Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

I think we all pretty much have grasped this, natural gas is running out. It will eventually, and it truly is time to switch into different sources of energy. I personally believe in nuclear energy, specifically fusion.

Pollution
Nuclear energy is very clean, as it does not release many pollutants, and the largest waste product is steam. Obviously, this is only if it is properly cared for, as virtually every plant (other than those in Russia, which I will discuss in the next section) is far more secure than any other energy plant.

Safety
Nuclear power is the best place to work at if you are looking to work in the energy production field. There is an average of eight fatalities per year, which is literally ten times better than that of the second safest field (natural gas, at 85 fatalities per year). Terrorist attacks are near impossible to actually work sans a mole, since the area of a plant where the nuclear material is kept is virtually impregnable, both due to human guard and the extreme radiation, which can quickly kill any would be terrorist. Also, nuclear proliferation is difficult, as weapons grade and energy grade uranium have far different (energy grade is 4% pure, while Little Boy was 80%)

Cost
This is where nuclear plants get iffy. Overall, nuclear is one of the cheapest sources of energy. But initial investments are not attractive, as it is significantly most costly to set up a plant compared to that of coal. But the actual fuel for nuclear plants is far cheaper than coal (not to mention more abundant). So overall, natural gas is more expensive, but has better initial profit.

Health issues
Probably the most misinformed of all the issues for nuclear power. There is no increase of any kind of cancer if you live near a power plant. Other then a meltdown (which virtually never happens compared to other industry accidents, compare meltdowns to oil spills). There are leaks into water supplies, but these are so rare, and more importantly, so insignificant (No one was affected, apparently due to the fact it leaked so far below the water).

Overall, I feel nuclear power needs to be considered and implemented in many countries, what are your thoughts?

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GENGHIS KHAN!!!!!

Nuclear power is a very good option when it comes to a good, cheap source of electrical energy. There is a problem with waste, though.
Right now, we just don't have any good disposal options. There's Yucca Mountain, but as far as I know it's STILL not operational (after 20 or so years and several billion dollars).

Nuclear Fusion would be the best option, but there's a lot to do before that becomes viable as a commercial source of electricity.

Wind power is semi-reliable (it works when the wind's blowing).

Solar power is a good idea, provided the efficiencies of solar cells and storage systems can be improved.

Dams are good choices, provided you don't have excess droughts. They are, however TERRIBLE for ecosystems, so it's desirable to upgrade existing dams.

The fossil-fuel based systems are reliable, cheap, and work well, but with supplies running out (it's not quite "OMG, we're gonna run out tomorrow!!", but it's worth thinking about), and possible increased restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions (supposedly, Bush's State of the Union is going to indicate that he's bought into Global Warming, hook, line, and sinker) it's probably a good idea to work on alternatives.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

You sure you mean fusion? Your entire post talks about fission power.

Anyway, I've always thought nuclear power got a bad rap. For better or for worse, though, that bad reputation is probably here to stay. I think the future looks bright for fusion, though.

- Kef

Yeah, Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island kinda screwed over public opinion of nuclear power. For some moronic reason, whenever something messes up people would rather leave it alone than attempt to fix what went wrong.

The switch to nuclear has to happen sometime. Personally, I find it a litte shocking that we're still almost entirely dependent on fossil fuels...

yeah, with the fossil fuel situation, I'd say as long as we've learned from the previous meltdowns and have a way to securely dispose of the really really bad waste (or know we will be able to have that way ready soon), we should go for it. We should still do solar as much as possible, but some nuclear could really help right now. Really, the only problem is actually investing in nuclear waste disposal instead of twiddling our thumbs about it and NIMBYing it to death.

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Erm, it sorta sounds like you were paid to say all that good stuff about nuclear power.

And you left the IMPORTANT part out of the "Safety" bit: NUCLEAR FREAKING MELTDOWNS.

Still, I think nuclear power is a definite possibility for the future. Well, it's already in use now, but... not really, you know? Mostly just on The Simpsons, really.

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So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain. Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?

The problem at Chernobyl can be directly related to human operators. More specifically, the circumvention of safety protocols.

At TMI, the problem was caused by a series of minor mechanical failures (mainly sensors), but was exacerbated by operators who misinterpreted information from the sensors that still worked.

In both cases, human activities contributed to what happened. Chernobyl was totally preventable. The problems with TMI have been fixed with backup systems and additional sources of information for operators.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Problem with nuclear power plants is that when something goes wrong, something goes wrong. The land around a plant after a meltdown is contaminated for decades.

That's what bothers me, personally.

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That's not entirely so. There have been many "somethings" going wrong at nuclear plants in America. Almost always, though, the plants have been built with those "somethings" going wrong and safety systems kick in.


link
Scroll down to NRC incident reports.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Okay, what I mean by "something going wrong" is complete meltdown and failures of these systems".

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True. Their "worst case scenario" is far worse than that "worst case scenario" for something like a coal fired power plant.

Of course, the safety systems never fail. The only time they don't work is when humans intentionally circumvent them.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

I do believe fusion is the most viable, but the main reason why I cited mainly fission based power is because it is the easiest to create and maintain. Fusion is better, but fission is probably the one most people associate when it comes to nuclear power.

And nuclear meltdowns are RARE. There have been two complete core meltdowns (Three Mile Island and Chernobyl). The most recent of which happened in 1986. Technology has advanced, and complete core meltdowns, while still an extremely dangerous possibility, are not nearly as likely as people think they are.

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GENGHIS KHAN!!!!!

You never hear about all the nuclear plants that don't blow up...

Three Mile Island was actually only a partial meltdown. It wasn't anywhere near the scale of Chernobyl.

I actually don't like lumping fission and fusion together into "nuclear power", partly because what's involved in the two is entirely different (other than the direct manipulation of atoms), and because of the heavily negative connotations of "nuclear". I think it was these forums which once gave me a link to an article by (or about) Greenpeace rejecting nuclear fusion and most of its reasons had to do with false analogy with fission. Their argument could probably be reduced to something like this:

Greenpeace: This has all the downsides of nuclear fission.
Me: On what grounds?
Greenpeace: Uh... hellooo, it's nuclear! Nuclear stuff is always like that. Trust us. We know.

I'm not a big fan of replacing unfavorable words with more favorable ones (it's not "overthrowing the government", it's a "regime change"!), but here I think I'd make a rare exception.

- Kef

Oh, I know nuclear fusion and fission is far different (sorry if that came off a bit jerkish, I am too tired to make that sound better ). And I don't get why environmental groups oppose nuclear power. It helps with the ozone, gets us off our dependance on oil, and promotes other renewable energy :/

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GENGHIS KHAN!!!!!

Chernobyl wasn't actually a meltdown, either, was it? From the way I understand, the steam explosion blew the building apart and shot the core out all over the place before the meltdown could actually take place.
I could be wrong, though.
Kef, you're right, fission != fusion.

Fusion, while wonderful, isn't something that has much commercial use. The reactions are too hard to contain and too short lived for any value, unless they've somehow overcome these and I haven't heard about it.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Well, they're building ITER. Now I remember that it was reading about that where Greenpeace basically went "LOL FUSION IS NUCLEAR" (their actual quote is in the "Criticism" section). Once it's built, we'll see whether it's viable.

- Kef

According to Wikipedia, it was considered a meltdown. Whether it was a meltdown or not, though, it did permanently damage many and cause dhundreds of thousands to evacuate the city forever.

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i watched a documentary on Chernobyl. apparently the workers were really pushing it's capacities. that's what caused problems.

Western Australia has a large uranium site (FYI, my grandad was a geologist, and he discovered it) but the minister, or the prime minister doesn't want to get involved. so it's all underground, China wants it, but they won't sell it to them.

an interesting fact i heard, when Electricity was the biggest thing, everyone had the same reaction. it was dangerous, and only bad could follow. now everyone uses it.

just my thoughts.

Chernobyl and Three Mile island were BOTH issues of human error/shoddy workmanship (done by humans).

my point is that the technology of fission itself is actually pretty safe, but human error and auxiliary problems like broken meters are more dangerous than the technology itself.

i would love to see fusion, but its about a couple decades behind where it should be since its research was canned a while back, and now they're starting reaaally slow on making it work.

I'll look for it later, because i have to go, but i listened to an NPR program about MIT developing a new type of fusion reactor that doesn't use a core, instead it uses a series of balls of material in a tank that is nearly meltdown-proof (because there isn't enough material in a large enough piece to go all KABLOOEY)

I kinda think E80 Ethonol is the future; of course, there aren't that many E80 pumps around where I live...

I don't think Nuclear energy would be the best energy source, there are too many risks involved, such as radiation leakage, over-enrichment, and of course terrorism,(As in terrorists blowing up a house or building running on nuclear power). Terrorists have been able to make a nuclear IED using a home fire-alarm.

All of theese are cause for worry, but if there is a way to protect the plants and homes from this kind of terrorism, then by all means, its the future.[size=0]PS, Im not writing with lulz because its early in the morning, and I haven't had my coffee yet.[/size]

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Having lived off of the power of a nuclear power plant for over half of a life, I really trust nuclear power. My old teacher once took a tour around the power plant, with the tour guide carryinf around a geiger counter, and it didn't go off once. Seriously, everything is guarded bu three foot thick lead walls.

Of course, fusion would be awesome. No waste and lots of power (if simcity 300 has taught me correctly )

Well, Chernobyl's plant was designed badly. Human error just made that problem worse. If you don't design a plant like Chernobyl, and you do it right, it's much less likely that you'll get another Chernobyl.

I'm not so sure about Three Mile Island, but my hunch is that its design was faulty, too.

It's also telling that in all the years that we've had nuclear power, there have only been two major incidents, both of them decades ago.



I don't think meltdowns were ever a real concern with fusion reactors. The materials used in fusion are completely harmless, so even in a worst-case scenario you won't have dangerous fallout everywhere. About the worst that could happen is the destruction of the plant, and even that isn't very likely. I think fusion reactors can be (and are) designed so that if anything goes out of control, the whole thing just stops.

- Kef

Chernobyl in itself was poorly designed because it was a dual use reactor. The Soviets used it for both power and to harness the waste products for bombs. The world uses single use reactors which are just for energy. So really, only one major accident has happened with reactors the world uses currently.

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GENGHIS KHAN!!!!!