estimated by who? That figure is ludicrous. The tragedy in Japan is staggering, and the issues with the nuclear plants are a very small part of it. Does anybody think that a dam would have withstood that earthquake? And if it failed, how many people would have been killed? The number of people who have been killed due to coal, natural gas, and hydroelectric electricity production are far, far more than there is even a threat of beign killed by a serious nuclear accident. We are exposed to far more radiation from coal dust than we have ever had from nuclear power.

It would be lovely to see people think a little more logically and critically about these issues, but I suspect many people with a knee-jerk opposition to nuclear power are just as opposed to dihydrogen monoxide:

If you believe that wind and solar can meet your electricity needs, ask yourself where your electricity will come from on cloudy, windless nights?

Nuc Tech - First of all not everything you read in books written by so called experts will help you figure things out. Reading a couple of booksdoes not enlighten us all nor does a four year degree. Any design is good only until it is taken down by one disaster or another. The post-mortem will reveal that it was not as good as it was thought to be or was not designed for the "unknown". You should realize that at any point in time there are limits to our knowledge. Chernobyl sure would have been good design when it was constructed. Anyways do not want to paint the doomsday scenario. Just wanted to point out that you get to know only what the industry/experts would want you to know. Equipped with the expert label they can argue to convince you, I and the regulators that everything is taken care of. They will win the argument every time.

It is high time we optimize our consumption instead of going for Mcmansions and power hungry TVs and m/c. The we include me too. Peace.

I can not believe the mental giant that compares a nuclear melt down to car accidents. First off when two cars collide, yes people can die but there is no contamination of a huge area. This contamination is the gift that keeps on giving for 100 or more years. A large radiation leak has the potential to cause birth defects, mutations and millions of cancer deaths later on. This genius goes on to say that the land around the Russian reactor that melted down has 'thriving' wild life. I am sure if that 'thriving' wild life is examined you would find mutations, shortened life expectancies, sickness and probably some new mutated species. I would love to ask this Republican gas bag if he would agree to send his family to Chernobyl for a nice 3 month vacation all expenses paid. I bet if a nuke plant was built anywhere near this guys family he would move.

This Republican gas bag, spews out simplistic verbiage to confuse the weak minded. A good example of what these guys say is ' guns don't kill people, people do" if that is the case why not arm everyone with a nuke? after all nukes don't kill people, people do.

These plants are melting down due to BAD DESIGN. To rely on one diesel engine and a back up battery for something so critical as core cooling is the epitome of stupidity. Both of these systems failed and now we have a potential melt down of the core. If nuclear engineers can not come up with a better plan on how to deal with a power failure then all nuke plants should be shut down. Devising a back up cooling system does not seem to be such a difficult problem to me. I'm sure some engineer could design a back up gravity fed cooling system using a reservoir built to withstand 3000 yr earth quakes, it just a matter of cost.

Geeze - I thought fear-mongering and hysteria like most of what appears here disappeared with the hippies. A few points:

- Chernnobyl was out of date before it was built - the design had been abandoned by the West long before due to safety issues. The Soviets built it because they were incompetent and didn't give a damn about human life.

- The earthquake in Japan was seven times more powerful than the reactors were designed to withstand, yet withstand it they did. Every single safety system worked the way it was designed and there was not and _will— not be any danger to human life. Read this for the clearest explanation I've found:

- The radiation released decayed into non-radioactive form within seconds of exiting the vents - as it was designed to do.

- The danger Japan faces is not from radiation but from a prolonged shortage of power. The quake caused the loss of about 20% of Japan's nuclear power. To make up for the shortage, less safe, more polluting and more expensive sources of power will need to be used.

(BTW - What "Retardican-539962" (very apt handle) wrote is pure B.S. and was written in essentially _total— ignorance of the nature of nuclear power). Maybe he's Al Gore in disguise?

Hmm. The link following "Read this ..." disappeared. Here it is again (I hope):

"morgsatlarge.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/why-i-am-not-worried-about-japans-nuclear-reactors/"

IdeasMatter - Thanks for educating us - Conspiracy theorists/Hippies. Amidst all the crisis fighting, I guess people had time to give you all the relevant facts to make a judgement that everything went according to plan. Wait a few days to assess the damages and after that wait for Wikileaks!!

@Scottosaurus - While I agree with most of what you said, and am generally in favor of a multi-pronged strategy which includes nuclear, wind, and solar... I should mention that your characterization of solar as having a "cloudy day" Aachilles' Heel is merely a common misconception. For some reason, PV gets all the press, and most people miss the fact that the *only* sane way to do a large solar plant... and the way these things are actually done... is with solar thermal. Not PV. And in the case of solar thermal, vast amounts (days worth) of energy are trivially stored in the form of steam in insulated tanks. Such storage is extremely efficient and cost effective.

Ted Jahn, fewer people in the US die from rat poison than from the Holocavst on US Highways, therefore I think it's OK if a little rat poison gets into your Tyson chicken nuggets, don't you? Wouldn't you rather eat rat poison than risk finding hairs in your taco salad?

Bee deaths may signal wider pollination threat: U.N.

‎
Reuters - Alister Doyle - Sonya Hepinstall - 4 days ago

... many parts of the world may be part of a wider, hidden threat to wild insect ... in North America and Europe, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said.

America's breadbasket aquifer running dry; massive agriculture ...

‎
Natural News.com - Mike Adams - 4 days ago
It's called the Ogallala Aquifer, and it is being pumped dry. Without the Ogallala Aquifer, America's heartland food production collapses.

The POINT is, Corporate would mvrder every single one of US by degrees, and ALREADY IS with GMO/HFCS/ECOLI. They DON'T CARE about the collective You, only their collective ME. Wall Street with a ball peen hammer.

First off when two cars collide, yes people can die but there is no contamination of a huge area

You do realize that for years the gasoline industry has been poluting the land and releasing MTBE (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methyl_tert-butyl_ether) into the ground water.

As for natural gas being a safer alternative to Nuclear energy, you might want to consult with some of the people who have had their wells explode because of the use of Hydraulic Fracturing (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing).

The safest nuclear energy is the nuclear energy from the SUN! DUHH!!

Ricky amd Rex, You both are so amusing. Touched a nerve huh?

Who is trying to carve the budget to the bone and then some, in an attempt to decrease the effectiveness of agencies that make sure that the rules and regulations are being followed and safe guards are in place?

You accuse me of being political and name calling and then turn around and do the same ..... perhaps you should re-read your messages...... I certainly did not use words like dingbats, nor am I calling your missives ... drivel etc LOL .

How typical of you lot....... always trying to point out someone elses faults while not seeing your own.

Durring normal operation a coal burning power plant releases more radioactive particles than a nuclear plant.

Ricky the key word is "releases". Nuclear releases absolutely no radiation into the environment when in use.

Where as coal, along with the small amount of radiation it produces, also throws massive amounts of CO2 and some mercury into the air under normal operation.

If you really want to solve this, not non-existent but definitely overblown, problem, call your Reps and start pushing for more investment into Fusion/Alternative/Renewable.

We will be "just plain safe" once designers are 100% sure they have covered the most possible and unlikely events that could cause something like this to occur.

People are blowing the circumstances way out of proportion. 9.0's do not happen ever day, they do not even happen every year. Plus the engineers probably never thought that there would be a tsunami big enough to kill those diesel generators or that the power could be off for more then a few days.

This whole event was a freakish act of nature, it is Japan's biggest and worst earthquake EVER. Chances are that something like this is not going to happen again for many, many decades because we had a perfect storm scenario.

That said I will agree that the weakest point of THESE reactors is coolant disruption. This event would have been avoided if they had planned ahead for this possibility. This is how science works, however. We build a device, give it all of the safety measures we think it will need to withstand as much as possible. When we are shown that there are incidents that can still cause problems then we find new solutions to keep something like that from happening again; this is the Scientific Method at work.

Thorium reactors have no chance of overheating as they use salts and other such material to absorb the heat instead of having to run coolant over the reactor (many have suggested we switch to these kinds of reactors).

All that said I hope that they can keep the reactors from going super-critical. If they cannot then Japan will be in worse shape because of any radiation that might be spread around.

GOPT,

There was no historical evidence to support a 9.0 earthquake or 30 foot tsunami in Japan. So yes, the statement that they never anticipated this is correct. This is how science works, you look at historical data and see what has happened in the past. The past is a brilliant indicator for future occurrences. When you calculate the data and come up with a solution that will deal with 98% of all events recorded in the past historical data you can then move forward with designing the devices that you want to withstand those types of events.

This event is WAY above the normal for Japan and it completely overwhelmed all of the precautions that were taken.

By the way, I happen to be a democrat who is environmentally conscious, I think we do not do enough to promote recycling and energy conservation and at the same time I know enough about how nuclear energy works to know that it is much saver 90% of the time then coal and oil based energy is all of the time.

Japan has 56 reactors operating currently and ever since all of these were commissioned none of them has faced this set of circumstances. Only 6 of those 56 reactors are facing problems and only then because the tsunami killed their backup coolant systems.

It is true that there should have been more thought into the coolant design but there will be many new safety measures taken in light of these current events.

If nuclear power is so safe and pure and wonderful, why is it regulated in secret, why is it controlled by monopolies, why is Cheney mandating construction of National Nuclear Reactors, built with the taxpayer's last life savings, then OPERATED FOR PROFIT WITH NO DIVIDENDS TO TAXPAYERS? Why are the designs reviews in secret for 'safety' (which same designs just FAILED at Sendai)?

'The Health Physics Society - an organization of more than 6,000 radiation scientists - has formally said that uranium mining can be done without adversely impacting public health or the environment.'

Oh really? And the 200,000 year so-radioactive-it-glows in the dark radwaste? Well, that's YOUR PROBLEM, American taxpayer! We salute you for massively tax subsidizing Corporate!

What makes a wind turbine safe? Within the last 12 months I read of a wind turbine's braking mechanism failing and the large blade being ripped off and landing a good distance from the unit.

What makes a hydroelectric dam safe? There have been many instances where dams have failed or where the reservoir level was increasing so outflow had to be increased, occasionally taking life and damaging property.

What makes coal safe? Other than the clear problems of CO2 and particulates being sent out into the atmosphere, there have been MANY cases of coal mines having explosions and killing many miners.

Solar is still a fairly new technology and I can't think of any issues regarding it so far...

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My point here is that nothing is ever "safe". Everything has it's risks and it's benefits. It's the balance of these that we have to work with. And in a situation where something outperforms it's design criteria, it's hard for me to say that the benefits (comparatively clean energy for millions) don't outweigh the risks (unlikely but still possible meltdown, nuclear waste that has to be stored forever, minor discharges of nuclear steam).

Compare that with anything people take for granted, or compare with the alternatives that are currently available...and then decide.

All the harm ever done to human health and the environment from your underpants, is a drop in the bucket compared to the damage done to your brain from drinking Sterno.

non sequitur - definition and examples of non sequitur - illogical ...

A fallacy in which a conclusion does not follow logically from what preceded it.

Marcher said,

"What makes a wind turbine safe? Within the last 12 months I read of a wind turbine's braking mechanism failing and the large blade being ripped off and landing a good distance from the unit."

Ahahahha, did you really just equate a fan blade 'landing a good distance from the unit' to 2 nuclear power plants melting down?

Yeah I sure hope we stay away from that dangerous wind power. And that dangerous solar too. I heard if you look at the solar panels the wrong way the glare from the sun can blind you!

There's a huge field of hundreds of fans powering Palm Springs, CA just fine. They even sell the excess power to Las Vegas, Phoenix and LA. In an earthquake they'll just fall over in the sand. Not turn people's lives into a radiation tortured hell.

Modern reactors cannot "catastrophically fail." The Japanese reactors are over 30 years old and have an outdated active cooling design. No cooling caused the core to become exposed igniting hydrogen causing an explosion. Moder designs like molten salt reactors are self-limiting and passively cooled. That is, if the coolant can't actually cool, for whatever reason, then metal cladding around the core expands allowing neutrons out into a larger containment area auto regulating the reaction down to a temperature that the coolant can handle. No coolant and you have no reaction because the core doesn't have the fuel necessary.

I'm over simplifying, but I think you get the point. Had this happened to a modern passive cooling reactor nothing would have happened. The problem with regulation of the nuclear industry means we can't build new reactors that are worlds safer instead have to stick with older designs that can't benefit from 30 years of nuclear technology.

Yeah, you are just so wrong, they are building BWRs right now in the US, it's an OLD, OLD design, but by Gar, it's Built in the USA, so stand proud and sing along with me,

"Oh, I'm proud to be an Radioactivan, where at least I know I'm FREE, and if I can find my keys in the dark, Radioactivan's done that for me! And if you STAND UP, and wave your flag above the Corporate graves, We're not Usury Serfs of America now, we're ... all ... just ... Corporates' ... SLAVES! "

Yeah, Go Team USA! (SFX que sound of fire works and oompah music)

I KNEW IT! The problem with nuclear reactors is that they are REGULATED by that same confused logic we should remove all cops from the street and crime will disappear too!

Most countries will reprocess the waste so there is very little left. President Carter outlawed reprocessing in America and it remains illegal today. Where they store what little is left I don't know. In the US we have the WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot/Project Plant) in Carlsbad, NM. It's a huge salt mine. Waste is driven down long corridors and unloaded. Over the coming millennia the salt will actually collapse locking the waste in solid salt formation forever.

And waste isn't necessarily liquid anymore. At the University of Denver they have developed a process that combines shards of glass with nuclear waste and placed under severe pressure and heat and out comes a small block of unspillable and easily managed waste.

I am surprised that GOPTR8ORS and the other idiot, Herman C haven't jumped all over your last post, Yeah?. They are off their game but I did have a laugh at their posts. Maybe their parents kicked them out of the basement or perhaps they are playing WoW.

They don't provide their own electricity. They have back up generators for when the power goes out. In this case they failed due to the tsunami.

Technically, the reactors do power themselves, and they are connected to the grid in case their own power generation is cut off. Add to that a backup set of diesel generators. Add to that a backup battery supply (to cover when refueling the diesel perhaps?). Unfortunately, due to excess confidence in protection against tsunamis, the diesel generators ended up underwater. The batteries were not designed to last a long time. So...this leads to a disaster.

This disaster wasn't necessarily caused because of the reactor but that was a factor. The design is over 30 years old and the plants have been in use for almost 30 as well. They're outdated. Modern reactors are passively cooled so the loss of power that happened here wouldn't even have harmed a modern design. Basically, it wasn't the technology that failed as much as the human operators for not updating (which can't really be done because the change it tech is too large) or replacing.

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G-d, I love the smell of napalm in the morning!

Perhaps you consider this to be a stupid way to boil water, but what alternative is there? You've already ruled out anything one would consider a fuel. So electricity then must be made without boiling water - I can live with that. Right now though, coal and natural gas and nuclear are the biggest ways to make electricity. Hydroelectric dams, wind turbines, and solar panels all have met huge resistance when they are being installed.

Personally, I think cars are a stupid way to transport people from one place to another. Almost everyone has a set of legs, and almost all of them can ride a bike. Need to travel farther? Ride your bike to a bus/train terminal or an airport. Then, take public transit. Unfortunately, too many people think it makes more sense to drive the gas-guzzling Hummer 500 yards to the convenience store to pick up a lottery ticket and a diet soda.

Tell that to TSA, which is deploying full radiation body scans in every airport and train station, and that's with ZERO protection to your gonads, or your children's gonads, or your unborn child's gonads.

Welcome to Three-Eyed Island, ...Web Foots of America Unite!

"Oh, I'm proud to be an Radioactivan, where at least I know I'm FREE, and if I can find my keys in the dark, Radioactivan's done that for me! And if you STAND UP, and wave your flag above the Corporate graves, We're not Usury Serfs of America now, we're ... all ... just ... Corporates' ... SLAVES! "

Yeah, Go Team USA! (SFX que sound of fire works and oompah music)

Marcher,

There are many ways to generate electricity and you named some of the renewables like hydro, solar and wind. These are met by resistance by those that have an interest in maintaining the status quo at the expense of our health and environment or are ignorant of all the issues? And then there’s tidal and wave generators that can harness the energy of the endless movement of the oceans.

If you can drill miles to get petroleum or natural gas, you can also drill down to get geothermal heat that can also generate electricity. Heat can also be used to drive a conductive fluid through a fixed magnetic field and generate electricity via the MHD (magneto-hydrodynamics) process. There are also other more esoteric phenomena I won’t get into that have the potential for electrical generation.

If we invested stopped subsidizing the nuclear, coal, oil and gas industries and spent those billions on the development of these alternate forms of electrical energy generation, we would be there in a decade or two. It’s not the lack of energy solutions, but rather the political will to do what’s best for the people of this planet, not the politicians and the entrenched industries they protect that are destroying our environment for profit and power.

carmine, turn off your computer, you are using fossil or nuclear fuel to power it. Bad boy! Maybe you can get a bike generator and power your computer that way. It might get a bit stuffy in your parent's basement but I bet it would be worth it to you to get on the Internet.

Hear hear!

Screw ideological "science" and the dinosaurs some of them claim man rode into town on 6000 years ago.

Marcher

Your comments about legs, bikes, public transit are the first of yours I've read that I agree with. Maybe that method is more useful in major metropolitan areas but it is true. You don't have to shell out 500-900 total a month (payment + insurance + gas + registration) just to drive a car. What a terrible investment for a significant portion of an average person's total monthly income.

Airport to airport you could experience every major city that way.

Carmine

I think your last sentences are the most important in your post. It makes absolutely zero sense to subsidize billion and trillion dollar energy companies that don't need it. Do people honestly think if we stopped giving them free corporate welfare they'd choose to stop doing their trillion dollar business with us?

It's blithering stupidity to use those billions for subsidy instead of investing in our country. It's like that saying the right loves to use when they slander all liberals as being unemployed:

"There's the makers and the takers."

We made that tax money and those billion dollar energy companies are most most assuredly takers. Fat parasites sucking up our free tax money and then sucking up money the other way from our wallets. And no. I have no idea how to get past their huge lobby buying up our officials.

Unfortunately without the ridiculous consumerism in this country the rest of the world would still be running around in loin cloths scratching out a bare subsistence out of the soil. The avarice that you point out is the engine that provides the rest of the world with jobs.

the Dude - Not sure if you live in an island which uses total renewable energy, to isolate Americans. It is a collective responsibility not one country's alone. This is like blaming the densely populated regions of the world for a potential food crises. I hope the leaders don't cave in to the lobbyists when decisions are made, but not happening.

Johnny Q - Umm.. I am think the rest of the world will be fine without our consumerism. The world did fine pre 70's. We'll see how much purchasing power we'll have once the dollar craps out. Also what will I do with a job in say a contaminated region/world.

Uranium is limited, but modern reactors are being designed around future use of Thorium which requires no enrichment, burns hotter, is much cheaper, and extremely plentiful.

(sorry if this is a double or triple post)

The Dude, How about we Americans keep our "ridiculous consumerism" and we, Americans, allow the rest of the world continue to kill each other and when something like Haitian or Japanese earthquakes happen, let them fend for themselves. Seems like a great trade off to me!

The Dude abides.

Also, it was a nice rug. It really tied the room together.

Look up 'oxymoron' then 'non sequitor'... your argument blows chunks:

"Oh, I'm proud to be an Radioactivan, where at least I know I'm FREE,

and if I can find my keys in the dark, Radioactivan's done that for me!

And if you STAND UP, and wave your flag above the Corporate graves,

We're not Usury Serfs of America now, we're ... all ... just ... Corporates' ... SLAVES! "

Yeah, Go Team USA! (SFX que sound of fire works and oompah music)

irrert, put down the Kool Aid and take off your tin foil helmet!

Actually you can't 'quake proof' a nuclear reactor. Sorry you are wrong.

You can only 'quake proof' statistically, to the best 'soft' science evaluation of seismic probability (which will now have to be 'reassessed' after Sendai), then built into design-by-committee Codes which again use probabilistic methods, blathered away by 'overall constructibility costs and practical concerns' ... the reason so many recently-built structures were destroyed by the Northridge quake. Actually, it was DESIGN CODE FLAWS ITSELF that caused many of the Northridge building failures.

It's all just probabilistics. Craap shooting. Then if the contractors build it like craap, and the inspectors turn a blind eye and fake the weld certs, as we know they ALWAYS DO, then the regulators smudge over and white out any last lingering process failure doubts, ...GO FOR POWER UP, CHALLENGER!!!

And that's your BEST CASE scenario, before Corporate gets their sticky fingers on running the plant.

'Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the ....................................................................................
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G-d, I love the smell of napalm in the morning!

My dad was a union pipefitter and he travelled all over this country working on nuclear plants and missile silos. Every night when he came home, he told horror stories of the shoddy workmanship of the people he worked with. The men working on those things were basically uneducated with minimal skills even in their crafts. GE may have designed the reactors, but hundreds of contractors actually carried out the work. Yes, I'm sure there was inspection, but I'm not sure you could even trust that. Once again, I ask the question--where do we, as human beings, get the arrogance to believe that we can harness something as devastating as nuclear energy? And why did we even try?