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Crusader

Pushing For Nuclear Power Alternatives?

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I saw a commercial earlier today promoting nuclear power in Canada. It seemed like every second they kept telling me it was safe and them I remembered Chernobyl and how Vancouver is a nuclear free zone.

 

Woah. I'd take coal over nuclear power.

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I wouldn't. It has its problems, but they all do. I've never had a problem with nuclear power in general...considering the number of reactors out there, the single catastrophic Chernobyl incident isn't all that bad a track record...percentage wise, anyway. That was an experiment gone wrong. I'm waiting to see nuclear powered civilian cruise chips...

 

Oddly enough, Toshiba's been working on a miniature fission plant which allegedly cannot melt down.

 

http://hyvin.nukku.net/no/toshiba.html

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well, there is Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, other then that there hasnt been a major accident. as long as power plants are run well, and are safe, i have nothing against nuclear power. i just hope that they find a safe way to dispose the nuclear waste, because my family already gotten sick from it. There was a nuclear waste dump in Port Hope in Ontario and it was near my mom's cusin's house, a few of them got cancer from it. Nuclear power is cheap to make, and safe if done right. Untill we get onto the solar and wind bandwagon fully, i am still for nuclear power.

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i see both sides of the nuclear power debate. one hand its efficient, powerful, and cleaner than most, but i wouldn't feel that comfortale with a nuke plant in my city. It is also another target for terrorists.

 

I definately think nuke plants shouldn't be in any major cities. They should build almost entirely underground, that would make them a lot safer i'd think.

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i see both sides of the nuclear power debate. one hand its efficient, powerful, and cleaner than most, but i wouldn't feel that comfortale with a nuke plant in my city. It is also another target for terrorists.

 

I definately think nuke plants shouldn't be in any major cities. They should build almost entirely underground, that would make them a lot safer i'd think.

Pussy.

 

Until you've had to constantly deal with those pain in the ass consent to take iodide pill forms every single school year, you don't know how great it is living within fallout distance of a nuclear facility.

 

And no, it's not a target for terrorists. Since when did they become the overseers of our urban planning? If nuclear power stations were targets for terrorists, why wasn't one hit on Sept. 11th? It's not as though it couldn't be done.

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Chernobyl was a disaster because it was a shitty, cheaply made soviet reactor.

They have tested CANDU (Canada Deuterium Uranium) reactors by flying airliners into dummy reactors, which are literally unscathed afterwards.

 

The problem with Chernobyl was the Soviets used the BARE MINIMUM concrete around the reactor thought to be safe (the USSR was cheap on everything). Modern reactors use like 20X the required thickness. I did a project on CANDU in grade 12.

 

The problem is the social stigma around nuclear power, when really technology has advanced so much they are as safe (nearly as safe?) as any other power technology. The waste is still an issue though.

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The other problem with Chenobyl was that when it had to be shut down at night, it had to shut all the way down before being started back up again. Then, some idiot called the place and said that it needed to be started up again for a test of some sort when it was in the middle of shutting down. Big mistake.

 

Candu reactors are the safest in the world. Three Mile Island didn't release any radiation.

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Three Mile Island didn't release any radiation.

True.

 

I also think that the Simpsons has led to a lot of nuclear fear.

 

A lot needs to be invested in renewable energy sources. Get people to start putting solar panels on their rooves, and you have a great way to reduce the strain on the electricity grid. More wind farms! And so forth. Those are obviously not as reliable as nuclear power, but it's not as though anyone will be hurt by the use of solar and wind power. One of the main ways serious energy requirements can be met though solar power is through the mass placement of solar panels on roofs in urban/suburban areas. It wouldn't hurt to advertise the fact tax credits and saving on your energy bill are in store if you choose to install one on your roof. Obviously they're not cheap to install, but the price of the technology is coming down. And hey, the government could always pay people a certain amount for the priveledge of letting their homes become part of a massive solar energy farm. It could work.

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Nuclear disaster and contamination seems to be pretty much always a direct symptom of mismanagement.

 

Solar panel farms in plains/unused desert areas...particularly those which track the sun...seeme like a good idea. But it's hard to say what the cost is, really. At least not until it's been used fairly widespread for a while...

 

Same with massive wind turbines, since those invariably get stressed into self destruction after a fairly specific number of years. That, and the wildlife people get to face off with the clean power people when the turbines chop up a flock of migrating birds. Ahhh, environmentalists at war...

 

Now there's also the Tokamak fusion test reactor. From what I understand, they got the thing to work, too, some years ago...so I'm not entirely sure what the holdup is in building full-scale fusion plants. Thermally self-limiting, no chain reaction a la fission...etc.

 

After a small amount of research, it looks like ITER is suggesting they could have a plasma fusion reactor ready in...ten more years. Bah. I want my cheap and limitless power NOW.

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I think one thing that should be kept in mind about nuclear energy is that while it is touted as a clean source of energy, it's only in the creation of the energy that it doesn't create pollution. You've got to remember you have to mine, transport and enrich the Uranium in the first place to get energy from it.

 

Article about nuclear

 

In the US, where much of the world's uranium is enriched, including Australia's, the enrichment facility at Paducah, Kentucky, requires the electrical output of two 1000-megawatt coal-fired plants, which emit large quantities of carbon dioxide, the gas responsible for 50per cent of global warming.

 

In fact, the nuclear fuel cycle utilizes large quantities of fossil fuel at all of its stages - the mining and milling of uranium, the construction of the nuclear reactor and cooling towers, robotic decommissioning of the intensely radioactive reactor at the end of its 20 to 40-year operating lifetime, and transportation and long-term storage of massive quantities of radioactive waste.

 

And just for the record, the commercials I've seen in the last couple months are mindless fluff if they're the same ones which simply flash the words "clean, safe and cheap" on the screen.

Edited by daniel_v
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I read somewhere a creation of a wind generator that floats like a blimp and is tethered by the power cord. Can't remember the specifics but I do remember that it produced a lot of power, now as far as I know no one has created it as of yet...but a guy in the Ottawa area invented the idea and is in the process of building a prototype.

 

My mom's Fiancee is always talking about getting some type of Wind generator on top of his business building. Like he has said, you can always sell back the excess power that you generate back to the city...in the long run your investment would pay for itself. Since the world revolves around money...this makes the most sense.

 

EDIT: Did a quick research in this...found the company that I was talking about Magenn

Edited by Azalroth
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There's the high-atmosphere blimps...they've had the same idea involving solar panels. And again with a space-borne solar farm, either enormous mirrors reflecting light 24 hours a day to a ground-based solar collector, or collection in space, and then microwave beam transfers of that power to a ground station.

 

Which in my mind raises the military applications of a space-based, earth-striking energy weapon...or at least a shorter-ranged threat to other satelites, maybe an SDI defence kinda deal...ICBMs and such.

 

But again, the issue is really figuring out how much other, less clean power is used to manufacture these solutions. They've got the same problem trying to figure out if Biodiesel and Ethanol fuels are actually cleaner - since they use so much fossil fuel during the processing, the conmtrustion of facilities, etc.

 

Then of course you've got your tidal/wave generators, hydroelectric, and geothermal.

 

In any case, I want an orbital weapons platform.

Edited by Sparq
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