Re: A discussion on fusion future. - A 'gentle' primer.
Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 6:53 am
Frank S. wrote:
> There have been three accidents out of just over 400 reactors worldwide.
Isnt that a great record? Just three accidents and that is first generation nuclear power plants,
1) no deaths or cancer cases in Three Mile Ilse;
2) less than 50 deaths in Tschernobyl according to WHO and UN reports, although this was a huge mess;
3) and no deaths from radiation in Fukushima, non expected.
Fukushima was a GE design from the 1950s, would you consider the crashes of post war jets as a standard for your safety on a modern Boeing or Airbus?
Newer reactors will be magnitudes safer, as much has been learned from the past.
> While the number of deaths from radiation is low, the amount of hardship by those involved is huge. Loss of properties, family members, pets, belongings, and entire lives are just gone. I have seen up and close what it looks like in Japan and the uncertainly with the food contamination that they are still battling. It is not pretty at all. While this is just the human factor which seems to be dismissed in many of these banters, let's look at the technology.
>
It was a hysteric evacuation, caused by the scare tactics of green peace and others. More than 100 people where killed due to the evacuation. This evacuation should never have happened.
The cancer risk is minimal, Japanese eat a lot of fish, so the situation is not comparable to Russia and a population with iodine deficiency. The cancer risk is comparable to drinking a shot of alcohol once a year. Yes alcohol also causes cancer. So yes, its a mess, but it shouldnt be. Even the hotspots have only 150mSi in the first year, no reason to kill over 100 people in an evacuation. There are many places with higher natural background radiation in the world, should we evacuate them all? Most people should be allowed to return now, it should have been done earlier.
And second, hydro is one of the deadliest forms of energy, next to liquid gas, killing by far the most people. What do you say to those who loose their homes for hydro power? What about the millions, not hundred thousands, that lost everything for the am in China, what do you say to the people in South America? What about all the rain forest flooded there?
Here is a comparison of deaths for coal and hydro and nuclear, and just to put PV and wind into the picture, PV kills 440 per trillion kWh and wind 150.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf06.html
> 1. Nuclear is not foolproof. The odds are low but when things go wrong, they go very wrong and affect significant populations. There will be more accidents and it may be coming to a neighborhood near you.
>
No human activity is foolproof, if you are born, you have problems. But the rational thing is to compare numbers of deaths, environmental damage caused by the different form of energy production. Interestingly nuclear is not only the cleanest but also the safest.
Yes, in a car only one dies, while in a 747 many die, and still it is way safer in a 747 than in a car.
We have to look at the deaths per TWh.
> 2. More reactors means more highly radioactive waste. Even reprocessing, if implemented, does not eliminate ultra high level waste. It reduces the volume of the waste but all that is the most radioactive is still entirely present. It also by far increases the chance for nuclear proliferation.
>
Which causes more proliferation, sending every one fuel elements and taking them back for recycling, and building new proliferation proof power plants and selling them or letting countries like Iran do it themselves?
Coal releases far more uranium, radon and thorium into the environment than NPP, another reason to build more of them, not less.
See here for example: http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev ... lmain.html
I prefer small amounts of nuclear waste in containers to 2 mio tones of thorium and 800.000 tones of uranium released.
> 3. More reactors means more quantities and opportunities for proliferation of fissile material. It also increases the number of potential targets for terrorists.
>
There are designs that go underground and are even airplane crash proof, why would that be a better target than a stadium full of people at the superbowl?
> 4. If left unchecked, energy will be consumed at a faster and faster pace even if there were a nuclear reactor in every person's backyard. It is not a solution. It is a symptom of a energy gluttonous society.
>
I think that is a great idea, leave energy consumption unchecked and let it rise, we should let the markets work it out. Energy consumption is a direct measure for the degree of development of a civilization. We have abundant energy, we should make it cheap to enhance progress and development, we should send small fast microbreeders such as the proliferation proof, passively safe, core meltdown proof 4S by Toshiba, in the 100.000s to developing countries to help them get developed.
Alex
> There have been three accidents out of just over 400 reactors worldwide.
Isnt that a great record? Just three accidents and that is first generation nuclear power plants,
1) no deaths or cancer cases in Three Mile Ilse;
2) less than 50 deaths in Tschernobyl according to WHO and UN reports, although this was a huge mess;
3) and no deaths from radiation in Fukushima, non expected.
Fukushima was a GE design from the 1950s, would you consider the crashes of post war jets as a standard for your safety on a modern Boeing or Airbus?
Newer reactors will be magnitudes safer, as much has been learned from the past.
> While the number of deaths from radiation is low, the amount of hardship by those involved is huge. Loss of properties, family members, pets, belongings, and entire lives are just gone. I have seen up and close what it looks like in Japan and the uncertainly with the food contamination that they are still battling. It is not pretty at all. While this is just the human factor which seems to be dismissed in many of these banters, let's look at the technology.
>
It was a hysteric evacuation, caused by the scare tactics of green peace and others. More than 100 people where killed due to the evacuation. This evacuation should never have happened.
The cancer risk is minimal, Japanese eat a lot of fish, so the situation is not comparable to Russia and a population with iodine deficiency. The cancer risk is comparable to drinking a shot of alcohol once a year. Yes alcohol also causes cancer. So yes, its a mess, but it shouldnt be. Even the hotspots have only 150mSi in the first year, no reason to kill over 100 people in an evacuation. There are many places with higher natural background radiation in the world, should we evacuate them all? Most people should be allowed to return now, it should have been done earlier.
And second, hydro is one of the deadliest forms of energy, next to liquid gas, killing by far the most people. What do you say to those who loose their homes for hydro power? What about the millions, not hundred thousands, that lost everything for the am in China, what do you say to the people in South America? What about all the rain forest flooded there?
Here is a comparison of deaths for coal and hydro and nuclear, and just to put PV and wind into the picture, PV kills 440 per trillion kWh and wind 150.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf06.html
> 1. Nuclear is not foolproof. The odds are low but when things go wrong, they go very wrong and affect significant populations. There will be more accidents and it may be coming to a neighborhood near you.
>
No human activity is foolproof, if you are born, you have problems. But the rational thing is to compare numbers of deaths, environmental damage caused by the different form of energy production. Interestingly nuclear is not only the cleanest but also the safest.
Yes, in a car only one dies, while in a 747 many die, and still it is way safer in a 747 than in a car.
We have to look at the deaths per TWh.
> 2. More reactors means more highly radioactive waste. Even reprocessing, if implemented, does not eliminate ultra high level waste. It reduces the volume of the waste but all that is the most radioactive is still entirely present. It also by far increases the chance for nuclear proliferation.
>
Which causes more proliferation, sending every one fuel elements and taking them back for recycling, and building new proliferation proof power plants and selling them or letting countries like Iran do it themselves?
Coal releases far more uranium, radon and thorium into the environment than NPP, another reason to build more of them, not less.
See here for example: http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev ... lmain.html
I prefer small amounts of nuclear waste in containers to 2 mio tones of thorium and 800.000 tones of uranium released.
> 3. More reactors means more quantities and opportunities for proliferation of fissile material. It also increases the number of potential targets for terrorists.
>
There are designs that go underground and are even airplane crash proof, why would that be a better target than a stadium full of people at the superbowl?
> 4. If left unchecked, energy will be consumed at a faster and faster pace even if there were a nuclear reactor in every person's backyard. It is not a solution. It is a symptom of a energy gluttonous society.
>
I think that is a great idea, leave energy consumption unchecked and let it rise, we should let the markets work it out. Energy consumption is a direct measure for the degree of development of a civilization. We have abundant energy, we should make it cheap to enhance progress and development, we should send small fast microbreeders such as the proliferation proof, passively safe, core meltdown proof 4S by Toshiba, in the 100.000s to developing countries to help them get developed.
Alex