Nuclear Polyticks

[Ruddertail]

Nev - I believe windy is suggesting more nuclear power for the US, not giving it to totalitarian or terror supporting regimes.

How does France to their nuclear? Government supported?

[windhound]

Yep Rudder. I'm talking about US plants, not building them for North Korea et all.

My rational with Duke is that they have the money and a beautiful campus to protect, yet their coal plant still pumps out the ick.

'Sealed' is a relative word.
Blocking the entrances so that people cant get in and mess with stuff is good.
Pumping cement (or equiv) down the holes and encasing the waste would be silly and cost quite a bit of cash
I'm guessing that they're going to block off the entrances once the mountain is full. If a future generation wants to remove these blocks it should be relatively trivial.

A major earthquake would be unfortunate, but I'll have to put some trust in the designers of this thing. I'm sure its being built to sustain a certain amount of damage. All the buildings in a city dont collapse now every time an earthquake hits, we've gotten some decent tech that allows them to weather it. Why wouldn't the same sort of ideas be built into the design of the mountain's interior?
Many people with years and year of experience have been working on this thing, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
I'll freely admit that if this thing was within 50 miles of me I might feel different, but I'm a safe distance and from what I know about it its alright. The waste has to go somewhere, unless you're for launching it into space or sealing it and dumping it in the oceans. Out of sight out of mind.

And yes. I'll support giving some cash to the energy companies so that they can dispose of their waste in a sane manner. Again, the government throws money at everything. Throwing it at something that benefits everyone is fine, keeps the cost of energy down.
You act like there's an unlimited cheap supply of coal and that dumping crap into the atmosphere isn't an issue, that people /want/ wind turbines on their beaches, /want/ hydroelectric power on their rivers they use for boating and fishing, that Solar is entirely efficient enough to cover the slack.
They're not. Nuclear is a fairly clean power. Its waste is entirely contained. It produces a very nice amount of power. Its what we've got and its working very well for other countries like France.
Its not the ideal energy source, but we dont have one yet. Nuclear is necessary while work is done on the alternatives and I still cant see why people are so OH NO NUCLEAR about it.

[Gen. Volkov]

*Pokes topic with ten foot pole* Didn't I already have this debate?

[bjornredtail]

Of course we did... It's just my duty as a native Nevadan to defend my state every time it comes up.

My rational with Duke is that they have the money and a beautiful campus to protect, yet their coal plant still pumps out the ick.

That's why the invented the smokestack... Simply lift the particulate matter and the like off the ground far enough, and the winds will blow it away.

That, and a lot of money for research != a lot of money for facilities. Particularly boring stuff like power plants. Additionally, Is Duke particularly known for Engineering and research related to engineering?

A major earthquake would be unfortunate, but I'll have to put some trust in the designers of this thing. I'm sure its being built to sustain a certain amount of damage. All the buildings in a city dont collapse now every time an earthquake hits, we've gotten some decent tech that allows them to weather it. Why wouldn't the same sort of ideas be built into the design of the mountain's interior?
Many people with years and year of experience have been working on this thing, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I'm not a civil engineer... Somehow I don't think you either. That being said, I can think of no technology that can prevent the facility from being sheered apart if it was built across a fault line.

I'll freely admit that if this thing was within 50 miles of me I might feel different, but I'm a safe distance and from what I know about it its alright. The waste has to go somewhere, unless you're for launching it into space or sealing it and dumping it in the oceans. Out of sight out of mind.

So, my home is a wasteland so it doesn't really matter... Right.

And yes. I'll support giving some cash to the energy companies so that they can dispose of their waste in a sane manner. Again, the government throws money at everything. Throwing it at something that benefits everyone is fine, keeps the cost of energy down.
You act like there's an unlimited cheap supply of coal and that dumping crap into the atmosphere isn't an issue, that people /want/ wind turbines on their beaches, /want/ hydroelectric power on their rivers they use for boating and fishing, that Solar is entirely efficient enough to cover the slack.
They're not. Nuclear is a fairly clean power. Its waste is entirely contained. It produces a very nice amount of power. Its what we've got and its working very well for other countries like France.

Well, it doesn't really benefit everyone... It benefits those operating the plants. If we simply wanted to keep costs down, why not subsidize domestic drilling for oil and gas? What if we were to drive down the cost of gas... None of the drawbacks of nuclear, none of the pollution of coal. Would there be something wrong with that? Of course, someday we are going to run out.... Of course, couldn't the same be said of nuclear fuel?

Similarly, you have not mentioned anything about geothermal either...

[windhound]

^^did we? missed it I must have
The point of this topic wasnt really to debate the merits of nuclear vs. alts, but to see why people feared it so much. Its expanded on its original point, but its interesting all the same.

Geothermal nev? Really? There's not a whole lot of places in the US that could use Geothermal, to my knowledge.

You miss the point of Duke
Duke is all about looking good. Its buildings are beautiful, people pay a small fortune to go to college there. The med center.. well. "In the 2005 fiscal year, Duke University Medical Center received the fifth-largest amount of funding from the National Institute of Health, netting $349.8 million" A few extra bucks thrown at the coal plant so it doesnt look like crap is nothing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_University

I said I'd have to put my trust in the designers of that thing. If I was a CE I might be more informed to beable to look at what they've published and make a semi-educated decision. But I'm not. I'm Electrical, so I have to /trust/ that they know what they're doing.

So, my home is a wasteland so it doesn't really matter... Right.

I never said that.

Well, it doesn't really benefit everyone... It benefits those operating the plants. If we simply wanted to keep costs down, why not subsidize domestic drilling for oil and gas? What if we were to drive down the cost of gas... None of the drawbacks of nuclear, none of the pollution of coal. Would there be something wrong with that? Of course, someday we are going to run out.... Of course, couldn't the same be said of nuclear fuel?

It benefits those that own the plant, who very likely do not operate the plant.
Oil and gas are destructive, and much of our supplies are located in Alaska, correct? People throw a fit when the prospect of drilling in Alaska is talked about. But then, they're not drilling in Nevada, so you dont care.. is that what you're saying?
Who told you gas was clean? Every time I start my truck I see the exhaust poof out the tail pipe. Its spewing crap into the atmosphere. Less than coal, sure. But to my knowledge there's not a whole lot of petrol-powered electric power plants...
Yes. We'll run out of everything at some point. Note I also said Nuclear is what we have for now. I hope we get a good, more renewable less polluting power plant design somewhere in the future. But nuclear seems the best we've got at the present.

[bjornredtail]

I meant gas as in natural gas not gas as in gasoline.

Oil and gas are destructive, and much of our supplies are located in Alaska, correct? People throw a fit when the prospect of drilling in Alaska is talked about. But then, they're not drilling in Nevada, so you dont care.. is that what you're saying?

Not sure about gas, but there is shale oil in the eastern half of the state. If we could recover it, I would be all in favor of drilling it. At least the drilling equipment has no chance to render huge tracts of land useless or kill lots of people if something breaks.

[Gen. Volkov]

Of course we did... It's just my duty as a native Nevadan to defend my state every time it comes up.

*laughs*, right then.

^^did we? missed it I must have

Yeah, at least once.

[The Beatles]

How does France to their nuclear? Government supported?

As far as I understand, the usual financing for nuclear plants is by the government first announcing that there will indeed be a demand for them when they are built, then writing out requirements for which a consortium or consortia of private companies bid. These then finance it and build it and can profit from it. The government of course heavily regulates all steps of the process. This is no different from how airports are constructed, and it is true all over the world.

[The Beatles]

How does France to their nuclear? Government supported?

As far as I understand, the usual financing for nuclear plants is by the government first announcing that there will indeed be a demand for them when they are built, then writing out requirements for which a consortium or consortia of private companies bid. These then finance it and build it and can profit from it. The government of course heavily regulates all steps of the process. This is no different from how airports are constructed, and it is true all over the world.

That's why the invented the smokestack... Simply lift the particulate matter and the like off the ground far enough, and the winds will blow it away.

I don't know what you mean to imply, but the particulate matter, no matter how far it is blown away, will still have an environmental impact. So will, more pertinently, the CO2 released.

Well, I'm thinking of a combination of worst case scenarios that might not be far off. A major earthquake destroys human access to the site, as well as the storage containers. Then a major storm washes the pulverized waste into the aquafers. Wells as north as the Walker Lake drainage would start pumping radioactive material, rendering the water there useless. Entire communities are wiped off the map as a result of lack of water, and the ranching industry is never able to return.

Earthwake? Not where they want to put it. A major storm? I'd like to see the one that can blow material buried so deeply in such containers.

Not to mention storage isn't where it's at. Reprocessing is. The UK, France, and Japan do this, so they have very few problems with storage. The US, bizarrely enough, chooses to store its materials, which is politically and energetically less optimal.

[bjornredtail]

The entire western end of the state is quite geologically active... So, a major earthquake is a quite likely possibility.

I don't know what you mean to imply, but the particulate matter, no matter how far it is blown away, will still have an environmental impact. So will, more pertinently, the CO2 released.

The idea is that pollution from the power plant wouldn't negatively impact the local area in either case, so protecting campus beauty wouldn't be a reason to modernize the pollution controls on the plant. That is assuming the plant is quite dirty to begin with, which I wouldn't know.

I really don't see what CO₂ has to do with this. It has no real environmental impact, being colorless, odorless and harmless.

[Freenhult]

"The entire western end of the state is quite geologically active... So, a major earthquake is a quite likely possibility."

Thats not from say, large scale faults enduring heavy pressure. Magmatic quakes aren't that severe. At least not much past a 4 I'd assume. Even so, I haven't seen/heard much about an earthquake threat in that area much of late.

"I really don't see what CO2 has to do with this. It has no real environmental impact, being colorless, odorless and harmless."

Uh. WOW Bjorn. Have you not read a thing about Climate Change recently? CO2 is the MAIN reason why the Earth is warming. It pertains because you're talking about why Nuclear is bad because of the solid waste, and Windy is talking about Coal being WORSE because of the air pollutants, such as CO2, Acid rain, and other sulfates being released that should

[bjornredtail]

Uh. WOW Bjorn. Have you not read a thing about Climate Change recently? CO2 is the MAIN reason why the Earth is warming.

Oh really... Forgive me, but a lot of well educated folks doing research in the field disagree with that statement.

Admittedly a bit old (2003) senate resolution:
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:Lvapkgrk2yIJ:www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/2003/ev060203.pdf+Scientists+statement+to+congress+climate+change&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us
(HTML version of http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/2003/ev060203.pdf )
I know of a more recent document to congress saying more or less the same thing: Man-Made Carbon Dioxide may or may not be the cause of global climate change. The evidence is largely inclusive.

It pertains because you're talking about why Nuclear is bad because of the solid waste, and Windy is talking about Coal being WORSE because of the air pollutants, such as CO2, Acid rain, and other sulfates being released that should

So, are you saying that modern emission controls are ineffective at stopping this kind of pollution?

Thats not from say, large scale faults enduring heavy pressure. Magmatic quakes aren't that severe. At least not much past a 4 I'd assume. Even so, I haven't seen/heard much about an earthquake threat in that area much of late.

Meh... Next time I'm at UNR I'll see if they have any data on the matter.

[The Beatles]

It's pointless arguing nuclear if you disagree with curbing CO2 emissions. Philosophical difference, and almost all arguments about nuclear or H2 then reduce to it.

[Freenhult]

Bjorn. The Meteorological field. The Entire field, and nearly all Scientists have unamously agreed that CO2 is the main contributing factor to increased and rapid Global Climate Change.

I don't have the time to find the real report, but he's the article over this.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/science/earth/02cnd-climate.html

So, are you saying that modern emission controls are ineffective at stopping this kind of pollution?

Yes. They're not good enough, and they aren't helping. US isn't part of Kyoto. And the Kyoto isn't even enough as it is. Not by a long shot.

I'm in Meteorology and this stuff is HUGE right now. So... its all right here. *Points to head*

[carbz]

is it going to rain this afternoon freen?

I mean, shall i put me washing out?