Posted on 04/04/2011 7:56:47 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Pollution from coal-fired power plants is responsible for more than 100,000 deaths per year, whereas the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant is unlikely to kill a single person.
People are getting nervous about nuclear power in the wake of the problems at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, questioning whether nuclear power is a sensible option for energy production in light of the perceived risks.
It has been three weeks since the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. There have been problems at the Fukushima plant with cooling, gas explosions (not nuclear), and radiation leaks – all serious issues, but so far no one has died. The earthquake and tsunami have killed more than 10,000 people.
In fact, the disaster shows how safe nuclear reactors actually are. Reactors designed half a century ago survived an earthquake many times stronger than they were designed to withstand, immediately going into shut-down (bringing driven nuclear reactions to a halt). But the radioactive products in the reactor keep decaying, producing heat, so they must be cooled.
The real problems began when the tsunami took out all the back-up generators that were meant to provide power to circulate the coolant. Loss of site power is the worst-case scenario for a nuclear power plant, so for Fukushima this was the worst crisis imaginable. New reactors have improved safety features, including passive systems that allow cooling to take place without power.
Radiation leaks are undoubtedly serious. But it is worth remembering that we are subjected to background radiation every day as a result of natural processes – some people more than others. Those living in UK areas with a lot of granite rocks, such as Cornwall, will have higher exposure than those who live somewhere like the Thames Valley.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Red6 = skip!
If you were anti Iraq war, Abu Gharib would have been your battle cry.
If you're anti Sarah Palin you might have latched on the AZ shooter event.
If you're anti gun you use something like Columbine.....
If you're pro choice, the Dr Tiller incident would become your rallying point..........
You only “feel” you have an argument and you “feel” affirmed through these events which also give you a sense in power in the debate even though you make absolutely no sense and much of what you argue are textbook fallacies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
If you were anti Iraq war, Abu Gharib would have been your battle cry.
If you're anti Sarah Palin you might have latched on the AZ shooter event.
If you're anti gun you use something like Columbine.....
If you're pro choice, the Dr Tiller incident would become your rallying point..........
You only “feel” you have an argument and you “feel” affirmed through these events which also give you a sense in power in the debate even though you make absolutely no sense and much of what you argue are textbook fallacies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
By what amount is the Japanese leakage expected to increase radiation on the US West Coast compared with background? There’s always SOME radiation.
I wonder if this farting around with BATH SALTS (you gotta be kidding! even food coloring would be better) is from some old die hards who never did quite swallow the US victory in WWII.
“Your point seems to be that if you handle radioactivity irresponsibly like the soviets did many people will die.”
Hmmm...a bit of an over simplification here but I’d like to get something out of it. I would say for example, that if you handle radioactivity irresponsibly you can always lie about it and ridicule anyone who disagrees with you, portray them as backward tree huggers etc. You can deny outright the existence of life altering disaster that break a country financially (according to Gorbachev) and decide to further conceal information from the public having declared them incapable of decision making etc. And then you’d have a situation like Japan were people are told it’s is/isn’t safe to drink the water depending on what day it is, and those in the exclusion zone may be abandoned without supplies because you don’t want to say what’s going on and alarm anyone until when you do speak, the public doesn’t believe you because they know your history of withholding information from them. And as long as denial is in force, you don’t have to face the issues of management that pop up in any culture using this technology.
“My point is you handle any new technology with the appropriate level of responsibility and you weigh the costs and benefits and if the benefits outweigh the cost you do it. You’ll make mistakes along the way and learn from them.”
This is where we, and other cultures are failing. We can’t possibly weigh the costs if we deny actual radiation levels, fatality rates etc. and the square miles of uninhabitable land. We can’t learn from mistakes along the way (management issues, confidence issues - the need to deny it happened, the need to ignore all public concern by declaring it’s existence as proof of ignorance) if we declare that only full speed ahead supporters should be listened to as all others are too childish to think and reason. I really thought, way back when, that by now, we’d have that tackled and be on to better challenges but it remains a problem and even more so because people insist the problem only exists in fevered imaginations.
Skipping 62 and 63 based on your preconceived notions, biases and straw man arguments you posed in post 30.
Skipping 62 and 63 based on your preconceived notions, biases and straw man arguments you posed in post 30.
Radiation is in the ground here, at varying levels and depending on altitude your exposure will vary as well. Some levels in recreational CO ski areas are higher than what is at ground zero at the Trinity test site. Just because you can measure something, doesn't make it hazardous or even a factor to be considered when making choices in ones life etc. Of all the radiation your body receives, to include Chernobyl, your body throughout your life will receive likely .1% of this radiation from nuclear power and all related aspects of it. You will receive in your lifetime by a factor of 200 TIMES the radiation just from medical diagnostics (X-ray/cat scan) that you receive from nuclear power- to include Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island, transportation, storage, mining all aspects of nuclear power.
http://www.doh.wa.gov/ehp/rp/factsheets/factsheets-htm/fs10bkvsman.htm
http://www.hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q1044.html
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/402-k-07-006.pdf
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/402-f-06-061.pdf
” The problem of nuclear waste remains despite the herring invovled.”
The problem with nuclear waste is CAUSED BY PEOPLE LIKE YOU! People that push to have permanent storage such as in Yucca mountain stopped, so the spent rods are stored at the reactor because final and long term safe storage is blocked. Talk about a self fulfilling prophesy!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository
http://www.energy.gov/environment/ocrwm.htm
There is no problem with storage of waste, none what so ever. It's a make belief issue. We have safe means to transport it and the final storage is safe and care free. You could put it in their and forget about it, literally.
” The history of radioactivity in science is one of underestimation - it’s easy and human to do. Every time more was learned about the mysteries of radiation, a new, lower ‘safe’ level was set.”
Really, “underestimation?” Hundreds of Thousands died, millions died......... at Three Mile Island, what exactly happened and how much radiation was let loose, and you talk of “underestimation?” Maybe if you get your facts from places like this it appears as underestimation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc72kT_gFNQ
I'm obviously a waste of your time because I can't understand the vast suffering, tragedy, pain, tears, the poor children that can't play in at their favorite playground, the huge sarcophagus, the immense pain a child feels, the massive dust cloud, the sorrow poor mother earth must be feeling...........that you talk about in your posts. Take out the rhetorical fluff and what are you left with? Coal or nuclear, what will it be, hero?
It's others I'm addressing when answering your posts.
Fear is not the problem
Hatred and ignorance of the haters is the problem. Left wing wackos are guilty of a hate crime
This from the guy that won't acknowledge the safety and health risks associated with coal based power generation and who uses dubious make belief high ball figures for casualties, polemics that cry for the children and concocts grand conspiracies by all that support nuclear power or say something that isn’t condemning of it. That's called irony.
Ask this guy, “what will it be, coal or nuclear” and he will avoid you.
Red6,
It is difficult to debate a “lay-person” about relative risk with respect to nuclear power versus other energy sources. There is so much ignorance, misinformation, and irrational fear with respect to nuclear power and radiation exposure. The deaths of at least 10 coal miners in Pakistan that occured as the Japanese nuclear accident unfolded hardly made the news. In a perverted way, I think some in the radiation safety profession encourage this irrational fear as a means to ensure job security. The Linear-No-Threshold approach to radiation safety is a conservative and rational method to regulate exposure but it is also the source of claims of the “million times what is considered safe” mentality. I have worked in the nuclear power/nuclear medicine field for 30 years; I have learned it is a futile debate, so I generally bite my tongue and go about my business.
Are you over 12 years old? If so, I suggest you start acting like it.
Hi Russ! Have no clue what you are talking about and what you think your comment contributes. I guess you post this when when frustrated. Hope that situation gets better for ya. Bye.
So you are under 12 then. I’ve seen immature posts, but your posts here take the cake. Did your mother give you permission to post here?
Skip!
The viable alternatives are nuclear and/or coal and that is how the debate has to be framed. Once that is made clear, you then can have a debate over which of the two imperfect but feasible solutions you want. Once you frame the debate, you quickly realize that though politically untenable nuclear is the option to go with.
Let's look at the typical arguments that are used and which he brought up:
*** The waste debate: Coal produces by weight and volume >100,000 TIMES the waste. So he doesn't want nuclear waste and instead would rather have >100,000 TIMES the waste laden with cancer causing hydrocarbons, dioxin and yes, even traces of uranium and thorium in it. Here is a real irony in this debate- Those that use this argument are often the ones trying to block the development and use of permanent and safe end storage such as in Yucca mountain and that's why you have nuclear wastes being stored in a less than ideal way at the power plant in the first place! It is literally a self fulfilling prophesy and it is those who claim to be concerned for the environment and our safety that block the safe storage of these wastes!
*** The radiation argument: Little do people like this know that even coal has traces of uranium and thorium in it usually, and even coal sets loose radiation, believe it or not! But what he doesn't know can't hurt him ( http://epa.gov/radtown/coal-plant.html ). Radiation is this scary phenomena to people, and most have no concept that their smoke detector has highly radioactive material in it, the granite counter top usually radiates slightly....... Radiation is around us and we'll never get away from it. The level of radiation we are exposed to when you look at all aspects of nuclear energy accounts for less than .1% you will receive. Yet again, what we do not consider when we say no to nuclear power is that even the cleanest of coal plants still blow: soot, As, Pb, Cd, NO, CO, CO2, H2SO4, HNO3, all sorts of hydrocarbons and other stuff into the air.........
*** Accidents: Again it's a matter of framing the question. Coal plants can't have meltdowns, but they do have people die from ignitions, and if you look at the deaths associated with mining, etc. you quickly realize that more people die per year in coal mining than all of nuclear energy world wide since it's inception. No kidding, unless we use imaginary numbers of hundreds of thousands dead at Chernobyl (complete BS), you realize that even if you take into account the accidents, coal mining costs more people their lives in one year than nuclear power has in 68! I don't care how you want to look at it! If we want to look at it in terms of deaths per output (MW or GW), deaths per unit of time....... it doesn't matter, nuclear wins out every time. Nuclear is safer than coal and that especially becomes true if we want to go into the realm of deaths associated with diseases. Realize even here is an irony because when they try to create these arguments in the rise of cancer and other diseases and link this to nuclear power they fail to acknowledge that coal plants were also being built and diseases like asthma are more likely the result of this than nuclear. Furthermore, the correlation/linkage is usually weak at best and the variance as in Chernobyl itself, the mecca for the anti nuclear crowd, you have only a marginal variance.
Those that cling to these tragedies like Fukushima, in reality are simply anti-nuclear power. They are usually the ones that try to construct the argument such that any radiation, any costs, any waste, any thing negative is to much..... and that's simply BS. This is the “Nirvana Fallacy.” Most decisions in life are not a matter of the perfect vs. the horrible answer, they are a matter of weighing the benefits and costs between various courses of action and choosing the best one. Realistically we have had one minor incident in nuclear powers in the US, Three Mile Island. It is the only event that is even worth mentioning unless we use these fabricated blown out of proportion events that are about as believable as the stories of millions of dead from Chernobyl. We have 104 operation plants in the US (132 total were built), plus our Navy (carriers, subs) and the Army (mobile boats with a plants in the past) as well as USAF (WPAFB for example) have or use to operate plants. Since 1943 we have had one minor incident.
I live near both, coal and nuclear! I have a coal plant in Richardson and and a nuclear plant in Grandbury TX. That coal plant is without doubt a larger concern to my health than that nuclear plant and I live around it.
Why I am not that concerned with nuclear. We don't operate graphite reactors and haven't for a long time. We are not a stone age society with modern technology, and we have a system in place with DoE and EPA as well as State authorities that regulate the safety of these plants. Comanche Creek (In north TX), near my home will not get hit by a 9.0 earthquake nor face off a 75 foot high tsunami anytime soon (Environmental factors), unlike Chernobyl we don't use Graphite reactors and they are operated by people I have a tad bit more confidence in than the Soviets. Trying to lump nuclear power together is the “Package Deal Fallacy.” Chernobyl was a first generation of reactor, like at Oak Ridge ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-10_Graphite_Reactor ). The stability wasn't there, the containment designs either...... IMHO- what you saw at Fukushuma is in a modern day nuclear age the absolute worst case scenario that will realistically happen. It will fizzle into the ground. This sort of incident while bad is far from the extent of damage Chernobyl caused which was very bad but even that was far from the “hundreds of thousands died” or the “core will melt through the earth” BS scenarios painted into the minds of the layperson in this modern pop culture. Some designs simply seek equilibrium and if things do go haywire they might release some gas with slight radiation and some liquid, but they won't blast 10+ tons of fissile material into the environment like Chernobyl. Just like a car is unlikely to fall over because it has four points of contact vs. two of a motorcycle, certain reactor designs will give you certain outcomes if things do go sideways.
Realistically I think that those which have this “naturalistic fallacy,” (nature is good, man made evil) will win in the end. They will regret having won this argument in the political arena because may it be safety, health or even these so called enviro issues like global warming and acid rain, they are by default demanding that a worse course of action is selected. We haven't built a new nuclear plant in years, decades in fact, but we're sure building more coal powered plants: http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/07/01/coal-plants-us-idUSN0126788320080701
In the meantime while we build more coal plants which will be the backbone of our power production and the enviro crowd bash nuclear power, our leaders get pictures taken like this:
http://www.treehugger.com/obama-solar-gulf-spill.jpg
or
http://www.theenergyreport.com/images/obamasolar.jpeg
or
or
http://www.usa.siemens.com/pool/flash/video/obama_visits_madison_preview.jpg
He should go all out! Maybe like someone else he should put solar panels on the roof of the White House: http://www.theresilientearth.com/files/images/carter_solar_panels.jpg (Tacky, truly tacky)
Ooops, that’s Comanche Peak not Comanche Creek: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comanche_Peak_Nuclear_Power_Plant
“There is so much ignorance, misinformation, and irrational fear with respect to nuclear power and radiation exposure. “
You mean this won’t happen?: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Them!
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