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Post by epaul on Mar 5, 2009 12:45:46 GMT -5
TDR,
I don’t think there is a shred of intellectual honesty to be found on that site. Line by line, I would go lie, misrepresentation, distortion, half-truth, lie, misrepresentation, distortion, half-truth, lie.
The Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility? What a nice name. Sounds like a good outfit. I think we should be responsible, especially with nuclear stuff. And it even says they have experts. That’s good, isn’t it?
[quite shift to another sweet-named site. Analogy time.]
Hmm, what’s this site? Center for the American Family. Sounds like a good outfit. I like families and I like America. And America should have families. I think I will click on this site and see if I can help America and its families.
[Click]
Hmm, there doesn’t seem to be much stuff about families here. [read, read, read] Wow! They sure don’t like homosexuals much. [read, read, read] Wow, have I ever learned a whole bunch about homosexuals. Are they ever out to destroy America and its families. Thank goodness I found this persuasive fact-filled site.
I don’t know what else to say. I think the characters that crafted that Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility site are one click away from the folks that claim space aliens are diddling with their sheep.
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Post by epaul on Mar 5, 2009 13:20:02 GMT -5
There are informed, knowledgeable folks that believe nuclear power has too many issues and it is better to pursue other paths.
There are informed, knowledgeable folks that believe nuclear power could be fine option, but due to issues fairly and unfairly associated with nuclear power, it is, practically speaking, not going to happen, so let’s move on.
And there informed, knowledgeable folks that believe that nuclear power should be an option and should be developed.
But, wow, there are folks who operate on belief, and then seek out “facts” that support belief. The Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility is one such group of folks.
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Post by epaul on Mar 5, 2009 13:22:45 GMT -5
Some considerations.
Whenever some outfits starts tossing around health claims, (for any reason or axe), consider the scale. Is an unusual run of cancer in some small town or corner of a county propping up the quack claims of a dozen different advocacy groups? Probability is not evenly distributed. Small samples are the province of quacks and scalawags.
For nuclear plant health issues, consider not a town or corner, consider an entire country that is densely packed with both people and nuclear power plants, like France or Japan. Do they have health issues? No, both are healthier than we are.
Better yet, consider the crew that operates a nuclear powered sub, or the basement crew operating the reactors on a aircraft carrier. What better group of test subjects for nuclear plant safety. There are no issues here. These guys have a better health record than chaplain’s assistants (less body fat and better livers).
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Post by epaul on Mar 5, 2009 13:25:20 GMT -5
In the Navy vein, I do wish we would consider developing smaller power plants. There are always complications associated with size. Smaller is almost always simpler to build and easier to operate.
I am not that impressed with that third generation European Pressurized System. Too big. I can understand the desire, given all the hassles of site and permit, to make the plant as big as possible once it get approved. But big creates problems, witness the concrete issues that popped up.
I am far more impressed with the small reactors the Navy uses. So, as long as nuke plants have been forestalled this long, I can see waiting a year or three and going with a fourth generation design, and keep it on the smaller side. Less construction issues. It is the same with windmills, some of these giant ones are mechanical disasters.
Consider the nimble mouse, not the brontosaurus.
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Post by epaul on Mar 5, 2009 13:30:49 GMT -5
And store the the spent fuel on site. Don’t load it on a slow train that will get sued every mile just to dump it all down a hole somewhere. Keep the stuff in sight. Oh, and if you have a 100 lbs. of nuclear waste year 1, by year 25 you will only have a couple pounds of still active nuclear waste. Most of the radioactivity dissipates in the first 25 years or so. I don’t recall the numbers, so if there are any physicists handy, step in. But the radioactivity does dissipate. Only a small percentage of the “waste” stays radioactive for that thousand years or whatever.
But, whatever, it strikes me as nuts to truck the stuff cross country just to drop it all down a big hole. Nuts, nuts, nuts.
Store it on site. Where you can keep an eye on it. Reduce, reuse, and recycle. If not now, then one day.
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Post by billhammond on Mar 5, 2009 13:36:13 GMT -5
Store it on site. Where you can keep an eye on it. Reduce, reuse, and recycle. If not now, then one day. Waste-site monitor keeps an eye on stored nukes: |
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Post by epaul on Mar 5, 2009 13:57:12 GMT -5
Bill, you aren't being very helpful.
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Post by omaha on Mar 5, 2009 14:00:02 GMT -5
I don't know...it looks like the nuclear monitors are really, really smart guys.
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Post by TDR on Mar 5, 2009 14:09:16 GMT -5
TDR, I don’t think there is a shred of intellectual honesty to be found on that site. Line by line, I would go lie, misrepresentation, distortion, half-truth, lie, misrepresentation, distortion, half-truth, lie. I didn't ask you to buy into the anti nuke philosophy on the site. But I doubt you can refute much that was said on the video I posted, and it speaks to the French system and why we don't want to follow it. What, you expect to find accurate info impugning the industry on one of its pimp sites? |
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Post by epaul on Mar 5, 2009 14:14:52 GMT -5
NPR and Popular Mechanics.
Take it to the bank.
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Post by epaul on Mar 5, 2009 14:19:03 GMT -5
TDR, it speaks to the French system and why we don't want to follow it. OK, screw the French. The Navy is my model. We should have small, efficient reactors. In boats. |
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Post by TDR on Mar 5, 2009 14:26:19 GMT -5
And store the the spent fuel on site. Don’t load it on a slow train that will get sued every mile just to dump it all down a hole somewhere. Keep the stuff in sight. Oh, and if you have a 100 lbs. of nuclear waste year 1, by year 25 you will only have a couple pounds of still active nuclear waste. Most of the radioactivity dissipates in the first 25 years or so. I don’t recall the numbers, so if there are any physicists handy, step in. But the radioactivity does dissipate. Only a small percentage of the “waste” stays radioactive for that thousand years or whatever. But, whatever, it strikes me as nuts to truck the stuff cross country just to drop it all down a big hole. Nuts, nuts, nuts. Store it on site. Where you can keep an eye on it. Reduce, reuse, and recycle. If not now, then one day. You have some bad information there, my friend. Far from being safe in open ponds on site, the concern is its not even safe in a cave under Yucca Mountain. And no, its not harmless after 2500 years, much less 25 years. Why would you take a position like that, when its so patently wrong and easily disproved? |
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Post by TDR on Mar 5, 2009 14:29:33 GMT -5
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Post by epaul on Mar 5, 2009 14:35:40 GMT -5
Take it up with NPR. They had a series of physicists on this summer talking about the nuclear power option. One thing they agreed on was that on-site storage made the most sense and that it was very doable. And safe. And not in outdoor ponds.
And there is a rate of radioactive decay. Radioactivity is not a constant. And it diminishes rapidly during the first 25 years or so. Yes, some radioactivity will persist for a long, long time. Unfortunately, this information was also from NPR, an interview with a plant physicist. I will see what google offers.
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Post by millring on Mar 5, 2009 14:42:43 GMT -5
Superman used to have friends like Jimmy Olsen (the other one, not the guitar builder who loves me) put kryptonite in a lead tube and then he would throw it into deep space.
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Post by millring on Mar 5, 2009 15:13:02 GMT -5
Superman could play lead guitar. Even if there was kryptonite hidden inside.
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Post by TDR on Mar 5, 2009 15:14:36 GMT -5
TDR
Aqua
Um, what if they're right?
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Post by aquaduct on Mar 5, 2009 15:22:17 GMT -5
TDR Aqua Um, what if they're right? They aren't. |
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Post by omaha on Mar 5, 2009 15:24:41 GMT -5
Um, what if they're right? Didn't the Iraq war teach us a lesson about preemptive government action based on prospective problems? |
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Post by epaul on Mar 5, 2009 15:36:29 GMT -5
This may have been what I heard and tried convey with the 25 year reduction comment [from world-nuclear.org "...Either way, after 40-50 years the heat and radioactivity have fallen to one thousandth of the level at removal. This provides a technical incentive to delay further action with HLW until the radioactivity has reduced to about 0.1% of its original level..." More of the passage, and the link to the site below. What I intended to convey was that if the stuff is stored on site for twenty-five years (probably should have said fifty, given the passage above) that there will be much less of it to deal with. That is what I meant when I said if a hundred pounds of spent fuel is hauled out of the reactor, by 25 years there will only be a couple pounds of it to deal with. That may represent a misunderstanding on my part of what the physicists were listing as an advantage of on-site storage. But in one way or another, whether by weight or radioactivity, time (less than fifty years of time), representes a significant reduction of the issue. It sounded to me as if the reduced (by hotness or weight) waste could be basically stuffed into rubber barrels and kept in a rubberized shed. All on the panel believed there was an excellent chance that there would be uses, good uses, for for some, if not all, of the spent fuel. Tossing the spent fuel on a slow train to Yuma was not an idea any of them supported. On-site storage and retrieval of valuable elements after a cooling period was the ticket. www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf04.html High-level Wastes (HLW) arise from the "burning" of uranium fuel in a nuclear reactor. HLW contains the fission products and transuranic elements generated in the reactor core. It is highly radioactive and hot, so requires cooling and shielding. It can be considered as the "ash" from "burning" uranium. HLW accounts for over 95% of the total radioactivity produced in the process of electricity generation. There are two distinct kinds of HLW: - used fuel itself in fuel rods, or - separated waste from reprocessing the used fuel as described below. HLW has both long-lived and short-lived components, depending on the length of time it will take for the radioactivity of particular radionuclides to decrease to levels that are considered no longer hazardous for people and the surrounding environment. If generally short-lived fission products can be separated from long-lived actinides, this distinction becomes important in management and disposal of HLW. [missing graph] But if used reactor fuel is not reprocessed, it will still contain all the highly radioactive isotopes, and then the entire fuel assembly is treated as HLW for direct disposal. It too generates a lot of heat and requires cooling. However, since it largely consists of uranium (with a little plutonium), it represents a potentially valuable resource. Hence there is an increasing reluctance to dispose of it irretrievably. Either way, after 40-50 years the heat and radioactivity have fallen to one thousandth of the level at removal. This provides a technical incentive to delay further action with HLW until the radioactivity has reduced to about 0.1% of its original level. After storage for about 40 years the used fuel assemblies are ready for encapsulation or loading into casks ready for indefinite storage or permanent disposal underground. Direct disposal of used fuel has been chosen by the USA and Sweden among others, although evolving concepts lean towards making it recoverable if future generations see it as a resource. This means allowing for a period of management and oversight before a repository is closed. Increasingly, reactors are using fuel enriched to over 4% U-235 and burning it longer, to end up with less than 0.5% U-235 in the spent fuel. This provides less incentive to reprocess. Used fuel from light water reactors contains approximately: 95.6% uranium (less than 1% of which is U-235) 2.9% stable fission products 0.9% plutonium (about two thirds fissile Pu-239 & Pu-241) 0.3% cesium & strontium (fission products) 0.1% iodine and technetium (fission products) 0.1% other long-lived fission products 0.1% minor actinides (americium, curium, neptunium) |
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