How committed are we to nuclear power?

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To be clear I don't feel like a nuclear power groupie nor do I believe that the status quo is particularly wonderful. It's more that if people are going to assess nuclear power as too dangerous/causes too much environmental damage, they need to be sure to apply that same standard across all forms of energy. Otherwise it's just a pretext for paranoia.

Thanks for the link, kramwest.
 
Nope. You're wrong. It's the same.

:shrug:

See how unsatisfying lazy arguing is? I posted something with actual links to support its claims and you're throwing out a whirlwind of assertions.

It was a general questioning of the line of argument, whether done by a poster or an article.
Don't know what this is with lazy arguing? Do I need links in my post so it's not lazy? :confused:
These were not assertions, these were used to demonstrate that a nuclear accident is an entirely different type of accident thant e.g. a coal mining incident or a bursting oil pipeline. The effects of such are, though severe, only local. While an oil leakage contaminates an area, we have means to confine it, and also to clean the area. This is not possible if you have a nuclear cloud going over Europe, where the particles get absorbed by mushrooms, plants and animals. In some parts of Germany even today you cannot go collect mushrooms or eat the meat of wild pigs for the high radiation.
 
Well I like to learn things from these sorts of discussions, but this sort of stuff isn't helpful:

It is usually claimed that security and safety standards are oh so high, and there are so many control mechanisms in place so that we are so much safer than the people in the Ukraine were. Well, according to all we knew something like in Fukushima couldn't have happened either, or so they say.

....

It doesn't cause me to lose sleep, but I don't really buy into these claims that nuclear power is fool-proof either. After all, the titanic was unsinkable as well.

Whose making these claims? Is there a quote from the FT article? Otherwise I'm trusting your interpretation of what someone else said they said. While I don't doubt your good faith, the closer to the primary sources we get the better.

Helpful! The bits from Financial Times article you alluded to. If the nuclear power industry is making systematic unsupported claims I am interested to read how.
 
My brother Tim is one of the founders of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountablity and wrote this article today on the disaster. He is one of the nation’s leading public interest advocates attacking government secrecy, environmental contamination, and social injustices related to nuclear weapons production and testing activities.

Here is the link to his well written article on his blog today:


Over the Horizon | Center for Justice
 
I just read in the paper today that the Japanese PM said to these "50 workers", as they've become known, must stay and sacrifice, that "you are the only ones who can resolve a crisis. retreat is unthinkable."

i mean i know many have volunteered, but what the hell man?
 
Well I like to learn things from these sorts of discussions, but this sort of stuff isn't helpful:



Whose making these claims? Is there a quote from the FT article? Otherwise I'm trusting your interpretation of what someone else said they said. While I don't doubt your good faith, the closer to the primary sources we get the better.

Helpful! The bits from Financial Times article you alluded to. If the nuclear power industry is making systematic unsupported claims I am interested to read how.

If you speak German I can link you directly to the sources.
The claims are made by the Atomforum, which is a lobbying board by the big energy companies which are running the nuclear power plants and have pushed for extension of the running times. The nuclear facilities were built for a life-time of 30 to 40 years, now some of them should be running up to 80 years.
Vattenfall and other companies have been found to have hidden serious incidents in their facilities which would have been mandatory to report to authorities. Plus, as I said, one type of reactors is found to be inherently unsafe (could link the video, but it's in German). The thing is, responsible for third-party evaluation is the TÜV Süd (the TÜV has a world-wide excellent reputation, normally, for safety standards and testing). The TÜV has once inspected the facilities, back when construction was finished, and testified that these could run for 40 years. They've never gone back to check. Since four years ago they are now a public limited, which means the TÜV needs to make profits. What's more, 50 per cent of shares are held by the TÜV Verein (association). Members to this association are Vattenfall, E.On, EnBW and RWE, in other words, the very companies that run the nuclear facilities.
The source to this is the magazine kontraste, which is a programme running on ARD, which again is the German PBS equivalent, so it's a reliable source.
 
An interesting look at nex-gen nuke plants:

Can Next-Generation Reactors Power a Safe Nuclear Future? | Popular Science

Keeping a nuclear plant safe means keeping it cool in any circumstances, including those in which man-made or natural disaster knocks out the usual cooling methods. This highlights the importance of safety features built into so-called Generation III-plus nuclear plant models, the latest feasible plant designs. These redundant and passive safety systems work without the help of an operator, or even electricity, during times of duress, be it man-made or natural.

***

Westinghouse’s AP1000 packs a battery of passive systems that use natural air flow, gravity, and other natural phenomena to remove pumps and valves from the equation; if the plant begins to overheat these measures will automatically cool the core for up to three days with no external intervention whatsoever.
 
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Stat Source
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There's a really interesting point brought up in the first link about roofing fatalities. If one man dies from a fall while trying to install a solar roof panel, that's bad luck. If one worker from the Fukushima plant dies.....?

But what about Chernobyl ?
The World Health Organization study in 2005 indicated that 50 people died to that point as a direct result of Chernobyl. 4000 people may eventually die earlier as a result of Chernobyl, but those deaths would be more than 20 years after the fact and the cause and effect becomes more tenuous.

He explains that there have been 4000 cases of thyroid cancer, mainly in children, but that except for nine deaths, all of them have recovered. "Otherwise, the team of international experts found no evidence for any increases in the incidence of leukemia and cancer among affected residents."
 
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