Does Nuclear Power Carry An Acceptable Risk?

[Minstrel SE]

Hi

I have just watched the dome going over the Chernobyl reactor which is an incredible feat of human engineering in the face of adversity. However it has reminded me that I dont consider Nuclear power to be an acceptable or safe form of energy creation.

I think I am 100% right in that we should never have been creating enriched Uranium/plutonium (or whatever it is 235...238) which is so dangerous to us and so dangerous to dispose of. I know there is natural radiation in the universe but the natural ecosystem of this planet developed on the basis that a load of Humans werent going to come along and start messing with gamma rays on that level. Its just polluting the planet and the Chernobyl exclusion zone is a deeply sinister example of how we are destroying our own planet. A Half life of thousands of years + is not something we should be messing with.

They sent people in to clear up in the name of duty who were clearly going to die as a result. The long term effects of radiation is still being monitored as people live on contaminated land.

In my view Nuclear power plants should all be decommissioned, no new ones built and we should be concentrating on power generation that is safe for the planet.

What do you think? The anti nuclear prostesters are clearly right. lets have a debate on this

[Ali Tait]

Curious to know how you see the Human race meeting it's future energy needs then?

[walpurgis]

Curious to know how you see the Human race meeting it's future energy needs then?

It would be nice to see a concerted effort made to radically reduce energy needs. There is some, like more fuel efficient transport, better insulated buildings, better means of utilising fossil fuels and the like. But it's nowhere near enough.

[narabdela]

Q: Does Nuclear Power Carry An Acceptable Risk?

A: Yes.

[Minstrel SE]

Curious to know how you see the Human race meeting it's future energy needs then?

Yes we will brush over that one....every home could have a log burning stove.

Seriously however I dont consider massive errors like Chernobyl as an acceptable trade off. A 3Ok exclusion zone and contamination of large parts of Europe because a reactor blew up. Japanese reactors in a Tsunami zone! Welsh land declared as unsafe because we dont have a safe energy policy!

[struth]

as much as im all for alternative methods and on efficiencies without nuclear we will all be living in very cold, dark houses. I say all, but it will only be the strong... the rest will have been disposed of

[Minstrel SE]

Yes its a heavy subject but that Chernobyl programme moved me. I wont usually start these heavy subjects on here and there doesnt seem much alternative for the power generation we need. Hydro electric, wind and solar just wont do it on the scale needed. Im not sure where we are with coal and oil fired.

I would like to see alternative methods. Surely we should be able to come up with something that doesnt involve creating and dumping nuclear waste. They said coal was dirty and bad for the environment but where is all that nuclear waste going...are they still dumping it at sea?

Anyway Chernobyl..... what a disaster based on flawed systems and human error.

It was good to see workers from all over the world creating that dome though and its quite something to be working in a radiation zone. Its very clever that they are using robot cranes in the dome and I wonder if they will clean up the surrounding area with robot machines and bulldozers in future. All that contaminated forest and land is tragic

[jandl100]

The elephant in this particular room that hasn't been mentioned is population growth.
There are simply more of us than the planet can sustain. In terms of food production and energy needs etc.
I can't properly recall, and I can't be bothered to look it up at the moment!, but I think a sustainable population for our little blue dot is about 2 billion.
We are currently heading for 10.

We either limit ourselves and stop behaving like demented rabbits or "Nature" will do it for us.

[alphaGT]

The whole reason nuclear power plants were created was to make the bomb grade uranium the government’s needed for their nuclear arsenals. The first nuclear bomb was made of uranium, and the government built a plant to filter out the 238 they needed. A huge monstrous facility in Tennessee that cost a billion dollars in the 1940’s that employed thousands of people, just to make enough uranium to make one bomb. And it took over 6 months to make enough for the one bomb. The next thing you know, they are selling the public on this wonderful clean power of the future. Pushing the cost of making the bomb grade uranium off on the public! Nuclear power is the most expensive electricity ever made, and the waste material is the worst pollutant ever made. Not to mention the cost of keeping it out of the wrong hands. And as mentioned, accidents are real disasters! Almost impossible to recover from. If the money spent on nuclear research had been spent on hydrogen fuel cells or solar and wind power, perhaps those sciences would be up to par to compete with fossil fuels and nuclear power by now? How much of the research in these fields has been bought up and hidden by the oil companies?

If someone invented a generator that ran on water that could power the average home and car, and was affordable, it would cause wars and famine and possibly the end of the world! For attempting to change the status quo, all the people in the Middle East who’s income revolves around the sale of oil, the large part of the world’s money invested in these fossil fuel markets, stock markets would crash, entire regions would starve, wars would break out world wide. And chances are someone in a black suit would come around and kill the inventor before it got out of hand. Maybe it’s already happened?


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[NickB]

It would be nice to see a concerted effort made to radically reduce energy needs. There is some, like more fuel efficient transport, better insulated buildings, better means of utilising fossil fuels and the like. But it's nowhere near enough.

No more Valve amps then, Class D only.