If we were to have 400 active Nuclear Power Plants we would no longer have to worry about that. But seeing as ever since the hippies got their way SAFER and more EFFICIENT Nuclear power plants aren't allowed to be made. BTW it has the safest track record of any fuel source and releases no toxins in the air. There has only been one partial meltdown in the US and the most radiation anyone was give was equal to a chest x-ray and no injuries or deaths were reported. The Russians have had the only meltdown and that is because at the time they didn't have the money or technology to make a safe power plant and ended having a meltdown.
You really think that was the first time a big chunk of ice has broken off of Antarctica? Its definitely the first one shown and exaggerated by the media. How do you think Icebergs are made?
How can you people claim that global warming is not happening and also say that global warming happens naturally anyways? I do fault some environmentalist for going overboard, but I'd like to think of it like aging. We all age, but the choices you make does make a difference on how you age and the quality of your life. But it's unfair that if we make bad environmental decisions it's not us that pays for it, but future generations.
wow everyone's hardcore pro-Nuc here. guess what, Uranium is finite too. if being a fan of renewable energy makes me a "hippy" then you can take your meaningless derogatory labels and cram 'em.
Well, technically, we won't be running out of fossil fuels.... they will just be in the form of a gas and killing us all. :p The Earth is a fairly closed environment and eventually what we take out goes back in. Unfortunately, we are talking millions/billions of years.
Every single solitary current and proposed nuclear power plant is a gigantic money LOSER! They all operate on government subsidies. It's a crappy deal. Safe or not, nobody wants to provide insurance for them, making the costs as ridiculously high as they are.
Nobody wants to store the waste, and local governments fight tooth and nail to keep them away.
The list of reasons not to be a cheerleader for nuclear power goes on, and on, and on.
Then there's the foreign policy problem. We can't rightfully sit on our high horse and tell other countries they can't have nuclear power while at the same time we're building 400! It undermines our credibility. If we didn't have nuclear power plants to begin with, Iran wouldn't have a leg to stand on right now.
As if all that wasn't enough, your argument that they are safe is irrelevant. No amount of precautions can completely eliminate the threat of intentional sabotage (i.e. terrorist attack).
someone call NOAA and all the oceanography departments at every major university! "FordGTGuy"'s bloviation about TEH MEDIA BIAS!1!11! will put all those PhDs in their places.
Great point, besides the fact that power plants are naturally desired targets by our enemies, I think the problem is not the really the nuclear reactors, but the spent nuclear fuels. Only a small percentage of the nuclear fuel is actually used, if we were to rely solely on nuclear power, we would have a lot more nuclear waste. The government already has a difficult time dealing with the current level of nuclear waste. But if we are to find a viable solution in dealing with spent nuclear fuel, I'm sure this option would be more attractive. Maybe one day we'll be able reprocess spent nuclear fuel and put it back into the reactors at a much faster pace, where we wouldn't have to dig out whole mountains to store the waste.
Yeah, we will eventually run out of uranium, but we have enough to last centuries, so for now it's all good. Not as good as hydrogen power, but certainly more efficient in terms of space and power output than harnessing the elements in the traditional sense. We will eventually run out of sun, to.
OK, idiots that think Nuclear creates a huge stockpile of waste, listen up: Burning coal, which is how we get most of our power, creates more radioactive waste than a nuclear plant. Yes, disposing of depleted uranium is a problem... but a much smaller problem than the coal plants which churn out all kinds of nasty into the air and leave other byproducts that we still have to dispose of.
lars, which "idiots" are you referring to? who's championing coal vs nuke? talk about false equivalents, holy mother of zeus!
NIMBYism aside, the fully capitalized net present cost per MW of nuc is the highest of all energy forms when you account for all life cycle and security costs from cradle to grave.
so, nuke-fanatics.. your ultra-capitalist argument doesn't hold water, nor does your "environmental" argument, and your continuing denigration of conservation, green design, and climate change science is NOT winning you any points from the reality-based community.
phanbouy, nuclear power has no greenhouse gas emissions but, unlike wind and solar power which use huge acres of land to create the occasional puff, produces outputs that rival and often exceed fossil fuels. What exactly is the nature of your complaint?
"Every single solitary current and proposed nuclear power plant is a gigantic money LOSER! They all operate on government subsidies."
Actually they're not. Just because there are government subsidies doesn't mean it's a money loser. That's like saying "going to college is a huge waste of money because most students get scholarships or financial aid to help pay for it." Just because their is government help/incentives doesn't mean it's automatically a waste.
Solar is actually pretty decent, but the problem is that there's a large upfront investment which most people can't handle. Think of it this way: over the next 40 years you might pay $150,000 in electric bills, but if you invested $50,000 in solar arrays, you won't pay that $150k over the next 40 years. Technically a savings of $100,000. The problem is paying a couple hundred a month vs $50,000 up-front.
Saying that government shouldn't step in and assist seems like an asinine statement to me. Isn't that part of the whole point of being socialists? Together we can accomplish what we otherwise could not? Especially in this case where solar can not just save money over time, but has no byproducts and does not consume anything to operate. Also, the more effort we invest in a technology the better and cheaper it gets. I think we have a duty as human beings to invest in things like this. We should be working for a greater good instead of the bottom dollar. And in this case they are one in the same.
"the fully capitalized net present cost per MW of nuc is the highest of all energy forms when you account for all life cycle and security costs from cradle to grave."
And therein lies one of the problems. Nuclear is cheaper, until you add in costs of insurance and such which are caused by fear mongering. Such is the state of affairs at the moment. That's the core of what I think should change. It would be cheaper if society was different. At any rate, a vastly cleaner energy is more important to me. If nuclear plants were allowed to be in urban centers (and why not, no harmful operating byproducts) then it would be far more efficient than coal which has to be burned away from major cities and therefore delivered with losses.
Way to twist my argument around Lars. You're still wrong. Unless of course you're willing to offer up your basement for spent fuel rod storage. That's what I thought. But yeah, sure. The only thing holding back nuc from being "clean and beautiful limitless energy for ever and ever" are those silly fearmongering.. um.. insurance companies. Wow... that's your latest strawmen? Well that and your usual "loony lefties" (aka anyone with a damn brain).
But way to piss all over anything and anyone that doesn't hump nuclear reactor glossy brochures, guys. Tell ya what, I'd rather be a "socialist" than you. Precaution and green design is for "hippies" huh guys? You're not winning any converts. I'm done...
"phanbouy, nuclear power has no greenhouse gas emissions but, unlike wind and solar power which use huge acres of land to create the occasional puff, produces outputs that rival and often exceed fossil fuels. What exactly is the nature of your complaint?"
Hahahaha, fanman, you said "we will eventually run out of sun, too"... When the day comes we run out of sun, where we get power from means nothing because we will be DEAD.
phanbouy, you're all over the place there. I don't know what you're even against or for at this point, except nuclear power obviously. I don't know where you live, but I live in the US. Last time I checked we were a socialist/capitalist country. Let me check again.. yep, still are.
Spent rods can be used for other purposes. Currently we use them to make tankbusters. Can't say I condone that completely, but it proves they aren't useless.
"Unless of course you're willing to offer up your basement for spent fuel rod storage. That's what I thought."
I'm not willing to offer up my basement for manure storage either. Does that mean we should stop farming? I'm not willing to offer it up for septic waste either, should we all stop shitting? Just because you don't want something stored right next to your living quarters doesn't mean much.
phanbouy: We have enough Uranium _right now_, sitting in warehouses, to power the entire country for thousands of years. And much, _much_ more still unmined. By comparison, we have enough fossil fuels for maybe 100.
As for the whole global warming thing: You can't deny that it's occurring. But Earth isn't the only planet in the solar system doing it...and the data doesn't in any way support that it's being caused by CO2. It's the sun and the orbit.
wow i love talking about the environment on a tech site ;)
@FordGTGuy
no I don't think it was the first, it also won't be the last glacier to fall off, the point is they said it would take 30 years for it to break off, granted its just a guess, but to fall off 15 years earlier than expected, well thats a huge difference.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
fanman @ Mar 27th 2008 2:39PM
Great! Even if we don't know to what degree we are warming the place up, we will run out of fossil fuels eventually.
Jon Graft @ Mar 27th 2008 2:43PM
Global warming is a lie. Years ago everyone was calling global cooling. It's just how the earth works...get over it.
fanman @ Mar 27th 2008 2:52PM
"...we will run out of fossil fuels eventually."
alexmueller @ Mar 27th 2008 2:55PM
tell that to the big chuck of ice that just collapsed off Antarctica, john
FordGTGuy @ Mar 27th 2008 3:02PM
If we were to have 400 active Nuclear Power Plants we would no longer have to worry about that. But seeing as ever since the hippies got their way SAFER and more EFFICIENT Nuclear power plants aren't allowed to be made. BTW it has the safest track record of any fuel source and releases no toxins in the air. There has only been one partial meltdown in the US and the most radiation anyone was give was equal to a chest x-ray and no injuries or deaths were reported. The Russians have had the only meltdown and that is because at the time they didn't have the money or technology to make a safe power plant and ended having a meltdown.
FordGTGuy @ Mar 27th 2008 3:05PM
@alexmueller
You really think that was the first time a big chunk of ice has broken off of Antarctica? Its definitely the first one shown and exaggerated by the media. How do you think Icebergs are made?
phanbouy @ Mar 27th 2008 3:09PM
sure Jon. heaps of metadata showing a steady rise in mean global temperatures is a "lie". keep drinking that fox news kool aid.
ekwmin @ Mar 27th 2008 3:17PM
How can you people claim that global warming is not happening and also say that global warming happens naturally anyways? I do fault some environmentalist for going overboard, but I'd like to think of it like aging. We all age, but the choices you make does make a difference on how you age and the quality of your life. But it's unfair that if we make bad environmental decisions it's not us that pays for it, but future generations.
hp540 @ Mar 27th 2008 3:22PM
Don't bother feeding the global warming doesn't exist trolls.
Since they so readily ignore heaps of continuous scientific evidence, I'm sure logic or reasoning will not work.
phanbouy @ Mar 27th 2008 3:23PM
wow everyone's hardcore pro-Nuc here. guess what, Uranium is finite too. if being a fan of renewable energy makes me a "hippy" then you can take your meaningless derogatory labels and cram 'em.
Andir3.0 @ Mar 27th 2008 3:23PM
Well, technically, we won't be running out of fossil fuels.... they will just be in the form of a gas and killing us all. :p The Earth is a fairly closed environment and eventually what we take out goes back in. Unfortunately, we are talking millions/billions of years.
Sean O @ Mar 27th 2008 3:27PM
FordGTGuy,
Every single solitary current and proposed nuclear power plant is a gigantic money LOSER! They all operate on government subsidies. It's a crappy deal. Safe or not, nobody wants to provide insurance for them, making the costs as ridiculously high as they are.
Nobody wants to store the waste, and local governments fight tooth and nail to keep them away.
The list of reasons not to be a cheerleader for nuclear power goes on, and on, and on.
Then there's the foreign policy problem. We can't rightfully sit on our high horse and tell other countries they can't have nuclear power while at the same time we're building 400! It undermines our credibility. If we didn't have nuclear power plants to begin with, Iran wouldn't have a leg to stand on right now.
As if all that wasn't enough, your argument that they are safe is irrelevant. No amount of precautions can completely eliminate the threat of intentional sabotage (i.e. terrorist attack).
phanbouy @ Mar 27th 2008 3:30PM
someone call NOAA and all the oceanography departments at every major university! "FordGTGuy"'s bloviation about TEH MEDIA BIAS!1!11! will put all those PhDs in their places.
ekwmin @ Mar 27th 2008 3:41PM
@ FordGTGuy
Great point, besides the fact that power plants are naturally desired targets by our enemies, I think the problem is not the really the nuclear reactors, but the spent nuclear fuels. Only a small percentage of the nuclear fuel is actually used, if we were to rely solely on nuclear power, we would have a lot more nuclear waste. The government already has a difficult time dealing with the current level of nuclear waste. But if we are to find a viable solution in dealing with spent nuclear fuel, I'm sure this option would be more attractive. Maybe one day we'll be able reprocess spent nuclear fuel and put it back into the reactors at a much faster pace, where we wouldn't have to dig out whole mountains to store the waste.
CraigJ @ Mar 27th 2008 3:43PM
Yussa Mountain is a viable storage solution except for the NIMBYs in Nevada...
fanman @ Mar 27th 2008 4:08PM
@phanbouy
Yeah, we will eventually run out of uranium, but we have enough to last centuries, so for now it's all good. Not as good as hydrogen power, but certainly more efficient in terms of space and power output than harnessing the elements in the traditional sense. We will eventually run out of sun, to.
phanbouy @ Mar 27th 2008 4:10PM
centuries, huh fanman? well IIRC, we'd run out of Uranium in 40 years with current and projected US energy demands if we used exclusively nuke.
Lars @ Mar 27th 2008 4:12PM
OK, idiots that think Nuclear creates a huge stockpile of waste, listen up: Burning coal, which is how we get most of our power, creates more radioactive waste than a nuclear plant. Yes, disposing of depleted uranium is a problem... but a much smaller problem than the coal plants which churn out all kinds of nasty into the air and leave other byproducts that we still have to dispose of.
phanbouy @ Mar 27th 2008 4:18PM
lars, which "idiots" are you referring to? who's championing coal vs nuke? talk about false equivalents, holy mother of zeus!
NIMBYism aside, the fully capitalized net present cost per MW of nuc is the highest of all energy forms when you account for all life cycle and security costs from cradle to grave.
so, nuke-fanatics.. your ultra-capitalist argument doesn't hold water, nor does your "environmental" argument, and your continuing denigration of conservation, green design, and climate change science is NOT winning you any points from the reality-based community.
fanman @ Mar 27th 2008 4:24PM
phanbouy, nuclear power has no greenhouse gas emissions but, unlike wind and solar power which use huge acres of land to create the occasional puff, produces outputs that rival and often exceed fossil fuels. What exactly is the nature of your complaint?
Lars @ Mar 27th 2008 4:25PM
"Every single solitary current and proposed nuclear power plant is a gigantic money LOSER! They all operate on government subsidies."
Actually they're not. Just because there are government subsidies doesn't mean it's a money loser. That's like saying "going to college is a huge waste of money because most students get scholarships or financial aid to help pay for it." Just because their is government help/incentives doesn't mean it's automatically a waste.
Solar is actually pretty decent, but the problem is that there's a large upfront investment which most people can't handle. Think of it this way: over the next 40 years you might pay $150,000 in electric bills, but if you invested $50,000 in solar arrays, you won't pay that $150k over the next 40 years. Technically a savings of $100,000. The problem is paying a couple hundred a month vs $50,000 up-front.
Saying that government shouldn't step in and assist seems like an asinine statement to me. Isn't that part of the whole point of being socialists? Together we can accomplish what we otherwise could not? Especially in this case where solar can not just save money over time, but has no byproducts and does not consume anything to operate. Also, the more effort we invest in a technology the better and cheaper it gets. I think we have a duty as human beings to invest in things like this. We should be working for a greater good instead of the bottom dollar. And in this case they are one in the same.
Lars @ Mar 27th 2008 4:33PM
"the fully capitalized net present cost per MW of nuc is the highest of all energy forms when you account for all life cycle and security costs from cradle to grave."
And therein lies one of the problems. Nuclear is cheaper, until you add in costs of insurance and such which are caused by fear mongering. Such is the state of affairs at the moment. That's the core of what I think should change. It would be cheaper if society was different. At any rate, a vastly cleaner energy is more important to me. If nuclear plants were allowed to be in urban centers (and why not, no harmful operating byproducts) then it would be far more efficient than coal which has to be burned away from major cities and therefore delivered with losses.
phanbouy @ Mar 27th 2008 4:34PM
Every time a pseudo-scientist says "socialist!!!!111" an angel gets its wings. True story.
McCarthy would be proud.
phanbouy @ Mar 27th 2008 4:40PM
Way to twist my argument around Lars. You're still wrong. Unless of course you're willing to offer up your basement for spent fuel rod storage. That's what I thought. But yeah, sure. The only thing holding back nuc from being "clean and beautiful limitless energy for ever and ever" are those silly fearmongering.. um.. insurance companies. Wow... that's your latest strawmen? Well that and your usual "loony lefties" (aka anyone with a damn brain).
But way to piss all over anything and anyone that doesn't hump nuclear reactor glossy brochures, guys. Tell ya what, I'd rather be a "socialist" than you. Precaution and green design is for "hippies" huh guys? You're not winning any converts. I'm done...
fanman @ Mar 27th 2008 4:45PM
"phanbouy, nuclear power has no greenhouse gas emissions but, unlike wind and solar power which use huge acres of land to create the occasional puff, produces outputs that rival and often exceed fossil fuels. What exactly is the nature of your complaint?"
Bob @ Mar 27th 2008 4:46PM
Hahahaha, fanman, you said "we will eventually run out of sun, too"... When the day comes we run out of sun, where we get power from means nothing because we will be DEAD.
Lars @ Mar 27th 2008 5:05PM
phanbouy, you're all over the place there. I don't know what you're even against or for at this point, except nuclear power obviously. I don't know where you live, but I live in the US. Last time I checked we were a socialist/capitalist country. Let me check again.. yep, still are.
Spent rods can be used for other purposes. Currently we use them to make tankbusters. Can't say I condone that completely, but it proves they aren't useless.
Lars @ Mar 27th 2008 5:09PM
"Unless of course you're willing to offer up your basement for spent fuel rod storage. That's what I thought."
I'm not willing to offer up my basement for manure storage either. Does that mean we should stop farming? I'm not willing to offer it up for septic waste either, should we all stop shitting? Just because you don't want something stored right next to your living quarters doesn't mean much.
Urza @ Mar 27th 2008 6:31PM
phanbouy: We have enough Uranium _right now_, sitting in warehouses, to power the entire country for thousands of years. And much, _much_ more still unmined. By comparison, we have enough fossil fuels for maybe 100.
As for the whole global warming thing: You can't deny that it's occurring. But Earth isn't the only planet in the solar system doing it...and the data doesn't in any way support that it's being caused by CO2. It's the sun and the orbit.
alexmueller @ Mar 27th 2008 6:30PM
wow i love talking about the environment on a tech site ;)
@FordGTGuy
no I don't think it was the first, it also won't be the last glacier to fall off, the point is they said it would take 30 years for it to break off, granted its just a guess, but to fall off 15 years earlier than expected, well thats a huge difference.
CraigJ @ Mar 27th 2008 11:29PM
Sorry... Yucca Mountain