Why nuclear power is not the answer

Greatings freinds wanted to share a topic with you on somthing that should be told over and over. I was doing some research on the issues with nuclear waste, and what is being done about it. I recently came accross an interesting artical on the matter. That being said.........

1st I wanted to get peoples opinion on why are government still has no idea what to do with the tons, and tons of nuclear waste?(among one of many) While all this time in the last 15 years or more.

2nd do you think its already to late to make a differnce?

3rd Is the pollution of the air and water a concern to you and why?

My opinion is that they have had plenty of time since the Clean Air act was addressed back in 1990 (P.L. 101-549), witch I must say wasnt the first time the issue was addressed. My main concern is whats going to happen to the rest of whats left of not only the air but the lakes,rivers,and oceans they pour into? Also I beleive its no conspiracy any more for the simple fact nothings been done yet in such a way that will change anything so far, on a large scale that is. As far as I see it if we continue the way we are and make few changes now, we will be living in a world unfit for any future.

This is a link to the Artical; one of thousands out there if you google in Nuclear Waste you will read for years prolly. Go Here

This is a picture of one of dozens of nuclear waste plants in the US all across the country. How many more to come? I will leave that to your imagination.




Please give me your 2cents if this even bothers any of you thanks





[edit on 22-5-2005 by ZeroKauz]

Nuclear technology was started with the assumption that by the time the disposal of waste started to become a major issue, we'd have developed the technology to deal with it safely.

It hasn't happened of course, but I'm sure I read somewhere that we are getting closer to being able to break down unwanted radioactive waste using nanotechnology.

Yeh I would suppose the main issue is that they may have ways of cleaning it up and bottle it all up, but problem is finding places to store the containers for the most part thanks for your reply

Greetings. I'd like to take a shot at answering some of your questions.

Originally posted by ZeroKauz
1st I wanted to get peoples opinion on why are government still has no idea what to do with the tons, and tons of nuclear waste?(among one of many) While all this time in the last 15 years or more.

Well, I'm no expert in this area, but I guess that after they run out of places to put it here on earth that they will start shooting it into outer space.

2nd do you think its already to late to make a differnce?

Being the eternal optimist that I am, I say it is never too late.

3rd Is the pollution of the air and water a concern to you and why?

Funny you should ask this... just a little while ago I was watching a show on dolphins and whales. Orca whales in Puget Sound are dying off because of very high levels of PCB's in their system. Mother orcas purge themselves of the poisons through expelling it in their milk, but at a cost of killing their offspring. These orcas are becoming living toxic waste dumps. This is a very sad predicament for these beautiful creatures.

I know this doesn't address your questions or concerns, but the part about pollution just happened to strike a nerve.

Originally posted by Moley
Nuclear technology was started with the assumption that by the time the disposal of waste started to become a major issue, we'd have developed the technology to deal with it safely.

It hasn't happened of course, but I'm sure I read somewhere that we are getting closer to being able to break down unwanted radioactive waste using nanotechnology.

your 1st sentence was right on target...it's the old 'let the next generation deal with it' syndrome

at the beginnings of the nuclear age, President Eisenhower pushed the
program called 'Atoms For Peace', they tried nuclear powered ships and
submarines and set the groundwork to spring up many Three-Mile-Island
types of nuclear reactor plants as generators of electricity.

- - - - - -

in the 2nd sentence, i've heard just little tid bits of something like what your mentioning...
but there isn't any diligent research by any substantial
academic or engineering facility, it all seems stuck in the theoretical realms

- - - - - -

one idea might be to drill Horizontal Wells
and put 'packages' of atomic waste in these wells
these 'packages' would be designed to remain intact for 50-100 years

??your probably thinking....thats nothing new, or dosen't solve anything!

well here's the trick...
these wells (or shafts or tunnels) would be located at the boundary edge
of the planets' subduction faults
as you know a subduction zone is the leading edge of a tectonic plate
which is decending into the molten magma underneath the 'floating' mantel
we call land/earth.
-->IMHO, guarding this deadly material is part of the cost and 'infrastructure' of using nuclear power.
we spent a lot of $ extracting and enriching the uranium ore,
and this burying project would eventually return the radioactive ores
to the natural 'recycling center' where it would eventually melt down
and blend in with/ get diluted with the other elements into a molten magma
as the earth itself would be the conveyor belt.

those other ideas & models, like rocketing the waste into space, or waste eating bacterias, or using nano-bots to alter atomic structures....
they are all too much exotic ideas
using the earths natural recycling device seems workable, dependable, affordable, within our technogical capabilities....the weakest link is
safety & security of those materials to the 'subduction zone' facilities

yo, tomorrow(monday) is the full-moon (23 may 2005)
s/victoras

Put the crap on a rocket, shoot it into the sun problem solved.

jsobecky: you seem to have anwered prolly as good as any... other then input on ways we could possibly correct it. Would most certanly have to be dealt with on a global scale is all I could say.

St Udio:Finding ways to sift it through the earth in a natural way sounds like one idea I suppose. One would think it would be impossible but nothing is impossible now is it? Thanks for your insite on this guys

the power game is prety much a game of the lesser evil.we have some possible new tech starting up but it's not feasable at the moment.

solar power, as mentioned it takes up masive ammounts of space with little gain. perhapse in a few years it may become a little more viable. wind same thing, takes up lots of room for littlr gain. some areas are better suited than others with the ammount of wind they recieve. we have a huge one here, it looks cool, but tends to spend more time not moveing then moveing, so it looks to be a waste. i know i certainly wouldn't want to see many more of them hanging arround. there is also new tech useing tidle levels and currants, seems like a decent idea but not all places again have good available currants to use.also yet again takes a tremendos amount of space. there is also this weird thing that may be built in austrailia, yup space again. looks like space is a magor concern with these forms of energy production. that in it's self could have a major impact on wilderness and wildlife both. not to mention most of the above would end up as eyesores. much work would need to be done as well to make any of them truely viable, with the space that they take they are very inneficant right now.

now we have four main options right now. coal. well most people understand that coal is very bad for the envioment. in fact we just had a coal plant shut down a couple of weeks ago, even though we realy don't have the needed replacement to take up the slack. this "cleaner" coal plant may be a possible option, but how long till we discover that it has some other bad effect? not to mention that carbon monoxide is not too good enviromentaly. oil/ natral gas, see above same bad effects as coal.

hydro. many think that this is the best option open to us. i do not beleive so. damming damages the land takeing up huge spaces to fill with water. also as mentioned can disrupt fish life, which in turn impacts other wildlife. not to mention the removal of animals habitats. also we seem to have had water levels dropping in lakes and rivers over the last couple hundread years.once mighty rivers are almost quiet streams now. a lot of lake levels have also been in steady decline over the years. i'm not saying that hydro has caused this, but it certainly dosn't and won't help. we are even hearing reports of the dead sea levels dropping magerly due to all the water type projects from all the surrounding countries. hydro can also affect water temperatures, yet another disruption to fish and wildlife. if there is indeed some global warming this can only contribute to it, admittidly not as much as other possible causes. so hydro realy shouldn't get much consideration.

then we have nuke reactors. if something happens to one it could cause some catastrophic things it's self, meltdowns as we have been shown by chernobal amonst others only highlights this fact. there is also the mentioned storage of it's waste products. i am realy not so certain about adding it to the magma, but it may be worth looking into. it also causes heat polution in the water. all things considdered though i think that at the moment, all things considdered, that it is the lesser evil. the trick is to keep "accidents" from happening. barring that at the moment nuke reactors cause less damage and disruption to the enviroment then the rest overall.

now some might say that mabe we should go back to the liveing standars of a few centuries ago. well fires cause alot of very bad pollution by themselves. medievel towns and cities were discusting for all the smoke and soot that they put out. things such as black and grey snow was a reality at that time. there would be at least one fire burning 24/7 for each family. most likely more as well as heating businesses. basicaly to date we realy don't have very good alternatives to the electricity that we use so much today. and for those wanting electric vehicles. well i would suspect that that would cause the electricity needs to at least double. we have a hard enough time getting enough power as it is. so we need to look elswhere to power our transportation. sorry i'm just being a realist. fact is that nothings that humans do is ever very good for the enviroment. we realy needto come up with a much better power supply. all of our options are stop gap at best. inefficiancy and enviromental damage are caused by every method that i have heard to date. nuke fusion might be an answer but that is still not efficiant enough to use.

yes i am concerned about the enviroment. unfortunately we have NOTHING that is "enviromentaly" friendly right now, whether for one reason or another. basicaly we are prety much screwed regaurdless of what we do. that however does not mean that we should give up.

I just did a research paper about why nuclear power is the best choice. I was kind of confused (my poor research skills ), but from what I hear, Yucca mountain can hold all of what we have plus another twenty years. They are also considering using the area[s] where they held underground nuclear tests, so they really wouldn't be doing much more harm.

I also learned a bit about breeder reactors and all the fun stuff. I guess they reprocess spent fuel on-site and keep using it, or something like that. There are two, I believe, in the US, but small ones. And if I remember correctly, they have waste storage on-site as well.

The waste production is also just one cubic meter per year per plant (before they put it in cases or mix it with whatever or whatever they do). And this offsets billions of cubic meters of CO2.

We'll just have to wait and see how that fusion plant goes, if they can ever decide where to put it.

but from what I hear, Yucca mountain can hold all of what we have plus another twenty years.

2 Bad Yucca mountain is on a Fault line though, other then that fact it would be the perfect place.

Ship the nuclear waste to Iraq!!

We'll take their oil and give them the waste in exchange. Sounds fair to me!!!

Originally posted by dave_54
Ship the nuclear waste to Iraq!!

We'll take their oil and give them the waste in exchange. Sounds fair to me!!!

LOL thats pretty funny........Guess thats one thought

Why is it too late? Nuclear physics ain't but 100 years old, if that. What is it not the answer too? Nuclear means of obtaining energy are extremely effecient, and offer jobs to trained personel at higher rates than men who can shovel coal.

Originally posted by Frosty
Why is it too late? Nuclear physics ain't but 100 years old, if that. What is it not the answer too? Nuclear means of obtaining energy are extremely effecient, and offer jobs to trained personel at higher rates than men who can shovel coal.

There is no doubt that nuclear power is a good thing in many ways, but the point of this post is to inform you how they havent done anything, or have a plan for future storage. They have had well over 15 years on this matter to come up with better ways to deal with the problem.

This might help if you havent went there already Frosty www.boston.com...

[edit on 23-5-2005 by ZeroKauz]

The future is nuclear power because it is theoretically limitless. Yes more technologies need to be developed for safer disposal of waste. But then unless you go for more nuclear power generation there wont be any incentive for developing newer disposal methods. People don't work well unless there is a sword hanging on their head

Originally posted by Quake
The future is nuclear power because it is theoretically limitless. Yes more technologies need to be developed for safer disposal of waste. But then unless you go for more nuclear power generation there wont be any incentive for developing newer disposal methods. People don't work well unless there is a sword hanging on their head

Well said my freind, well said

15 years is a relativly short amount of time to come up with such radical concepts to recylce disposable nuclear waste. Where to store the waste is already solved; the US government has begun carving out a the side of a cave to store it.

What is the composition of nulear waste? And could it be used in some way, or neutralized somehow?

Troy

It is true that current uranium/plutonium reactors are not the good solution. But remeber that the goal of nuclear science is not fission but nuclear fusion - it produces no radioactive waste and the fuel is much cheaper (hydrogen, resp. helium isitopes).

The radioactivity from waste can be reduced considerably by a very unique method.

I always wonder why it isn't being used?

The link:

pacenet.homestead.com...

Cheers

JS